Need a new cloning light

[PigSquishy]

Recently I tried to buy a new 6500K CFL bulb for my light and to buy a couple of new CFL Hoods, couldn't find any at the stores so of coarse I went online directly to the companies I commonly deal with. The first store everything I was looking at page after page kept saying "OUT OF STOCK". Frustrated I went to my next company, made my order got a confirmation of my order.. after a week of waiting I called to see why I hadn't heard back yet, my order was cancelled no reason given. I went through another company which gets things directly from the manufacture, which means I wait until the product is made and then it gets shipped, so I have a longer lead time on getting things. After a couple of weeks of waiting I checked back with them, my order was cancelled, they tell me it was cancelled from the manufactures side and any questions need to be directed to Hydro Grow and they gave me the manufactures directly number.

While on the phone with them, I learned from the agent I was speaking with he's been working for them for 20+ years, I was so happy to finally feel like I was going to get some answers. They cancelled my order for now just the CFL lighting hoods, but also the CFL bulbs. He told me that he doesn't honestly know what's going on, the company is now looking at coming up with new lighting to replace the long list of lights they will no longer be making moving forward, and if I wanted those lights or bulbs hunt them down while they still exist online because once they are gone, there is not going to be anymore made by anyone. WHY? He goes on to tell me it's not the companies choice on this matter, but the laws have changed and they are phasing out all CFL bulbs and fluorescent lights across the board not just for their company, but everyone, once they are gone that's it. What's previously been made is all that you are going to get, so stock up now or invest in something new. Which led me to okay, what lighting do you have which is taking their place.. to which he told me to look for LED, but as of this point they are currently working on coming up with something new.

I have LED panels, they are seriously bright and when I've tried to clone under them, my clones are cooked into nothing within 24-hrs, even at the maximum heights I can get them. That's why I've always gone with some variation of 6500K fluorescents and had everything setup to work accordingly. Now suddenly I am supposed to switch to a new lighting and I am clueless for a new cloning light, which brings me here to humbly ask for others help to address my issue.

I thought perhaps a cheap LED panel would be the way to go, and I decided to start doing my digging into other companies that make a cheap LED panel that perhaps won't cook my clones in mere hours. I stumbled upon a company Mars Hydro, and then I found their video on YouTube "We Are Mars Hydro". Watching their video, knowing what I know about all kinds of topics I was simply HORRIFIED at what I was seeing in their video telling you about their company. If I needed a reminder of why I will only buy from reputable trusted companies outside of China, that video defiantly scared me right down to the bone. "Our customers complained our lights were causing fires, and so we checked and found that we needed to use an industry standard plastic so our plugs shouldn't melt now" (2:38-Timestamp). That is seriously just one part of the video of their own actual words that terrifies me to the core. I'm not asking anyone to believe me on this, hence why I reference the video so you can watch it for yourself and not take my word for it, as I'm not bashing the company.. I'm bashing the sheer fact that they made a product and sold a product that customers had to tell them caused actual fires, and then hearing enough customers complain about it, they took steps to research it and then change it to inspire customer confidence in them now. That was just one of the things they said in that video about their company that terrified me, and why I am not interested in saving money on buying anything that's cheap or not by a trustworthy company. I'm only even including this, as I want to be clear of the quality of products I'm interested in buying, and I'm not interested in anything that could cause me a fire and to burn everything down so 'I can save some money'.

*** After posting this, I continued to research and try to find more information to help me, post below. I think I may know how to solve my own problem, but I'm leaving this posted in the hopes of helping others.

[9fingerleafs]

Should go to a home Depot or a similar store. Get a single household bulb (20watts cfl or 9watt led) and a cheap desktop lamp that you can aim down at the floor. That will do the trick. Any desktop lamp will work. Even those small LEDs made for reading or a night light for kids. don't waste too much money in a big brand fixture for such a simple thing. I'm not saying you can save a few bucks. I'm saying it is a waste of money because you could leave your clones in a bathroom or any room with the ceiling light on and they will clone. A simple household lamp it's not going to burn down you house either

what I do is place the clones in the floor next to the big pots that are under strong lights. Just the light bouncing around the room hitting indirectly to the clones is enough for them to root.

[90Gizmo]

Well the thing is that plugs aren't supposed to get hot. If their answer was to change the plastic then I'm glad I buy cheap Chinese lights instead.

[PigSquishy]

After asking my question, I went scouring Google for any possible answers to see if I could possibly find anything else on my own to contribute to the topic. I found one person saying to use a piece of cardboard over the top of the plastic cloning dome, for those using a seed starter tray, or otherwise suspend it over the clones so no light can reach the plants from the top. The person went on to explain that doing so, prevents the clone from continuing further growth upwards, thus kicking into wanting to make new roots and not continuing to attempt further leaf growth. Another person commented that you want to just use light from your Veg area drifting from that area indirectly to your clones for a solid 5-7 days before you even put clones under any direct light, including a T-5 fluorescent. The other comment I found that is possibly useful someone stated not to use more than a 20-30 watt LED light on clones.

While all of this information seems very useful, including the above comment on the CFL bulb idea above, perhaps the one thing that can and will possibly help me the most that I also stumbled upon researching, was people referring to PAR and LUX meters, was someone commented about an App you can download on your phone instead of having to buy one of those meters, that just uses the camera on your phone. I've never wasted the money to buy one of those meters, as I've never understood them enough to know how to use them to make them worth the money. So I checked one of the App's out that I found, which I liked the best as it gives you the ability to select your specific type of lighting used, surprisingly it even listed the three types of LED panels and explained how to determine which one you are using. I had to spend $6 to get it to read MH, but if it works and can help me, I felt it would be a worth while investment. Then I started using it to see if I could actually do anything with it or was it a complete waste of my money?

Recently after killing another batch of clones, one wasn't completely dead yet somehow, so I had put it down on the Veg Room floor as I was shuffling things around, and while I was trying to understand this new information which I'm posting now, and trying to understand and record the different readings at different heights of the plants. I stumbled upon my lonely single clone that wasn't completely dead yet and I had moved and then forgotten about. To my shocking surprise it has roots! The light measurements at the floor level where the clone sprouted roots are: 9.8 PAR .. 0.7 DLI (Daily Light Integral). They have a spot for you to select the hours (18-hrs) so I'm guessing that's also important to note here.

Perhaps I have been going about this problem all wrong, maybe instead of thinking I need a specific light to solve my problems, maybe what I really need is to understand more about PAR and DLI and use the lighting I already have to make my clones grow roots. If a the right size piece of cardboard creating shade would solve my problem, just by understanding my problem from a different approach, what a blessing that would be. Since I asked the question here, I wanted to share what I'm finding as I continue to dig for my answer(s) here and perhaps have others with more of an understanding to all of this be able to help me make more sense of it all.

*** I just went and looked up DLI here on this site in their overwhelming wealth of information, I understand what I need to know now and I wish I would have read that article previously. Only time will tell now if I truly understand what I think I do.

[SoOrbudgal]

KISS whewww

[90Gizmo]

PigSquishy I hope you choose Photone; I can help you with that if you need it. Whatever, you're going to love it! It makes setting the right intensity for your lights so easy and simple... you won't worry about your lights ever again.

[PigSquishy]

I just love how people are so quick to rush to KISS.. I chalk it right up there with Silent Quitting.. and all those other keyboard warriors of unlimited knowledge on everything, without ever having done the first bit of research on anything; but where blessed with the ability to wake up and suddenly just know the secrets of the universe one day to put the rest of us to shame with their wealth of unlimited knowledge.

Years ago, I was sitting there talking to a cannabis grower who was telling me all about growing and how all you need is some water and sunlight to grow cannabis and anyone who ever claims you need anything else doesn't know their head from a hole in the ground. Because I am an avid gardener, I stood up and disagreed with them, oh I may know plants, but cannabis isn't a garden plant so I am dumb and don't know nothing. Finally I got upset enough to prove my point, if they weren't going to listen to facts in words, I would bring more than words to the table to prove my point. When I very first started growing my very first round of growing I rolled one up and went to go pay them a visit, I expected one single person to be there.. there ended up being six people there.. I had only rolled one. Well I did make the drive out to see them, couldn't rush back to go get more.. I was committed and so it got lit and passed around.. and I never said a word about it.. I'd let the facts speak for themselves. People begin to comment on the overwhelming powerful taste, it was rich, it was smooth like the smoke was passing through ice water; despite it just being a joint. When the effects hit, the compliments started going to him, how he really stepped up his game a lot, how this is seriously some of the best top shelf stuff they've ever had or smoked in all their years. I sat there listening, not saying a word. I let him have to tell them, it wasn't his it was mine and that this was my first ever cannabis grow.. you know the guy who doesn't know his head from a hole in the ground.

He had been growing for a long time and my first ever grow put anything he'd ever grown to shame.. and that's when the endless questions started, all that information from places I've read from places like here which is nothing more than a bunch of endless hogwash that doesn't amount to anything, how I needed to follow KISS, and all that endless garbage I'd taken for years. Yeah, all ended after one joint and six people smoking on it, in the end all I had to say to prove my point was I guess "knowledge and understanding truly does make a difference, huh?". I don't care about what someone believes, but at the end of the day I'm willing to stand up and prove my point with facts and let the facts speak for themselves. I'm not saying I'm the best, or even that I know everything.. for I am proud and happy to admit "I KNOW NOTHING".. because it means I'm keeping my mind open to learn everything about what I know or think I know.. I'm open to hearing others opinions as I strive to learn more to become a better grower.

90Gizmo as a mater of fact I did choose Photone as my one of the two Apps I download.. and within five minutes of checkout of both of the Apps, I realized it was truly the only one which was geared to my needs as a plant grower. I bought the MH filter and then it wanted me to make the Diffusor, and thankfully I had the right kind of printer paper on hand they were asking for.. and then I put it to use my very first time. Hands down I can truthfully say it is an amazing App I wished I had stumbled upon sooner.. WOW! I would really appreciate learning more about this App, I've tried using it for a short period one day, and then I had to go learning about DLI and when I went to a professional grower I personally know to ask for more help in understanding how this all works, he told me he doesn't use such items and a good grower should be able to read the leaves of the plant without needing to read the numbers on a meter to figure it out. I can read my leaves without a meter, but somehow I truly do feel that I could honestly benefit from a deeper understanding of using such equipment. If you have the time please feel free to private message me, I'd love to learn everything you can teach me about the meter.

[SoOrbudgal]

Yes please go back to the basics. It's not rocket science growing weed but some like to over complecate it.

[90Gizmo]

PigSquishy So if you have any specific questions please ask. My eyes are so bad I don't want to go off writing random notes. The first thing with Photone or any product that asks you to select your light source is that it's not a real par meter. It scales an intensity reading against a typical spectrum for that light source and converts that into a par value. That's okay, the scaling works well enough. But both your lamp and phone sensor may vary from Photone's stored models so calibrate Photone to your lamp's published ppfd map. I use the app in DLI mode and raise/lower or change the brightness on my lamp to match. One question I never got an answer for is where to measure DLI. Top of canopy of top of apical cola? I figured that I would set it for the overall canopy top and let the apical cola get overexposed. then on the second grow i went on to learn how to train my plants so that all of the colas were the same height. Find a DLI chart you like. If you're growing photos remember to change your lighting hours in the app when you flip. When you do that you'll see why some growers think you need very bright lights. Not so much for autos which give you more hours to give the light. Hope that helps.

[SoOrbudgal]

Clone/seedling station

[Ckbrew]

TLDR- I use a SF 2000 for cloning, successfully.

[Phlash]

For cloning 9fingerleafs & SoOrbudgal hit the nail on the head, you don’t need anything but a light source to maintain the vegetative cycle while the plant is in this process, I use an led bulb in a clamp light with a timer and this has worked flawlessly for years. Strain, age and location of cutting depending, it’s normally 7-14days to have viable rooting.