Tutorial to Growing with Cfl's

drevil1981 said:

Is it better to have a group 3-4 each side of low wattage CFL's(20-30W) or 1/2 high ones(100-200W) each side

What about those 24" Sunblaster T5's, how good are those guys and do those need to be 1" away from the plant as well. or set back to 4-6"

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Be careful about putting too much light on the sides. It can confuse the plants. I would go with more low wattage on the sides.

Dr cron, you got any info or suggestions on flowering with Cfl's?

helmoid said:

Dr cron, you got any info or suggestions on flowering with Cfl's?

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Flowering is gunna be the most vital period if your growing with CFL's. Since the intensity of a CFL doesn't compare to an HID light you have to take a different approach. You need to provide as much light to your plant as you possibly can without compromising the environment. Which needs you will need more than just a couple of lights. Proximity of the light to the plant is most crucial in flowering because if the light isnt close enough to the plant then your buds will be very loose and fluffy upon harvesting. It's pretty easy keeping the bulbs closer to the plant so you can smoke some rock hard bud. CFL's are pretty simple.

Oooh yeah!! I cant wait to see those rock hard buds....bud! Your first grow got about 1 month to go....yeah?

Ay up, Im new to the forum and am in the stages of learning before I start my first grow. What you guys think to this....... Eterna Fluorescent Louvred Ceiling Fitting D144 White (H)30mm x (W)301mm, D144 and will it work well and will I need to get different CFLs. Thanx

are you able to use regular round light bulbs? or should ppl just use cfls always wondered this

Thanks for this FAQ, its a beauty!

ghostsamurai25 said:

What information has been given on this thread. I need to start a thread stating the obvious to get rep points.

Drevil, to answer your question its better to go with multiple lesser watt bulbs than 1 big high watt bulb. The light is better spread out. Go over to icmag.com and check out drgreenbudgenes micro cab grow. He uses multiple 42ers through the cab. Best micro sog to date.

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nope this is a very good thread. there is so much confusion to all this growing business, that the only way to really find out is to do it yourself (like most things in life) but this guy has very good explanations and great pics, and now (even though i was already) i will def be usuing cfls, now i will be using them with great confidence!

thanks guy!

dr. dr............. lol i had another question, or more rather, i was gonna send you a message but didnt want to bother you, also figured someone else might have thought the same thing and then i coudl save time and just put it here,


i see you have 12 cfls,


but i was wondering why such an array of lights,

i was thinkin for 3 plants i would just use 4 6500k daylight 30w
cfls, would this work? and then for flowering i woudl use 4 2700k
cfls?

do you use this same light setup for both veg and flowering?

just a beginner tryin to find his way thanks

what if i had two 6500k daylight bulbs at 30w or soemthing like
that, then i had two 2700k bulbs at 30w, for three plants?
and if i used these for the entire growth?

now that i finished reading the whole trhead,
im thinking this

2 6500k 23 w and 2 2700k 23w

unless the 30 watters will fit a normal light socket,
then i want to use 2 6500k daylight 30 watters
and then 2 2700k 30 watters? how will that do me for 3 plants?

thanks dr.
i added rep

Well buddy i got 4 seedlings and 2 plants in veg right now and i got them under a 2 foot T5 and two 23 Watt 6500K CFL's and they are vegging just fine. Im gunna add another T5 this weekend and i can't wait lol. I got so many new changes happening to my setep over the next week.

my problem is the tops of my girls are getting burnt. no matter how much i raise the lights the more they get burnt it seems i have the lights up at least two inches and the next day there getting burnt. does anyone have any ideas for me. im running 12-23 watt
cfls for six plants in a 3x3 area. my understanding 12 of the cfls give me a lil over 3000 lumens per plant. but it seems like the plants are needing more light. how critical is the tops of the plant getting burnt at the tips?

this is my first post. was just wondering should i give my plants only blue light during the seedling/veg stage??? because i also have the red spectrum cfl in there

I do blue only for veg and red only for flower, but that's just me.

misshestermoffitt said:

I do blue only for veg and red only for flower, but that's just me.

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Me too girl.

thanks lads. theyre both 125 watt and are working well so far. the plants are just entering the vegetative state. ill buy another 2 and keep the red ones for flowering only. the lights are very cheap.... 50 euro each

Hey, you're from Ireland, I have more Irish roots than any other (us damn heinz 57 American mutts) .

How are things back in the "home country"

I've seen a lot of talk about the high wattage cfl's being a better choice over a few lower wattage bulbs and this is not the case... The reason for this is because when you use smaller bulbs spread all over your cab you get more points of light and more even distribution of the light so all of your plants produce equally. Any old school grower will tell you that more points of light is better and I've noticed that when making our CFL Cabs we are basically just making small scale high bay commercial grows. The other thing is heat cuz the bigger the CFL the hotter it gets and the further away it needs to be... Jorge Cervantes says "3 600w HIDs actually deliver more light to plants than 2 1000w HIDs. Smaller HIDs provide 3 points of light and can be located closer to plants". He also goes on about having more points of light and I know he's referring to HIDs but either way more light = healthy developed buds and it's also better to mix a little blue or a few 5000k bulbs in when flowering cuz plants use Red light more efficiently than any other color so it's kinda redundant to bombard the plants with tons of Red light when in nature they only get a little and they use it very well and thats why resin production is a lot better under full spectrum lighting... just some food for thought and I read the info about they only need a little Red light from NASA you can also read about it in the article about CMH from Phillips, I'll try to hunt down the link but it was very interesting and made sense.

ive been growing with cfls since they hit the shelves
love et

Thanks for the information. Helped a lot. Been looking into these.

what is the difference between t8 bulbs and t5 tubes etc etc

which is better for what application