Off the shelf retail store screw-in LED and CFL bulb comparisons

PCBuds · Nov 25, 2020

Sampas92 said:
... i notice that your pair of true leaves are bigger than the cotylodons,
What you think pcbuds?

My seedling was older.
She was starting her second pair of leaves.

Give it time.

Sampas92 · Nov 26, 2020

PCBuds said:
My seedling was older.
She was starting her second pair of leaves.

Give it time.

Thank you for the help pcbuds..but tell me, in your experience, shouldn't her be a tad biggerbon the leaves by the 3rd 4th day?or is just me that want her to grow?

PCBuds · Nov 26, 2020

Sampas92 said:
Thank you for the help pcbuds..but tell me, in your experience, shouldn't her be a tad biggerbon the leaves by the 3rd 4th day?or is just me that want her to grow?

I don't even know how old my plant was in that picture.

There are all kinds of reasons for a plant to be slow or fast.

Try to watch her overall health instead.
Try to keep it somewhere between a purple stalk with pale leaves, and a skinny 4" stalk that falls over.
(I personally like my girl well tanned. Lol)

If she reaches too much with a thin stalk, she's hungry for light.

Make any change gradual and wait a while to expect to see a result.

Sampas92 said:
... or is just me that want her to grow?

Yes, I think that's a big part of it.

Remember, it's a girl.
She'll say she'll be ready in 5 minutes and she takes half an hour. Lol

SpideyManDan · Nov 26, 2020

Sampas92 said:
Btw the way i notice a growth of 1cm+/- from yesterday to today but just on the stem..the leaves are barelly diferent

Sounds like its stretching and it needs more light.

SpideyManDan · Nov 26, 2020

Dont forget that a plant uses light literally as its food. It sounds like she's hungry for more.

Sampas92 · Nov 26, 2020

So yesterday for the laste 4hours of light of the day i droped the 5w to a distanceof 20 cm..since 5am of today when the light starts, until now, i noticed a little bit more growth on the first pair but just a little bit and now i dropped more 5cm+/- since i didnt see any light burn either in the stalk or the leaves..

Pcbuds regarding the overall health, from what i read of seedlings, is everything on point, short thick stalk, a beautifull green on the greens....just the slow growth, a the leaves kinda of dropped down..lets see in the end of the day, how it will be..
Indeed i bought this 4 seed pack autoskittles from advanced seeds just to "learn", kinda of the first time we drive our car after the license, we know how to drive already, but only truly learn on the street with our car the rest of our life..
In the last two seeds i have a lot of fluctuations on the air temp and humidity the resulted was a stunted seedling, burned after i turn on all the 6 9w 720lm cap off with 30/35cm distance..
Lets see and in the end of this day, midle of tomorrow, i come back and say what happened new..
Thanks guys, any more input about the light are welcome

PCBuds · Nov 26, 2020

You can download a lux meter app for your phone.

The phone apps aren't very accurate but you can use them to get a rough idea about light intensity and use it for comparisons.

I remember having five 800 lumen bulbs with the caps off at 12" from my seeding and burnt it.
It was okay at 21" though.

I just left the lights at 21" and let the seedling grow into it. As she grew closer she could handle the intensity.

I could have had fewer bulbs closer to the plant, but I didn't mind wasting some electricity.

Four bulbs at 12" is roughly the same intensity as one bulb at 6".

Sampas92 · Nov 26, 2020

PCBuds said:
You can download a lux meter app for your phone.

The phone apps aren't very accurate but you can use them to get a rough idea about light intensity and use it for comparisons.

I remember having five 800 lumen bulbs with the caps off at 12" from my seeding and burnt it.
It was okay at 21" though.

I just left the lights at 21" and let the seedling grow into it. As she grew closer she could handle the intensity.

I could have had fewer bulbs closer to the plant, but I didn't mind wasting some electricity.

I already got an app for it, the one that Migro use on his youtube video for converting Lux to Par, and use it as a way of comparision like blynx did
I have an 20w philips cfl but its i dont know how many years old and dont know the lumens and sincr i dont have any experience, just the theory i dont trully know if im doing anything wrong..
my smartphone is an S10, so the sensor mabe its not that bad and i already put the lights with the flux recommended that i saw in my googling searches..since the last post i turn on two of the 9w 720lm cap off, with the 5w still on in the middle of the others with the cap off too at 20/25cm +/- for the rest of the light cycle and tomorrow is another day..i may have seen some sligtly difference in the first pair growth wise, but maybe is just placebo effect

..the overall health is a very beautiful green, the leaves dont look dry or with light burn neither the stalk, lets see, i hate the wait :gaga:

Right before i put the seed in the soil i moistened the soil with half a littreof water with Bactohemp for the 11 litres of soil, maybe is too wet and contribute for the slow growth?the soil was not with a lot of moisture when i opened the bag so i dont really know..
Thanks fornthe help and btw, im kinda dyslexic and english is not my first language so sorry for anything

Sampas92 · Nov 26, 2020

Correction, the lights are at 30 cm flat from the seedling.. my phone readings with the app are 9701lux 2 9w 720 lm 65k cap of and the 5w 400lm cap off, in a space 30cm deep and 60cm long, what you guys think?

3snowboards · Nov 27, 2020

Sampas92 said:
what you guys think?

...thats allot of numbers for a seedling

PCBuds · Nov 27, 2020

I don't know much about the numbers, but keep in mind that too much light can kill a seedling pretty quickly.
Not enough light gives you more time to notice the problem and make adjustments.

I've found that my plants seem to adjust to the light level and get used to what they're given.

Im'One · Nov 27, 2020

It it's not enough and they stretch just gently add some loose soil around them and it will support them. The plant will produce roots all along the buried stem, which is a good thing.

Sampas92 · Nov 27, 2020

So guys, since the light turn on at 5am utill now i did see improvements. It growed the first pair more, that the other 3 days, and i dont notice any sign of too much light, the leaves are not pale or white, and the stalk is not purple..so i went and turn off the 5 w and now i have 4 9w 720lm cap of at 30cm distance and im having the same readings +/- as before..the lights are apart from each other by 15cm +/- like blynx and others have, but now i have 2 65k and 2 27k..the environment is still on point, temp at 25 with a variation of only 0.5c and the humity is at 70% with a variation of 5% +/-..
So indeed the low growth was because low light, thank you pcbuds..

3snowboards, yes. From what i've been searching is kinda a lot of light but indeed notice a difference for the better and not for rhe worse, and since my lux meter is an app wich may or not be acurate, i will only be sure if now the numbers are right or wrong in the next hours/day by her reaction..lets see..
Thanks a lot guys, i will be here for the news later on this day or tomorrow, hope the news gonna be good..

Sampas92 · Nov 27, 2020

To give you an idea here are the transformation,
Tomorrow morning with just th 5w sil the leaves were like this

In the middle of the day i turn on the two 9w sils with the 5w ant it looked like this, right before lights of

And now they look like this

Do you guys understand my excitment, more growth in one day than 3 days combined..
Do you guys notice anything wrong by the pictures? Thank you so much for your help, i hope one day i can retribute the gesture

PCBuds · Nov 27, 2020

I think that you are right in the zone.

It might be a little stretched but that's probably from when you only had the single 5 Watt bulb.

Sampas92 · Nov 27, 2020

PCBuds said:
I think that you are right in the zone.

It might be a little stretched but that's probably from when you only had the single 5 Watt bulb.

I even notice a little bit of grow since the last post.
Thank you pcbuds, nothing like have a conversation to solve problems..
Just one more question, the days have been cold and dry and with my exctact fan on the lowest speed my humidity cant keep up, i have an intake that is capable of passive exctract without the fan, would you consider that the exctrat fan was better on with trying to manage the humy the best i can?the temps have been stable without the exctrat fan and i can keep up with my heater if its on but my humidifier cant, what you think?

PCBuds · Nov 27, 2020

From what I know, (I'm a beginner myself) the purpose of ventilation is to bring in CO2 and remove heat from the cabinet.

If you let it ventilate passively, you will limit the amount of CO2 getting to the plant.

I don't know what is more important?

Plants will transpire more in drier air and that needs to be considered. (There are charts for that).

There is also the cost of a heater and a humidifier.

I personally would let it run drier.
Dry air helps keep mold under control.

There is nothing worse than having a plant almost ready for harvest then lose it all to mold in a day or two.

PCBuds · Nov 27, 2020

My plant right now is growing cold and dry.

My 500 Watt heater would cost me $50 a month in electricity to heat my closet.
I don't think it's worth it.

She can just deal with it.
Purple stems and all. Lol

Perhaps your seedling needs some special care because she's a baby.
She's too tiny to use up a lot of CO2, so you may be okay with passive ventilation?

PCBuds · Nov 27, 2020

My closet was at around 19°C which is pretty cold and is probably slowing down my plant but I didn't want to spend money on heat or humidity.

But I just turned on my side lighting and added 200 Watts to my grow space.

The temperature has risen to over 23°C.

I don't mind using electricity to add lighting, but money for heat and humidity doesn't give me much bang for my buck as far as I see it.

Keep this picture in mind. (Dr. Bugbee is my hero.)

Light is paramount in growing.
It is the key that controls all the other parameters.

PCBuds · Nov 27, 2020

Sampas92 said:
...so are you sugesting me to turn on another light or two?
I have the light with more 10cm than yours are, so maybe one or two more wouldnt hurt?but what i was gainning with that?more speed growth because of the added light instead of this slow growth?...

I personally like to give my plants as much light as possible and get them used to it as soon as possible.

The total amount of light is the biggest factor in the total yield at the end.

People here on this thread are around 1 gram per Watt and some are pushing close to 2 grams per Watt when they have everything dialed in perfectly along with the newest, most efficient SILs.

My last plant yielded 186 grams running off of 220 Watts for my entire grow (LED strips, power supplies, and fans)

I only ended up with 0.85 grams/Watt and it took 16 weeks, but I was really only concerned about my final yield.
(I made all kinds of mistakes and stunted my plant)

You need to factor in the cost of the bulbs, the cost of electricity, and the length of time it takes to grow a plant, but you should be able to estimate that you will get about 1 gram/Watt.

In the end, the total yield is proportional to the Watts of light.

Off the shelf retail store screw-in LED and CFL bulb comparisons

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