Has any1 ever used just a 250w cfl light?????

hellodear farmers,
i am currently doing a grow under a 250w cfl light and 2 little 20w each side and i was wondering if any1 has ever grown under a similar setup??

need your help people, thanks in advance.

here is a pic of my little setup

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i have a bit more wattage with less 26w bulbs with great results so far, but i am thinking of getting an hps for flowering because i could build my own ballast and get a bulb for little more than it would cost for that many cfls or the setup for a big cfl and the bulb

soil looks good...back that big boy off a little bit...they are only babies I'd go another 4-5" up with it for now until they get out of the "seedling" mode and into the "veg" mode

massah said:

soil looks good...back that big boy off a little bit...they are only babies I'd go another 4-5" up with it for now until they get out of the "seedling" mode and into the "veg" mode

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Cheers massah, the soil is miracle grow and ive added perlite funny enough, not many ppl seem to like the idea, and the big boy is 2.5" off the front plant and 3 to 3.5 at the bak and zvuv ont his forum is tellin me to lower it to 1" off the plants so im confused,,,, plus their autoflowering and their in day 11 from seed so i should think that in a less than a week they will enter their flowering stage according to the seed company,

Thanks for your input, its much apreciated, +rep to you

dopeyG said:

i have a bit more wattage with less 26w bulbs with great results so far, but i am thinking of getting an hps for flowering because i could build my own ballast and get a bulb for little more than it would cost for that many cfls or the setup for a big cfl and the bulb

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How much wattage exactly? and what do you average per plant?

do you think in my setup if i replaced the 250w cfl and got a 150w hps it would improve or would it be the same?

thanks for your input +rep to you

seal1990 said:

Cheers massah, the soil is miracle grow and ive added perlite funny enough, not many ppl seem to like the idea, and the big boy is 2.5" off the front plant and 3 to 3.5 at the bak and zvuv ont his forum is tellin me to lower it to 1" off the plants so im confused

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1" away from the plants is the guidelines for vegging/flowering plants with 23-26watt bulbs...the larger the wattage the further you want to keep them away from burning...with a CFL that large you want to maintain about 4-6" away depending on the airflow...but a seedling doesn't need that much light so close, so you can put it 7-10" away at this point and lower it over the week to the ideal range to not burn the plants and keep heat stress down to a minimum

seal1990 said:

How much wattage exactly? and what do you average per plant?

do you think in my setup if i replaced the 250w cfl and got a 150w hps it would improve or would it be the same?

thanks for your input +rep to you

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I wouldnt replace anything at all. I would definitely invest in an hps for flowering. CFL's aren't as high intensity as HPS so it doesnt penetrate the buds as well An HPS will give you nice dense nugs where as a cfl will give you more fluffy loose buds. Not sure if this means that the dense buds will be smaller and the loose ones bigger or what, but i know for sure that if you have to buds side by side the more dense one is going to be heavier. Its common sense. So weather or not they give the same weight with the same wattage? i doubt it. I would be willing to bet hps would get you much heavier yield but of course you will have heat to deal with and such.

I have 4 plants under 276 watts of cfl's and a 54 watt t5 giving me somewhere in the range of 330 watts. I think a 250 hps would be perfect for flowering this amount and maybe not get to hot as well? not sure tho, im not an experienced hps user. Heres my link to my journal:https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/479255-dopeys-cfl-closet-grow-fall.html if you wanna see what i got for a cfl setup in my closet. i could flower with it but i would need to buy 2700k and by then i could afford to put together my own ballast and 250 setup i think then i would have the shit i need for my perpetual.

Yes massah, working on my first grow here and I burned/stunted my seedlings with 24 on and 27watt bulbs that were around 3 inches away. Think my reflectors made it worse. They've perked back up with a little bit of darkness and backing off the lights.

light is strong enough if you can keep it close enough, but cfls are only effective at 5-10 inches from the plants! Any more than that and their power drops off fast! I keep my lights 1-2 inches from my plants and i get the ocasional burn on a leaf when they stretch but never hurt them. I use many smaller cfls(26 watts)100 equiv. In a custom hood to spread the light out not sure how hot those big ones get so stay a bit further away! Check out my grows for light building ideas!

Thx drbudwannabe

Hey bud the

dopeyG said:

I wouldnt replace anything at all. I would definitely invest in an hps for flowering. CFL's aren't as high intensity as HPS so it doesnt penetrate the buds as well An HPS will give you nice dense nugs where as a cfl will give you more fluffy loose buds. Not sure if this means that the dense buds will be smaller and the loose ones bigger or what, but i know for sure that if you have to buds side by side the more dense one is going to be heavier. Its common sense. So weather or not they give the same weight with the same wattage? i doubt it. I would be willing to bet hps would get you much heavier yield but of course you will have heat to deal with and such.

I have 4 plants under 276 watts of cfl's and a 54 watt t5 giving me somewhere in the range of 330 watts. I think a 250 hps would be perfect for flowering this amount and maybe not get to hot as well? not sure tho, im not an experienced hps user. Heres my link to my journal:https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/479255-dopeys-cfl-closet-grow-fall.html if you wanna see what i got for a cfl setup in my closet. i could flower with it but i would need to buy 2700k and by then i could afford to put together my own ballast and 250 setup i think then i would have the shit i need for my perpetual.

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ok thanks for your advice, ive moved the plants away from the bulb so now their 4" off the bulb and also fed them today 800ml of water, i hope im not over feeding i dont want to drown them.
dopeyG i no you said you wouldnt replace anything but because my cab is small i couldnt run loads of lights because of heat and space so what do you think would be better a 250w cfl or a 150w hps? the cfl has an extra 100 watts but would the 150w hps still be better as i think they produce around 16000lumens and the 250cfl is around 14000??

thanks buddy
and will update with pictures tomorrow as there isnt too much to see today (they have grown tho) its day 12 today and they seem to be growin a lil faster now..

thanks for looking and advice is appreciated

drbudwannabe said:

light is strong enough if you can keep it close enough, but cfls are only effective at 5-10 inches from the plants! Any more than that and their power drops off fast! I keep my lights 1-2 inches from my plants and i get the ocasional burn on a leaf when they stretch but never hurt them. I use many smaller cfls(26 watts)100 equiv. In a custom hood to spread the light out not sure how hot those big ones get so stay a bit further away! Check out my grows for light building ideas!

Thx drbudwannabe

View attachment 1886528View attachment 1886527View attachment 1886526Hey bud the

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hello there matey, what kind of yields do you average using cfls?
one of my afghan kush got a lil burnt on the tips but the new sets of leaves are fine now so i take it shes ok.
and temp in the cab is 30C average i think thats about right ay?
i will be checkin your grows to get some ideas
thanks very much buddy and happy growing!

Peace

I've done it with x 2 85 watt CFL's (350watt) equiv bulbs just check out my sig

I have 8 of these son of a bitches 2 for veg, 6 for flower. I have great results. Good density buds

IMO i dont think it matter on the type of light you use. the only reason ppl get good results with HID is because anyone can do it. you dont have to worry about placing the light close or or using so many lights. you just plug it in and hang it. Its all about light penetration. I think that if you had enough cfl's you could equal and hid. Now thats gonna take a hell of a lot of cfls mind you. by the time you get that many cfl's you are going to actually saving money if you bought the hid. HID's might be expensive, but think about everything that you have to buy for a CFL setup. First you need the bulbs. They might be cheap, but they add up real fast, by the time you get 15 or so in there you probably already spent $25 or so, no you might want some y splitters. These are about $2-$3 each. So to make an even number lets say you had 16 bulbs. So now for 16 bulbs your gonna need 8 splitters, so thats $16 minimum, if your lucky. So now you've spent around $40 and you still have to wire these bitches somehow or plug them into a power bar. if you plug them into a power bar now you gotta buy 8 of those socket plugs at $2-$3 a piece, another $16. Now we are at $56 and we havnt even gotten a power source yet. If your the DIY kinda guy, you could go out and spend that same money and make your own hps ballast and maybe even get a bulb. So you tell me what sounds better. If you can get rid of the heat, use hps of course. If you cant deal with the heat somehow use cfls.

massah what up my dog...thats what i was thinking when i saw the pic....gonna burn tha lil fella up

massah said:

1" away from the plants is the guidelines for vegging/flowering plants with 23-26watt bulbs...the larger the wattage the further you want to keep them away from burning...with a CFL that large you want to maintain about 4-6" away depending on the airflow...but a seedling doesn't need that much light so close, so you can put it 7-10" away at this point and lower it over the week to the ideal range to not burn the plants and keep heat stress down to a minimum

Click to expand...

im doing a first cfl grow and i always keep light super close never had any problems and i use both spectrum 2700k and 6500k and i have really dense nugs where everyone cfl makes nugs fluffy, no that is either the strand of bud or your lights are too far away which is hard to do with HPS. HOWEVER my lights are within almost an inch of the plant at some parts and ive even burn the leaf edges but im getting quite a good result so far. maybe about 2 weeks left and my purp kush will be done

heres what they looked like couple days ago:


cfls burn plants EXTREMELY slow even if its touching it granted the plants been watered. so just check every couple hours if the plans burning a little move them a TAD bit away. i like the setup though dude, got 6 45watt 6500k bulbs coming in for my next grow

chasmtz said:

I have 8 of these son of a bitches 2 for veg, 6 for flower. I have great results. Good density buds



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WOW!! u might aswell be running a 400w hps surely for the elecy your using anyway!!!

still cool tho, keep growing matey well done!

pkyabigtime said:

im doing a first cfl grow and i always keep light super close never had any problems and i use both spectrum 2700k and 6500k and i have really dense nugs where everyone cfl makes nugs fluffy, no that is either the strand of bud or your lights are too far away which is hard to do with HPS. HOWEVER my lights are within almost an inch of the plant at some parts and ive even burn the leaf edges but im getting quite a good result so far. maybe about 2 weeks left and my purp kush will be done

heres what they looked like couple days ago:
View attachment 1888321View attachment 1888322View attachment 1888323View attachment 1888324

cfls burn plants EXTREMELY slow even if its touching it granted the plants been watered. so just check every couple hours if the plans burning a little move them a TAD bit away. i like the setup though dude, got 6 45watt 6500k bulbs coming in for my next grow

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Thanks, your grow looks quality aswell but your using t5's arnt you??

I flowered AND a blooming with soft White cfls, everything seems to be coming along okay. I used 1 300 watt cfl over top and 4 30( give or take) Watt cfls o the sides of the plant. If this is any help.... I have a budz showing like crazy!!!

my t5 is a 6500k and all the cfls i used are 2700k so its a mix... and about using a hps its easier to cram all 400watts into a smaller area with cfls because when you hang a HID light 36inches above the plant its only going to recieve about 20% of the maximum light. it all depends on your setup. the t5 HO lights are boss because they concentrate alot of lumens (my small t5 being 20k lumens) and i can put it right on my plants so i barely lost light

if you can put your HID on a track and run it constantly, then you would seriously out do cfls