How MANY CFL's do I need??

just about to start my first indoor grow, and just wondering how MANY of these do i need? all help appreciated

How many plants are you planning on growing?

If you told us how big your space is and how many plants you plan to grow that might help get a more accurate answer...

10 + is a good start, as said more on the grow.

i hope to have between 4 and 6 plants in an odd A/C closet thats about 3'x5'

how mant watts should they be?

I'm guessing you're gonna need more than cfl's to make 4 to 6 plants flower

I think i would put about 220 watts and put stips of lights up

MORE than CFL's???

and what do u mean about 220 watts is that total??

how many lights do i need and of what wattage?

many thanks junosurf

total and i would do 23 watts and about 10 of them actually more maybe 12 but yea u know the lights in kitches the long tubes (forgot name) i would put some of those up at the top

if you're growing that much, jus get hps, but then ur space might be small. get like 5 42 watts and 2 68 watts

mikmike said:

I think i would put about 220 watts and put stips of lights up

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is that ACTUAL or the watt equivalent? i got 6 14w and a 23 watt most of them are all 5000k and one or two is a soft white

nirvana21 said:

if you're growing that much, jus get hps, but then ur space might be small. get like 5 42 watts and 2 68 watts

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Another hps/hid reference... glad you came to the conclusion of why the OP might be growing with CFL's an also postin his thread in the CFL sub-forum!

junosurf125 said:

is that ACTUAL or the watt equivalent? i got 6 14w and a 23 watt most of them are all 5000k and one or two is a soft white

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When dealing with CFL's you always go by the actual wattage no matter what.

I would at least go with 1 26-42w bulb over each plant, add as the plant grows in height. Maybe +1 bulb to every 3-5 inches in growth. The light set-up will be ok from above, until they get tall enough to place side lighting. With 4-6 plants in the 3x5 area... that should be adequate area yo, i wish ya good luck. I will keep an eye on this thread, just in case you really want to get into providing more info an at least pics.

BTW When I see these kinds of threads with a lack of a thought process with no information what so ever when asking for help... then I must plug this adage in, so here it is!

7 P's - Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance
Learn It Live It Love It

3x5 is 15 sqft 15x5000=75000lumens a 26w 2700k cfl puts out 1600 lumens thats about 46 and half bulbs id go with a smaller space with cfls put up plastic atleast but if you do use em tie em down keep em short and bushy,but hang a 600hps in there????

mikehod said:

3x5 is 15 sqft 15x5000=75000lumens a 26w 2700k cfl puts out 1600 lumens thats about 46 and half bulbs id go with a smaller space with cfls put up plastic atleast but if you do use em tie em down keep em short and bushy,but hang a 600hps in there????

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a 600hps?! where can i get one of those? i went to a local horticulturists shop and the guy there tried selling me everything for 500 dollars and like i dont wanna spend that kind of money lol. could i put the bulb in this clip on light i got? it goes up to 150 wattts. wtf do i get like these professional light fixtures everyone seems to have? that seems to be my biggest problem

and does that basically mean all my lights are useless? LOL

check out greners.com or craigslist

You're fine with CFL's. You can probably get away with about 10-15 100W-150W equivalents for 4-6 plants. What kind of system are you using? Is it soil or hydroponics? So, here's what you do: during the vegetative state, use blue spectrum CFL's, those would be the "daylight" CFL's. During the flowering state, use the red spectrum CFL's, those would be the "soft white" CFL's, but throw in 1 blue spectrum CFL with all your red spectrum bulbs during flowering. If you don't know which is which, you can tell just by buying one of each kind, plugging them both in at the same time and comparing their color. The red spectrum CFL's are going to look kind of an orange yellow, and the blue spectrum bulb will look kind of blue or really bright white. I know last year you could get both kinds of bulbs at Wal-Mart, sold individually as 100W equivalents, for about $1.00 each. Haven't bought any since. The red spectrum had red on the box, the blue spectrum ones had blue on the box. Gee, seemed kind of like they were advocating it.

Oh, one more thing. . . Make sure you use some sort of permanent marker to date your bulbs. It doesn't seem like it would happen, but they do grow dimmer over time. If you're planning on using them for more than one grow, you'll want to make sure you have a mix of old and new bulbs. Also, pick up a cheap pack of the 60 or 75 W equivalent bulbs for back-up. You never know when you might need 'em. Sucks to be without 'em when you don't have one. And get some of those individual sockets that you can plug in directly into an electrical strip, they're about $2.00 a piece. You can usually put about 3 of those into one electrical strip. See, now using that method, you've got a 300W-450W equivalent lighting fixture for around $15 bucks. I did my whole Bubbleponics DWC knock off system, including lighting for about $150.00 total. That was buying everything from Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Lowes, 1000bulbs.com.

The only thing it doesn't include is the nutrients.

depends on a few things

If you want to keep moms and or dads you can get away with 1 13w CFL per square foot to 2 feet some people veg under 1 or 2 40w Florescent tube light for 2 4 foot rows of moms and or dads and clones.

The thing that matters the most is flowering time. That's when you need the most juice. If your doing a SOG (Sea of Green) type of flowering then a single 45w CFL turned side ways for 2 plants is barly enough

well i got a couple 50w equivalents and a 120w equivalent lol