Gastanker...
Thanks again for replying...
Could I bother you for just a little more info?
As I'm just learning (noob) about these lights ...the watering, nutes, soils, etc.. I've already learned well enough from the hps lighting side.
I'm guessing those things will pretty much stay the same?
I was going to ask about side lighting, but your last photo showed a good shot for that problem, ...pretty cool.
I like how you hang some of them on indiviual lines!
What are you using for the side reflection? Is that just foil, or mylar?
Could you please share some info on the particular bulbs?
I'm getting all sorts of info off the board here but nothing really straight forward.
The only thing I have learned so far would be that one use's 2700k for flowering and 6500k for veg.???
Is this correct info?
I've also seen the 23 - 24 watt range alot, but also seen some mention as high as 125 watt.
What kind of wattages are you using for the particular stages?
Is running the cfl's cheaper, and less draw on the circuit?
Right now I have a heater, humidifier, and the hps light hooked up and if I hook in one more item the breaker trips.
Now this is not a dedicated line, so there are other things also running off the circuit.
Will using the cfl's stop this problem ...or at least be less of a strain on the circuit?
I know it probably depends on how many bulbs are used, and that would lead to the last question...
How many will I need to sucessfully grow say 4 plants?
I see in one shot you're doing 6 with 7 bulbs?
Thanks!
6500k for veg 2700k for flower - for flowering I would recommend a mixed spectrum of 3:1 2700k:6500k
I was using a mixture of 23w and 68w bulbs.
Wattage choices can be difficult. The higher the wattage of the light the higher the lumen output for a single light source. Due to how how light scatters and the inverse square law single higher lumen sources are more effective at greater distances than lower lumen bulbs.
So if you have a 150w CFL that puts off 8,200 lumen then 2ft away it will be delivering 2050 lumen. So technically you could veg a plant with this bulb 2ft away.
A 23w bulb 2ft away however would only be putting out 400 lumen which is pretty much useless.
That said what really is important is lux as I hope you will never have your bulbs further away than 6" max.
6.5 23w cfls (150w total) puts out 10,400 lux versus the 8,200 of the 150w bulb and allows you to get more of the light closer to each part of the plant.
Hanging a 150w bulb 6" from the canopy would provide the canopy great light, the sides crappy light, and the bottoms very little light - leaves block areas as you travel down and the inverse square law decreasing the lights power as it travels. Now if you used 6 23w bulbs the entire plant can receive equal lighting and you lose less of the lights power due to close proximity. ****
****For dense buds you need a minimum amount of lux at each area of the plant ~ 4000. This means you would need at least 3 of the 23w bulb for the canopy and three for each lower portion you want to light up. If you were using higher wattage bulbs you might only need a single bulb per area you want illuminated - like those 68w bulbs I was using. So if you had 4 23w bulbs and no others I would tell you to put them all at the top and trim the rest of the buds off the plant everywhere else. If you have 6 I would say put 3 at the top and 3 in the middle and then trim everything lower than that. If you had 9 I would suggest 3 at the top, 3 towards the middle and 3 towards the bottom. Does this make sense?
CFLs seems to pull a little less than what they are rated at. But watts is watts - 500w of CFL is equal to 500w of hps. If I were you I would remove the heater from the equation. Space heaters pull 800-1800w which is a ton - same as a couple big lights.
