# Growing W/ Flouros



## CaseyJones (Feb 27, 2007)

Guys great site I was wondering if some of you "entrepreneurs" can help me out. I am setting up a grow room and need some advice on fluroscent lighting. I have the ok from "my better half " to start some growing in a closte under two conditions I have no more than four plants and I can only use fluro lighting. The space I am planing to use that is 2ft W X 6ft L X 6f T. I am planing on four plants planted in 5 gal; buckets can someone please tell me how many floro lights will be needed to get decent smoke from closet this size.Any help I can get will greatly be appreciated. Thanks in advance for the help!


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## Brouli (Feb 27, 2007)

hahahh  that will not work my brither  its good for veg. stage but not for flowering you would have to get  a lot  i mean a lot of them  to  hit amount of lumes that you need for that size bro .  in veg stage minimum is 3000 lumes , for flowering 6000 lumes per 1 SF  for desent smoke so you  do the mats how many square feet you got and them git  the store, its something like  40 watt  2400 lumes if im not mistaken you got 72 sf or something like that


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## bc6548 (Mar 2, 2007)

Of course fluoro's work, you simply need enough of them.  They are ideal for a closet where heat and space can be a big issue.  Bulbs can be kept inches away, or even touching plants without burning them.  I have found temps much easier to keep under control compared to hps. 16 4" t8 fluoro bulbs fit across a closet, which gives you plenty of light for flowering. Bulbs come in color temps of 6000k(for veg) to 3000k(for flower) or can be mixed.  If you purchase 4 t8 electronic 4 lamp ballasts, it'll run 16 lights. They can even be wired so you can switch and run 2 ballasts and 8 lights or all 16.  Cost is around $200 cdn fore ballasts tubes, lamp holders, etc.  Using a 2x4 piece of plywood, one can mount ballasts on top, lights bellow and hang in closet with hooks and rope or chain.  A short length of thermostat wire carefully slit open provides many multi colored wires to wire the ballasts to lamps.  Construction adhesive works to glue lamp holders to plywood. I glued reflective mylar to the plywood to maximize light output. It takes a while to get all of the wiring hooked up but is worth it.  Commercial lights similar to this can be bought but are much more expensive. Its perfect.  It's widely thought that fluros dont grow good bud, but thats just ignorance. Fluoro bulbs come in a wide variety of types and sizes, plant bulbs work great but cost more than the standard bulbs which work fine. The other bonus is they are completly silent unlike hps which somewhat noisy.  :farm:


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## theyorker (Mar 2, 2007)

brouli said:
			
		

> hahahh that will not work my brither its good for veg. stage but not for flowering


 
That's not true Brouli.  Flourescent works very well (just need ALOT of it)  People like HID because one bulb and one ballist gets you tons of light.  There is a thread by Cyberquest (CFL Lighting 101).  Very informative.  I'm using all flourescent on a stealth grow and so far I am very pleased with the results.  IMO, if you have enough bulbs, flourescent light can be  better then HID light.  Good luck to you.  Later.


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## Hick (Mar 3, 2007)

HID's produce more lumens for less $$'s. They are more efficient. 6,000 lumens of flourescent lighting is going to cost more to run/produce than 6,000 lunens od HID. 



> They can even be wired so you can switch and run 2 ballasts and 8 lights or all 16. Cost is around $200 cdn fore ballasts tubes, lamp holders, etc.


for $200 you can "almost" purchase two 400 watt hps systems. Somewhere arond 8-10 "thousand" lumens.
"$120.00
A complete 400 watt High Pressure Sodium lighting system with Chrome reflector." ............at inside sun

cfl's/flourescents are "good" for very small enclosed areas, where heat and venting might be an issue.


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## unseenghost (Mar 3, 2007)

I'm sorry I may not know much and haven't posted much. But Brouli's math is off quite a bit. No disrespect but math is math. A 2 foot by 6 foot by 6 foot tall space has the same SQUARE FOOTAGE as a 2 foot by 6 foot by 100 foot tall space. However CUBIC FOOTAGE changes. Sorry but a 2 by 6 by 6 tall space is only 12 SQUARE feet not 72. 2 by 6 by 6 is 72 CUBIC. Everything else is right if the math is.


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## Hick (Mar 4, 2007)

unseenghost said:
			
		

> I'm sorry I may not know much and haven't posted much. But Brouli's math is off quite a bit. No disrespect but math is math. A 2 foot by 6 foot by 6 foot tall space has the same SQUARE FOOTAGE as a 2 foot by 6 foot by 100 foot tall space. However CUBIC FOOTAGE changes. Sorry but a 2 by 6 by 6 tall space is only 12 SQUARE feet not 72. 2 by 6 by 6 is 72 CUBIC. Everything else is right if the math is.



"good catch" ghost...your right sq.ft and cu. ft, 
got a snicker thinking "How many cfl's to produce 6K lum. p/ 72 sq ft"..


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## DLtoker (Mar 4, 2007)

Fluorescents are great!  Here is something perfect for your space...


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## theyorker (Mar 4, 2007)

Opencountry said:
			
		

> IMHO you will get alot of heat from the flros ballast,the bulbs are nice and cool


 
You have to remove the ballist from the flourescent fixture and rewire it so the ballist is outside your box.  Then all that is left is cool light inside for your plants.


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## CaseyJones (Mar 6, 2007)

Wow guys thanks for the replies back to my post! I did some math this weekend and this is what I come up with:
 My closet 2' W X 6' L =12 sq. ft.
 4,000 Lumens per sq. ft = 48,000 Lumens
 This can be accomplished by 10 4' flourcent light fixtures with a total of 20 
 tubes with a total wattage around 850 watts. Now I know there are a lot better lights I can buy but I will have a problem with heat in my cloet and I understand that the other lights the ballast gives off a humming noise which wont work since the closet is on the outside wall of the house about six feet from a nosey neighbor! Now if I cut my room down to 2' W X 4' L that drops down to 8 sq. ft and that can be done with 32,000 Lumens. Does this sound right to anyone or did I screw up my math!


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## unseenghost (Mar 6, 2007)

I wrote a quick excel spreadsheet to figure out lumans per square foot. all you have to do is enter the bulbs you have, the luman output the bulb says, and enter the watts it says. The watts not so important but helps to know just incase. then enter the length and width of the room and it is done. 

View attachment lumans cfl.zip


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## theyorker (Mar 6, 2007)

You can do everything you are saying but be prepared because you will have to remove the ballist from every fixture you buy, cut it out of the fixture and then splice in enough wire so you can mount the ballist outside the box somehow.  There are 6 wires per fixture, so 10 fixtures would have you looking at 60 wire connections.  Also make sure you plan for ventilation.  It is VERY important to have excellent ventilation if you want optimal plant production and odor control.  You need a source of fresh air on the bottom and something exhausting the spent air from the top.  Hope this helps.  Later.


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## DLtoker (Mar 6, 2007)

CaseyJones said:
			
		

> 4,000 Lumens per sq. ft = 48,000 Lumens
> This can be accomplished by 10 4' flourcent light fixtures with a total of 20
> tubes with a total wattage around 850 watts.



I think as fluoros go, there are other options that can be much cheaper... Maybe not...?  Do you have any links with examples you could show us?  There are plenty of balasts that don't hum that I know of.  AND good lord that is a lot of wattage for that lumen output....


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## Fretless (Mar 9, 2007)

I agree with the yorker above about the ballasts.  You see heat output is relative to wattage.  Your 850 watts of floro will generate as much heat as 850 watts of HID, the difference being it is spread over a greater surface area, so burning/fire is not the hazard, but the heat will be there.
    My 2 cents is, don't use 4' tubes.  Use 8 or 10,  42 watt CFL's, and have a gentle fan in there blowing, and open the door several times a day.  Flower early, maybe even before the 4th internode.  So you'll have a couple of the CFL's to each plant, no more than a few inches from the plant.  I haven't flowered with CFL's, but I have grown very, very dense plants veg under them and I imagine your buds with those lights would be 'decent'.  Then, if you could somehow have a separate area for clones, you could do a miniature Sea of Green and you and your better half could live in a yellow submarine.  Good luck, captain.


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## Nelson Mutz (Mar 10, 2007)

Hey bearfoot...if you are going to flower with CFL's, I recommed you change your bulbs to the "softwhite" version [2600-2800k or "red" spectrum].  I have 10 sockets, and use 8 of them for 100 watt softwhite CFL's during flowering.  Works great!   Let us all know how it works for you.
:smoke1: 
Nelson


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