First TIme Grower...please help

no an envirolite or an ecolite is not the best light out there, but it is a dam sight better than the light steve is using now, and i wouldnt advise a newbie to jump straight in with a hps/halide, not to mention theyre alot more expensive to buy and run than ecolites. i run two 125w ecolites for veg one in a reflector and one hanging, and the reflector reflects no heat onto my plants whatsoever, and helps a great deal reflecting the light back down that would just be wasted lighting up the ceiling of my veg room without a reflector! and they veg just as quick as any 250w hps or halide iv ever used. many ppl use them for veg and bloom and get good yeilds from them.

too far away again. I'd say a safe place to start would be two inches away from the leaves, then as the plant matures you can cut that to one inch.

Here is an inspiring grow using five of the lights you have, a mix of blue and red spectrum, you'd only have to buy three more lights to imitate his setup and find a box to put them in.

This is something that you could easily do to start with and learn on and every single detail is already worked out and listed right there for you, please take a look at it:

International Cannagraphic Magazine Forums - Compact SOG with CFL's

He has shown how to use that setup for seedlings and for clones, but clones are best once you are ready to try that.

Envirolights are fine, I didn't mean to knock them or you for choosing them, I just don't think he needs to go there yet they are a pretty significant investment and not really much cheaper than HID's. Check out this grow first and see if it might suit you to learn on. Also just for the record an envirolight with a hood is not the same as his CFL one or two inches from the plant. Envirolights are large enough to benefit from a hood but these little CFL's don't have the penetration to benefit. By the time the light gets to the hood and back it's not of enough benefit with these.

Plus I don't think you run yours less than 2" from seedlings.

I just am trying to help someone from making the mistakes many of us have made by getting equipment that might not suit what he finally decides he wants to do. Growing with HID's is no more complicated than growing with cfl's or envirolights, just takes more space usually. Maybe he dreams of 4'ers, in which case an envirolight might not suit his long term goals. He just needs to do some research first and think about what he really wants before running out and buying anything else. He must be on a budget if he's using what he has now, and nothing wrong with that either, just means it's more important not to mistakenly buy stuff you might not want to use long term.






Enjoy...

Hmmm yea i see what your saying but wouldnt buying yet more low power cfls be the same thing, buying unesessary stuff? and they certainly wont flower 4footers that you say he may dream of, they still wouldnt be suitable in the long term, i just dont see the point in rigging up multiple low power cfls when 1 blue and 1 red eco lite will see him fine throughout the learning stages of being a newbie, theyll easily flower 2 footers, then if he wants to go bigger later on he could just add another ecolite or even if hes confident enough get a hps, theres a big difference between cfl and hid growing in terms of the demand on a plant, plants under hids generally transpire more water and require more feed than cfl grown plants and setting up a hid can be very daunting for a newbie, ballast, relay/contactor, lamp etc plus growing with a hid does require some degree of getting used to? not to mention the safety worries that go along with hid lights, most are safe these days but its always in the back of my mind about that hot 600w hps in my flower room, and they can go bang if you get drop of water on them when theyre on and hot, and any hid even with the highest safety standards and quality components is only as safe as the circuit its plugged into. defo not for a complete noob

thanks guys.. just went to lower the light and put the reflector back on. going to see what happens in the next couple of days.

how long should i have the light on for? i'm thinking 12 hours a day..?

dammit.. i need a smoke but can't get any! hence the reason for my attempt at growing!

18 on 6 off mate 12/12 for flower.

Nice one thanks mate for all your help... I have a timer already that I got from maplins so I will set that up now.. I have other seedlings on the go in my area garden so hopefully out of the 7 I have going 1 of them will be a female.. I did pay for a female Lemon skink seed so I am hoping that one will definatley give me something.. Cheers again for all the help. .

Even at 2" away I would not use a reflector with that light. Do you have a small fan on that seedling to make sure it's stem grows stong enough to keep holding it up this time? A light breeze would also help with the heat and then having the reflector on would not be so much of an issue.

Yes buying more of the same lights would be a waste if that grow isn't what he ultimately wants. That's why I said check that out and see if that grow would suit his needs or be something he'd want to do to learn on first. The bulbs he's using are about $8 ea, so three more would be $24 and that would be enough to get him a full harvest and beyond. Envirolights can run $120 or even more with a good hood, which is the cost of a cheap 1000w mag ballast HPS setup. We can go round and round on this but that's kind of pointless, it's his money and his choice.

12 hours a day? You haven't read the grow faq or anything yet. No don't do that, it will start flowering. You need 18hours a day minimum, but might as well just go with 24/7 light since you probably don't have a timer yet.

You do realize you won't get anything smokable off this thing until probably another 4 months or more away don't you? You have to grow a plant big enough, then put it in flower for 6-12 weeks then you can smoke. And with one seedling you only have a 50% (roughly) chance that it will be a female and able to give you any buds at all to begin with. Males are pretty useless. Feminized seeds don't gurantee a female, only ups the odds beyond the natural 50%. most likely it will be a female but I'd sure as hell start more seeds to be sure.

Start more seeds, and read read read.

4 months or more? if your just after a bit of smoke 2-3 weeks of veg up to say 6-8" tall with half decent lighting like the ecolites, then flower for 8-9 weeks and id say youd have something more than smokable in 2.5-3months plus drying and curing of course, thats how i started growing in soil anyway with the ecolite and it was a piece of piss, with fast strains like top44, theyd finish probably 18-20" tall 7-14grams each? i

and steve westlands west+ multi purpose soil with added john innes available at most b&q and homebases £6 per 60ltr bag is much better than any soil available at growshops in the uk. most uk growers are using it now, i get much better results with it than bio bizz and canna soils etc at nearly £20 per 50ltr bag

Thanks man,, I will take a look at the stuff from homebase.. I just ordered some Top44 seeds so I will try and grow those next week.. not sure if the hawaiian stuff will be to hard to grow.. It has taken me 5 days just to get to where I am now.. gonna go and get a small fan tomorrow..
I have quite alot of seeds on the go now.. thanks for all help guys from the UK and across the water in the US.. I have alot to learn and read.. the only book I had was called the Golden Harvest.. I picked it up ages ago.. I am also trying to grow some Northern lights.. hope at least one of my plants will produce something to smoke..

cool man top44 and NL are nice n easy to grow plants, never done anything hawaian, but its probably a finicky plant not really for newbies.

Londoner said:

that little weedling will be fine with a better light and a bit of breeze.

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In my experience burying the stem may not work, it might rot, Just my opinion tho. I hope it does great for you. Asking the questions and getting high quality answers is what it's all about. Good Luck to you.

seedlings often stretch out a bit at the start even under good lighting, i bury the stem of every seedling that i grow on the first re-pot, never once had the stem rot on me, once the plant is established roots will grow from the bit of stem thats been buried, so doing so also promotes extra roots, just water away from the stem if your worried about it rotting and keep the soil fairly dry immediately around the stem, if your stem rots then your soil is probably too wet or the soil contains damping-off pathogens Damping-off Diseases in which case its a gonna regardless of what you do, but that plant is fine just needs better lighting to prevent further stretching and a light breeze to stimulate the stem into growing thicker and stronger.

Londoner said:

seedlings often stretch out a bit at the start even under good lighting, i bury the stem of every seedling that i grow on the first re-pot, never once had the stem rot on me, once the plant is established roots will grow from the bit of stem thats been buried, so doing so also promotes extra roots, just water away from the stem if your worried about it rotting and keep the soil fairly dry immediately around the stem, if your stem rots then your soil is probably too wet or the soil contains damping-off pathogens Damping-off Diseases in which case its a gonna regardless of what you do, but that plant is fine just needs better lighting to prevent further stretching and a light breeze to stimulate the stem into growing thicker and stronger.

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I have read a lot of things you've written and actually agree with everything you've said. Thanks for this info too. I'm always turning around to my husband and saying man that Londoner is smart, of course he looks at me like why don't ya just marry him then LOL

envirolites dont cost $120, not in the uk they dont anyway, which is where steve is. the link i posted sells 125w ecolites which are identical to the 125w envirolite version by phillips, in fact theyre better because the glass that the tubes are made from is thicker, phillips envirolites are well known over here to be quite fragile, anyway theyre £37.95 for a red or blue lamp + a reflector with the E40 lamp fitting, 3m of high temp flex and a moulded plug, the reflector is quite large i veg under one, and £19.99 for the lamps on theyre own. i think the 200w versions are about £30. a half decent 1000w hps/mh system here will set you back around £150 + £30 for a 2kw contactor if you wana use it in conjunction with a timer. and i keep my ecolite in the reflector around 2-3 inches from seedlings/newly rooted clones with no probs whatsoever, and achieve similar results to vegging with a 250w hps, with hardly any heat.

Thanks everyone, but the little dude didn't make it through the night.. R.I.P..
But the good news is I have some Northern lights on the go and it is looking good.. Thanks again for all your help.. Happy smoking..

Steveptt said:

Thanks everyone, but the little dude didn't make it through the night.. R.I.P..
But the good news is I have some Northern lights on the go and it is looking good.. Thanks again for all your help.. Happy smoking..

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So sorry about your plant. I guess try all these great answers and you'll have a better turn out and the lil plant will not have died in vane

Just one more question.. How long should the fan be on the plants? a few hours a day or all the time? Thanks