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Go to home depot and buy some CFL's (compact florescent). They produce a much better spectrum and much less heat than the incandescent you have in there.

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If you want a cheap container that might work a bit better, get two nice big rubbermaid tubs, spray paint the inside flat white and stack them on top of each other. This is still not the best option but it is cheap and will work.

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If you're looking to do an indoor grow without needing to invest too much money, the best way is to use CFL bulbs. I don't have much time right now as its chow time, but I can help you figure out what kind of bulbs you will need to be able to choose a few of your best looking seedlings and get them going on a better start if you're interested.

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Also, male plants, for all practical purposes, don't offer anything in the way of tokage is concerned. Unless you'll be breeding with them, male plants aren't going to serve you any good, unless you want to experiment on them before you kill them.

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I just joined here from the shroomery a few days ago for the same purpose. Good luck with your grow man.

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indeed so. it sucks that you can't use the same login and keep all your stats from each board to board, since they're ran by the same folks obviously.

makes me feel like a newb all again...

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Maysrome said:
how much do these bulbs cost, and how many will i need at this point? also, do i need a specific light fixture or will an 60 watt one work?

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I'm not exactly sure of the cost of the specific ones you will need, but usually CFL's can be around $10 to $30. CFL bulbs will fit in any standard light socket. Now, the first thing you'll need to make sure of is that the bulb you are getting is producing the right spectrum (or color) of light. During the vegetative state, plants primarily need blue light, and during the flowering state, they need more red light. The bulbs should list their color temperature. For the vegetative state, you'll need something near 6500k. For flowering, which you won't need to worry about purchasing now, you need something near 2700k. Also, the 6500k bulbs are often described as "daylight", and the 2700k bulbs as "soft white". Later, when you are ready to start the flowering cycle, you can simply unscrew the 6500k bulbs and replace them with the 2700k bulbs.

Secondly, you will need to know the intensity of the bulbs. In order to properly judge this, you'll need an idea of how much floorspace your grow will be taking up. The higher the wattage of a lamp, the more intensity it has. Also, CFL bulbs will have listed on the package how many lumens the bulb produces, and this is the number you will need to be concerned with. Typically, any CFL bulb underneath 20 watts is not going to produce enough lumens to be effective with your grow. One thing you will have to be careful on when looking at the wattages of different bulbs is that CFL bulbs are marketed as replacements for the inefficient incandescent bulbs, and they will usually be marked with the incandescent wattage that the CFL is replacing as well.

Anyways, to figure out how many bulbs you will need, the general rule of thumb is to make sure you have at least 2000 lumens per square foot of floor space. Of course, the more light you provide the plants, the more quickly they will mature and the more yield you will get in the end. The best goal to start out with is at least one bulb per square foot of floorspace. Also, the bulbs will need to be as close to the plants as they can as long as there isn't too much heat to hurt the plants, a good goal is to try about three inches away.

Here is a link to a grow log by Hefe, who is using CFL bulbs from beginning to end. There is also another log going by Chapter 4 that you should check out. As you will learn in Hefe's grow log, the downfall of CFL bulbs is that the light doesn't penetrate too far away from the bulb, which means it is necessary to grow shorter plants. Hefe planned for this by only keeping his plants in the vegetative state for three weeks, instead of closer to six weeks as one usually would, and it is working quite well.

That's pretty much what you'll need to know right now as far as lighting is concerned. Of course, that is just the beginning, and there's a lot more you're going to need to learn, but hopefully this gets things moving in the right direction. The next topic of concern is what you're using for growing medium, but I've got to jet for now.

By the way, how old are these seedlings, how tall are they, and how many sets of leaves do they have?

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but usually CFL's can be around $10 to $30

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By the way, how old are these seedlings, how tall are they, and how many sets of leaves do they have?

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Annom said:

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but usually CFL's can be around $10 to $30

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It's $2-5 for 15W CFL over here.

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It is probably the same in the States from what I remember when I was there, but I was speaking more of the 20 to 50 watt CFL bulbs. If you're using 15watt bulbs for a full grow, which I think would be about 1200 lumens on average, you'd need to be using more than one per square foot to hit the baseline. Its not a bad idea to use more bulbs to improve the distribution light across all surfaces, but adding more bulbs won't increase the intensity of the light, and since that is the real shortcoming for CFL bulbs, it'd really pay off to go with higher intensity bulbs, and then start adding more of them within the same space. The nice thing about CFL's is you can stick those fuckers everywhere - on top, on the sides, in between.....

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Maysrome said:
most are almost a week and a two or three days old, and a few of them are getting to around four or five inches tall. they all only have four leaves as of now.

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Now, is most of the height below any of the leaves? I ask because I'm assuming that these seedlings have already stretched a lot. For example, I have a seedling right now that is about a week old, and it has its cotyledons (the first set of round, smooth leaves), a larger set of leaves, and is now working on its next set of two leaves, and it is only 3cm (1.2 inches) tall. Its been directly underneath 6400 lumens of blue fluorescent light that has been on for 24/7. I mention this because you really want to get the plants off to a great start by minimizing the stretching that occurs when they are looking for light as much as you can, especially since you'll be growing with CFL's and height will already be a concern.

The best thing you could do right now is transplant the seedlings you'll be keeping into a bigger container, and bury their stems all the way up to the cotyledons. This is the way to go because then you won't have problems with long, thin stems (another reason, besides the height problem that comes with stretching, is that thicker stems are better because more water can be pulled through them, meaning your plants will be able to mature faster and yield more), and, as an added bonus, the stem that you buried will grow lots of roots (more roots means faster maturation and more yield as well ). I'd suggest replacing your bulbs with the best CFL bulbs you have around the house right now (look to see if they have the color temperature listed on them, but even if it is the 2700k one and not the 6500k one, it's still better than what you have now), get the seedlings just a couple inches away, and leave the light on all the time.

Plants don't need added nutrients for the first week or two, and then, depending on the type of soil you have (assuming you are growing in soil and not a soil-less mixture) you'll have a while before they need more. Of course, that all depends on the quality of the soil you have. Stuff like MG is pretty much not preferable for growing, although those who know what they are doing can get away with it well. Finding a great soil is one of the best things you can do for your situation, because it will make everything a lot easier for you.