Few questions before i start my 1st grow

Alright, so i am new to growing and i am almost ready to start! I have a couple of questions that i need to ask before though.

1) If i am growing ONE lowryder #1 plant how many 23W cfls should i have? I currently have 3 connected to the power strip hoping that is enough because the bulbs don't have much room between eachother...there very close so i hope that doesn't matter.

2) The timer thing that cuts the lights on/off after a certain amount of hours, well...i don't understand how to use it.
heres a picture: http://i.walmartimages.com/i/p/00/04/31/80/15/0004318015119_500X500.jpg

I want to set it to 18 hours on and 6 hours off, how would i do so?


Thanks a lot!

you will see a little photo of a moon and a sun. i think you can figure out what that means. if not the sun means day. the moon means night. in the inter circle you will see 2 arrows and 1 arrow pointing to the numbers. this will be your starting point. you will twist the outer circle until it meets your time of day. I would set this to whatever time of day it is right now ( top of the hour) so if it is 10pm you would twist the outer circle until it reaches 10 in the black side.

Now you want to figure out what time the lights need to come on. once this is done AFTER you have the timer set up hour wise and it is plugged into a socket. you will pull the little tabs out for each hour you want the lights to be on. in your case half of the dial will be pulled out the other half will be left alone. looks like this timer goes in 30 min sections. so you pull 2 tabs for each hour you want on. in flowering you are going to want what looks like 24 tabs pulled out and 24 tabs left alone.

BTW with auto flower strains you can do 18/6 12/12 or 24/7 they are going to flower no matter what.

if this didnt help please write back and i will try to help you a little more

as for the bulbs i would like to see a photo of the grow box to see how the lights will be set. this way i can say thats good enough or you need to add 2-3 more.

Thanks for replying cj, i understand part of it now but i still do not understand the tabs section. Like i don't understand which ones i'd pull out/in since the numbers go only to 11.

And i thought that autoflower strains liked 6 hours of dark?

millyy said:

Thanks for replying cj, i understand part of it now but i still do not understand the tabs section. Like i don't understand which ones i'd pull out/in since the numbers go only to 11.

And i thought that autoflower strains liked 6 hours of dark?

Click to expand...

i count 12 hours. the little sun and moon count as hour 12am and 12 PM. how about this... you tell me what hours you want it to be on and i will tell you which tabs to pull out and which ones to leave alone.

Hmm... It really doesn't matter to me i just want it on 18 hours and off 6 hours.

It can be off during the night type so, how about 10am it's off then at night like 10pm or later it's on? just tell me what you think it should be

millyy said:

Hmm... It really doesn't matter to me i just want it on 18 hours and off 6 hours.

It can be off during the night type so, how about 10am it's off then at night like 10pm or later it's on? just tell me what you think it should be

Click to expand...

Myself i have the lights on in the day most of the time. like come on at 6am and turn off at 6pm if in flower. if in veg ( 18/6 ) it would go off at midnight (12 am ) Now once you have the inner arrow pointing the the hour it is now and plugged in, you will start in the black 6 and pull all the tabs out along ( Counter clock wise) until you get to the moon.

Damn. I am mad confused haha.

Alright, so let me see if i am getting this right.. If i wanted to start it at 6am/end it at 6pm is that for vegitation?

I don't need to do vegitation stage since it's an auto flower, so if i wanted it for flowering could i do it from 6am to 12am(midnight)?

edit: i think i understand..im looking at the picture iposted.

by looking at the photo and not the timer itself, i can only assume you dont own the timer as of yet?

I do own the timer but, it's down stairs in the grow box. The picture though is the picture of the timer i have because it's the one that was on the website i bought the growbox from.

millyy said:

I do own the timer but, it's down stairs in the grow box. The picture though is the picture of the timer i have because it's the one that was on the website i bought the growbox from.

Click to expand...

you on a PC i gather and not a lap top. well go down and plug the timer in and play with it. you will figure it out pretty fast. just remember the things i told you. you should do just fine.

thinks to himself :::: no really officer i have no idea where the shot gun came from :::::

Hhahaaha alright man, thanks a lot. I think i understand it now, just gonna do what you said with the time. 6 am - 12am(midnight) is just fine. That would be 18 hours/6 darkness for flowering. I have read where autoflowers can do 24/7 but i think the site says they like to have 6 hours of darkness.

youll need about 25-50x thoes CFLs for a sexy grow

millyy said:

Hhahaaha alright man, thanks a lot. I think i understand it now, just gonna do what you said with the time. 6 am - 12am(midnight) is just fine. That would be 18 hours/6 darkness for flowering. I have read where autoflowers can do 24/7 but i think the site says they like to have 6 hours of darkness.

Click to expand...

yeah you can do 24/7 but no point in doing so in my opinion. just remember to set the inner dial to whatever hour you are at now in real time where ever you live. then Pull all the little tabs out starting at 6am and stopping when they get to 12am. ( counter clock wise) also check in on it and make sure it is working on the first day of light. DO NOT do it when lights are on the off cycle.

Good luck with your grow. take some photos to share with the rest of us

I'll be doing a grow log once i have everything set up.

And you mentioned "DO NOT do it when lights are on the off cycle" what do you mean?
Also, do i have to reset the timer every 24 hours, or does it do it automatically?

it resets itself

OOOOOO sweet, i thought i was going to have to go and re do it every single 24 hours! YAY!


Do you think 3 lights though would be fine?.. 25x-50 wont fit haha.

uhm.. yes. but You get out what you put in.

How much do you think i will get from lowryder #1 with 3 23w cfls?

a couple fan leaves.

.....idk if that was a joke or what