Are reflective hoods neccesary?

Are the reflective hoods a must when growing with the cfl's...does this mean a larger yield or anything?

Depends on your lights and where you place them. The ones above your plants yes a must, otherwise half your light is just going up in the air. However vertically hanging the bulbs between plants so most light is going to the sides doesn't require a hood but this is more for penetrating beneath your canopy and providing light to side and bottom branches. Honestly you probably need both of these going on with cfls

thanks really good info helped me out a lot

If you can.... get the 42w 6500k bulbs from H.depot. they give off 2600 lumens each. 3 per plant during veg time.

Use the 42w 2700k bulbs for flower, 4 per plant if you can. if you cant find those there are the 23w versions of both bulbs almost anywhere........Dont forget bulb splitter are only 2 bux each too!

thanks so much

cpcp322 said:

Are the reflective hoods a must when growing with the cfl's...does this mean a larger yield or anything?

Click to expand...

Also depends on your grow area. I have CFLs in a grow tent with a reflrector and the reflector just traps heat between the bulbs and tops of plants it seems. I am going to remove the reflector tommorrow and see if it allows the heat to rise and be sucked out the top exhaust...

Just ask, I'll help with what I can. There is tonnes of great advice to be found here. Good luck.

thanks ill use the reflective hoods definetly...and Ill definetly be coming back to you for more advice thanks.

thanks ill use the reflective hoods definetly...and Ill definetly be coming back to you for more advice thanks.

I just started my first cfl grow, after spending a lot of time on here reading and learning, and one of the things I continued to notice was that not many people seemed to be using any sort of reflectors. To me, that just seems like a lot of wasted light. So for about $20-$25 in materials, all available from Home Depot, Lowe's, etc., I put together a reflector hood that's worked out beautifully for me so far. You can check out pics of it here, https://www.rollitup.org/cfl-growing/188791-4th-day-flowering-jock-horror.html.

But again, what works for one person might not necessarily work for somebody else... in the least, it might help with some ideas for you.

Good growing!