Dgirl666

Hi all Im new to the growing scene. Just starting some seeds and they seem to be growing straight up towards the light only one set of leaves after a week and a half they are like 4 inches tall and skinny, but they are getting some good roots i have them in a small plastic dish in the rockwol starters with only 1/4 inch of water on bottom have been misting them daily and have taken the dome off of them and have a fan running in the room with them. The lights we have on them now are two 175 watt cfl lights.
Is this OK or is there a suggestion you could make to help me more?

sounds like youve done your homework and know what your doing

are you going to stay hydro? what kind of system are you going for?

do you know what spectrum those cfls are?

thats plenty of cfls for one or 2 plants

welcome to growing. its hard to give good advice without pics but i have a couple of suggestions:

your babies sound like they have stretched quite a bit. this is caused by having the lights too far away from the plants and can end up producing a weak plant. you want to keep cfl's within 6 inches of baby plants and as close as you can get without burning when they are older. your babies are probably going to need to be staked up or alternatively you can bury the stems with another 2" of dirt.

the "175 watt" lights are probably less light than you think. cfl's have an equivalent wattage (how much light they produce compared to an incandescent bulb) and an actual wattage. yours are probably something like 42 actual watts. by the time you enter the flowering stage you will want at least two of those lights per adult plant.

KaleoXxX said:

sounds like youve done your homework and know what your doing

are you going to stay hydro? what kind of system are you going for?

do you know what spectrum those cfls are?

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Yes we are planning to stay hydro have a flood table and the light set up for 400 mh and sodium for the flowering. Not sure on the spectrum for the cfl's cause we just bought at walmart. i was told the lights for growing seedlings didnt have to be very strong if they were close is 3 inches away too close? How soon can we put the babies in to the real system we got 6 inch rokwol cubes?

yep, you want them to be as close as they can without burning the plants, 2-3in is ideal

you said theyre a week and a half old? i guess if your system is all set up they could go in whenever your ready to put them in. my friend puts his clones in his hydro machine after a week and they blow up

Ok you talked me into it one question: If i use purified water is it ok to start flooding the table right away cause it seems like too much water ? and do I start with fertilizer right away?

hydroponics isnt my specalty but id say to hold off on nutes till its about 3 weeks. at this point they have prety much all theyll need to grow stored in its coytdeons

as far as "flooding the table" im a little confused, but if the water is pure i cant see it doing any harm at all the the plants

KaleoXxX said:

hydroponics isnt my specalty but id say to hold off on nutes till its about 3 weeks. at this point they have prety much all theyll need to grow stored in its coytdeons

as far as "flooding the table" im a little confused, but if the water is pure i cant see it doing any harm at all the the plants

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here is a pic of what i have now. How long should the light stay on in your opinion after three weeks?

Dgirl666 said:

here is a pic of what i have now.

Click to expand...

those babies are severely stretched but should recover with more light placed closer. you may need to stake them up in the next couple of days.

common choices for veg lighting are 24/0, 20/4 and 18/6 - you're not going to go wrong with any of those, more personal choice than anything concrete. 12/12 when you're ready to flower.