How often to replace cfl's?

Just wondering how often do you replace your bulbs?I use them mainly for the blue spec with my hps.Thanks in advance.I stick said every grow or three months,that seems alittle extreme to me.Stay Safe!!

Id say you could get through 2 veg cycles on the same bulbs, but Im no expert
I do know that with the CFL UVB bulbs, the amount of UVB light emitted degrades exponentially after 6 months, I would imagine the light output of other similar CFL lights, UVB or no, would be around the same period of time. But dont take my word for it, as I dont know for sure

Every 6 months , They are still good for lamps and lighting but not good for plants after that time .. 6 months of use not age

Both my flowering cfl and my vegging one have a rated useable life time of 6000 hours peace

Wow,I thought cfl's lasted longer then hid's.Makes me wonder why people would use cfl's with such a short life.Thanks people.I know these alot more cfl growers out there,please share,how long people?Thanks again.

What I dont understand is the people who still use lack of money or space as an excuse to use all CFL's, when you can get that 150W HPS set-up for $20, and it requires very little space and generates little more heat than my CFL set-up did. Of course, I am still supplementing with CFL lighting

If you use different CFL's for Veg and Grow, as you're supposed to, then you should be able to get through at least 2 grows before replacement, since you'll only have the blues on through veg and red through grow, so really they arent even being used all that long.

I smoke pot,yea i know what you're saying,the small hps's kick the sh....t out of cfls.I alway thought cfl's lasted longer than hps.Stay Safe!!

45w , 6,500K , 3,000 Lumes , 10,000 Hour Life
42w , 2,700k , 2,700 Lumes , 10,000 Hour Life
15w , 6,500K , 900 Lumes , 8,000 Hour Life
13w , 2,700k , 900 Lumes , 13,000 Hour Life

do the math and a 10,000 hour life CFL could last 1 year almost 2 months with the lights being on 24/0

BCTHC,thats how long they last.Hps's last 24,000 hours also but if we ran them that long we would get no yeild.Basily I want to know when they really start to go down hill.Thanks for the info tho.Stay Safe!!

I would replace the CFLs in veg area maybe every 3/4 or till they start to die but as for flowering maybe every 6 / 7 months 8 or 9 if you realy want to push it

To realy know when your lights aren't doing the best job they can do you can always weigh your finished product and get a rough idea when the lights need to be replaced

To realy know when your lights aren't doing the best job they can do you can always weigh your finished product and get a rough idea when the lights need to be replaced Yes but that only works ifyou using just cfl's and the same strain all the time.Stay Safe.

Wow not many responses,you're the only site i belong to that has there own cfl form,there must be thousands of cfl growers here,why dont they want to tell us (Newbie cfl users) how long they use there bulbs.Maybee ill try a poll?Happy Planting & Stay Safe!!

Not being an engineer or a light specialist, I find this question interesting.

Lumens is a measurement of how people percieve brightness. Or so I have been told.

I've heard that plants grow majorily with light frequencies that humans dont pick up as lumens.

So I say from my own experience fourescent lights get dimmer, start flashing, get weak, ect. by my own personaly perspective. It does seem that the lumens decrease visibly with flourescent bulbs.

Do the rays of light that plants like diminish quickly over time? Like the see-able lumens of us humans? I dunno... but i would foster a guess yes.

The one comment that suggested to weigh your harvest and see if your getting less weight seems like an easy way to tell when to change. Other than that, somebody could produce a study of how well plants react to the cfl bulbs over a bulbs lifespan.

I read a form that say adding more CFLs in an area won't do you any better compared to a HPS or HID but I've seen some grows in here that started with a few CFLs and they added more and get more growth from their plants so if its not the lumes that are getting added up that gives the better resalts then what gets added up or w/e that makes the plants use more of the light that you give them and grows better?

Yeah I had a small closet grow going, I started with a 150w HPS and was not terribly impressed, but after I supplemented with about 30w of CFL's and a couple UVB's, my results were much much better