Shopping for lighting and gear..

IF you wanted to go hydro, bubbleponics/DWC (deep water culture) is SUPER forgiving and stupid easy... no timers, no water pumps, no flooding and no rockwool. all you have to get is a container (anything from a plastic cup to a rubbermaid tub will work, so long as it has a lid) an airstone (the 14 inchers are $2 at wal mart), hydroton ($10 a bag), net pots (6" is $1.29ea), an air pump (~$7) and some tubing ($2). it is, by far, the cheapest set-up available, and the lowest maintenance. soil may seem easier, but it is messier and more susceptible to bugs. you need to worry about your soil mix, drainage, flushing and about a million things that you don't with hydro, specifically bubbler growing. you use about half the nutrients too.

how many is recommended?
and what are cheap fixtures that you can get at home depot to put these in?

jawshoowa said:

Hey extremist i got a question for ya... and sorry for sounding like a newb.

in those lights you recommend (6500k and 2700k).. where is that specified on the box? (specifically the one you posted). It only says 23W and 1600 Luments. What is a 'k' anyways?

Also... is there a specific shade of white ur supposed to get? full spectrum, natural light, white, etc?

thanks in advance and sorry for being such a newb just trying to browse threads and do my own research.

Click to expand...

hey jawshoowa - hope extremist doesn't mind but i can answer all that for you.

"K" stands for Kelvin and is the unit of the light's color temperature. 6500k is closer to blue, where 2700k is closer to red.

the "shade of light" is usually described on the box, but not always the color temp. anything that says "soft white" is 2700k, "cool white" is 3500k (avoid this), "full spectrum" is 5000k and "daylight" is 6500k.

you can use either 2700/5000/or 6500k for veg, or for flower. honestly, the most important thing is not to mix and match different types of light. you want each plant to have uniform 2700k, 5000k or 6500k light. but it is recommended to have 2700k, or soft white, in flower and daylight 6500k or full spec in veg.

rootbeer608 said:

how many is recommended?
and what are cheap fixtures that you can get at home depot to put these in?

Click to expand...

i assume you mean CFLs... i would recommend at least 2 x 23w per plant - and that's the very least. it should really be like 4 if you want to yield anything. you can get the "clamp lamps" at home depot for like $7 each but that's as cheap as it gets.

Sorry it took so long... anyways, heres the picture.
I just recently transplanted it to this tiny tiny pot for now, which should last the first few weeks, although the stem grew just a little too much in search of light. In case this guy dies, I got another seed germinating.

how old is it? and oh ok right now i have a seed germinating too so come on through and we can compare. How longs it been germinating?

well actually it topsided about three days after planted within. As for germination.. I'd say at least 3-4 days or so. this is like... the 3rd day of its life above soil. I decided to name it Bubba

Oh fuck... that girl is dead it fell down... it didn't survive shock of transplant... damn now I got to start a new seed :\

Officially starting another Journal, and another attempt.. oh well it was early so it was like nothing.

Aww man,): How did you transplant it? and bubba already germinated?

yeah it was a seedling. that picture I had, it was starting to get its first real leaves, but they were little. So I got a new seed germinating.

I just pulled it up, planted in this other pot, and I guess it didn't like the soil or something.. oh well, tomorrow I'm going to put that peat moss back in the bag, and put in MG potting soil.

CottonMouthStoner1200 said:

yeah it was a seedling. that picture I had, it was starting to get its first real leaves, but they were little. So I got a new seed germinating.

I just pulled it up, planted in this other pot, and I guess it didn't like the soil or something.. oh well, tomorrow I'm going to put that peat moss back in the bag, and put in MG potting soil.

Click to expand...

Oh alright man throw up some pics! I got a Jock horror germinating right now its been 24hrs so we can compare. and is it organic MG? MG in general sucks for marijuana i tossed out all my MG bags i had bought before and got some fox farms and the plants LOVE it

chittychitty said:

hey jawshoowa - hope extremist doesn't mind but i can answer all that for you.

"K" stands for Kelvin and is the unit of the light's color temperature. 6500k is closer to blue, where 2700k is closer to red.

the "shade of light" is usually described on the box, but not always the color temp. anything that says "soft white" is 2700k, "cool white" is 3500k (avoid this), "full spectrum" is 5000k and "daylight" is 6500k.

you can use either 2700/5000/or 6500k for veg, or for flower. honestly, the most important thing is not to mix and match different types of light. you want each plant to have uniform 2700k, 5000k or 6500k light. but it is recommended to have 2700k, or soft white, in flower and daylight 6500k or full spec in veg.

Click to expand...

thx a lot appreciate it.

hi how's it going sorry to hear about your first seedling, about light myself i like to use 3-1 ratio. in vegging i would use 75watts blue and 25 watts red and when i switch to flowering i would switch up the ratio to 75watts red and 25watts blue. this is just an example as i use 85watt to 125watt bulbs

Well it wasn't my first seedling. My first real seedling was Green Crack, and it had gotten as far as three months. Then someone saw it and pulled it up. :\ That was a few months ago. Now I'm trying again, with my only resource available as far as seeds go. I can't seem to find any of that foxfarm stuff plus all I had was MG unfortunately. So here goes.. check my journal entries.

Hey guys, an update to this post, got a question:
would this be good for beginners as a hydro system?
http://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-Home-Garden-System/dp/B000VFXKWY/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1283983231&sr=1-18