Do I Have Enough Lighting ?

[Buddaluva]

Im using a 250 hps for my main light , and i have t8`s for my side lighting

I have 9 afghan kush cuttings and an aurora indica that is 12/12 from seed in my closet

Their all still small though , the cuttings just took root last week

My concern is that maybe my light might not cover them all

The space is 4ft wide , and about 20" deep ( have plenty of height though )

Will my lighting work for girls ? i dont have the extra money right now to get a bigger light but i will when i can

But for now will it do ok for them ? like is it enough for them to finish out

Thanks in advance fellas

 

[ChemFrog]

Gotta the airports

 

[Karmic Farmer]

Looks like if you add a few more t-8's on each side and flip to 12/12 soon you might be able to get by until you can afford a larger set up. You won't know until you try, although six plants looks like a better number for the current set up. Still could be a little tight depending on how wide they get.
Good luck and keep us posted!

Peace,
KF

 

[Buddaluva]

Looks like if you add a few more t-8's on each side and flip to 12/12 soon you might be able to get by until you can afford a larger set up. You won't know until you try, although six plants looks like a better number for the current set up. Still could be a little tight depending on how wide they get.
Good luck and keep us posted!

Peace,
KF

Their on 12 / 12 now , i put them on 12/12 as soon as the cuttings rooted

I dont have any more room for t8`s on front side of my closet ( i have them lined up to my door

i can put more on the back side though but not much more before i run into my power supply , i just have to get some more tombstones first to wire up to the t8 ballast i have

Its gonna be a long while before i can get a bigger light

I do have a 150 hps i use to use in my building but iv been trying to sell it ,

maybe i could slide the 250 over some and put the 150 beside it ( but im thinking that my girls will still try to reach for the 250 since its stronger

Edit

I went ahead and moved the 250 over and put the 150 beside it but it does not look like its putting out much light because of the 250

 

[dansbuds]

With bigger or more lighting in that space .... heat would be a major concern . do you have that covered ? if not i'd look into it soon cuz heat build up will kill your plants quick or at least slow them down alot .

 

[Buddaluva]

With bigger or more lighting in that space .... heat would be a major concern . do you have that covered ? if not i'd look into it soon cuz heat build up will kill your plants quick or at least slow them down alot .

Yes i can keep my temps under control

I have an a.c in their , i put a box around the vent to shoot the cold air out to the side ( hoping it dont get to cold lol )

I have been keeping it around 77 degrees in their and thats with my 250 about 8 " over my girls

 

[Karmic Farmer]

I think you'll be alright, might want to rotate the pots around as long as possible. A lot of people would have been very fortunate to have the current set up you do and still would. It's just a matter of finding the right size and amounts of plants in the space, of which you'll get an idea of over your next few runs. You can do some good things with what you have there.

Peace,
KF

 

[Buddaluva]

Thanks Farmer

I have put a lot of work in my closet so far ,

getting all my cloths out and stacking them in the corner of my room lol

Cut holes threw my floor for the ducting , I actually cut in to my ducting for my central heat and air for my trailer and mounted the ducting to it to run the air threw my cool tube and out under my trailer

I cut threw the wall of my closet and framed it up for the a.c , and wired up all those t8`s

I still need to get some flat white paint for the rest of my walls because i dont have anymore diamond sheets

it has taken a while to get my closet where its at now lol

So in your opinion will it be best for me to keep the 150 in their or center my 250 back over it ?

 

[Karmic Farmer]

More quality light is always better so as long as you rotate and keep your temps in the proper range I'd keep it how you have it.
Remember to get some carbon inline before too long!

Peace,
KF

 

[Buddaluva]

Thanks man , ill make sure i rotate them

i do have a carbon filter though , my fan for it is at the top of my closet and the filter is on the other side of my closet

My closet was just one 12ft long closet so i had to build a wall in the center of it

Miss budda has her cloths on the other side lol

 

[Ski]

That vent fan you have is fine for pulling hot air from a room....but it doesn't pull through a carbon filter very well.
Is there any way you can put those t8's in a horizontal position?

 

[Buddaluva]

Yes i can run them long ways but i will have to wait a week or 2 before

that fan up top is for my carbon filter for the smell not for the heat my man ( and its working good i must say lol )

I just finished my sweet deep grapefruit before i started the ones i have now and she stuck really good , but you could not smell her outside of my closet , you had to open my closet door to smell her lol

and Im not having any heat issues at all with my a.c my man

 

[señorsloth]

for budding you want at least 50 to 65 watts per square foot(more if fluorescent)...you said you have about 8 square feet...so id put a minimum of 400w hps in there, or make your growspace smaller...i recommend a 600w hps for a 9 sq foot grow space(3x3) and a 400 for 6 sq feet (2x3)...for a lone 250 i wouldn't go over 4 sq feet(2x2)...of course with those flouro's you could probably get away with slightly bigger than 2x2...but not a lot, like an extra square foot or two.

id say you should add another 250 in there to cover the space, or shrink your grow down to say 5 or 6 square feet...that will ensure you have shorter plants with denser buds.

if you bud with insufficient lighting your plants will tend to stretch more, meaning with a sog grow for example, instead of a nice, single, fat cola, you get little golf balls or marbles every 3 or 4 inches up the stem, which is often much taller because of lack of light...this means not only are the buds smaller and fluffier but because they are stretched out on a longer stem, light has a very difficult time reaching the bottoms of your plants, making them less ripe and even less dense than the top buds, as apposed to a growroom with strong lighting, you will see much less stretch, so the little marble or golfball buds tend to merge together into one big bud, and because the plants are much shorter, the distance between the light and the lowest buds is much shorter, meaning even the very bottom buds get strong light and will ripen along with the top of the plant, so you end up with much less fluffy immature bottom junk...

of course low light will not only cause overly tall stretchy plants, it can stress them to hermie(depending on quality of genetics), and slow ripening, meaning it can take many weeks longer for your buds to finish...

 

[Buddaluva]

My plants dont stretch , i keep my light close enough to prevent that

Im not a big grow but i get nice little colas , not a bunch of popcorn buds

Im not good at math so idk how 8 square feet comes into play , i just know i have 4ft in length space and about 20 inches in depth

But i do know i do not have any stretching problems ,

here is a pic of my sweet deep grapefruit i flowered under my 250 in that closet

like i said im not a big time grower but my plants do produce nice buds and not popcorn buds

By no means is this a negative reply to you , like i said im not good at math at all and you said to make my room smaller cuz i will have stretchy plants with popcorn buds

 

[cody2white]

She looks hungry and what a nice way of using your space. Good job

 

[Buddaluva]

Thanks cody

That sweet deep grapefruit has already been harvest and smoked up

And let me tell you that was so damn good smoke lol

 

[TheBioMaster]

I think what he is saying is pretty accurate. You need to lower your plant number down as well as the size of the grow area to accommodate for how much light power you have.

You can get by with a couple of plants under low power conditions, but with 9 plants, by the time they get to flower you will not have near enough light for that many plants.

You would get more yield if you maximize your grow space efficiency as best you can. About 4 plants is even pushing it, 2 slightly larger plants with some light/medium stress training would be better IMO.....

Have you used this space before?? If so how many plants were you running?

Cheers!

 

[Buddaluva]

iv been growing in my closet for a while now making changes as i can

Most iv done in their was 4 though

They are in flower now ( i put them on 12/12 as soon as they rooted so their not gonna be that big im assuming and being indica so they will finish faster

But when i do get the extra money i will be upgrading to a 600 or 1,000 watt

 

[señorsloth]

i am sorry if i made the impression that i thought your plants were loose and stretchy RIGHT NOW or that they ever were in the past, lol. not at all. they look nice. i meant, i guess, if, in the future, you were trying to really pack growth in that space like some do, that it would likely become an issue.

in reality, the 50 to 65 watts per square foot only comes into play if you are trying to maximize your yield. when i say that i am talking about well over half a gram per watt. people don't realize how difficult it actually is to get .75 grams per watt or 1 gram per watt...i think part of the problem is that on the internet a LOT of people greatly exaggerate their yields to seem like they were more successful than they were, even though half a gram per watt is nothing to be ashamed of, it seems that many many people on here think that they somehow failed if they get those numbers.

to answer your question, i just rounded up your 20" dimension to 24". so the room was 2 feet by 4 feet which is 8 square feet total, rounding up, of course. and also, when growing a few plants at a time watts per square foot are less important, because the light that doesn't get absorbed will be reflected around and often right back at the plants so that they have additional chances to absorb it. however, if you have very dense growth all the way to the edges of your grow, till the point that no light hits the soil at all...well most of the light will be absorbed right away so there wont be as much excess light bouncing around on your mylar...basically you would find you don't have the penetration to get solid buds all the way down to the soil.

to get a yield over .5 grams per watt you find that you need to pack a LOT of growth into your given space, i say growth and not plants, because the actual number of plants is much less important than the amount of growth tips in the budding range. for instance, right now i am running 70 clones in an area just 3 feet by 20 inches under 430w hps, but this doesn't guarantee i will yield any more or any less than a couple plants, with many many tops, squeezed into the same space... i get around 5 to 7 grams a plant and i don't need a veg area or to do any sort of trimming or training, so i prefer it personally, but you can get just as good of a yield with just a couple, much larger plants. different strokes for different folks. the key is i guess to ensure that you have enough light to penetrate all the way down into your canopy...so the thicker the growroom gets the more light it requires to fully penetrate to the edges and depths of your effective budding zone. if your room isn't solid packed growth, it wont take as many watts to penetrate fully and as such light strength is less important in relation to square footage.

 

[Buddaluva]

thanks for your info sloth

I have never had that many plants in my closet before ( just a couple )

I have an Afghan Kush outdoors that was getting bigger then i wanted so i snipped off some cuttings from the top nodes and decided to try and clone them instead of just tossing them off in the woods

But i guess its more then what i can handle right now since i dont have a bigger light ,

Im at 35 degrees latitude and am currently getting 13.5 hours of daylight atm , so im gonna go ahead and take 4 or 5 of those out my closet and put them outdoors and let them finish

I know it wont be much if anything but i grow for my own personal use ( for me and miss budda ) and times when i have more then i really need i will hook my sis and her husband up with a little smoke also

I would however like to have my closet set up to where i could get maybe a 1/4 lb from a grow but my grow skills are not their yet lol