Will This be Enough?

8 lowryder #2 in a 1.5 x 2.5 space. I have 8 23w cfls rated at 1600 lumens, and 2 32w at 2100 lumens. All 2700k... all bulbs placed evenly across the space with aluminum taped diy reflectors.

Will this much light work for me? How many lumens per sq foot do I have?

imho, you dont have enough room for 8 girls. To answer the question though, no, not enough light for 8 plants. Not enough if you want to yield anything. If it means/shows you anything, I'm using 14 (26w) and 2 (65w) cfl's for 3 plants, and I'm guessing maybe 1-1.5oz yield per plant with the amount of light I have.

They ain't cheap, but here's some 85w CFL from Amazon.

6500k for vegging:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002ZPHXU8?tag=tomosgard-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=B002ZPHXU8&adid=1XCBFNRN545EE0E37GM2

2700k for flowering:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003YO0VRQ?tag=tomosgard-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=B003YO0VRQ&adid=1V1RDJ3HHMRE7YXWAW7R

You don't have near enough space for 8 plants. Last indoor grow I was involved with had a 10x10 room and 6 plants took up the whole damn thing. It was overgrown. You have 3.75 square feet. Thats enough for 1 - maybe 2 plants if you veg for 6 weeks. They are gonna double in size when you flower them. Not necessarily height - but just sheer bulk. All the branches are gonna double in length. All the leaves are gonna double. You're going to have fan leaves everywhere and barely even see the center of the plants. Best you can hope for in the center is popcorn size buds - hundreds of them. You might get a few nice tops out of a plant - close to the light - but everything else is gonna be popcorn size at best. It's a lot of work to trim and clip all those leaves off when it comes time to harvest and dry.

If you want to maximize those 3.75 square feet, get a sh*t load more lights - get higher wattage CFL's - and go with 1 or 2 plants. Use LST method and spread them out - lay em down and branch em out. Keep em short and bushy.

I'm doing essentially the same thing with roughly the same space. I'm going to have 2 plants and I'm going to top the living sh*t out of them and lay them out LST crazy style. I have (4) 23w CFL's at the moment, but I'm switching to those 85w bulbs in a couple weeks. I'm also putting a 175w metal halide in there. Eventually, the CFL's will be on the walls and the halide will be on the top.

There's also a method that some people are doing where you pluck the big fan leaves out. Not the medium leave or the bud leaves - just the fan leaves. They shadow the bottom of the plants into near darkness. Seen it with my own eyes on plants that were vegged 3 months under dual 1000w halides. I found some good reading here about taking the fan leaves out. I might not go so extreme that I remove ALL of them, but I'll certainly be taking out at least 50% of the big fan leaves to help expose the center/inside parts of the plant to more light.

Good luck. Be realistic. Cut back on the number of plants and double or triple your lights. I'd rather grow 2 nice plants and get a good yield than 8 plants with sucky yield because they were too crowded.

the links poordad gave you might have told you this, but I didn't see it directly stated. All of my reading has led me to believe that vegging should be done predominantly under 6500k lights, with a mix of about 20-25% 2700k, and it's basically exactly vice versa for flowering but flowering is done with 12 hours dark. Just wanted to make sure you were clear on it, good luck, I'll be watching!

EDIT: Poordad, that last part about plucking the large fan leaves confuses me-couldn't the fan leaves photosynthesize the light just as well as the parts you're uncovering, maybe even more due to the inverse square law?

I don't know man. I'm a total newb here. I've just been reading and reading and reading and ........

Found a few threads/articles that say you can get rid of the fan leaves because they shade the plant and it takes unnecessary energy to grow those big leaves.... energy that could be going towards branches and bud sites. The idea was you start training the plants early in life to live without fan leaves. Do it from the beginning. Not like you can take an almost mature plant and pluck all the fan leaves off just before you flip it to flowering - that would fuk it up and stress it out.

I'll try to find some links to those threads.

I'm going to veg under predominantly 6500k and just a couple small 2700k for kickers. And switch to exactly opposite for flowering. Mostly 2700k and maybe 1 or 2 6500k bulbs just for light intensity.

Here's a link offering valid arguments AGAINST removing fan leaves:

Link>> https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/177400-removing-fan-leaves.html

Can't find the same links I read the other day where they said to remove them all. Still searching..........

I'm not making an argument either way or trying to act like I know what I'm doing - because I DON'T. Just trying to help - putting information out there for people to read. Read and do what works for you and your grow.

cool thanks man, I'm totally new too, been checkin' out your thread with GREAT interest as we have very similar setups it looks like, my thread's near the top of page two now but I'm gonna have to bump it later tonight with more pics, it's called "first grow-diary of a "growing" obsession". Excited to see how both of our first crops turn out, maybe the small differences in our setups will show one of us an avenue of improvement for the 2nd try?

I found the thread on removing fan leaves. It's called - funny enough - defoliation. Who wuuda thunk it?

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=174163

Here is another one:
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=100749&highlight=size+matters&page=3

I'm just reading. I like the theory of defoliation. I might try it. I got nothing to lose.

hey guys Locdawg here,

I happen to be still pretty new at this too. I thought i'd offer up some practical application wisdom with the whole "removing fan leaves" discussion. I have had great luck with doing this when I was trying to grow single cola style grow. Dont know what that is? Heres a pic View attachment 1625337 this method is best for trying this style of growing. I have read of people perfecting this method and pulling behemoth single cola's weighing in around 56 grams dry. last one i did was just under an ounce at 24 grams dry. not too bad for one plant grown under cfls.

my suggestion is to do what you both have been doing and keep reading then make a decision as to what type or style of grow do you want and use the applicable technique. what you will find on this site is that there is no one right way to grow weed its a personal preference as to what works best for you. here's an example to lend credence to that school of thought. people said dont grow in miracle grow soil "it wont work"... "plant will be shitty" the truth of the matter is even MG works and it works well, so well that it is my preferred soil for starting and raising seedlings. 1. because it gives an even dosage of feedings to young plants and the nutrients only last 3 weeks if you aren't flushing the soil, which I do!! Of course right before inducing flowering I switch them to an organic soiless mix( cocoa coir and pearlite) and hand feed water saluable nutes from then on flushing the last two weeks of flowering. this method has worked for me... you dont have to be brave to try it either. alls you do(if you are growing more then one plant) is try this method on one of them the one you assume wont be your best yielder. if it works for you then try it again. that plant is not mine just a pic I found on Google to give the idea of what I was talking about.

thanks for letting me weigh in with my opinion,

Locdawg

"Stay Faded"

I never thought about pruning and lillipopping for just a single cola. Thats an interesting idea for sure. Can you imagine the potency of a single cola that finished out 30-50grams dry weight?