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Leggy plants?

lazienfat

lazienfat

Hi Guys,
I have a few different types of grow lights but the most expensive one seems to be producing leggy plants. This is about four inch's tall. I have a fan that runs on it for a about an hour a day but its been nice enough to put it outside for several hours now. Is there anything I can do to make a leggy plant thicken up?

ZTzT4.jpg
 
Put the light closer. Looks like a T5, am I right? They run pretty cool and you can probably make the top leaves touch the bulb without any harm.
 
Wow good eye its a T5 alright, the plant and aquarium lights from walmart seen to be working better lol.Thanks for the advise, I just lowed the light! I was surprised how cool they run. I purchased a 60w grow bulb that fits into a normal fixture and it pumps out heat like crazy.
 
They are still so young. Maybe put a little air flow if your worried about leggy plants. It should thicken it up a bit.
 
lazienfat said:
I purchased a 60w grow bulb that fits into a normal fixture and it pumps out heat like crazy.
Click to expand...

I assume it's an incandescent? They kick out WAY too much heat for the amount of light you'll get. You'll be much better off with a compact fluorescent. Look for one in the 6500-7000k range. You can grab cheap multipacks at the big box hardware stores for a couple bucks per bulb. And then, as others have already mentioned, get them close, within inches of the plants.
 
Thanks for the advice, yeah the second line of hot peppers I've been growing under a cheap set of plant and aquarium bulbs and they are not leggy at all. In fact the roots of the plants are already growing out of the bottom of the pots and I'm moving them into something larger today. I have not used any fertilizer until last week. There are not many threads about fertilizer but I did find a lot of useful information on this site and just gave them some Alaskan fish fertilizer and put some bone mill on the top of the soil. I put these in pots just over a month ago, I suppose I need to be patient.
nuE9i.jpg
 
How can I check the color temperature to find out if its 6500K? For the T5 all I can tell you is what is says on the top, 54W, 120V & 0.85A. I was thinking about purchasing a HPS bulb as I understand they make plants grow like crazy! Do you know if they work well for peppers?
 
HPS have a higher energy consumption, put out much more heat, and can be very bad for the eyes, but they do work. I am using a 600W system on my plants.
 
lazienfat said:
How can I check the color temperature to find out if its 6500K? For the T5 all I can tell you is what is says on the top, 54W, 120V & 0.85A. I was thinking about purchasing a HPS bulb as I understand they make plants grow like crazy! Do you know if they work well for peppers?
Click to expand...

Unless you plan on raising pods indoors I would skip the HPS and stick with the T5 for seedling starts.

Get the part # from the bulb and Google it and you'll soon know their temp.
 
Yeah you were right my T5 is 6500K. I suppose I'll hold off on the HPS for now. But I did some work and set up another plant and aquarium light and transplanted my plants to larger containers. I dont want to take the time to re-size my photos but check this album out:

http://imgur.com/a/04D55/peppers

1st:is some of the peppers under the plant and aquarium bulbs
2nd: the T5 outcome :X most are super leggy and the leaves died but they are still alive and growing somehow
3rd: how my set up looks
4th: only 2 out of 7 of the plants under the T5 look good
 
Those pics look strange. Never seen the first true setof leaves become that leggy. If plants are getting leggy from lack of light its usually right away. They look the right height up to the cotyldons. Those light are very low too. Very weird...... I can't help you. The other weird thing is the plants are growing lots of leaves but the leaves are all staying small.
 
All of those single bulb fixtures?

Dunno why your T5 isn't performing because it should be putting out more light than the others. Maybe the reflector isn't optimal.

How many hours are the lights on?
 
Yeah I know I put those in pots a month ago and I'm looking at peoples grow logs and they say "8 days later" and the plants are huge. That confused the hell outta me, thats why I started to fertilize them and thought about getting a HPS bulb.
 
The T5 is a single bulb and the the plant and aq. bulbs are doubled up. Its a Hydro Farm reflector, I keep the lights on from 8am to 12pm. Also one thing is I keep the temp. at a minimum of 70 degrees, think that could have anything to do with it?
 
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