cfl's good for flowering?

This is my 1st grow and I tried to do as much homework on the how to grow, but each day is another adventure! so any comment help ideas ect would be great!
I have 4 plants(bag seed) in a medium/perlite. ph'd balanced w/fox big bloom and run off is ph is 6.2 to 6.5.
I only veg'd for 2 weeks under 550w 6500k ..have been on 12/12 for alittle over 2 weeks with 850w 2700k all 4 are females!!! room temp is 86 deg. ( cant get it any lower) humidity is about 35% have a exhaust fan/ intake fan and a circulation fan.
Questions:
will the cfl cause a low yield?
2 of the plants took off in height and are 3 to 4 inches taller then the others...Is it to late to use the LST method?
the biggest plant is about 18.5 inches tall and has about 24 different possible bud locations but once i was able to sex them it seems as if they have slowed down in growth..could this be a possible light leak? or something else?

As for my light system..I built a 9 outlet hood out of furnace duct work with 3 single outlets turned into a 3 lights per. just having issues trying to get light around the lower parts of the plants...can i put 2 small 7800k flora light around the bottom?
will this cause a prob using veg lights during flowering?
Do i use the big bloom every time i water?

I have 15 fem critical seeds i want to plant soon but really want to work out all my issues 1st.
I will try to put up some pics tomorrow so you have a better idea of what i got going on.

Peace

some people grow beast yeilds with cfls. sounds like you're doing a great job

Thanks ! I spent hours upon hours reading researching and reading more...then trying to weigh out the pro's and con's .
I think the toughest part of the research was....trying to figure out what the real facts are.. and not just someones idea of the facts lol
and that my friend is a work in progress

yeahh. sifting through the bullshit is hard, i think a good way is to just find the most prominent "facts" and then go with that, and modify them and find your own way to do things that works for you.

clayman187 said:

...the biggest plant is about 18.5 inches tall and has about 24 different possible bud locations but once i was able to sex them it seems as if they have slowed down in growth...

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What size pot are you in?

Is it possible that you are confusing "real wattage" with "equivalent wattage"?....Good Luck

Im using 1 1/2 gallon pots Its all i could get my hands on without spending more money. And my wattage is equivalent...I have 7 23w usage output 100w and 2 20w usage output of 75w...it was 9 23/100w but 2 went out.
So and i counting my watts right? Its the total output? or what it uses?
will put pics up soon..have to wait for family to leave this afternoon

total output is the 23w because the light only uses 23w. thats how we calculate the actual watts

ohhhh...well then im really confused now lol I have done alot of research and I thought it was the total output...dammit jim ...now I have to come up with a different plan

yeah man, forget the 'equivalent' numbers as they are bullshit and will only confuse the issue, ALWAYS talk ACTUAL wattages and everyone will know what you're talking about.

...and CFLs can grow some fine bud as long as you grow short plants, they just don't have the intensity to penetrate the canopy to any great degree.

...and i think you show good judgement using free bagseed to learn on while you hold back your store-bought genetics, it is MUCH better to learn your chops on free beans.

anyway, here are a few threads that may change your life, i know they changed mine.

The Official Hempy Bucket Thread

*The K.I.S.S. Method*

World class cloner new at walmart

...if you read those threads and apply what you learn you are GUARANTEED success.

...and here's a few CFL shots to show that you can indeed grow some fine buddage under CFLs.







peace, bozo

justanotherbozo said:

yeah man, forget the 'equivalent' numbers as they are bullshit and will only confuse the issue, ALWAYS talk ACTUAL wattages and everyone will know what you're talking about.

...and CFLs can grow some fine bud as long as you grow short plants, they just don't have the intensity to penetrate the canopy to any great degree.

...and i think you show good judgement using free bagseed to learn on while you hold back your store-bought genetics, it is MUCH better to learn your chops on free beans.

anyway, here are a few threads that may change your life, i know they changed mine.

The Official Hempy Bucket Thread

*The K.I.S.S. Method*

World class cloner new at walmart

...if you read those threads and apply what you learn you are GUARANTEED success.

...and here's a few CFL shots to show that you can indeed grow some fine buddage under CFLs.

View attachment 2461222 View attachment 2461223 View attachment 2461224 View attachment 2461225

View attachment 2461226 View attachment 2461227 View attachment 2461228 View attachment 2461229

View attachment 2461230 View attachment 2461231

peace, bozo

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Bozo, always finding your advice so helpful! Still in my endless research before my first grow, but you always speak clearly. Wish I could rep, again.

Thanks! ughhh I read this and thats what i was basing it on.. guess i must have been stoned when i read it Light Output & Power Consumption
Like incandescent bulbs, CFLs are rated based on light output, which is closely related to power consumption. When selecting a bulb, consider these standard ratings:

• Watts – Bulb manufacturers have traditionally used watts to represent light output, but wattage is actually a measure of power consumption, not brightness. Since CFLs consume less power, a CFL will have a much lower wattage than an incandescent bulb that produces the same amount of light. In other words, a lower wattage number indicates greater energy savings, not lower light output.
  
• Lumens – The standard unit of light output for bulbs is the lumen. A higher lumen number indicates a brighter bulb, and a lower lumen number indicates a dimmer bulb. A CFL and an incandescent bulb with the same lumen rating will produce the same amount of light.
  
• Equivalent Wattage – To make it easier to compare CFLs to incandescent bulbs, manufacturers generally provide an equivalent wattage rating for CFLs along with the lumens rating. The equivalent wattage tells you what type of incandescent bulb has the same light output as the CFL. For example, a CFL with an equivalent wattage of 60 produces the same amount of light as a 60-watt incandescent bulb.
  
• Lumens per watt – The standard measure of efficiency is the ratio of light output to power usage, represented as lumens per watt, or LPW. A higher LPW rating indicates greater energy efficiency and increased savings.

...don't sweat the small shit grasshopper, what you've done is so common a mistake it is expected in new CFL growers, ...don't let it get you down.

...btw, the equivalent numbers they quote are equivalent to incandescent bulbs which are useless for growing so giving numbers equivalent to useless bulbs is useless information.

...go read those threads i linked you to man, i promise, if you read them, you WILL succeed.

peace, bozo

you definately can grow top shelf bud with cfls ,by the end of flower i'm hitting them with 420 tru watts(8 42 watt 2700k- 2 6500k 42 watts) at the end of veg is mostly blue 6500k with a few red 2700k like 320 watts .its tough getting hard dense buds with cfls lights have to be kept very close 1 " max.while a couple of fans blows the heat away.i'm pretty dialed in now with my set up and on near perfect grow i can just about pull a half gram per watt, usually a little less depending on strain. I think most hid growers try for a gram per watt and get it, if dialed in.So that way you can estimate your yeild.I would call bullshit with anybody claiming a gram per watt with cfls,.25 grams per watt would be a good starting point to shoot for with cfls 1st time.But the smoke can be just as good as the best.Space and stealth issues cfls are the way to go.

Thanks Bozo ! I think I understand it now!

Good thing Its just bag seed...learning from my mistakes!

I get paid next Friday so it looks like its time to buy better watt light..any ideas on what I should get?

clayman187 said:

Thanks Bozo ! I think I understand it now!

Good thing Its just bag seed...learning from my mistakes!

I get paid next Friday so it looks like its time to buy better watt light..any ideas on what I should get?

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...that depends on your budget man and how involved you want to get, if money is tight then go to Lowes or Home Depot or someplace like that and look for the 23watt and 26watt bulbs in multi-packs, you can often find them in 4 packs for under $10.00 AND, if you look around in the store, i'd bet you'll find $3.00 rebate forms from your local electric company which brings your final price down to about a buck and a half per bulb, so about $6.00 per 100watts.

the problem with common CFLs though is that once you start getting up to a usable amount of light you are also generating a sizable amount of heat so if you're gonna keep your op small then common CFLs will do but if you'd like to grow a fair supply of dense dankness you'll need to upgrade to HPS, even a 250HPS can produce some KILLER buds.

...if you're smart you'll save some of the money you won't be spending on bud so you can upgrade, ...before you know it you'll be growing inside a 4 x 4 tent under a 600watt HPS, lol. ...and the time it takes you to get there you will be investing in learning your craft.

peace, bozo

btw, like i said, those 23s and 26s are a great value when you're first starting out, those pics i posted earlier of the bathroom vanity fixtures can be put together for very small money and with multiple bulbs you'll really be able to tweak the spectrum of light you deliver.

Heres a couple quick pic i took while the family stepped outside for a min. have done some pruning so the lights would hit more of the bud sights. I just started LST on 2 of them.. should have do it earlier but more or less just learned about it. I have a few small plant in the back (bag seed)that i trying diff. soil/nutes/topping ect. practice makes perfect lol
So Im off to lowes this next weekend to buy higher watt lights

I started out with florescents. Biggest problem I had with using them was the heat from the ballast. I had 3x55w Compact T5's in the canopy and 8x32w T8s as side lighting and my temps were always right around 90 degrees in the cabinet. I switched over to an air-cooled 250w HPS and saw my temps drop to around 80 degrees and my yield increased. I finally bit the bullet and stuck an air-cooled 600w HPS in a tent.

I've been on ebay and amazon...looks like I will be buying a hps 600watter here in the next month!!!!! for a couple hundres bucks you cant beat it. Im going to have to do my homework on them and bug you guys about the unit so I know what to buy.
but im still going to try to finish this grow out..going to buy atleast 4 65w cfls to add to the others. I can leave the door open just a crack during the on cycle and the temps should stay down to 85/86.

clayman187 said:

I've been on ebay and amazon...looks like I will be buying a hps 600watter here in the next month!!!!! for a couple hundres bucks you cant beat it. Im going to have to do my homework on them and bug you guys about the unit so I know what to buy.
but im still going to try to finish this grow out..going to buy atleast 4 65w cfls to add to the others. I can leave the door open just a crack during the on cycle and the temps should stay down to 85/86.

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...those 65watt bulbs run about $15.00 each so 4 of them will run you about $60.00 bucks and give you a total of 260watts, ...26watters with rebates for a final price of $1.50 per bulb on the other hand means you can buy 40 of them and 40 times 26 equals 1040watts, ...iike i said earlier, you get WAY more bang for your buck with the lower wattage bulbs.

peace, bozo