Tutorial to Growing with Cfl's

young8uds

Member
I've got one 27W/1200 lumens on my 1 seedling that is under the light 18/6 hrs per day. It is about 2" from the light and going good. When should I put more lumens on her?
Also, I've been spritzing the leaves with boiled (room temp ) water mixed with a bit of organic molasses in it. Is that okay to do or should I only be watering the soil? If I fertilize, how often?
 

dante76

Active Member
I've got one 27W/1200 lumens on my 1 seedling that is under the light 18/6 hrs per day. It is about 2" from the light and going good. When should I put more lumens on her?
Also, I've been spritzing the leaves with boiled (room temp ) water mixed with a bit of organic molasses in it. Is that okay to do or should I only be watering the soil? If I fertilize, how often?
you could put more lumens on her now or you could wait until she shows her first set of leaves but i think you could do that now. foliaring is good but at the seedling stage you just want to do that to keep the humidity around 70% so it doesn't dry out. unless you notice its really light green/yellow/brown, then you might want to foliar with something designed to correct deficiencies. i wouldn't start fertilizing until you get in the veg stage...let the soil feed the seedling for now...keep silica, calmag and superthrive in your watering regimen - all three if you're using RO water.

You boil water? to get the chlorine out?
 

MYWORLD

Member
I'm trying to find out how I'm doing on my first grow. They are almost 6 weeks. I was using 24/0 just switched to 20/4 to try and get them to stretch a bit before flowering. They are 6in tall and 11in wide. I haven't given any nutrients. Just fox farm ocean forrest soil in 3gal smart pots and bottled/gallon water. Water only when soil feels barely damp and mist multiple times a day. Not sure of sex as they are just from some kill I had. IMG326.jpgIMG330.jpgIMG327.jpgIMG328.jpg
 
I'm trying to find out how I'm doing on my first grow. They are almost 6 weeks. I was using 24/0 just switched to 20/4 to try and get them to stretch a bit before flowering. They are 6in tall and 11in wide. I haven't given any nutrients. Just fox farm ocean forrest soil in 3gal smart pots and bottled/gallon water. Water only when soil feels barely damp and mist multiple times a day. Not sure of sex as they are just from some kill I had.
Your set-up is almost exactly the same as mine and your plants are about the same age as mine but a little bigger. I'm growing outdoors this year, as usual, but wanted to experiment with indoor growing. Maybe I can have a year-round crop of a few plants from seeds/clones? All of the clones I'm growing are from my outdoor crop so I've got 8 strains I'm playing with right now. I know some are better indoors than others so I'm making sure I have at least one of each. I've also just started feeding them some FoxFarm Grow Big.

Does keeping them on 24/0 or 20/4 make them stretch? I'm having a little problem with that and I wondered if I was keeping my lights too far from them? The CFL's are very cool to the touch so I've been raising the lights just far enough to keep the leaves from actually touching the bulbs. I switched mine to 18/6 under 4 48" 40W 6500L CFL's because they were growing and stretching so fast. I was hoping to slow things down a little because I went crazy cloning and have 8 new babies of only a few days old. It's quite a juggle with the lights because of the different heights of the plants. I was trying to give them enough good light while slowing down the older ones without kicking them into flowering. Since I'm just a retired grandma, I don't have the space or money to separate into two areas for vegging and flowering. Maybe I should just dump the new ones to concentrate on the older ones? I've read through a lot of Dr.Chronic's advice and either missed advice on this or didn't understand what I read.

How about it, Doc? I'm subbed in so fix us up :-D
 

hashdude

Member
ok people this probably not the first time this question will be asked, so apologies please
i dont really got it, i want to go and try the cfl cause i think that would be cheapest way (correct me if im wrong), not only i need to look out for day-lite spectrum 5000k and over (6400k the best) but i also have to look out for wattage??? so if i would of bought a CFL 6400k with 9w that will not do any good for growing? i would only grow one plant by the way....
 

hashdude

Member
Heres a question for u guys, i accidently bought a 110v cfl bulbs, i live in europe, which is 240v sockets, would i need a tansformator or i could use a Y splitter with two 110v bulbs in it and stick it to the 240v socket, would that work and do not blow the bulbs?
 

Olaff

Member
Hey guys, i got my first actual grow going on here it started off rough because i had them under a window and they stretched quite a bit but now that ive got them under some lights they started bushing up nicely ive been growing them under 27000k lights from the start and was wondering if ijust went to flowering with the same lights just different schedual would it be okay?View attachment 2326517View attachment 2326518
 

eatingglass

Member
CFL has one major flaw. Do not use their abilities due to its construction. Some tubes lit inside, and not on the plants.
The color temperature is not an accurate reflection of the spectrum. You must have the spectrum to know how much the bulb is suitable or not suitable.
Spectrum of T5 Sylvania Grolux is good, but it's not CFL. Color temperature of Grolux 8000K is probably. These bulbs with very good color spectrum for plants - 25000K. Purple candle and lumen's fans will be disappointed. This PURPLE CFL lamp is about 20 lumens / W.
PURPLE CFL suitable for the entire period of the crop.
 

hashdude

Member
hello folks,
ive some questions for cfl users
does any one here used chinese 105 cfl? like the ones you can get of ebay? will they work for grow? and one more question, how long one cfl will last for, i mean, she will loose her lumens over time but how fast? should i replace my cfl after each growth?
 
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