Lighting Crisis

Q

QuezLoMarley

Member
allright i cant even front, im broke as a bitch and trying to find a solution for my grow lights. at first i was just going to get 2 fluorescent lights and hook that up, but i did sum research and found out about hps lights. so i went to the store and deboed a 150 watt hps bulb lol not knowing i need a ballast. everywher i look for ballasts ther super expensive, so now im stuck, i can easily go fluorescent, but just having this beautiful bulb in my room wants me to set it up. does anybody know wher i can get a cheap ballast, should i just go fluorescent, or wat????
 
mrdrywall

mrdrywall

Active Member
there r no cheap ballasts, might get lucky on craigslist but doubt it,getting started growin costs a lot of dough. go with cfl lights from wally world or home depot if you have to start cheap. i dont know what wattage 4 veg and flower hve to research on here somebody will know
 
IXOYE

IXOYE

Active Member
Don't sweat it being broke makes folks creative! Depending where you purchased the bulb you can probably go back and refund/exchange it. With 6 plants I'd go with some longer tubes t8s is what I used because they were pretty inexpensive. 2 bulbs for $6 and the fixture was a garage/shop 48" fixture from Lowes that I paid $20 for. The bulbs I used for vegging were 6500k "Day light" cool bulbs. I went with 2 of those those double fluorescents through the vegetative state (2 months) and by the time I was ready to flower I had saved up enough for a nice switchable HID:

http://lovelandhydroponics.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.pbv.v2.tpl&product_id=16&category_id=7&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=62
 
darkdestruction420

darkdestruction420

Well-Known Member
a 150w hps is not enough for 6 plants, 400w hps would work if you did 6 smaller plants, but no way your gonna get 6 good sized plants from a 150w hps or a few cheap flourosent lights. Your goal is unrealistic, if you were going for 1 good plant the 150w hps would probally be ok, but a few cfls or tubes aint gonna cut it, if you want good dense nugs from cfls or tubes you need to have alot of them spread out all over the place bathing the plants in as much light as possible. once the light from them gets more than a few inches from the bulb it loses alot of its effectiveness. So spreading the bulbs out while keeping them as close to the plants as possible to maximize light penetration is a must for serious cfl growing.
 
hellraizer30

hellraizer30

Rebel From The North
darkdestruction420 said:
a 150w hps is not enough for 6 plants, 400w hps would work if you did 6 smaller plants, but no way your gonna get 6 good sized plants from a 150w hps or a few cheap flourosent lights. Your goal is unrealistic, if you were going for 1 good plant the 150w hps would probally be ok, but a few cfls or tubes aint gonna cut it, if you want good dense nugs from cfls or tubes you need to have alot of them spread out all over the place bathing the plants in as much light as possible. once the light from them gets more than a few inches from the bulb it loses alot of its effectiveness. So spreading the bulbs out while keeping them as close to the plants as possible to maximize light penetration is a must for serious cfl growing.
Click to expand...
I agree with you dark but ive seen a couple of crazy grows where budys of mine with a single pionier t5 8bulb pannel system yelded just over a half pound dry from 8 plant
true genetic were top notch and so was the feeding plan, and the plant were jammed under the light and they were about three feet tall.
 
Q

QuezLoMarley

Member
@dark i just started a week ago so the plants r tiny, but i see wat ur saying, how many bulbs do u think i need like four?? and u can hook up cfl's to a regular electrical output right?
 
IXOYE

IXOYE

Active Member
I had four plants in 3.5 gallon pots under four 48" long T8s and they bushed up nicely. I kept them 2-3 inches above the tops and because the t8s were long I was able to illuminate all the plants without a sporadic mess of lights just a couple simple hanging fixtures. I kicked it up to the HID for flowering though.
 
darkdestruction420

darkdestruction420

Well-Known Member
QuezLoMarley said:
@dark i just started a week ago so the plants r tiny, but i see wat ur saying, how many bulbs do u think i need like four?? and u can hook up cfl's to a regular electrical output right?
Click to expand...
Yeah, i'd say for flower at least 100w(so at least 4 26w bulbs) a plant, for veg 40w(2 26w bulbs). Those are the minimums i'd use. tubes are not a bad idea for over the tops and cfls on the side.
 
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