Home depot light bulbs

For those who ask what a good cheap easy to get light is here is your solution. Not the top of the line 1000w HPS but definently can get you through all stages good.
The Home Depot

yes very cheap and easy.. good timers. they have the clamp fixtures for cfl's that reflect the ligth very well.. you can see them below.. and they are cheap. i was only able to find soft white CFL's here.. don't know if they are good or bad.. still waiting on an answer

these are the fixures i speak of hanging ABOVE my plants:

very versatile.

Does that link work for anyone? If not type in High pressure sodium in the search and click on the 400watt one

Types: CFL's come in mainly two flavors, Soft White (color temperature 2700k) and Daylight (color temperature 6500k). For a complete grow, you should use both. Soft white mimics the spectrum of a HPS light, and is best suited for flowering. Daylight's color spectrum is like that of metal halide lights, and is excellent for the vegetative stage. (This applies to tubes too. Around 6500k for veg, around 2700k for flower.) There are also tubes labeled plant and aquarium. I haven't seen them in CFL form, but they have no real color temp, so I'm not sure on their efficiency, but I've used them and it's rather slow growth for the watts.
-There is a large difference in vegetative growth when going from soft white to daylight. Therefore I recommend you use daylight CFL's for vegging, even if you are flowering with a HPS light, because they do not stretch the plants. You don't need much light for good veg growth, especially when using 6500k CFL's.

i prefer top of the line 1000W HPS

Russ.. get those CFLs less than 1 inch from your plants...

they are but raised for the purpose of the pic

russ0r said:

they are but raised for the purpose of the pic

Click to expand...

SWEET!!!!!!!!!!!!

my bad!!!

IMHO floros are useless. i had my plants under some floros for like 4 weeks and the plants only grew a coupla inches. then i hooked up my 400w MH and the plants started to grow hella fast. floros are lame for vegging

Garden Knowm said:

SWEET!!!!!!!!!!!!

my bad!!!

Click to expand...

its all gravy, i gear it all the time when i take pics cuz if i dont move the lights my camera sees the plant as glowing entities.

crickitmd said:

MHO floros are useless. i had my plants under some floros for like 4 weeks and the plants only grew a coupla inches. then i hooked up my 400w MH and the plants started to grow hella fast. floros are lame for vegging

Click to expand...

i agree my cfl's are slow at vegging. however some people dont have a choice... hps lighting systems have more to it than someone that wants a small personal operation, the reason i cant have one is heat... i have no way to get the heat out safely unless i cut a hole in the side of my house and put an exaust fan there. (grow in my closet) doors have to be shut.

https://www.rollitup.org/marijuana-pics/index.php?n=215

this was grown using CFLs

iloveyou

that makes me feel very confident about my operation, thank you!
how many lumens did the plant get?

There were 3 plants sharing 8 - 42 watt CFLs (about 3000 lumens per light)... The CFLs were all less than 1 inch from the plants...

so, you had some above the tops and some for sidelight?

https://www.rollitup.org/marijuana-pics/index.php?n=216

notice how close the lights are.. Yes I burned many leaves.. but it was worth it.. About 10 small burns.. half the size of a penny each.

and NOW you KNOWM

I wish i had your skills, my plants are about 1/5th the size of that and aover 1 month old. im going to see what i can do about more of those big bulbs that are just like yours. and 6 for 1 plant, i have 3 healthy ones, maybe this is why i am vegging so slow.

p.s. i like the video cam idea, right now i just take pics and compare them to older ones.

Russ. Try and surround your bulbs with your plants.. rather than surrounding your plants with bulbs.. Make sense?

iloveyou

i think i get you. but feel free to elaborate

if you're going to go for CFL's, get the 100w (home depot/fluorex) or the 125w from a hydro shop. the small bulbs seem like a real waste of time comparitively.
you can get around 4500 lumens out of 2x 4 foot tubes, around 7000 lumens from the 100/125 w versions. bonus for the 100/125? very little heat production. true, you won't get the amazing growth possible when you use a light source that outputs 9-15 times the lumens, but you will get strong, dense, compact growth, 1/8" internode spacing !!!! and you can basically stick the lights about 3 inches off the tops. try that with a 1000w HID..
i cannot recommend using the smaller, incandescent type bulbs though. wasted energy, heat, etc.. for minimal usable lumens.
either go with the 4 footers or the high output 70 or 100 w yard security lights.. i think walmart carries them too. people frequently use them to light up flagpoles...

my nodes are about that close to eachother.