First Time Grower In Brisbane

[Guest Wilderbud]

40cm x 40cm x 1.8M sounds like my future clone/mother area. I grew 2 plants to a foot in this space last year with flouros and an extraction fan is good to move air around so yes itd be good to buy a 6" fan and ducting from a hydro shop.

 

1.8M is a lot of vertical so how about stacking the plants? You could put 3 at the bottom and 3 at the top or else put 4 in and use a divider to make a mother+grow area. Have a read about keeping a mother and cloning from her if you want a setup thatll keep producing bud [with flowering outside till you can get an HID].

 

I was going to pursue this style of growing and flowered 2 plants out of it last year so its feasible.

 

PS. move plants from CF to intense lights slowly [heavy shade to part shade to full sun in 2 weeks] to avoid stunting.

 

Theres not many fluoro growers here so if you want some examples of what CFs can do have a look at http://www.overgrow.com/edge/ micro growing forums. If youre a light smoker youd probably get more efficiency using high wattage CFs IMHO.

[Guest]

I've used fluoro's. Heres how I do it. Never use less than 5 tubes measuring 4 foot if you want enough light. The daylight brand of tube is best. Don't fuck around with growlights. They are too weak. Ordinary household lights with the right spectrum give far more output. Ideally have 6 units and cannibalise them. Take away everything but the wiring, ballast(inside square box) and connectors. Put a tube in the connectors to get the distance right and glue them onto a board. Anything light but not flexible or your system might break. After the glue dries drill some small holes and put some screws in to make sure those connectors stick. Repeat for the others and keep then a few centimetres apart. As the guts of each fluoro fixture is firmly fixed on take away its fluorescent tube. When done drill big holes in the middle. Big enough for electrical cord to pass through.

 

Cut off the plug of one fixture keeping note of which wire goes where. I use coloured electrical tape to mark them. Now you can feed the cord through its hole and reattach it with joiners from Dick Smith Electronics. Get the small screw in tight variety. Crimps are a pain in the arse. Repeat for all the other fixtures on your board. Now you have a lightweight fluoro setup that can be placed in a cupboard or attic space. Use screws at the ends or hold it up with chains, rope etc. Whatever suits.

 

Fluoros are the best way to go in my opinion. Half the power of HID's, quieter when you switch them on and they don't burn the plants. You want to keep tying down your plants and even use mesh to make them grow vine like. It takes a little more care. They have to be kept close to the tubes but not touching. You should change over to a Son T Aggro or other light at flowering time. Either that or add plain lightbulbs to the setup. Expensive in energy but they have the right spectrum for flowering needs.

[Guest]

Hang on. Now I think about it you would be better off cutting the wires to the connectors themselves. About 10cm from the connectors. I realised this the hard way. Drill holes under where the tubes will be and close to the connectors. As close as you like. One cm or less it doesn't matter. Feed the 10cm lengths of wiring through the hole and reconnect them on the other side. The whole point being that you want all the loose wiring, ballasts, cord and end plugs on top of your finished light set up and not underneath where it will get in the way. Use electrical tape to hold everything down. Tie all your electrical cords together while you are at it. Looks tidier that way. Stick all the plugs in a multiple adaptor. Each tube only sucks up around 40 watts. Maybe just 37. Thats only 240 watts for a four foot by 40 cm rig.

[fnord]

if your growin outdoors in brisbane i think best time to plant is september 23...vernal equinox or whatever its called when the day and night are equal length and after that the days start getting longer. You dont really have to worry about frost, etc much up here so if u plant em sep23rd that gives them the most time to grow big before they start to bud.

[Guest]

I'm learning what I can about growing outdoors for a mate up in Mackay. He has a place out west of town and likes a smoke but knows nothing about growing. I promised him I'd mail some info to the post office. So I'm throwing together everything I can. From energy systems to pest problems. He could grow outside pretty safely but I reckon he'd be ripping up his plants at the first sight of a commercial airliner at 20,000 feet. So I'm looking into ways of making power for an indoor setup. All he has at the moment is a couple of solar panels which just barely give him radio and TV for a couple of hours. I started a thread on a power plant idea I'm working on which he can try. In a year or two I hope to visit Mackay and try out his crop. By then he should be an expert and I look forward to taking out a tinnie with a bucket of bait to do some fishing while stoned out of my skull.

[laricca]

Cheers guys; thank you for the advice and assistance. It gives me something to work with at least. cheers