A few questions reqarding my first grow.

Before I get started I will say I've read a bunch and haven't been able to find something that specifically addresses my questions.

I've got things working ok at this point. About 1 1/2 months ago I germinated my first seeds - did 6, got 3 to sprout, one died, one was a male, and I kept the female. I had kept them in a combo of the window sil and outdoors, and under a weak (inconstant) 'grow bulb' my gf had. Obviously not the best set up, but I didn't want to set anything up yet as I just moved in here.

Decided this last week to go out and buy some things to set up a decent lighting rig. I built a reflector out of a piece of white foam board, as well as enclosing my plants in a very white closet, there is also a cardboard reflector to trap light in the front. For refrence I have about 20"x20"x70" in terms of space.

My questions are:

1) I have 4x 23W 6500k daylight cfl's (rated at 6400 lumens without the reflectors I've built in addition) - is this going to be enough light for this space, so should I try to double this? If I do, is the top the best idea, or should I focus on putting more bulbs at different angles/heights?

2) This is related to the first question - if you notice the plant is kind of "reaching" and thin, I'm sure this is to do with inconstant lighting outdoors (there was a lot of cloud cover here this year), and the other bulb I think produced like 200 lumens (not literally but it sucked). Any how - now that I have it under some good lights I've noticed it starting to blossom some more at the lower branches. I plan on leaving her to veg another 1-2 months, is this going to fill in better? Will I need to top the plant? (don't want to really, as you can see it's growing a lot thicker now).

3) Finnally I see that a lot of cfl set ups have a couple different kind of bulbs going at one time (some 6500's and 2700's), I assume this has to do with the spectral output of the lights themselfs? Is there some good info on this, what is the best balance, etc?

1) That is enough light to start with but you will need to add some as it gets bigger. Be carefull of a paper reflector. The last thing you want is a fire!!!

2)Your plant is streaching because its not getting enough light sitting in a window. Keep the lights you have on 24hrs a day and keep them within 1-2 inches from the tops of the plants. You will have to raise them up daily so the dont burn the tops.

3)6500 are good for vegg and 2700 are better for flower.

Hope this helps!
Dirtfree

Your plants stretch like that because the light is too far.

With cfls you want them within 2-3 inches of the canopy.

You've already been vegging for 6 weeks, she will double if not tripple in size when flowering. You should just let her flower and start over with new seedlings when your done.

6500K is for veg stage, 2700K for flower. If you ever do 12/12 from seed, a 2:1 3:1 light mix ratio works really well. (1x 6500K 3x 2700K, 12/12 or vice versa w/ 18/6)

Dirtfree said:

1) That is enough light to start with but you will need to add some as it gets bigger. Be carefull of a paper reflector. The last thing you want is a fire!!!

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I know. Things are staying quite cool in there. Can usually get my hands on the bulbs even after running for 18hrs.

Dirtfree said:

2)Your plant is streaching because its not getting enough light sitting in a window. Keep the lights you have on 24hrs a day and keep them within 1-2 inches from the tops of the plants. You will have to raise them up daily so the dont burn the tops.

Click to expand...

I'll give it a shot. She's doing a lot better in her new home, I'm just hoping to have her fill out a little better after the crappy lighting situation. Thanks for the help.

superbak3d said:

6500K is for veg stage, 2700K for flower. If you ever do 12/12 from seed, a 2:1 3:1 light mix ratio works really well. (1x 6500K 3x 2700K, 12/12 or vice versa w/ 18/6)

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Thanks. This is what I was getting confused over.

You can top her or FIM to help her bush out.

You could flattern her right out too and still train her to be shorter.

As a first timer though, your only priority should be to get from seed to harvest. Don't worry about yield, potency, etc. Even if you only grow like a 3 gram nugget, your #1 goal should be to harvest something.

Then just take what you've learned into your next grow. 2nd round grows are always 1000x better. Then you can start messing around with topping, lsting, etc.

Dirtfree said:

You can top her or FIM to help her bush out.

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Maybe in a week or so. I think I'll just run 24/0 for a while like you mentioned, see what happens. I may go onto some kind of cutting if things don't pan out.

superbak3d said:

You could flattern her right out too and still train her to be shorter.

As a first timer though, your only priority should be to get from seed to harvest. Don't worry about yield, potency, etc. Even if you only grow like a 3 gram nugget, your #1 goal should be to harvest something.

Then just take what you've learned into your next grow. 2nd round grows are always 1000x better. Then you can start messing around with topping, lsting, etc.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm still trying to feel my way with the indoor growing. I've done lots of gardening, but never MJ, and never indoors, so I'm just working my way through the learning curve.

ok, so I figured I'd shoot a little update.

Been keeping her under 24/0 for the last 5 days, and the response has been pretty epic I think. She's really started to fill out a lot more at the bottom. Since I have 6 little guys going I decided to veg them in the same place for 15-20 days, and in the mean time lst my experiment plant (as you can notice) so that they will hopefull stay around the same height when I go to flower in 3 weeks or so. I planted the germinated seeds on the 19th, so I think I should get lots of growth over the next two weeks and hopefully get a decent crop.

looks like you are overwatering it