Lighting for autos

[Chile 420]

So I have 2 auto seedlings: and autoblue (11 days), and an AK auto (2 days). The AK auto was just born yesterday and is looking pretty good. although the autoblue was great for almost the first week, it has not shown signs of growth for days.

As far as lighting, I have the plants in the closed window (northern exposure: living in the southern hemisphere) during the day while I am work. At this point it is not that hot yet (its spring time) and days are somewhat cloudy. However, the sun is pretty strong in this part of the world due to a hole in the ozone layer directly overhead. Anyway, despite the cloudy days id like to say that the plant gets decent light in the window combined with a greenhouse effect which makes it more humid and hotter.

Once the sun goes down, I take my two baby autos over to the closet where i now have 2 (24 watt intake) 130 watt output 6500k cool white bulbs which are set in a home made reflective fixture just a couple/few inches from the babes. (I also have two flourescent tubes (18w/t8) that i used the first few days but now doubt if they are even worth having in there...thoughts?)

At this point in time, I have left the light on all evening/night (giving it 24 hours between the somewhat cloudy day sun and the flourescent bulbs). At the same time I have also heard that with autos it is better to have 18/6 going on or something similar (20/4). Yeserday I did and 18/6.

My questions (especially for people who have experience with autos) are:

- Is it ok to use both natural sun light as well as flourescent?
- Is 24 hours ok or should it be 18/6 or what?
- Does it need to be a fixed schedule (every day the same amount of darkness)?
- And if so, does that same amount of darkness need to come at the same time (example - every night at 8 it gets darkness for 6 hours)?

(The autoblue started off great and then kind of hasnt shown any signs of growth for like 6 days now, but i think this might have to do with other factors)

Please give me any and all suggestions/comments on my lighting situation. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR YOUR TIME!

If you would like pictures of my set up, just let me know.

 

[danklover79]

The plants should have a dark period for better root development, I ran my first set of autos under 24/0, and the yield was disappointing. This time I went with 18/6, and one of my autos has almost foot long roots after 25 days. I set my dark cycle at the hottest part of the day, and yes you should keep it on the same schedule every day. Autos will grow and flower on their own, with pretty much any cycle you choose, but if you are looking for a decent yield, you should use a dark cycle. Click on my current journal, in my signature, and check out my grow, I will upload some root pics later, and you can judge for yourself. The one in hydro is the smallest flowering plant I've seen anywhere, and I have searched lol.

 

[danklover79]

I use cfls, and they work pretty well, put as many watts in the space as you can effectively cool. I would like to see some pics of the setup, and you can start a journal by going to grow room, then click on grow journals, and finally click on journals in progress, and start new thread. I still have a lot to learn myself, but we have some excellent growers on this site, and an endless amount of knowledge. Check out some journals similar to your grow, and subscribe, so you can follow the progress, and learn from people that have some experience in this game. This is the best site of it's kind, and we have some awesome members, that really know how this is done. Whatever questions you may have, don't hesitate to ask, and maybe we can help you design the space as well. If I don't know something, I can find someone on here that probably does, and we can troubleshoot it together.