[Closet Grow] lighting question

[Travitar]

So, A buddy of mine just gave me a 100w mh lamp.

It's pretty big and heavy. To big to mount in the ceiling how it is. Rewiring it and separating the bulb from everything else is an eventual goal. I don't know much about wiring and trial and error with electricity is a terrible idea so I have to wait till another friend of mine who's an electrician can help me out with that.

In the mean time I was wondering if it'll harm my tree if I prop the light up below and to the side as seen in pics below. Will it cause major growth issues? Or is it potentially better than having all my lights above.

Untill yesterday when I got the light the tree was grown with 1 100w HPS and 1 75w cfl. It is approximately 9months old. Began flowing 2 weeks ago. Been feeding it FF Tiger bloom, 4tsp/gal once a week. Planning on picking up some FF big bloom and beastie buds very soon. I give it a half turn in the middle of every light cycle to hopefully get a more even light distrubition.

Please feel free to tell me what I'm doing wrong

 

[goldenahms]

Well, I think you vegged too long. I'm thinking you wanted to grow large so you can yield more because it's 1 plant, but the 100 watt HPS will have trouble penetrating that low.

The MH positioned where it's at won't harm the plant, but you'll probably notice it leaning that way. That's just due to the phototropism.

You'll find re-wiring isn't all that difficult, so you'll be able to mount it. Next grow, if you do one solo female, try limited stress training by tying down, that way you can drop your light closer & increase yield. I'd also top it before flower so you can get multi-colas and once again, be able to drop the light closer. 100watt HPS in conjunction with the 100watt MH should be a good combo for 1 plant. You just need to do some training and drop the light closer to avoid that massive stretch.


Feeding regime sounds okay, you can actually give it Big Bloom throughout it's entire life. Otherwise, it looks healthy.

Good luck.

 

[geopolitical]

Honestly I think you could do a LOT more wattage but it looks like a pretty low budget operation so I can understand. Next time veg less, bloom more. Rewiring your ballast to remote it shouldn't be too hard with 100w, there are quite a few tutorials on here, if you still need help after reading up just post photos of the ballast/wires/etc. You can move your plant or lights around to maximize "evenness" of the plant but in my experience you'll get the same yield either way. No movement = heavy buds near the light, popcorn away. Movement = lighter buds all around.

Is that an incandescent of some sort on the right in the first photo?

 

[Travitar]

You are both right. Vegged way too long. This is my first real grow. It's been a fun experiment and learning experience. These things are really hard to kill once you get them going

Started as a cabinet grow with some sisters under a few 75w cfls. Changed to a window grow for awhile during the summer and actually began to flower a bit. Didn't get the 100w HPS on it until around mid-october and brought it back into veg.

I had pest problems through early November, and also hadn't gotten around to getting neuts till december so thats how I got where I am now.

Is that an incandescent of some sort on the right in the first photo?

Philips 120 Watt BR40 Agro Plant Flood Light Bulb

I was wrong about the 75w cfl. It was actually that /\ bulb. Roommate switched those bulbs out with the cfls we had some time ago when I was out of town apparently

 

[geopolitical]

Ditch the incandescents if you still have them, they're worthless and do nothing but generate heat + stretch.

 

[Travitar]

Interesting. Thanks for the heads up. This particular incandescent is actually made for plants and does have a blueish spectrum though. Does that not really change anything? I've only got 1 on there. The extra heat is actually helpful right now because its winter and our apt isn't weatherized very well so it's a bit chillier than room temp throughout the place.

 

[geopolitical]

If you're using it as a heat source great, but as a light source it's pretty much 100% worthless, even a very high output incandescent only produces a fraction of the usable light a HID or fluorescent will.