Daylight or cool white for mother/clone?

[CaptainStoner]

Am just looking at lighting for an upcoming trial. Energy saving CFL lights are weird, here in the UK - anything other than 2700k warm white is hard to find. As are large bulbs. the largest I've found so far is 30 watt.

I have my flowering cab lighting sorted, but wish to make a PC case box to keep a bonsai mother or two and a small cloner in - i'm to be flowering in a small perpetual SOG so the size is ok.

I've been able to find 23 watt 4000k cool whites, but I heard somewhere daylight 6500k lamps could be used. I can get 30 watt lamps in these fairly cheaply.

Which would be better for a small mother/clone/early veg cab?

ta for any advice, and skin up

 

[strain_searcher]

My daylight bulbs were more blue like a metal halide so I love them. I mixed with warm and never had such good cfl results.

 

[RottenDawg]

Mix 'em...

Mix 'em...

Mix the two! I've had GREAT success with a mixture of the two in my clone/veg cabinet. Peace...........RD

 

[CaptainStoner]

was wanting to run one bulb if i could use the 30w 6500k, rather than 2 23w cool whites.. its a very small box see

EDIT: could run a 30w and a 23w

 

[Kickin'ItEasy]

If you run only the 6500k, the blue light will cause a little strech in your plants. Since you're starting sog clones and will be bonsai-ing the mom, I don't think it will cause problems. Like the guys above said, if you want to put in the extra investment for mixed spectrum lighting (say, 1 warm white and 1 cool white/daylight), your plants might do a bit better than simply using one type of light.

What exactly is the footprint of the mom box and the lumen output of the 30w? You want to make sure your light(s) is/are putting out enough lumens/sq.ft. to encourage decent growth.

 

[CaptainStoner]

at a rough guess, just by eye, it's about 0.75 square feet. I do have a 1200 lumen 20w warm white I could add with another bulb. warm whites up to 25w are dirt cheap here. the 23w bulb should be about 1500-1600lm, 30w above 2000lm. don't know the exact output of the bulbs but research i've done give me those ballparks. going to phone the retailers before I order.

 

[CaptainStoner]

I'm trying to keep the wattage of this grow down as far as possible. The veg cab really is tiny, probably about a foot high. I was hoping to get away with just the one lamp in there, I think I might look at around 40ish watt of mixed spectrum though.

How many lumens per square foot does a veg cab need? I obviously dont expect the plants to grow big fast in there

 

[CaptainStoner]

wiring isn't a problem. Energy saving lights have one drawback, in that the tubes heat up the ballasts, causing the electrolytic capacitor in them to fail prematurely. I'm only buying the bulbs once, I can get pin based tube replacements cheaper than full bulbs. As an electronic engineer i am qualified to strip the lamps down and convert them to remote ballast, curing the heat problem, and extending the life of the lamps. I think around a 40-46w mixture should be ok to start with.

I'm going to make an electronic box to contain all my electrical gear, cooled by an 80mm fan. In the area that my box will be this will be a lot more stealthy, and will silently keep everything cool. I may even house an air pump in there.

I just want to keep the wattage down, am even considering a 70w HID to flower from once i've got some grows done with the CFLs.

The main point with my grow is that it is uberstealth, made with nonsuspicious stuff, minimum possible wattage to maintain my personal supply, and small enough to hide amongst a stereo, a pc desk, associated prehipherals etc. The location, boxes, etc are sorted, just want to minimise possible wattage. Have considered using a cheap solar kit to power fans, can get something from ebay for cheap that'd do that.

I think if i try a 23 or 25w warm white and a 23-25w daylight, 18/6 that should do it - i can always add another bulb later.

This is what i love about micro growing... it's exploring the very limits of what is possible to do with this wonder plant

 

[Kickin'ItEasy]

Sounds like you're on top of things. 40-46w mixed spectrum should be fine for stealth vegging in your small box.

50w veg + 70w HPS for flower + maybe 20w for fans, line losses, etc. = less than regular usage for things like TV, computers that are kept on, lights, kitchen appliances, etc. (Even if your grows are running 12/12, 18/6 and 24/7 ventilation.) A solar kit wouldn't really make much difference, but then again you're probably buying it for the entertainment value (because us engineers love to tinker).

Remote ballasting your CFLs could be a good idea, but isn't it more stealthy to keep the PC box self-contained?

 

[FRIENDinDEED]

i have to go with mixing them too. i have 2x 70 hps' and 3x 100cfl's, and i know i coudl flower thos emoms out if i wanted to with just that lighting alone

 

[CaptainStoner]

There probably isn't enough space in the box i'm going to use, for a lot of ballastry, etc. it's really marginal, being a small box as to whether i'm going to be able to get everything in as it is. The bulbs i'm going to have to use are the U tube PLE-T type rather than spirals, for two reasons - height restriction in the box, and the relative unavailability of spirals here in the UK - the flowering lights are spirals though.

You're right on the solar kit, it is for entertainment value, but when it comes to power saving, every bit helps. It is likely that, at some point over the next couple of years, myself and my family are moving out into a very rural, out in the sticks area. In a different european country(where unless i'm very lucky outdoors is a no-no). I've been researching, and writing out some plans to make an entirely (or almost) off-grid solar grow that only flowers for a few months when there is the most sun outside - this would have to be big enough to produce my year's smoke from 4-6 months of flower, then maintain my mother cab throughout the dull months of winter. So anything I do now with solar is experience and knowledge ahead of the time when I may be using it for my entire grow op

Edit: quick update, just been working on the flowering cab doing some painting - good ol' matt white emulsion - happened to come across my old subwoofer box. It's slightly smaller than the PC box, but should hold a minicloner, and two small mothers. There might be height in there to reveg a plant or two if the cloner isn't in. I'm only going to be adding two plants a week at the most to my grow so my veg box doesn't need to be big until i start getting new genetics. This sub box is far more stealthy than even the pc case I was going to use and should be easier and cheaper to convert into a growbox. I've got plenty of spare time on my hands at the moment so i can just go and play for a bit each day. Got more tools than i'll ever need so thanks to ICmag, a liberal smattering of my genius, and the good Dr Bud, It should all come together soon