katastrofee
Member
ok so im on my first grow ever and have been using cfl's. Im close to 4 wks of flowering and my my buds still look pretty small. is this normal when growing with cfl's?
cfl question!
- Thread starter katastrofee
- Start date
KittenKiller
Well-Known Member
of course, buds have to grow, so they start out small. you must have just started flowering. Either get yourself a whole bunch of CFL's which add up to a total of around 200w of energy used (im not too sure of this, i have never done a complete CFL grow) or follow the more practical path of getting a 400w HPS. The latter will require you to buy at least a 400w ballast in order for the HPS to work but it is money well spent, and will pay off in the end due to the greater yield.
jact55
Well-Known Member
i have done 3 complete cfl grows using anywhere from 8-12 cfls, i have also used small hps lamps previous to these. this is my 4th cfl grow and i currently have 14 cfls plus two 4' long double bulb tubes on 4 plants about 1-2 feet tall and 5 plants about 5-8 inches tall all in 2-3 weeks of flower. I just bought a 400 watt hps cause even with this amount of wattage of cfl's (about 400 watts), i will probably still only yeild at best 1/2- 3/4 oz on the big ones and an 1/8th on the small ones. the quality of bud is good, but the yeild really isnt there. i still would suggest it for a first or secong time grower beacuse there is no heat issues and such. I would suggest finishing this grow out and seeing what happens. the major amount of bud growth happens in the last few weeks anyways. 4 weeks the bud will be pretty small, this is normal. good luck. i promise that the end result with cfl's will not leave you dissapointed, there are just better ways.
Gobias11
Active Member
It really depends on how many lights you have. Right now I have 8 85w CFLs on my grow, so it's a pretty good amount of light. 3 of the bulbs are vegetative and 5 are flowering. Here's a link to another post of mine with some pictures:
https://www.rollitup.org/2615958-post132.html
Don't be fooled, you can get some damn good results from using CFLs if you do it correctly and get enough light and good light penetration. Never too late to add some more. Good luck man
jact55
Well-Known Member
nice looking plant gobias. what are you expecting to yeild. i have never had eight lights on one plant, most is like 3-4. how long did you veg?
katostophie- this is a good exapmle of what will happen if you have a light on basically every major bud site. without this the cfls cant penetrate too far therefore missing alot of budsites. so the more lights the better
katostophie- this is a good exapmle of what will happen if you have a light on basically every major bud site. without this the cfls cant penetrate too far therefore missing alot of budsites. so the more lights the better
katastrofee
Member
Hey Gobias I think thats the best user name i have ever seen!!! Love AD! but anyway I have 1 plant with 2 65w(300w eq) 2700k cfl and 4 27w (100w eq) 6500 cfl. Is this enough light?
Gobias11
Active Member
Not sure on the yield. That's only one plant but I got a lot of light on it so I'm hoping it's anywhere upwards of an oz or 1.5oz. I vegged it for like 6 weeks because it got a little sick in the beginning so it needed an extra week or so to make up for that period of time. But I honestly have no idea how much will come off it.
Gobias11
Active Member
Haha, thanks man. "Gobias, as in 'Go buy us a cup of coffee.'" Arrested Development is the best show ever, I make everyone I know watch it. There is a movie coming out, I can't wait.
It wouldn't hurt to add more lights, especially at the 2700k spectrum, that's the one for flowering. A general rule of thumb I've come across in CFL grows is that you can never really have too much light. For me, my growing limitation is space, so I only have 3 6500k lights for vegetation and 5 2700k for blooming.
I don't know what your grow room situation or limitations are like, but the best thing you could do would be to compliment your CFLs with a small HPS light, like 150w or something, that's what I'm looking to do for my next grow. That type of light is just hands-down better for blooming, but depending on how much HPS lighting you have it could bring issues of heating and ventilation.
If you stick with the CFLs I would go out and grab some Y-splitters for light sockets from a hardware store and the biggest, best flowering CFLs you can find and just try to saturate that thing in light. Good luck man.
katastrofee
Member
thx bro! this is my first grow ever so im not to worried about yeild. Im more into the potency rite now! I cant wait for the movie to come out bro! its gonna be halarious!!! ima get a pic of my girl soon and get it on here so let me know what you think.
Gobias11
Active Member
Definitely do that. There are a lot of knowledgeable people on this site, but also a lot that don't know shit so be wary of information you may come across.
GrowFAQ is awesome if you have questions about the basics.
I would recommend trying to add some more flowering lights, it will help to improve the potency of the bud and it will ensure that they are getting sufficient amounts of light.
Mysticlown150
Well-Known Member
14 cfl's is a lot of light lol. cfl's are addicting though once you buy some everyday you think, "maybe i should get more".
katastrofee
Member
katastrofee
Member
katastrofee
Member
thx! I hope so! how much longer do u think ill need to flower until i harvest?
Roseman
Elite Rolling Society
Roseman
Elite Rolling Society
You can't really determine anything by number of bulbs. You need to go by amount of LUMENS or WATTS.
Look at this:
CFL Tutorial -
katastrofee
Member
i know this is a different topic but I have 3 seeds that I soaked in a shot glass for a day and they cracked open (just enough to see the root)I put them into some peat pellets and its been almost 3days and still no sprout. Did I do something wrong?