Lighting Starting autos indoors

[boxyhobo]

Hi,

I've been lurking around the forums for a month or so, soaking up as much info as possible. This summer, I'm planning to grow about 20 plant(Chaze, IAF, AKR, KVS, and a few other single plants), I would like to start them for a few days indoors then switch to outdoors in the day and in a shed under supplemental lighting at night. After about a month, I plan on moving them to a few guerrilla grow spots. Im wondering what lighting I should be researching to purchase. I've done many searches but I can narrow one down to my specific situation.
I wondering what lights I should purchase for this application. I would like to keep it under $200. Also, I would need the plants to finish in under 100 days. Would how long I use the supplemental light affect any plant other than the IAF?

Thanks for any responses in advance!!!

 

[vapeo]

CFL lighting should be perfect your application imo. Good Luck

 

[boxyhobo]

Thanks for the response vapeo, I'm currently looking into 5000k-6500k cfls but not sure how many I need to cover 20 plants

 

[hank]

What size pots are your starting them in? You can get a 600W-1000W HPS system off of amazon for that price and it would cover 20 2 gal pots easy.

 

[vapeo]

I'm not sure how many either to cover that many plants. Maybe someone who has more experience with that amount of plants would be more help. I only do micro grows. My suggestion would be to only run for 2-3 weeks before putting them out to thier final destination, that should be plenty. This will decrease the amount of lights you will need.

You might reach out to CLmonkey. He grows a lot of monsters with CFLs

 

[cocolopez]

I've read 100W for the first plant and 50W for each additional, and this is what I'm following for my indoor grow. So for 20 ... you need over 1,000W combined for all those plants. CFL light penetration is about 8" so they all need to be fairly close. Something like 25 42W CFLs arranged around the plants would good. With CFLs you want to go with more smaller vs. less larger for best efficiency (there's maths somewhere on the internet to back that up)

get some of these: http://www.amazon.com/Photo-Basics-...d=1394830429&sr=8-6&keywords=4-way+light+bulb

And some of these: http://www.amazon.com/Socket-Cord-V..._sim_p_21?ie=UTF8&refRID=1XN82G76T0MQ42V02FVD

arrange in a square to get 16 bulbs above your plants ... that might be enough if you're just vegging them before planting in dirt. Also, if you're just vegging the 6500K CFL are fine, but ideally you should mix some warm white 2700K bulbs in there.

Get or make reflectors as well so the light goes down to your plants and not up into space.

Honestly, for the number of plants, I don't think CFL is the best choice.

 

[boxyhobo]

You guys are the bomb! My problem is I will be starting the plants in 5 gallon pots and a couple 10 gallon, so I need lights with a lot of coverage. I think I might go one powerful hps or two lower powered mh with side coverage from cfls. I was just trying to keep cost down because I just going for supplemental light at night and will move them to their final spot after about 3 weeks

 

[oldster]

Hi BH,

I start my seeds under a 4 bulb t5 HO light with a mix of wide spectrum and warm white lights. Wide spectrum only did not provide enough spacing between the nodes. I acclimate them for about a week outside in partial sun during the day and under the lights at night.

 

[boxyhobo]

Hey oldster, thanks for the input! Do you have any estimate of what the area of coverage is for your t5 HO?

 

[oldster]

Hey oldster, thanks for the input! Do you have any estimate of what the area of coverage is for your t5 HO?

I would say about 14" x 44" that gets full light. I keep it about 8" above the top of he pots to start