Whats better for cfl grow?

Ok i was curious if i am growing 2 plants at a time in a rather large space is it better to have 18 26w 1600 lumen cfl's or 2 125w 10 000 lumen clf's?

I would recommend having a mixture of both if possible. The thing with cfls, is they don't have the best penetration, so you want to have them as close as possible(without burning them, of course) to benefit most from them. I try to surround the plant in as many places as possible, and when you flower you will want to get to each bud site with lighting.

Side note: I would recommend looking into canopy management, and low stress training, as these will help you to better convenience yourself when growing with the cfls.

Thats just my 2 cents...But what does a doctor know? Jk

Plants never get enough light ...!

CFLs have effective range and penetration that is proportional to size, so the 125W will be effective a further distance from the plant, whereas the 26W will have to be placed very close to have a suitable effect. I would also recommend a mixture of sizes, if you put one 125w positioned vertically between them, and then 8 of the 26w positioned all around the outside perimeter, 4 on each plant, you could get pretty good coverage and very little light-loss. Reflectors help a lot too

TokenTime7070 said:

Ok i was curious if i am growing 2 plants at a time in a rather large space is it better to have 18 26w 1600 lumen cfl's or 2 125w 10 000 lumen clf's?

Click to expand...

Neither, why not just buy a 250w or 400w HID?

The problem is finding a hid tat i dont have to buy online i live in a small shit town and by the looks of it the strongest hid i can get at a store around here is 150w with i think 15 000 lumens but cost like 80-90 bucks so i figured id be better of with 2 of the 10 000 or 18 of the 1600 lumens ones.

I will never understand why people on these forums insist on suggesting HID on EVERY SINGLE THREAD where people ask any questions about CFL (or LED for that matter). Are people really SO insecure about their own lighting that it rubs them that wrong when someone chooses a lighting type they don't use themselves? If I asked if it's better to peel an orange with a knife or my fingernails, would you just suggest I eat apples instead of answering my very simple question?