Newbie cannabis grower needs help!!!

[scoobysmoke]

Hi all,

im a newbie on this site aswell as new to growing the bud...been smoking for over 15 yrs and thought its about time to start growing...anyway i planted my first seeds which were just planted straight into a pot and unfortunatly didnt research it so didnt give any extra light apart from the crap british natural light which is dull at the best of times. i then got a little life coming through a few weeks later...cut a long story short its about a month later and i am now using a 11w 6200k fluorescent single bulb at 12hrs lamp and 12hrs natural light....is this ok for time being and does my baby look ok???
any advice would be appreciated...thanks guys n look forward to yr replys...

 

[truwy]

get urself an enviro lite from ur local hydro shop they should be twice the size by now mate
the british sunshine wil fuck ur shit rite up an 11w would just be keeping it alive not mkaing it grow plus ur hours of light are killing it window or garden by the way as u sed 12 hours natraul llight get a decent lite an stick em on 18 hours on 6 off hope i bin helpfull

 

[racerboy71]

it looks like you maybe overwatering a lil.. other than that, they look ok.. have you been giving them anykind of nutrients? if not, i would say go to your local planting center, and pick up some cheap veg nutes and follow the instructions on the bottle.. i would start off at about 1/4 the strength on the bottle and once a week bump it up another 1/4..
also, i would just use the bulb that you have and put them under it for 18 hours a day and have it be dark for six hours... i would say you could put them out in the sun, but maybe not till it gets a lil warmer out and the sun gets a lil stronger.. for now, i would just keep it under the cfl bulb that you have..

 

[Nukulhedd]

they look good so far. you might want to do a little reserch on lights and ventilation. I HIGHLY recomend you buy Jorge Cervantes medical marijuana horticultre bible. I am learning more through that book and with good ole fashioned trial and error then anything. This forum is a great place to get a second opinion on just about anything you may encounter during you grow. Good luck man, raise 'em right!

 

[BU5T4]

Hay Dude welcome to RIU from another British member (well Scottish actually but you get the drift).

Not bad so far dude, you got them to grow which is what you want. The other posters are right mate get those bad boys under the lamp for 18 hours and don't bother putting them out in this crappy British weather.

You could invest in a decent CFL bulb too which would help the situation(try here they will post right to your door)

You could also get some nutrients from them too, I used Formulex at the start and it seems to have done the trick. You can check out my grow by clicking the link at the bottom of my post and i'm quite new to this malarky too.

Best of luck mate and post any questions you have, we are a friendly bunch here and will answer even the silliest of questions.

 

[scoobysmoke]

Hey dudes, thanks for all yr quick replys, much appreciated.....

ok since you guys r so helpfull.......do u think i should get another light??? the only problem is i dont want to hike up my electricity bill too much so bit confused at the moment???

also when do u think i should go bigger with the pot itself or is it ok in the one its in at the moment??

Thanks guys, u been really helpfull.....

 

[geddylee.2112]

Hey bro, everybody is right, you need more light. You will not have to worry about your electric bill going up with little bulbs like this. Well, if string 8 of em up, then yes. I understand its hard to get HID's in Europe? No? I thought Someone was talking about that the other day on here? Anyways, I'm running one of the smallest HPS's you can get(150). That will deliver over 10000 lumens to you babies!

 

[GidgetGrows]

You want to put your plant under 18 hours of light with 6 hours darkness. Until you have a nice size established plant. Then when you switch to 12/12 that will initiate the "flowering" process.

I would get more lights in there, expect at minimum 2 bulbs for vegetative growth and 4 bulbs for flowering, minimum.

CFLs shouldnt raise your power bill, they use very little power.
5500-6500k (kelvin/color temp) for vegetative.
2700k for flowering time.

Good luck! Lets hope she'll be a girl for ya!

 

[scoobysmoke]

Hey bro, everybody is right, you need more light. You will not have to worry about your electric bill going up with little bulbs like this. Well, if string 8 of em up, then yes. I understand its hard to get HID's in Europe? No? I thought Someone was talking about that the other day on here? Anyways, I'm running one of the smallest HPS's you can get(150). That will deliver over 10000 lumens to you babies!

Hi bro, the only hid,s i know of are the ones i fitted to my car...lol...
Was looking at growell hydroponics website but these special refective growlights are expensive man...
about £80 for a standard 250w light setup!!!! still confused man...

Just want to grow a few plants for my personal use so not looking at anything big.

What du guys reckon???

 

[scoobysmoke]

You want to put your plant under 18 hours of light with 6 hours darkness. Until you have a nice size established plant. Then when you switch to 12/12 that will initiate the "flowering" process.

I would get more lights in there, expect at minimum 2 bulbs for vegetative growth and 4 bulbs for flowering, minimum.

CFLs shouldnt raise your power bill, they use very little power.
5500-6500k (kelvin/color temp) for vegetative.
2700k for flowering time.

Good luck! Lets hope she'll be a girl for ya!

Ok forgive me for being thick but when u say 2 bulbs and 4 bulbs, would i have to get seperate lamps or like a big lamp which takes a few bulbs??

 

[SirGoodBud's]

You should look into CFL light bulb's for growing, If you can get your hand's on the book "Bud's For Less" i highly recomend it, it gives you day by day instruction on how to grow with simple cheap household item's, very effective. Good luck!

 

[geddylee.2112]

Hi bro, the only hid,s i know of are the ones i fitted to my car...lol...
Was looking at growell hydroponics website but these special refective growlights are expensive man...
about £80 for a standard 250w light setup!!!! still confused man...

Just want to grow a few plants for my personal use so not looking at anything big.

What du guys reckon???

I would check on Ebay for (High Intensity Discharge) lamps LOL! If you cant get an HPS or MH setup, you can still grow good personal smoke on CFLs.

 

[scoobysmoke]

Hey guys, hope yr all well. thanks alot for all yr rapid replies.
something i forgot to tell you is when i started out i didnt give enough light to my babies so the stem grew too long and started to bend quite a bit. i then replanted it with the stem buried deeper in the soil.
do you guys think this will affect it much??kiss-ass

 

[desertrat]

do you guys think this will affect it much??

you did exactly the right thing. it will help going forward to have a small fan blowing on the stems - it makes them stronger to be able to support a large plant.

as everyone else has said, you need more light but they haven't helped you figure out how much is enough. weed requires 3,000 lumens per square foot at an absolute minimum and preferably 7,000 lumens per square foot. an average plant takes up 3 sq ft so that's 9,000 to 21,000 lumens for each plant.

a single 42 watt cfl provides 3,000 lumens so your target should be 3 to 7 42 watt cfl bulbs per plant. i know that sounds like alot compared to your single 11 watt bulb, and it is alot, but you are only going to get a couple of joints worth with inadequate lighting.

you also need to place the lights as close to the plant as you can without burning them. for cfl lights that's usually a couple of inches.

finally, as said before, spectrum matters. you need 6500k lights for veg and 2700k lights for flowering.

 

[scoobysmoke]

you did exactly the right thing. it will help going forward to have a small fan blowing on the stems - it makes them stronger to be able to support a large plant.

as everyone else has said, you need more light but they haven't helped you figure out how much is enough. weed requires 3,000 lumens per square foot at an absolute minimum and preferably 7,000 lumens per square foot. an average plant takes up 3 sq ft so that's 9,000 to 21,000 lumens for each plant.

a single 42 watt cfl provides 3,000 lumens so your target should be 3 to 7 42 watt cfl bulbs per plant. i know that sounds like alot compared to your single 11 watt bulb, and it is alot, but you are only going to get a couple of joints worth with inadequate lighting.

you also need to place the lights as close to the plant as you can without burning them. for cfl lights that's usually a couple of inches.

finally, as said before, spectrum matters. you need 6500k lights for veg and 2700k lights for flowering.

THANKS FOR THE INFO ON THAT DUDE, WAS REALLY HELPFULL. WHAT KIND OF LAMPS WOULD YOU RECOMEND?? I BOUGHT THIS LAMP FROM ARGOS WHICH WOULD BE THE EQUIVELENT TO WALLMART IN THE US....THING IS I DONT WANT MY ELECTRICITY BILLS TO SHOOT THROUGH THE ROOF. HELP!!!!!! DO THEY DO ENERGY SAVING LAMPS THAT WOULD BE PERFECT FOR MY SINGLE PLANT....

ONCE AGAIN THANKS SO MUCH FOR ALL YR HELP GUYS....

 

[truwy]

yes man i told u on the second post 125 watt envirolite just ask at ur ur local hydroshop or order of the net
u can get em close an the use fuck all on the electric side mate like some 1 said b4 dont be expecting big buds tho
bigs buds come with lumens so if u want loads of bud get urself a hps or hid an u will be sweet

 

[desertrat]

use this calculator http://www.ukpower.co.uk/tools/running_costs_electricity/ for say, 200 watts run 18 hours per day. i think you'll find that the electricity is cheaper than the bulbs.

also, i should have said earlier that there is a lot to learn about growing weed than just lighting. this site is an excellent resource to learn before you make the mistakes others have. look through the faq and the stickies in each forum and you'll have a much better chance of growing something.