DharmaBud's First Grow Soil White Widow Auto & Silver LA-2013

re: DharmaBud's First Grow Soil White Widow Auto & Silver LA-2013

Hi DharmaBud- hope you don't mind if I tag along too.
Just thought I'd chime in with a couple observations on HID lights. I used a 400 MH for veg. For flowering, I'm currently using a 600 watt HPS with a sealed air-cooled hood in a 4x4 tent and run the lights at night. With the exhaust fan running full power the tent averages about 10 degrees warmer than the room it's in. The room is 68 and the tent is 78 when lites are on. If it cools off enough where you are- I think you could easily run a hid at nite without ac- especially since you'd be looking at a 250 or 400 watt for your tent. I'm tickled pink with the results I'm getting from HID. And speaking of pink- I thought about led's too but just couldn't justify the cost since I was just starting out. Have a great day! :peace:
 
re: DharmaBud's First Grow Soil White Widow Auto & Silver LA-2013

fish cake said:
well you will have more patience if you can follow my #1 rule Have one months more smoke than it takes to grow her:)
#2 read read read
#3 same as #1
#4 K.I.S.S.:circle-of-love:
Click to expand...

Well FishCake I already broke rule #1 because I have no smoke, and nobody to get it from!
 
re: DharmaBud's First Grow Soil White Widow Auto & Silver LA-2013

Flower Child said:
Hi DharmaBud- hope you don't mind if I tag along too.
Just thought I'd chime in with a couple observations on HID lights. I used a 400 MH for veg. For flowering, I'm currently using a 600 watt HPS with a sealed air-cooled hood in a 4x4 tent and run the lights at night. With the exhaust fan running full power the tent averages about 10 degrees warmer than the room it's in. The room is 68 and the tent is 78 when lites are on. If it cools off enough where you are- I think you could easily run a hid at nite without ac- especially since you'd be looking at a 250 or 400 watt for your tent. I'm tickled pink with the results I'm getting from HID. And speaking of pink- I thought about led's too but just couldn't justify the cost since I was just starting out. Have a great day! :peace:
Click to expand...

Thank you for your input, and more than likely in the future I will go HID. I just can't justify changing with the money I just put out. Not yet anyway! LOL!!!
 
re: DharmaBud's First Grow Soil White Widow Auto & Silver LA-2013

wish I could send you a plate of this
DSC019753.JPG
 
re: DharmaBud's First Grow Soil White Widow Auto & Silver LA-2013

Sheesh, Fish, I swear I can smell that. Mmmph! My kinda smoke.

;)
 
re: DharmaBud's First Grow Soil White Widow Auto & Silver LA-2013

It dont seem fair ut the Mrs time I have to go thanx to all of you Love life Love Love an Love a good laugh an it all happens here
jaga said:
I WISH YOU COULD SEND ME A PLATE OF THAT AS WELL:cheesygrinsmiley::hookah:
Click to expand...
 
re: DharmaBud's First Grow Soil White Widow Auto & Silver LA-2013

jaga said:
It dont seem fair ut the Mrs time I have to go thanx to all of you Love life Love Love an Love a good laugh an it all happens here
Click to expand...


Good night, sweet dreams! :)
 
re: DharmaBud's First Grow Soil White Widow Auto & Silver LA-2013

ok im intrested
 
re: DharmaBud's First Grow Soil White Widow Auto & Silver LA-2013

DharmaBud said:
Well FishCake I already broke rule #1 because I have no smoke, and nobody to get it from!
Click to expand...

This could be trouble. Make sure you have your mind right about harvesting PEAK quality bud. Not smoking it up before its done. You dont want to dissapoint yourself on your first grow. The last 2 weeks before harvest you gain about 20% in weight. Its imperative that the first grow go well so you dont say F it and throw in the towel.

BTW, good weed sir. If it makes a difference, as soon as I can go HID Im going to. The difference in bud density seems to be dramatic. CFL or Flours can grow awesome smoke. HID's grow MORE awesome smoke. :):):)
 
re: DharmaBud's First Grow Soil White Widow Auto & Silver LA-2013

subd.

lets look at this lighting,

ok ive used cfls from start to finish, i used lots of 23 watt and 30 watt light, i used 2 to 1 ratio of 6400k for veg and the opposite for flower, now i know your not using cfls your using them long t5 strip lights, you say you got 8000lumin, well if you are going to go with the fl and cfls then you will need some side lighting, the t5's will be perfect above the plants, they will give you short node spacing and a nice even canopy, now thats the problem, a nice even canopy, anything below the canopy will be getting no light what so ever,

so the top bud site will be fine and the 2 branches below it and anything poking out the sides of the plant, but anything inside the plant and lower down will be getting no light and this will drastically reduce yield,
plus you need to consider that some plants grow quicker than others, say you grow an auto and a regular plant, the auto will be 1ft high when the regular plant is half that, so thats another problem, the t5s would be then to high to benefit the smaller plant,

plus if you start plants at different times you will also have problems, say the auto is finished in 6 to 8 weeks, well the regular plant will only be ready to go 12-12 by then, so once you harvest the auto you may like to grow another plant from seed, this means the regular plant will be much closer to the light than the seedling.

when i started growing i had no cash so i used cfls, lots of them, i kept buying a couple each week until i had about 8 to 10 above the plants then i had 3 or 4 cfls down the sides of the plants just hanging to get light to side growth and lower growth on the plant, this worked well and produced plenty of decent bud,

but one day i counted my lights then looked at the watts i was using, then i checked out a hps light and found a 400 watt hps puts out 55,000 to 65,000 lumins, i was using around 400 watts in cfls so switched to hps, now others say cfls and fls produce more heat than hps, welll id have to say their wrong, when i was using just cfls i could get away with small 12v computer fans in my room and could have the grow door shut, im now using 400 watt dual spec hps and i have to use big fans and cant have the door shut as i dont have a decent vent set up, i cant as its a brick built drying cupboard and dont have an outside wall.

so you really have a couple of options, the t5's will work really well for seedlings and small plants, when they get to roughly a foot high you would then need some side lighting to make sure the plant is getting the most light giving you the most growth, so id add say 2 x 23 watt cfls at either side of the plants, a better option would be another 8 23 watt cfls and have them hanging around all the sides of each plant, that will give you a decent yield and light coverage would then be ok,

my dual spectrum 400watt hps cost me £65 and £12 for delivery, it came with digital ballast and a dual spectrum hps bulb, now because its dual spectrum it means i can use the same bulb for veg and flower, no need to mess about with mh for veg or hps for flower, plus if i did want to change to mh for veg then the ballast works with both types of bulb but i find the dual spectrum does its job well as long as temps are kept in check

ive not used t5's so cant comment on light penetration with them, but the best way to test would be to switch the light on and wait a few minutes till they get to their brightest, then hold the back of your hand against the bulb and slowly move your hand away, you will find that after just a few inches the light drops off pretty drastically, the same happens with hps, even though a cfl or hps will light up a whole room, the actual light brightness drastically drops off pretty quick after more than a few inches, i know with the cfls i use that after about 2 inches the light drastically drops, id say more than half after more than a few inches,

so not sure how that goes with the t5's you have got but their fl lights so i guess their pretty similar with light penetration,

it also depends how big you want your plants, just remember some double in size and even triple in size when you flip the lights to 12-12.
with the auto you will find that when it starts flowering you will need to add more of the 2700k spectrum or as near to that as you can get with your lights, i cant remember what you said yours where but when the auto is in 2nd week of showing flowering you will need to switch to flowering lights until the auto has finished so if you got an auto and none auto growing then you need to work out the lighting to keep both plants growing at their best,

a lot of growers knock cfls and fls, but i still use them for seedlings and clones as i find the node spacing is a whole lot better than when i start plants under the dual spec hps, maybe its because we can get cfls much closer but i like the spacing so i use cfls still to this day and will continue to do so, when i used cfls from start to finish i think i ended up with about 2oz off one plant and between an oz and 2oz on average but i was using around 400watts with cfls and a mixture of 23 and 30watt cfls,

all you can do is see how you get on, fls and cfls do work and their have been some amazing grows on this site done only with cfls so they clearly do work and clearly produce some very nice buds, only downside is light penetration, so as your plants grow id just add some side lighting, the regular househould cfls that you usually get free from energy companies are ideal for flowering, a lot of the £1 and $1 stores usually sell the 2700k cfls or super markets sell them in packs of 4 for next to nothing, the 6400k cfls are a bit harder to get and super markets dont stock them, i had to go to lighting shops and order off the rain forest sounding site to get the cfls for veg,

so im subbed and cant wait to see how you get on with these lights, do it right and you will have amazing results, use some basic lst to open the plant up to more light will really help loads, just use pipe cleaners or some sort of string to pull branches one way or another so their not blocking the branch below from the light, i pulled leaves out the way and branches and the more light you can get onto all the growth the better the yield will be,

im sure you will do ok, their is more help than you need on this site.
 
re: DharmaBud's First Grow Soil White Widow Auto & Silver LA-2013

donpaul.p said:
now others say cfls and fls produce more heat than hps, welll id have to say their wrong, when i was using just cfls i could get away with small 12v computer fans in my room and could have the grow door shut, im now using 400 watt dual spec hps and i have to use big fans and cant have the door shut as i dont have a decent vent set up, i cant as its a brick built drying cupboard and dont have an outside wall.
Click to expand...

Check the specs, the light's watt/lumen ratio. For ex a basic CFL for plants im looking at has 30W, 1900lm (=63 lm/w). The 400W HID im using has 55000lm (=137lm/w). The difference between the two shows the surplus heat produced by the CFLs compared to the HID.
I think the only way to get more heat with HIDs is if you keep the ballast in the same space as your bulbs. My ballasts pushed up my temps by at least 5-6 degrees celsius in an 8 square meter space. It's important to move the ballast out of the tent/room. It's steady 90 degrees kills temps in any enclosed space.
And with CFLs you have the ballast in there, so the ratio gets a bit worse.

Very nice info otherwise, just did not want to let this slip unnoticed.
 
re: DharmaBud's First Grow Soil White Widow Auto & Silver LA-2013

my ballast is in its own space below the grow room so no heat comes from ballast into the actual grow area as it vents out, all thats in the grow are is the hood and bulb,

ive hard lots of growers say cfls produce a lot more heat, but honestly i can 100% say i was using over 300 watts of 23 and 30watt cfls, and was not getting as much heat as im getting now, in fact during the winter i had to leave the grow room door closed just to get temps up, now maybe cfls where much hotter 10 years ago but truthfully i had no issues with heat using cfls,

ive got 4 cfls in a tiny cupboard now that i use for clones and seedling and i have no heat issues in their and i got 4 x 30 watt 6400k cfls in their the spiral type,

but i guess different brands produce different heat and stuff like that, i dont want to give out any false info so i can only comment on the lights i was using, they was mainly philips made but ill check to make sure, but i had between 8 and 10 above the plants all moutned in home made hood so cfls where side on to the plants, then the other cfls where hanging round the sides of the plants, the only reason i switched to hps was due to the amount of watts i was using and the amount of lumins i was getting.

i cant comment on t5's or how hot they get as i have never used them so cant say how much heat they produce, but when i was using just cfls i could keep my grow room shut in winter and slightly open in summer with 2 x 12v computer fans moving air around inside the grow room, my hps even in winter i have to have the door open and in summer i have to use big fans,

now maybe its because the hps is just one heat source and the hood is pushing the heat back down onto the plants, i think this is the main problem, heat above the hood is pretty cool, but my hood is not the closed type, the hood is open batwing type, so the bulb puts out the heat and the hood then must push this heat down onto the plants, thats where i think the problem is, with the cfls they was all spread out and the heat could just rise up in the room and not cause any problems as my room is floor to ceiling high,

so you may be correct about the cfls producing more heat but it was not coming from 1 bulb, the bulbs where spread out so heat didnt build up in just one place, plus the heat could rise from each bulb and not cause a problem,

the hps hood sort of traps the heat as its only really get an opening at the one end where heat can escape, the wings must push the hot air down into the plant area and thats what i think is causing me the issues, the room above the hood is not hot and no hotterr than the cfls where, but due to the hps been just 1 bulb and 1 hood i think this is causing my heat problems, if the hood was the cool sealed type then you may be right about the temps,

but i had roughly 15 to 18 cfls in my grow room, all in different places so heat was not in one confined space as such, so the heat could rise and was moved around the grow room, so the plants was not getting affected by the heat as much, i could hold my hand against any of the cfls and it was barely warm, but the hps is to hot when i get close to the bulb, so cfls might put out more heat if they was all touching each other and in one hood, but spread out i found i had less heat from cfls then this one 400watt hps,

i think the hps is just 1 bulb and thats directing the heat to the plants at plant level, i guess if the hood had vent holes drilled in it then the heat would just rise and i would have less issues with heat but with the hood trapping the heat and not been vented or cooled then this heat is just building up at plant level, below plant level and above the hood their is no heat issue,
 
re: DharmaBud's First Grow Soil White Widow Auto & Silver LA-2013

Ive always found the heat in CFL's is at the ballast. The white part below the glass. If this is out of the grow area, like cutouts, the heat is very minimal. The actual glass bulb doesnt really get hot. Maybe just a bit over 100f. But putting 20 in a box can get warm. And it still doesnt compete with the big boys IMO. And Im a CFL grower. :):)
 

Similar threads

concrete
Concrete's Mixed Grow: Soil 2018
2 3 4
Replies
68
Views
5K
concrete
concrete
Bionic Chronic NZ
Bionic's Soil Afghani x White Widow First Grow Journal
23 24 25 26 27 28
Replies
552
Views
31K
Bionic Chronic NZ
Bionic Chronic NZ
Cplchris
First Grow: Auto White Widow LED Soil
2 3 4 5 6
Replies
105
Views
7K
Mike Wright
Mike Wright
maccamoo
Maccamoo's Twist on LA's Flux - Tent Grow
3 4 5 6 7 8
Replies
143
Views
10K
CronicHempHog
CronicHempHog
Stupidface
Stupidface's First Grow: White Widow Auto In Soil, LED, Advice Always Appreciated
37 38 39 40 41 42
Replies
821
Views
64K
Juicy JP
J
Back
Top Bottom