First Grow with (2) 8w LED bulbs

Hey guys I'm pretty new to this site and growing in general. I've been lurking for a few weeks now.
A little background on my set up:
I began this grow almost two months ago.
To begin I started with about 10 germinated bag seeds in a medium sized pot under a shitty CFL.
Along the way I've been learning about their growth and what not so my plants began to stretch due to my shitty lighting. As time has progressed I've made some upgrades to my little grow area. I purchased a small reflector ballast and I found a basking light for like lizards and shit. I figured living creatures all use the same light (the sun) and why would basking lights emit a similar light right? Wrong of course and I've learned that. I bought a larger reflector ballast and now I have two and I stuck a floro in the small and moved the basking light to the larger one. As I've done my research it seems like the consensus about lighting for plants primarily focuses on the intensity of light in (Kelvins). Appearantly the more Kelvins produced by the light the better. I'm not an expert whatever. I can't afford a sweet ballast for an HID and I don't really like CFL due to personal reasons. I ended up with the following set up.


4 Plants.
2 in a large pot, 1 in a medium pot and 1 in a small pot.
I have 2 LED 8w that produce 5000k each and 1 14w CFL that produces 5000k.
The pot has a mix of Organic starter soil mixed with some other organic soil that had plant food mixed in and the other small pots only have the organic starter soil. I've drenched all of the soil with an organic compost tea I bought from an indoor organics shop to help develop a soil food web.

I'm sure I'll hear a lot of nit picking about the set up/foil (I prefer the foil to the green walls honestly.) and maybe the overall health of the plants.
I've been working pretty hard to get the healthy.

These are some early stage pics:

These are more current pics:


I haven't really been documenting the growth too vigorously but this it. What do you guys think of it?

I'd also like to mention that the light cycle for the plants are 21.5 hours on and 2.5 hours off.

EcoSmart A19 8-Watt (40W) Daylight (5000K) LED Light Bulb

is what You need there.

You think so? I thought 3 was fine 2 LED and 1 CFL with a total of 15000k for 4 plants. 2 of the plants are doing awesome and 1 has been looking sickly from the start but has always been the stinkiest and the tiniest one is one of those miracle babies that I never thought would make it.

Kelvins are not cumulative. Kelvins are a colour temperature. So you have 3 x 5000k bulbs which are cool white in colour. Warm white is 2700k. (mainly used in flowering) i think you are getting confused with 'Lumens' of which you have around 1200-2500 with those 3 bulbs. Not enough.

here is Kelvins explained: https://www.rollitup.org/cfl-fluorescent-lighting/107992-tutorial-growing-cfls.html
I'd give'em 150 - 200 real watts of cfl lights. And crucial thing: proximity to foliage, there is another thread about it here: https://www.rollitup.org/cfl-fluorescent-lighting/41024-cfl-proximity-foliage.html

That tall one is so stretched out, the plant is looking for more light. That's especially unusual for 5000k since it has an abundance of Blue light within the spectrum. It's a good start, don't get me wrong, but adding more light will keep your plants shorter and stockier which would probably be a good thing.

Apart from that, holy crap they look beautiful. Suuuuper healthy. This is your first grow? Props, dude, but keep it up and don't get cocky. What you've done isn't exactly easy to do, especially first time around.

Keep your eyes on these, too, we don't know if they're girls quite yet, you might end up with a bunch of pollen and nothing to smoke. Fingers crossed.

Stay safe.

Could also be genetics contributing, especially as its bag seed. But yeah. need more. You could veg a couple plants under the 2 LEDs IF they had been under them from the beginning. But now they are wayyy to stretched out for so little light even if you put them close.

Thanks for the feedback guys! I added another 12" tube floro my buddy gave me to the set hopefully that does the trick for now. I plan on doing more growing in the future as a hobby so I may invest in a better set up in the distant future. This is indeed my first grow and I just wanna see what happens. I'm gonna post some pics of the bigger plants nodes to see if any of you think it's sex is identifiable yet.

What do you guys think of this small plant? It started at the same time as all the other plants here but it's stayed the smallest. Genetics maybe?

Looks great! Maybe refrain yourself form watering it for a day or two.

Do you have a fan blowing on these? An oscillating fan can do wonders to keep plants shorter, it forces them to grow stronger with thicker stems instead of growing straight up up and up, but moving the air also helps them "breathe." I'd be careful to start off because if the plants aren't used to the air on them it can really stress them out, but in the future I'd keep a fan on these guys 24/7 the moment they sprout to keep internodes as tight as possible.

They're a bit expensive, but I saw some neat-o tower fans at Walgreens the other day. Oscillating action, relatively compact, and they move a nice column of air (w/o being too intense like a box fan or something) that can help circulate both above and under the canopy. Might be something to look out for.

Two thumbs up from me.

^^ Fans help plants grow shorter? Where did you hear that?

This thing called physics mate, where if you push on the top of a tall object, it falls over


edit: OP, those nodes are looking positively virginal (no idea of sex, that is to say)

You could be quite right about genetics contributing to the runt plant. The leaves of your plants have the soft-edged slenderness that you often see when people do bagseed grows from mexican/thai/outdoor landrace style weed. Is this the kinda weed the seeds came from?

Lighting intensity will also be contributing to its size, though, obviously.

If i was in your position personally, i would scrap the giant beanpole plant, and focus your light over a much smaller area (maybe even start over completely).

Ime, it slows vertical growth especially in the early stages of development. Because the plant is afraid of toppling over/snapping it directs more attention towards thickening stems and branches as well as deeper root development. Not a huge deal if that isn't the case, I guess I'm just delusional or something, but I assume you disagree?

i have the 13w ecosmart warm white and cool whites. they are very bright. equivalent to a 23watt CFL

SnotBoogie said:

This thing called physics mate, where if you push on the top of a tall object, it falls over

Click to expand...

So you blow your fan down on top of your plants from overhead? Its not so much about physics as...

Bumping Spheda said:

Ime, it slows vertical growth especially in the early stages of development. Because the plant is afraid of toppling over/snapping it directs more attention towards thickening stems and branches as well as deeper root development. Not a huge deal if that isn't the case, I guess I'm just delusional or something, but I assume you disagree?

Click to expand...

I did look it up, and it really isn't a myth. Thanks for making me look!

Check out something called thigmomorphogenesis.

Actually i was referring to the law of moments

when you apply force (the fan) around a point of rotation (the bottom of the pot) the rotational force is multiplied according to distance from the point. ie a piss taking way of saying that taller things are easier to push over.

edit: thanks for the new word though, cool.

Its time to play 'WORD OF THE DAY!' ....'Thigmomorphogenesis' (Thanks)

Haha thanks guys! I know about the fans making stems stronger. I have a few fans in my house and I actually bought a small desk fan for them since it's a small grow. I'm not worried about C02 deprivation or smells. haha but thanks for the advice. Also I don't think I really want to start over on this one I'm two months in and i'd like to see what kind of yield I might expect if any. I'm not the type to do all that work for nothing. Also @Chronikool very good eye on not watering for a couple days I have watered them pretty heavy this week because of the compost tea I threw in there. I'm gonna let them soak it in for a few days. Sucks that their sex is still TBD. I'm growing a little anxious about that.