My seedlings are 3 days old under 200W CFL and I am wondering if I should be giving them a dark cycle. Right now they have been at 24/0 and are looking OK. Any help would definitely be appreciated.

Thanks

[stikky budz]

Well, i'm one of the "plants need a dark cycle" brigade, so Yes, give them some.
18/6,,,20/4,,, something like that.

[pray4pistils]

Originally Posted by mojo

My seedlings are 3 days old under 200W CFL and I am wondering if I should be giving them a dark cycle. Right now they have been at 24/0 and are looking OK. Any help would definitely be appreciated.

I say go with 18/6 under cool spectrum fluorescent lights that are almost touching the leaves. In fact, with my T12 bulbs, my vegging plants touch the bulbs frequently. Only the extreme ends get hot enough to cause any trouble. I think the smaller T5s and such get hotter, though.

Originally Posted by stikky budz

Well, i'm one of the "plants need a dark cycle" brigade, so Yes, give them some.
18/6,,,20/4,,, something like that.

Thanks stikkybudz, I just put my timer on the light and I'm going to go with 20/4 seeing as how that's what I'm going with when I veg them. Thanks for the responses.

Thanks pray4pistils, and I am, lol. Dude, I've got a 200W CFL in a Hydrofarm reflector. I had the reflector about 8-10 inches above the plants to keep the heat off but they looked like they were stretching to me so I moved the light down to about 4" off the plants and turned my fan on to blow between the plants and the light. Both light and plant are hooked up to the same timer and are set to go power off from midnight to 4AM. Hope I'm OK temp wise with the light that close. I put my remote temp and humidity sensor on top of one of the cups and placed it next to the plants under the hood and the temp is reading about 75 now.

This is my first grow so I don't really know if what I'm seeing is too much stretch, if it is stretch at all, or if this is pretty much normal growth rate. Maybe someone that knows could tell me.

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Thanks again for the help

[NCbuds]

Ya I vegged under 24/0 for about 4 weeks and switched to 18/6 for 2 weeks...6 weeks vegged and there lookin great in flowering...