what watt light is best?

HashGod said:

If you want to pay a massive power bill an HPS will do the job. If you don't use a cfl.

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Sorry, but you are wrong. You would need twenty seven (27) 28 watt CFl bulbs to make the equivalent lumen output of a 400 watt HPS. in other words you would have to use 729 watts of CFL power to get the same results as a 400 Watt HPS. Even if you were to use the larger 65 watt CFl bulbs you would need eight of them to equal the 50,000 Lumen output of a 400 W HPS and 8 of them uses 520 watts. CFL is not as efficient as HPS, they put out more heat than the equivalent light output of a HPS. So in conclusion CFL bulbs use MORE electricity per lumen than HPS lights do. The exact opposite of what you heard from someone else or may have been lead to believe. Its not your fault, lost of bad information out there and much of it is perpetuated by a majority of people who just don't know any better.


Oh and the sun during the early summer at high noon puts out the equivalent of 1000 watts per square meter, so say the science books.

Wow bud, loaded question.
What is your goal?
The answer really depends on how many plants you have, what size planters they are in, what size space you're growing in and how much ventilation and climate control you can afford.

Thank you everybody for your responses I will be taking each one into careful consideration as i try to complete this mish!

highonbud said:

what watt do light do i need to be using to ensure that my girls are getting all the artificial light they can get???
hit me up let me know
thank you
-highonbud

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"All the artificial light they can get" means that they require all the artificial light that you can provide them with!

A more reasonable question would be: "How much light do they need?"; or "How much light can they actually use?". The problem with this type of question is that you didn't mention the one thing that really matters - the size of your grow chamber (the actual enclosed growing area, where all of your efforts are focused). A specific sized light will "cover" a specific sized area, not a specific number of plants.

The number of plants that will fit into any given "area" changes as the plants grow larger. The amount of area that a given light can cover doesn't change too much! The point I'm trying to make is "Think in terms of Square Feet, not Plant Numbers".

The minimum wattage that the bulbs for your plants need to be depend mostly on their final height. If you grow some four-foot-tall plants, a 400w bulb will only sufficiently illuminate about the top two feet of them. If you only grow plants under two feet tall, you can cover all of your flowering areas with 400's. Vertical grow room pretty much goes up a foot for every 200w.

I think it depends on personally experience/preference.

Right now I'm using a Ultraviolet Germicidal Florescent 18" bulb that purifies the air. and two T12 florescent plant and aquarium 24" lights. with 6700k color temp and 600lumens. 20watts each. this is working fantastic. the Germicidal bulb cost about $50 each twenty years ago.