Lights for flowering

JimiHendrix

JimiHendrix

Active Member
I am a while's away from flowering ( about a month), but I was just wondering if I can still use a 150 watt CFL, and 2 60 watt CFLS for it or should I invest some new lights?

Thanks RIU all answers are appreciated
 
newb101

newb101

New Member
honestly i would get a 400 or 600 watt hps, maybe a cooltube or aircoold hood to reduce heat. hope this helps
 
JimiHendrix

JimiHendrix

Active Member
newb101 said:
honestly i would get a 400 or 600 watt hps, maybe a cooltube or aircoold hood to reduce heat. hope this helps
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Yeah, that would be great, but unfortunately I got to keep my growing low key. I'm growing them in my closet, and frankly I can't afford to drop a couple hundred.
 
darkdestruction420

darkdestruction420

Well-Known Member
no offense but your wrong i think, i have never seen a 60w or 105w cfl before, ever. i believe your refering to the amount of watts it would take a halogen to make the same amount of light. from the grow faq-
CFL Wattage

Now sometimes there can be a lot of confusion when it comes to power of the light due to poor labeling but we will do our best toclear all of that up. Normally light manufacturers that make CFL’s generally will put two numbers on the box your CFL comes in. One is Actual Wattage and one is the Incandescent Equal. As you can see here on this CFL the Actual Wattage is 23 Watts, and it’s Incandescent Equal is 100 Watt’s. You need to totally ignore the Incandescent Equal and pay attention only to the Actual Wattage of the Bulb.



Color Temperature

You might see a lot of different labels when shopping at the store for CFL’s. Label’s including Soft White, Warm White, Cool White, Bright White, Halogen White, Daylight White, Full Spectrum. And also label’s like 2700K, 3000K, 3500K, 4000K, 5000K, 6400K, and 6500K. These are all the color temperature of the light you are using. This is a measure of how warm or cool the light given off by a lamp appears, with warmer colors having a yellowish tinge and cooler colors being tinged with blue. What confuses some people is that the warmer a color is, the colder its color temperature is. (ex. Warm White = 2700K). Bulbs ranging in the 2700K-3000K spectrum are usually labeled Warm White or Soft White, bulbs ranging in the 3500K – 4000K spectrum are bright white or cool white, 5000K is labeled Full Spectrum, and finally 6400K – 6500K is labeled Daylight. You can grow an entire crop with CFL’s if you chose the right spectrum of bulb’s. For Vegetation you will want to use 6500K or 5000K, and when you flower you will want to switch to 2700K or 3000K . The reason being, throughout the year the plant’s outside receive more 6500K light because the day’s in summer are long and hot and as Autumn/Winter get’s closer the day get’s shorter, and gradually receives less 6500K light and more 2700K light as the plant flower’s. Do what you can to avoid bulbs within that 3500K – 4000K because they emit very little light that Is useful to your plant. Notice here the difference between the CT of these lamp’s

 
JimiHendrix

JimiHendrix

Active Member
Okay its a 150w CFL, not 105W, and the other two is a soft white 100w replacement ( only uses 23watts) and they are 1640 lumens.
 
JimiHendrix

JimiHendrix

Active Member




Sorry it took so long...I had one of these, and I tried hanging it up like a week ago, and it dropped and broke on the floor! Doh! It's all good, i'm gonna buy 6 more of these for flowering.
 
B

BlackHit

Well-Known Member
My man you're not getting what he's saying, that's not a 150w bulb that is a 32w bulb. You'll need FIVE of those bulbs to equal the 150w you think you have right now. See on the package where it has the little 32w=150w there? It's saying that the 32w cfl bulb you just purchased is the equivalent to using 150w worth of regular light bulbs. So another way to put it is you would need to buy 150 watts worth of regular incandescent light bulbs to EQUAL the same light output as the 32w CFL. In terms of growing your plants if you were to use regular incandescent bulbs you would need about 10,000 actual watts to grow anything of substance. Considering a standard incandescent bulb is 23w you would need about 435 bulbs to grow with! No one is doing that, so that is why people use cfl bulbs, you can use less of them to get what you need. You will need 4 more of those 32w bulbs to get the 150w you are looking for.
 
ImarriedMARY

ImarriedMARY

Well-Known Member
that's a 32w and soft white which i believe is ideal for flowering am i right? and daylight which are the blue pack are for vegging i've got a mix of both right now and i've got a new clone going on 12/12 with root hormone
 
M

mrmadcow

Well-Known Member
based on this thread and your others,you need a few more lights.for now,3 of the 32 watt bulbs will be fine.after you move to budding,4-5 would be good.as for color spectrum, while in veg,you will want most of your bulbs w/ a higher number in the color spectrum(5000k or 6500k). when budding,you want most of your bulbs in the lower numbers of the color spectrum(2700k-3000k) most recomend some mixing to balance out the light.In your case I would start w/ 3 32 watt bulbs, 2 in the upper spectrum(5000k) and 1 in the lower (2700k). when you flip to budding,add 2 more in the lower spectrum,giving you 3 2700k lights and 2 5000k lights.
BTW k (as in 2700k) stands for kelvin witch is a measurement for the color of the lights- not the normal k = 1000 like as in I made $50k last yr=$50,000.
last I would ditch the foil in the box and go w/ flat white paint-it is much more reflective and add a fan or 2 to the box.1 to move the air around in the box and 1 to draw air out w/ a vent hole at the bottom to draw air in. PC fans are cheap & the right size for your setup.
 
JimiHendrix

JimiHendrix

Active Member
mrmadcow said:
based on this thread and your others,you need a few more lights.for now,3 of the 32 watt bulbs will be fine.after you move to budding,4-5 would be good.as for color spectrum, while in veg,you will want most of your bulbs w/ a higher number in the color spectrum(5000k or 6500k). when budding,you want most of your bulbs in the lower numbers of the color spectrum(2700k-3000k) most recomend some mixing to balance out the light.In your case I would start w/ 3 32 watt bulbs, 2 in the upper spectrum(5000k) and 1 in the lower (2700k). when you flip to budding,add 2 more in the lower spectrum,giving you 3 2700k lights and 2 5000k lights.
BTW k (as in 2700k) stands for kelvin witch is a measurement for the color of the lights- not the normal k = 1000 like as in I made $50k last yr=$50,000.
last I would ditch the foil in the box and go w/ flat white paint-it is much more reflective and add a fan or 2 to the box.1 to move the air around in the box and 1 to draw air out w/ a vent hole at the bottom to draw air in. PC fans are cheap & the right size for your setup.
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Damn man I already got a fan, but that's some great advice you just gave us..Rep for sure, im also gonna poick up some new lights
 
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