Are CFL's Right for Me?

A friend and I are starting our first indoor grow soon and we have a great grow room ready to be filled with goodness. Its set up in his attic, space is 10' deep along the roof peak and about 15' wide that slopes down into unuseable space after that. We are setting up a DWC grow with three rubbermaid tubs and 5 plants per tub. We are trying to do this as thrifty as possible for our first batch and were looking into CFL's.
My question is this, does this sound like a setup that will be a good fit for CFL's? or should we look into a bigger light setup and just tough out the extra costs?

...I'd use those cfl's for veg.
...get some HID's for flowering, I'd suggest 600 watt HPS. You might have heat issues in an attic, so....I'd aircool them w/ aircooled hoods.
...good luck with your grow.

good tip, thanks. Heat isnt too much of an issue, we're running a vent up there with a carbon filter to keep it nice and cool.

zeffysaurus said:

A friend and I are starting our first indoor grow soon and we have a great grow room ready to be filled with goodness. Its set up in his attic, space is 10' deep along the roof peak and about 15' wide that slopes down into unuseable space after that. We are setting up a DWC grow with three rubbermaid tubs and 5 plants per tub. We are trying to do this as thrifty as possible for our first batch and were looking into CFL's.
My question is this, does this sound like a setup that will be a good fit for CFL's? or should we look into a bigger light setup and just tough out the extra costs?

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With a room that size I don't think CFL's will be enough if your looking to light and plant the whole room. CFLs are usually done in small places, and you can see most of these grows are little cabinets and what not and then the bigger rooms use HIDs. Shit you could use 4 x 1000w in that bitch and be growing pounds my friend.

You seen to step back and think about where you want to go with this.. A room that is 10x15 is pretty damn large.

10 inches or 10 feet? lol

hey dude i dont know if your growing legally or not, but if your not you dont want the grow room as high as the roof as the roof will be lit up bright to suspect helicoptors (infra red)

you want it so its like a room in a room with the outer room at normal temp so it dont stand out, you know with like a foot space between the box and the top of the roof.

darkdestruction420 said:

10 inches or 10 feet? lol

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10' = 10 foot

10" = 10 inch

so i'd say he means feet!!

if its feet definetley go with the hps, depending on where you live you might not have to worry about flir and all that stuff, they now need a search warrant to look at your house w/that stuff in the us.

i would get 4 foot fluorescents(2 to 4) for veg and then a 1000w hps for bloom.

ImTheFireMan said:

i would get 4 foot fluorescents(2 to 4) for veg and then a 1000w hps for bloom.

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yup, sounds good. i'd get the high output t5's if youve got the cash. cfls work and all(ive used em plenty of times) but the difference between an equal amount of cfl and hps wattage is huge.(ie-a 400w hps will beat 400w of cfls to death. lol, same for any amount of wattage.1000w of hps destroys 1000w of cfl, etc.) just check out a few grow journals and compare pics of hps grown plants to cfl grown plants and you'll see. cfls are more for smaller grows, if you can use an hps its easily the best choice. with as much room as youve got you could probally fit a few 1000w's up there and shoot for the stars. no point in risking your ass and not maximizing your grow capabilities.

the hps is much more economical than hps in the end my friend. you'll have to invest about the same amount to get the same watt of cfls as you would hps and like i said b4 the difference between hps and cfls is huge. hps is more effecient for the watts it uses.

tamjam69 said:

10' = 10 foot

10" = 10 inch

so i'd say he means feet!!

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oh, I never knew that, thanks, +rep for educating me on that.

Thanks for all the help guys, we ended up changing plans and locked up his cellar in the basement instead. Ill post some pics when we get it all finished and rollin. We're closing off a small area for flowering and another for veg. We are using 3 125 watt CFLs with some 40 watt bulbs that will be dropped inside the canopy. After our first batch our first purchase is gonna be an HPS or MH light for our flower tent. Thanks again everyone!