Seedling light schedule?

Hey all! I am at the final weeks of my first grow. I will be starting new seeds for outdoors very soon. My ? Is what light schedule should I go with? I have feminized seeds. For my first grow I pretty much went on 18/6 after 4 days since germination. I’m thinking about 24/0 for the first 2-4 weeks but want to hear what others have to say.... cheers!

just my personal opinion. i've tried 24/0 done the research, tried 18/6 and from my personal grows with my own equipment and all that the 18/6 did better then the 24/0. i personally think if you can control your grow room a 24/0 will work better like controlling your air circulation and temps for me i couldn't do that so i ended up with a mess with lack of air circulation ( still do ) leading to sweating/ high temps/ signs of heat stress pretty much.

i don't remember what the diminishing return is on the 24/0 but you need to take that into consideration. im not 100% sure how accurate all the information is based off what i've read on 24/0 either. my 2c is everyone should try 24/0 at least once or twice and make a decision based on their own results. im not going to say it works/doesn't work that is an option we have if we choose to run 24/0 the biggest draw back to it is more electricity being used

My plants don’t see any dark period until flip, you can check my journal to see the results.

18/6

24/0 is a waste of power and the plants do better with a little rest

I run 24/0 mainly for the clone tray in the veg room, plants love it. First dark any of them see is at flip.

Renfro said:

18/6

24/0 is a waste of power and the plants do better with a little rest

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I was actually thinking of going 18/6 or 20/4 for the seeds I just planted not sure yet.

Sawzall77 said:

Hey all! I am at the final weeks of my first grow. I will be starting new seeds for outdoors very soon. My ? Is what light schedule should I go with? I have feminized seeds. For my first grow I pretty much went on 18/6 after 4 days since germination. I’m thinking about 24/0 for the first 2-4 weeks but want to hear what others have to say.... cheers!

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I always do 24/7 until they go into the flower room.

24/7 for the first 2 weeks under a T5. Then 18/6 under the HPS.

Way2-High said:

I was actually thinking of going 18/6 or 20/4 for the seeds I just planted not sure yet.

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Good idea, the extra power comes with a very small return in growth and I really believe the plants like a little rest. 24 works, shit I run that once my plants move into flowering rooms and need a little more veg to trellis them, but half the 12 hours is a reduced amount of light with just my row end lights running half the time and the overhead lights running the other half. It's just easy, change the side of the controller I plug them into.

I maybe wrong about this but here it is, my two cents worth.
24/0 for faster growth in clones (until flipping) and seedlings.
18/6 for young plants until flipping to 12/12 (or depending on the strain flowering 10/14).
When plants receive 10-12 hours of darkness they flower. Any interruption of the dark period stops flowering.
Example:
Seed started under 24/0 or 18/6.
Plant grown to one foot tall (about five nodes or five sets of true leaves), and the lights turned to 12/12. This causes flowering. Sex appears in two weeks and it is a female. But she is only 14 inches tall, so lights are turned to 18/6 and vegetation begins again. She is grown to 1/2 to 2/3 of desired height and lights are set to 12/12 until harvesting.
This extends the time from seed to harvesting by two to four weeks but you are harvesting a known female!

gearshift said:

I maybe wrong about this but here it is, my two cents worth.
24/0 for faster growth in clones (until flipping) and seedlings.
18/6 for young plants until flipping to 12/12 (or depending on the strain flowering 10/14).
When plants receive 10-12 hours of darkness they flower. Any interruption of the dark period stops flowering.
Example:
Seed started under 24/0 or 18/6.
Plant grown to one foot tall (about five nodes or five sets of true leaves), and the lights turned to 12/12. This causes flowering. Sex appears in two weeks and it is a female. But she is only 14 inches tall, so lights are turned to 18/6 and vegetation begins again. She is grown to 1/2 to 2/3 of desired height and lights are set to 12/12 until harvesting.
This extends the time from seed to harvesting by two to four weeks but you are harvesting a known female!

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I never veg for less than a month and most start to show by then it seems. The males always show first it seems too, so anything that isn't showing by then is usually female too.

Just my experience.

20/4 or 18/6 is fine .... whether Photo / Auto seedling growth.
You give them long days to energize and dark to metabolize..... simple .

You can run 20/4 or 18/6 to power autos .... start to finish.

Photos :
You can do some interesting cycle play with photos .... I can neither confirm or deny percentages as I don’t really care about numbers when I grow just whether I can see what the plants tell me and they are thriving.

Budzbuddha said:

20/4 or 18/6 is fine .... whether Photo / Auto seedling growth.
You give them long days to energize and dark to metabolize..... simple .

You can run 20/4 or 18/6 to power autos .... start to finish.

Photos :
You can do some interesting cycle play with photos .... I can neither confirm or deny percentages as I don’t really care about numbers when I grow just whether I can see what the plants tell me and they are thriving.

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Yeah I tried the gas light regimen once, had a couple strains that would try to weak ass flower with it tho.

Yeah .... some strains tend to sex out faster and this cycle might throw that wrench sometimes.

3rd Monkey said:

I never veg for less than a month and most start to show by then it seems. The males always show first it seems too, so anything that isn't showing by then is usually female too.

Just my experience.

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I do not trust myself to sex a young plant in vegetation. Those pre-flowers have fooled me more than once!
I have not had a non-auto plant flower in 24/0 or 18/6. ( not including pre-flowers.)
With non-female (reg seed) when grown to desired height to begin flowering there will be male and females. What a waste (in power, nutes, space and time) growing unwanted males for so long. (And they are often the nicest biggest plants.)
Instead I choose to waste only my time by:
Veging until around five nodes (about a foot tall.)
Flowering, with a very watchful eye, until sex shows. (Getting rid of unwanted males as they show their sex.)
Reveging until desired height.
Re-flowering until harvesting.
(Caution: this may on a rare (for me very rare) occasion cause hermaphrodites.

Heavy Indy works more often with me.

gearshift said:

I do not trust myself to sex a young plant in vegetation. Those pre-flowers have fooled me more than once!
I have not had a non-auto plant flower in 24/0 or 18/6. ( not including pre-flowers.)
With non-female (reg seed) when grown to desired height to begin flowering there will be male and females. What a waste (in power, nutes, space and time) growing unwanted males for so long. (And they are often the nicest biggest plants.)
Instead I choose to waste only my time by:
Veging until around five nodes (about a foot tall.)
Flowering, with a very watchful eye, until sex shows. (Getting rid of unwanted males as they show their sex.)
Reveging until desired height.
Re-flowering until harvesting.
(Caution: this may on a rare (for me very rare) occasion cause hermaphrodites.

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This works very well to cull potential space wasters .... especially when I run SOG bags then pull the nut makers and recycle soil or pull for pollen making separate. And you are right males are pretty fucking vigorous and definitely watch those plants looking to good to be true. Lol.

gearshift said:

I do not trust myself to sex a young plant in vegetation. Those pre-flowers have fooled me more than once!
I have not had a non-auto plant flower in 24/0 or 18/6. ( not including pre-flowers.)
With non-female (reg seed) when grown to desired height to begin flowering there will be male and females. What a waste (in power, nutes, space and time) growing unwanted males for so long. (And they are often the nicest biggest plants.)
Instead I choose to waste only my time by:
Veging until around five nodes (about a foot tall.)
Flowering, with a very watchful eye, until sex shows. (Getting rid of unwanted males as they show their sex.)
Reveging until desired height.
Re-flowering until harvesting.
(Caution: this may on a rare (for me very rare) occasion cause hermaphrodites.

Click to expand...

Yea, whatever works and falls within constraints.

That’s what’s cool and a dumpster fire with indoor . So many variables .
That’s why I have been doing more with autos ( Mephisto and Dutch passion) this year than photos .

One and done light schedule, no drama.

Budzbuddha said:

That’s what’s cool and a dumpster fire with indoor . So many variables .
That’s why I have been doing more with autos ( Mephisto and Dutch passion) this year than photos .

One and done light schedule, no drama.

Click to expand...

I run 24/7 at seedling stage because they do grow faster, I've tried both ways. 24/7 from popping the seed in the medium, 3 days to sprout, clipt at 7 days, moved under 18/6 under HPS.

Helps me when running perpetual because it makes my veg very predictable and adheres to a schedule. Any of them lacking at any of those points gets culled.