cfl lights
- Thread starter mjamer321
- Start date
shadyslater
Well-Known Member
posting pics is always good bro
and the more light the better mate, if your gonna stay with small cfl's (under 65w) get the 24w if you can and pls get them fookers close man 2" away maybe less
and the more light the better mate, if your gonna stay with small cfl's (under 65w) get the 24w if you can and pls get them fookers close man 2" away maybe less
Smokenpassout
Well-Known Member
Invest in a four pack of 5000k 23 watt CFL's from Walmart. Start with one for a new sprout. Get it very close. CFL's should be no more than two inches away, and 1" to 1/2 is ideal!!! Add more keeping proximity close and slowly surround the plant as it grows. I'd start looking into some of the big 100 actual watt CFL's as you hit week 3 or so. It will save you from having 8 to 10 bulbs around.
No, it will not be viable for the entire grow. I started with 6 or so 23 watt cfl bulbs and the vegetative grow process was incredibly slow. The flowering seemed to take months to even show some progress.
It was utterly disappointing.
I know you probably don't want to put any investment in but I would highly recommend some sort of a HID light. You can get a nice setup for a little over 100.00 dollars and it works like magic compared to cfls.
The difference when using a HID is astounding and by the time you buy all those extra bulbs, Y spliters etc, you will end up spending almost as much and have a mass of extension cords, power bars and such.
I am new also but learned that the number one thing you need to be concerned with is proper lighting. One cfl isn't going to do it. I tried going that route at first also and just wasted a bunch of money and my time due to slow growth and buying more and more bulbs.
Check this out, or something similar. The come with everything, including a metal halide bulb for vegetative growth and a high pressure sodium bulb for flowering. The power bill increase is almost not noticible.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/250w-Digital-Dimmable-Ballast-95-Wing-Reflector-250-Watt-HPS-MH-Grow-Light-Kit-/140968908427?pt=US_Hydroponics&hash=item20d266d68b
Good luck
It was utterly disappointing.
I know you probably don't want to put any investment in but I would highly recommend some sort of a HID light. You can get a nice setup for a little over 100.00 dollars and it works like magic compared to cfls.
The difference when using a HID is astounding and by the time you buy all those extra bulbs, Y spliters etc, you will end up spending almost as much and have a mass of extension cords, power bars and such.
I am new also but learned that the number one thing you need to be concerned with is proper lighting. One cfl isn't going to do it. I tried going that route at first also and just wasted a bunch of money and my time due to slow growth and buying more and more bulbs.
Check this out, or something similar. The come with everything, including a metal halide bulb for vegetative growth and a high pressure sodium bulb for flowering. The power bill increase is almost not noticible.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/250w-Digital-Dimmable-Ballast-95-Wing-Reflector-250-Watt-HPS-MH-Grow-Light-Kit-/140968908427?pt=US_Hydroponics&hash=item20d266d68b
Good luck
Ringsixty
Well-Known Member
Post pics is highly recommended, if you want a decent answer.
Want a decent grow? Minimum 100 true watts per plant.
Happy growing
justanotherbozo
Well-Known Member
...stick with the 23s and 26watters as they will give you the best bang for your buck and forget the 'equivalent' numbers as they are useless to you and only serve to confuse the issue, the ACTUAL wattage is the number that matters.
peace, bozo
peace, bozo
justanotherbozo
Well-Known Member
no, no side lights and in fact i upgraded to HPS long ago, CFLs are a great place for beginners to get into the game but once you get some experience you'll want to move up to HID.Hey bozo do you use side lighting with them? And are they photos or autos and average yield per plant if you dont mind, Thanks
...and all my plants are photoperiodic, no auto's in my garden thank you very much, lol.
as for yield, well, back then i was running a high-density micro-SOG with 4x 7gallon DWCs, each with 8 plantlets and each with it's own CFL lightbar with approx. 200watts per bar and where i was pulling one DWC every 2 weeks and averaging approx. 4zipz per DWC. ...it was a LOT of fucking work!
now i grow 8 plants in 6liter coco hempy buckets around a single 600HPS and while i'm only yielding about a lb per cycle it is WAY less work, by orders of magnitude less. ...my grow is so easy and relaxed now it almost feels like cheating!
peace, bozo
Twizzlor
Active Member
Im at the point now where I want to upgrade
Im a noob myself and using cfl's just because I didnt know any better and everything else was crazy cost, well after spending prob close to what I could have got its not that bad in price anymore lol. Flowering takes a little bit of extra time and yields are less from what I understand with CFL's. Extra time in flowring has really messed me up right now but its all good I know what to do to fix it next run buy a better light and a CF with a bigger grow space. Im gonna stick with soil for now though, Ill give it maybe like 3 more full grows in soil and bump up my style to something different just to really learn how their life cycle is.
justanotherbozo
Well-Known Member
...take a look at coco hempy buckets and i think you'll be impressed.Im at the point now where I want to upgrade
peace, bozo
Twizzlor
Active Member
Hmm Hmm Hmmm... I just read a quick thread on another site and id be lying if I said I wasnt impressed thus far. Thanks for the info I may retract my soil statement made prior.
justanotherbozo
Well-Known Member
...coco hempy's are the shit man, they are braindead easy to run and extremely effective, frankly, i wish i'd found them when i first started out, it would have saved me years of aggravation.
...there are several hempy threads here on RIU so it will be easy to find information on how to set them up and how to run them, hell, here is Moebius' thread and it will not only teach you several ways to approach the topic, it will also lead you to most of the inhouse hempy threads.
World Of Hempy
peace, bozo