Lighting 1st time grow. PC Case Pyramid Autoflower LST

[whatsgoodie]

Impressive grow Biftero! Welcome to AFN by the way. You should be fine and not have to worry about bud rot if that 120MM fan is blowing right on her. Any clue on the temps in there? If they're 75-85F and the fan is right on her, bud rot shouldn't be a worry. You might want to look into some sort of sugar cane/molasses feeding (I've seen posts saying Molasses is hard to get in the euro areas?) to add to you budget nute setup. Will help her along in the flowering phase (they love carbs during the pregnancy.. hehe). The daylight only lamps are what's dragging her out a bit with the beefing up. She'll continue to stretch a bit more instead of settle down since the spectrum isn't red balanced and may run a bit longer than the 4 weeks you expect her to be ready to chop. What's your light schedule for her? Any smell coming from her?

 

[ripster]

The daylight only lamps are what's dragging her out a bit with the beefing up. She'll continue to stretch a bit more instead of settle down since the spectrum isn't red balanced and may run a bit longer than the 4 weeks you expect her to be ready to chop. What's your light schedule for her? Any smell coming from her?

I'd have to respectfully disagree with ya here whatsgoodie....I have grow the auto's both ways. Using only the veg. 6500k bulbs. All my auto's have finished in there alloted time frames. When I tried the switching of spectrum's, I found that I lost some of my beefiness in the buds. Also keeping them on a 20/4 light schedule start to finish is best. In my opinion.
Now if your using HID, then you may be right. But w/CFL and T5 lighting, it don't seem to work that way. I think it's because of how close the plants can stay to the light. HID, the plant have to be further away from the light so they don't get to hot.
W/CFL's heat isn't really an issue. So light can penetrate further into the canopy this way.
This is what I've seen so far. But by all means, try it if ya like and see what you think

 

[Biftero]

Hey thanks for the welcome.

My 120mm fan is actually the exhaust fan, I just have passive intake from the grill at he front of the case. This seems to give good airflow over the whole plant.
The temps inside when fully sealed are regularly sitting around 77F.
The plant is starting to give off a slight aroma and I know I will need to fit the home made carbon filter I am working on soon.
I expect the temps to go up due to the restricted airflow once the filter is fitted so I have a few extra fans to fit if needed.

The plant has been on 20/4 light cycle since it sprouted.

I will need to shop around a bit to see if i can get Molasses, it's not a common thing here but someone will sell it i'm sure.

With regards to the lights I wish I had the funds to get the other lights for the flowering period right now but I think that will need to wait until next pay day and I will use them in my 2nd grow.

Thanks again for feedback and cheers for moving thread Ripster.

Peace.

 

[Auto-snooch]

Well done man! They look fantastic really pleased for you. Im always impressed when people do so well on a small budget. I'm gonna follow this one all the way.

Keep up the good work

 

[whatsgoodie]

I've never run a single bulb/wavelength start to finish except for once. I've always had a balanced set up of lights - i.e: with my HPS I have 6500k CFLs scattered around to have those wavelengths there. With CFLs I try to run 2:1R/B. I had a Pakistan Ryder under identical conditions that I left in a veg cab because I didn't have enough room (all 6500, 26w x 8 - I don't drop them to the height of the plant, they stay at a uniform height of the tallest plant) start to finish and it stretched more and finished about ~2 weeks after the one that I ran in my CFL box (5x 26W 2700, 4x 13w 6500k). While it could've been the positioning, I truly believe the stretching that occurred was due to the blue spectrum being the primary one available to the plant, I have never run but I've read if you run a MH (blue spectrum) start to finish your buds stretch more and become airy. I'm not saying she WON'T beef up because autos have set timetables in them, so she WILL beef up regardless, I'm just saying in my experience I've had the plants beef up earlier with mixed spectrum as opposed to single spectrum. I say because there's still a vegetative stretch to not expect her to finish in the next 4 weeks.. I may be wrong about the continuation of the vegetative stretch being from the spectrum, but like I said - I only have one experience in it.

At the same time I see your point of the bulbs being close to prevent/limit the vegetative stretching but his bulbs appear to be mounted at the top of the case and not dropped to the height of the plant which leads me to believe they will continue to stretch because if the spectrum was mixed the plant would get the signals on it's own.


For me it's all theory with CFLS/T5HO as my primary grows are under HPS w/ CFL spots and LED (red balanced, 7:1).

 

[Auto-snooch]

Just checking the pics again with my bro. This is far better than my first attempt.

 

[whatsgoodie]

Also, I agree I've run LEDs and CFLs at 20/4, always.. just because they're cheaper is my reason though, LOL. I refuse to run my HIDs anything more than 18/6 anymore and even then I'm considering 12/12 on my next run to see how it effects yield.

 

[Biftero]

Thanks Auto-snooch


My main concern when I started was temps and fire!! (paranoia mostly)

For sure when I do my next grow I will be adjusting the height of the pot as the plant grows.
I do feel I placed the pot at the base of the case to early and as the trunk of the plant is horizontal due to the LST, those side branches were just that bit too far away from the light.

That's just my guess as to why they stretched a bit, it is a tall case and I need to utilize the space that little bit better.

I reckon all these wee lessons I learn just now will be very beneficial to my next attempt.

Cheers.

 

[AndyBotwin]

On my current grow I ran with all 6500k lights for the first three weeks and kept them right on top of the plants (1-2"). The were very bushy and ended up being around 6 to 8" tall when hitting preflower, and they were wider than they were tall. So at least in my limited experience with CFLs, vegging with 6500k and keeping the lights close is ideal for keeping the plants from stretching. I've researched countless CFL grows, and it is quite common to see stretched plants when 2700k is used from the start. If you do this, I think you have to be very vigilant about keeping the lights close at all times.

Now flowering is a different ball of wax, and I have seen evidence that the conventional wisdom of switching to all 2700k is not necessarily the best way to go with CFL (Rip's results with all 6500k are superb). I'm running a mixed spectrum now, but I plan to do some future tests where I run the same strain under all 6500k, all 2700k, switching at flower, and mixed throughout. My gut tells me there is not necessarily a single 'right' way that everyone should use, but the more information we have, the better advice we can give.

 

[wrekstar]

Wow sick grow man
but i have a couple questions.
i wil be making a pc grow box as a side project soon so.. if you dont mind heres some questions

- What dimensions will the grow box should be?
- What lights ( CFL I KNOW, BUT I'M IN UK AND WE DONT GET SOCKET ADAPTERS FOR POWER STRIPS HERE )
- What strain would you recommend
- Could i pull an OZ of this?
- Is it easy to a assemble a pc grow box? what tools and materials will i need
i have the basics down but it will HELP ALOT if you answer my questions
thanks man