Burning Lights on Cold Winter Nights

[PlanetJ]

1 inch is awful close nivek. You'll risk her outgrowing your anticipation, and burning her top off. At this stage, you want to prevent stretch, nothing more.

15cm is okay. The way to judge your lights being to far, is by looking at node spacing. If there is a lot of space between nodes, she's reaching for the light .. and you should move them closer. If not, you're good in veg. In bloom, you want to hit it with everything you got

 

[nivek]

it is close, indeed. perhaps poor advice. I really should preface everything I say with,,'but I know nothing, nothing....' in my defence, I did say that alls I know is my plants love it. I can't seem to get them 'too' close. important,, not when misted though, nope, have to move away from the lights till near dry. that has caused burn for me,,once. numbers don't lie, the math on the lights is correct. cfl's are a disadvantage already when growing, wasting the light just adds to it, imo

 

[PlanetJ]

I agree with you there .. and I burn plenty of fan leafs with CFL's myself But a seedling does not really cope very well with torture like that

 

[Beateo]

For what it's worth, I try to keep my CFLs between about 1 1/2 and 2 inches. A word of caution...the idea that CFLs do not generate heat is total crap. I can illustrate the truth of this by what happened to me.... First grow.... lights on was close to 10 degrees F higher than in the morning after they sat in the dark for 12 hours! Nothing was different except the lights being on and that raised the temps right at the plant. (They weren't heating up the entire room by 10F... just where I kept the temp/humidity gauge next to the girls) Bottom line... you CAN kill your plants with CFLs.. but you have to really not be paying attention to do it.

 

[nivek]

indeed, cfl's do produce heat,, they have a ballast, which creates most of it,, but nothing that a human hand can not touch. very warm indeed, hot, not really hot hot. but too close will burn,, i am sure.

this is one very important lesson i have learned recently,, sure wish i thought this way earlier in my life. i learned this from painting, not house painting, i am not a good painter but i am persistent, i know when it's wrong, and i fix it. but i wasted a lot of time, and still do when i paint, by trying to get the contrast right,, you know, the darks dark enough and the lights light enough,, so,,,

one never knows how far to go till one goes too far

 

[PlanetJ]

It kinda depends on your lights ... my el-cheapo 45w chinese CFLś .. you do not want to keep touching

 

[Beateo]

Maybe if CFL quality makes a difference concerning the heat put off.. a person could always start out a little further away than you'd think and move it closer as your girls show you whether or not you have it right? Being inexperienced, I really tried to, as someone on this site said, "keep my finger on the pulse of my girls".... but it's a tricky task for a noob to interpret what they're seeing... I'm speaking for myself and my own experience only.. not speaking for anyone else.
Lots of info being put here.... I hope we're helping out Dchannn.

 

[nivek]

i have read that the test is to put your hand as close as you can without it feeling hot, so i just did the test and i almost could not get too close. a true case of less is more. get 'close' to nature,, ha

 

[Dchannn]

 

[PlanetJ]

New growth looks great to me .. and even the slightly damaged leafs, look healthy overall.

 

[Dchannn]

Maybe if CFL quality makes a difference concerning the heat put off.. a person could always start out a little further away than you'd think and move it closer as your girls show you whether or not you have it right? Being inexperienced, I really tried to, as someone on this site said, "keep my finger on the pulse of my girls".... but it's a tricky task for a noob to interpret what they're seeing... I'm speaking for myself and my own experience only.. not speaking for anyone else.
Lots of info being put here.... I hope we're helping out Dchannn.

- always grateful to hear wisdom from others. As our plants grow so do we, every plant nor journey is the same and as I develop my techniques I am very happy to hear from the community

 

[nivek]

I just wanted to clarify something I mentioned, expand on it if you will, please? this is not it but maybe an inch is too close, but, imo, two inches is too far.

OK, my point about the exponent part. I learned this from my photography days. I think it's important to understand, and it is included in a lot of the lighting information out there, its not new.

if you have a light one inch from a plant, same comparison as, if your portrait subject is two feet from your light. well, if you move that light four feet back from your subject/move that light from one inch to two inches away from your plant, the light is 100percent further away, but not just half as bright like one might think, oh no. it is one quarter as bright. agaiin, it has 25 percent of the original light by doubling the distance

once more, now, if one goes from one inch to four inches, doubled then doubled again, oh my,, we now only have one sixteenth of the light we had at one inch. wow,, it's kinda like the power of compound interest, cept more
just the facts maam pleasure

 

[Dchannn]

Niv- how are your girls looking at the moment?
- how do u get the green bars on ur avatar?

 

[nivek]

my sprouts are sprouting up a storm,, not even sprouts anymore,, as they are in the process of shedding the skin stalk, which is my personal sign of entering the veg state. can i have my own personal sign?? i dunno,, but the kids are great, thanks for asking,,

left/right/bottom/lemonhaze/delahaze/afghani

 

[Dchannn]

Looking very nice. I think afghani will be in my next grow. So I will keep my eyes on those lights and young lady

 

[Dchannn]

Hey,

My stalk seems to be breaking out and looks green, I assume this is the pre stage of veg(Niv).

-need the ph adjuster and nutes. Any cheap and "clean" suggestions welcome.

 

[Dchannn]

 

[Ukeveryday]

I think I have that with my stem
Can u post a picture of it ?

 

[Dchannn]

Check with the guys profile named Nivek. He has a good understanding.
- for me, I gently bend the plant a little and in hopes of building strength.

But as a first timer myself, I am still 6/7's

 

[Beateo]

Dchannn,
If you're trying to build strength... as in strong roots and a thicker, stronger "trunk" for lack of a better word at the moment.... what worked for me was a small fan blowing gently on my girls.... got that info on here too.

I gently bend the plant a little and in hopes of building strength.