CFL Light setup

Hello all,

First post, and it comes after a week of growing. I've started a setup in the spare bedroom. I have around ten seedlings growing in small jiffy pots, with a T8 floro above them being held up by buckets (it emits all spectrums of light).

For now, yeah this works. My problem is I'll need to get something else very soon. CFL's would be best for me, but what kind and at what stages? How many do I need per plant? Furthermore, where do I get the fixtures to plug them into? I'm in the dark (hahah) about this.

dern said:

Hello all,

First post, and it comes after a week of growing. I've started a setup in the spare bedroom. I have around ten seedlings growing in small jiffy pots, with a T8 floro above them being held up by buckets (it emits all spectrums of light).

For now, yeah this works. My problem is I'll need to get something else very soon. CFL's would be best for me, but what kind and at what stages? How many do I need per plant? Furthermore, where do I get the fixtures to plug them into? I'm in the dark (hahah) about this.

Click to expand...

Man let me save you a lot of trouble, I bought like $200 worth of very large CFL's till I realized this is all you really need and cfls are a waste;
















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So you got 10 seedlings, you will probably end up with about 5 females. For flowering you will need a at least 2 42 or 45w per plant (150w output) around 3000K color spec for minimum results, more lights would be better. Having 5 plants, say you get 10 of those lights, that's gonna be pulling over 400w right? How much would all those lights and fixtures ect. cost? If you absolutly have to use cfl's get alot of them and keep the real close also use relectors. I would strongly suggest getting an HPS though. Watt for watt HPS will yeild more weight and the buds will be nicer.

IMHO cfl's do work great for vegging if their the right color spec (around 6500K) and you keep them super close.

Panda listed a good alternative (better then cfl's).

So let me get this straight...one 400 watt HPS (with reflectors, too) will be sufficient for up to ten plants?

no you need atleast a 600 watt hps, but the best for 10 plants would be 2 400 watts because with 2 you can spread the light out more evenly

10 cfls and fixtures will run you around $150 or less.

Can anyone show us pictures of buds grown under cfl's? As opposed to pictures of buds grown under HPS?

a 400 watt MH will veg them nice nice, i got 9 plants myself bout 4 inches tall under the 400watt MH and its goin good. im not sure why people are trying to buy 10 CFL's anyway. They run you at least $6 a piece + fixtures = $100 minimum. you can take like 200 bux, buy an HID setup with a HPS & MH, and your all set. Just tryin to help u out, think about it man.
peace

Yeah im not a cfl fan myself and if you gonna spend all that money on cfls why not get a switchable 400 watt ballast. But if you wanna do cfl you can get 24 100 watt cfls on ebay for $42 deliver new in the package.Thats what 23 watts per bulbs so 24 x 23= 552 watts of power usage which is more then a 400 watt hps

Yeah but who would bother to wire up 24 bulbs for a home grow!? HPS are good and powerful but bear in mind that in close confines the heat is an issue, as is the size of the unit

O.K. So almost everyone seems to agree that HID is superior to CFL. (Please feel free to disagree with this if you have had a different experience.)

Also, a lot of you are recommending a switchable ballast to handle 2 types of bulbs. I know HPS is used for flowering. I take it MH is best for vegetative growth?

I'm planning to cool this type of bulb with a 6 inch inline fan that draws air thru the reflector and out of my box. Any suggestions?

Right now, I'm just gonna do a small grow because and am anticipating growing 4 and it's my first. For now I have a 48 inch 40 watt floro, and four of the cfl's that emit 2000 lumens. They're still very small right now, so I'll add more later. This is basically just a test run for me, before I dive into it seriously and get the whole setup.

Flavio, from what I understand, the fixtures that are changeable from HPS to MH are best because of the different light spectrums for flowering and vegetative.. There might be some that come with fans as well.

On April 6, "pandabear" showed a MH/HPS system that he (from experience) thought was a good system for lighting. It's in this thread now.

What do the rest of you think of it, bros?

I'm looking around now for something similar. Maybe a 400 watt MH/HPS grow light. I'm looking for advice, good deals that are out there, etc. (Be careful to observe forum rules and not to try and sell something.)

My local hydroponics shop sells Sun Systems. Any experience with those?

Does ANYONE use CFL's for veg and then HPS for flowering? Cabinet temperature issues and electricity usage issues are important. I only grow for myself. One or two plants are plenty.

Although it's ALL been said before (I know), any advice is appreciated by us newcomers.

Thanks Mates!

Lots of people veg w/ floros. Save you some $ on your energy bill because vegging doesn't require a million lumens to grow the plant up to flowering stage.

HTG Supply has a crap load grow lights on eBay and are usually fairly cheap compared to the hundreds of other setups posted there. Cheapest I've seen from them is 109$, plus shipping, for a full setup (ballist, reflector, bulb).

You could forgo the worry of switching from MH to HPS and just get a HPS bulb that has an added blue light spectrum to it (430w total with the 30w added blue light). In fact, I believe HTG's bulb that comes with most of their 400w HPS setups are that type of bulb. They usually say so in their sales pitch.

I am using CFLs to veg my plants but will be switching to a HPS setup. After looking at how many CFLs I would need to equal the same lumen output from a HPS lamp, it just isn't cost affective to use CFLs for high lumens on anything but small grows. Like 1 or 2 plants. You would be killing yourself in watts to get a high lumen output for flowering with CFLs. The only negative I see with HPS/MH lights, compared to CFLs, is the high heat they give off.

Right now I'm using 6 42w CFL bulbs on a 5 plant grow. That's like 250 watts for roughly 16,800 lumen. A 150w HPS bulb is said to emit around 16,000 lumen.

is this ok help please i have two plants in hydro in a closet full of aliminum foil with a 100 w globe on 18 on and 6 hours of is that ok my plants are about 5cm high in 4 days is this normal i have the light 10 cm above the plants and im using nitrosol abouts 40 to 60 degrees room temp cheers dale i had 27 pounds outdoor is growing indoors the same and the same soil as my outdoor grow is that ok

Hmm must be some angry opinionated people here to give me bad rep for supporting the underdog technology.

Please read "To create a star" before you decide that you know best.

Furthermore assuming one form of illumination is perfected and the same results cannot be created with a different light is just ignorant.

Godkas has spoken.

Some folks, myself included, prefer using CFLs over HIDs for a number of reasons, the first of which usually being economical. Chances are, most of us prolly have some CFLs lying about the place. Hell, for a while there, my power company was giving them away for free as an incentive to get people to replace their incandescant bulbs. I used to get four 23w/100we bulbs each time I went to their office and paid my bill. I certainly don't have any spare hoods, ballasts, or high pressure sodium bulbs collecting dust anywhere.

As a husband and father who works 50+ hours a week to support my family, there's no practical way I can simply pull $200 or so dollars from my check at the end of the week and spend it on lighting. I can, however, spend the odd $5-$10 on additional bulbs and fixtures.

Heat is another issue. I have a very nice grow space which I constructed myself, and I don't plan on growing more than 2-3 plants at a time, so I didn't build it with the idea of having tons of space for plants. With two 80cfm PC fans mounted in the top of the room, as well as an oscillating fan inside and passive intakes, I keep the space maintained between 78-84* F. I could easily mount a 400w HID in the space but I'd have to spend nearly as much on fans and cooling equipment as I would on the lighting itself just to maintain a decent temperature. At which point I'd simply be trading one problem off for another, namely, noise.

I'm also still learning to grow. Until I really know what I'm doing I can't justify spending a good chunk of my paycheck on that sort of thing. Who knows, maybe I'll find I can't grow the stuff too well. Then I'm stuck trying to get rid of an HID and probably losing money on the whole deal. Once I've done a few good CFL grows and I'm confident in my gardening abilities, I'll put together a different grow room with HID lighting in mind, and then purchase the equipment.

You can get cheap CFL fixtures

Go to your local Goodwill or Salvation Army store or thrift store, You can usually find lamp cords with the bulb fixture on it for $1-2 (which I prefer) and it's $3-8 for a lamp, bulbs as home depot are $8 for 4 26w, so around $20 for 104w of CFL lighting, add in some sode can reflectors for free and you've got decent lighting.