Afghan Kush Ryder (AKR) 300w CFL's (Second Grow)
- Thread starter Inkubator
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Inkubator
Active Member
Well I don't know how about another autos but I read a lot of articles and journals with this particular strain, AKR, and yes they indeed took little more time than they are claiming on website but there wasn't any longer than 70days. Well will see... I took away one of the lights since I was using probably to much for seedling, in about week I'll put another 100w and in about 3 weeks another 100w, all together I would like to use about 300-500w so I hope I will get very nice result, and I'll be backpacking central Europe anyway through flowering stage so I will be here only for about 2 last weeks...
But thank you for advice. Will see... I hope to be harvesting about 20th-30th august, latest... 
Cloudz2600
Well-Known Member
If you're going to use 500w why not just get a 250w HPS and have less heat, less energy usage and more lumens? HIDs get about 110-115 lumens per watt while CFLs only get like 60-80. At 500 watts you're gonna have to deal with a good bit of heat and will still have to keep the cfls fairly close. Have fun in euro. I've never been before, but I heard it's pretty awesome. Every year my college does this "travel across europe" thing.
Inkubator
Active Member
I don't know much about HIDs, I was actually planing to get 250W after summer, how far this need to be from the plant? Less heat? I though HIDs produce a lot of heat, I thought it's much more heat than CFLs? And how many plant's I can have under 250W?
Yeah central europe is great, I actually am from Central Europe, I'm just leading group of Brits through central europe cause they never been there, for me is more like a home.
Cloudz2600
Well-Known Member
HIDs produce a decent amount of heat, but so do 500 watts of CFLs, probably more. A 250w HID puts out around 28000-33000 lumens. CFLs really aren't that great for large grows. How many lumens total do you have per square feet? Remember lumen output that is listed on the packaging is per square feet. Brettsog just switched from CFLs to a 250w HPS, you should ask him. https://www.rollitup.org/cfl-fluorescent-lighting/527144-second-grow-ww-bagseed-big.html
Inkubator
Active Member
Each of those 105W CFLs is putting out 8000 lumens. It wasn't on packaging but I found it online. So All together it is about 40,000 with 500w CFLs... hm... I guess I'll buy HID after summer or when I'll move to new place.
Cloudz2600
Well-Known Member
Unless you've tested them already in grow area that seems like it's going to get pretty hot. My 42w's raise the temp a good bit in my bin. If you have tested them temps in your grow area, what are the temps normally.
Inkubator
Active Member
I was able to keep temp between 24-27.
brettsog
Well-Known Member
ive had quite a difficult battle with heat since i moved the growing space. i went from a stand alone cupboard to a walk in one. with 332w of cfls i was getting over 35c so i switched to a 250w hps. ive now got it at a steady temp. usually about 28c. it peaks now at 31c and lowest has been just over 19c. so im using less power, got less heat and my total lumens for the cfls was about 18000 now i have 29000. seems much better to me. i think im gonna mount the cfl fixtures to the wall in there as i would like to be able to veg for at least 18 hours and the hps just raises the temps far too much over an 18 hour period. i was thinking about MH bulbs as well but ive heard they get hotter than hps.
Cloudz2600
Well-Known Member
What(if any) ventilation do you have brett?
brettsog
Well-Known Member
right now i have a 12v 120mm pc fan mounted on the side of the cupboard sucking the hot air out and into the adjacent cupboard. im planning on turning the other fan on and using a 6v power source instead of 12v to keep the noise down to a minimum. so i will have them both on 6v. its about 1/3 less air it will remove on 6v power when there is two fans, but the temps should only go up by 1 degree or 2
Cloudz2600
Well-Known Member
I'm guessing it's not legal where you live either. Have you looked at the fans on newegg? They have some pretty powerful fans that are still lower than 30 decibles, which is the point where things start to stick out from ambient noise. I got a 2 60 CFM fans(120mm) for like 10 bucks with free shipping. I think it's only like 35 decibles and still runs on a 12v. I can't hear it over my ps3 or my ceiling fan. If you're using some fans you pulled out from a pc chances are they're meant to be low noise which equals low power. Then again I guess 86F isn't that bad, just lettin you know you don't have to use less power to get less noise.
Cloudz2600
Well-Known Member
Well I imagine the fans they sell on newegg they sell around the world, since newegg is just an distributor, so you might be able to pick one out that you(or at least a brand) like and see if a company in europe/UK sells it. Most manufactures should list the decibels of the fans, no one wants a PC fan in their PC to sound like a jet engine. I know the fans on amazon usually say the decibels as well. Well you wouldn't have to go 12/12 if you could keep your temps to say...80-85F. Surprised actually that you can manage a HID grow with PC fans.
Cloudz2600
Well-Known Member
Yea I didn't want to say anything because I thought maybe it was the strain and it would take off, but 1 node in 10 days is pretty slow. I still think using your giving too much light to the seedlings. I wouldn't give anything over 5000 lumens until they get some growth going. If this is how you've been growing did you change anything else from your last grow? It's just AF's are supposed to be quick growers, my Northern Lights x Big Bud despite being heat stressed(97F) still put out a node around every 2 days.
Also I don't see a lot of peralite in the soil, how's the drainage? If that's fine you might want to look at the ph. You've just been using plain water so far right?
Also I don't see a lot of peralite in the soil, how's the drainage? If that's fine you might want to look at the ph. You've just been using plain water so far right?
Inkubator
Active Member
Only thing I did differently is I didn't put it to small cup first and repotted it later, put I putted it to the big one straight away, but I have a friend growing on the sunlight on window same strain and from same day, I was germinating them together, and it's same size, little smaller and he have it in small pot, so I don't think that can be problem. Maybe just bad quality seeds? I don't know... will see...