lighting solutions advice

hey guys

i have few ideas about my future grow medium but i dont really know if this will work out or not. I know for a fact that mj plants need bright light to flourish properly. Brighter is better right? Im quite confused about this whole thing. Ive seen ppl using only one cfl of 23w and plant is pretty nice while others are using 1000w+. what is really needed, watts or lumens? i was actually planning to use led strips, 5m minimum and install it in a cpu casing. technically once closed, the casing will be very bright inside. but will this be enough?

i have 2 plants actually but i was using only 1 23w bulb for each of em and one is pretty messed up with very empty buds forming ( calyxes very far from each other )

some advice would be great before i mess up my future plants lol

thx

You need a hid lamp. look into hps and mh bulbs. Lights are one of your biggest expenses but will bring you the bestbresults

Actual watts when working with cfls , aim for 7,000 lumens per sqft. Minimum of 5,000

Give some dimensions, what area are you working with? If its too small you might not want to go mh/hps as the cost to cool and ventilate will be huge. If you have a smaller area, I'd suggest LED lights, little to no cooling required and they end up being the same price as HID. With an HID setup you'd want an MH and HPS bulb of equal wattage, mh for veg hps for flower, a reflector (air coolable most likely) ducting, inline fans, and a ballast. With an led all you have to do is plug it in. The downside to LED is a slightly lower yield, but that amount is negligible.