Question about Fluorescent Lights

[user 5533]

Ok, I'm planning out my first ever grow, so I have some questions about lighting since I've never done it before. I've been reading a lot of "guides" and they're all different, but I've read enough of them to know it's okay to use fluorescents....
Here's my situation: I'm going to be growing in a 3x3ft area (so, 9sq ft.), I'm probably only going to have 1-2 plants. This considered, if I use the compact fluorescents (these are in my price range) am I going to need a lot of them? Or will just 1 or 2 work alright? I mean, it's a closet, so I don't know how many lights I'm going to be able to stick in there.
I guess I'm not sure exactly how to go about this yet... and if someone could let me know about how many I'm looking at buying it'd be a big help.

 

[THE BROTHER'S GRUNT]

Ok, I'm planning out my first ever grow, so I have some questions about lighting since I've never done it before. I've been reading a lot of "guides" and they're all different, but I've read enough of them to know it's okay to use fluorescents....
Here's my situation: I'm going to be growing in a 3x3ft area (so, 9sq ft.), I'm probably only going to have 1-2 plants. This considered, if I use the compact fluorescents (these are in my price range) am I going to need a lot of them? Or will just 1 or 2 work alright? I mean, it's a closet, so I don't know how many lights I'm going to be able to stick in there.
I guess I'm not sure exactly how to go about this yet... and if someone could let me know about how many I'm looking at buying it'd be a big help.

You would want a minimum of 27,000 lumens but 45,000 would be much better. That would be 3,000 to 5,000 lumens per square foot. This would give you some very nice tight buds. You might wanna take a look at cyberquests grow http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8968.

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

you need at least 3000 lumens per square foot minimum. 5000 lumens would be ideal. Depending on how many watts each cfl uses will decide how many bulbs you're going to need. They make CFLs from 2-200 watts. A 27w cfl puts out about 1700 lumens. A 105w puts out about 6700 lumens. And so on, and so on. The stronger the bulb, the most expensive they become. But then again, you don't need nearly as many.

Also, you'll want to look for bulbs that are color rated at 6400-6500K so your plants will veg well. 6500k is more of a daylight color with more blue in it as opposed to 2700k which is more red light. But for strong vegitative growth you want a blue light. You'll want red light when it comes time to flowering. I would definitely go with an HPS system for this stage because of the need for even more lumens per sq ft. You would need tons of CFLs to get the results of one HPS lamp. So in that sense CFLs are a lot less inefficient than an HID system.

The set up I'm working on for vegging uses 4 125w cfls. Three of them are 6500k bulbs and 1 of them is a 2700k bulb. This is only for vegging. Flowering will go under a 430w Son Agro HPS light.


Check out this website: www.topbulb.com

search for fluorescent lighting or compact fluorescent. It will bring up a list of bulbs. Most of them have information as to how many lumens they put out. You can then select the sizes most affordable and practical for your grow space.

I would definitely recommend also buying diamond reflective mylar sheeting or normal mylar sheeting. It's a very reflective material that you would line your grow space with to reflect all that light back onto your plants. That will also help them grow better.

hope this helps.

 

[user 5533]

Yea, I've read a lot about HID lights.... but for that wouldn't I need a ballast (noise), and some ventilation.. not to mention how much heat they put off compared to the cfl's. And, as far as the mylar, about how much does that run (USD), and is aluminum foil a big no no? I've read about it causing hot spots, but I've also read 'guides' that say to use that.


Oh, and what I was planning on doing was using the cool white cfl's for veg, and switching over to the warm white cfl's for flowering. I assume doing it this way will give me a smaller yield, but it would be a heck of a lot easier for the situation that I have.

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

if you use an HID you will need a ballast. You should probably have some form of ventilation into and out of your closet either way. I think the mylar comes out to something like $5 per yard. Don't use aluminum foil. It isn't a good light reflector and it gets hot.

 

[user 5533]

would using cool white and then warm white cfl's work alright though?

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

For vegging, really try to get 6400k-6500k bulbs. Don't go for the 5000k ones. The plants will grow well under these until it comes time to flower. Then switch to the warm white 2700k bulbs. During flowering you need something like 6500 lumens per square foot I think. Switch out almost all the bulbs with 2700k to flower and maybe leave one or two 6500k bulbs in there. It will work alright under cfls. I think I saw someone's grow journal under all cfls and they pulled about an ounce off each plant they grew. It's just your yield would probably be much better under an HID lighting system.

 

[user 5533]

Ok, well thanks for all your input.. I'm pretty set on using cfl's though because I don't have a few hundred to spend on HID lights (unless you know of somewhere that sells them for like $20)....
I just went to walmart to browse around, and for the space I have, I'm going to need ~9 lights in order to get a little over 3000 lumens per sq ft for the veg stage... this is going to be a lot more difficult than I thought because I don't have any light fixtures in my closet at all... I'm going to have to add the cost of a lot of extension cords to my budget. It's a good thing it's going to take a few weeks before my snowberry seeds come in the mail.. being a full time college student, I'm pretty broke most of the time.

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

I sent you a PM, check it out. Just another option.

 

[user 5533]

umm.. I don't have any private messages. "Private Messages: Unread 0, Total 0."

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

Didnt think you'd reply that quick. I was still writing it. Check now.

 

[user 5533]

haha there it is.

 

[user 5533]

$109 bucks + $40 shipping.
that made me cringe lol. I suppose I would have almost 3 months to save for it, and where he ships from is not that far away from me.. probably 1-3 business days to ship USPS.
Is the difference in how much power the HID uses compared to how much my 9/10 fluoros would use going to be a lot (as far as my electric bill)? And with the heating issue, and virtually no ventilation except opening the closet door going to be an issue while flowering?

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

How many watts total would you be using with all the cfls on? If it's close to the same thing as the HID you may as well just ge the HID. You light that uses around the same amount of power as all the other lights, that puts out the same or more light with just one bulb. It's just much more efficient. Definitely get a fan going inside your grow room. Ventilation will be key because the lamps do heat up and you can burn your plants if you don't control the temperature properly. And you need fresh air moving in anyway. I found a ventilator on ebay going for 12 bucks and it's almost over. If you could rig it up to expell the air out a window you'd be set. just stick it inside your grow room with a tube leading outside to a window.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Portable-8-Util...ryZ53297QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[user 5533]

let me give you an idea of where I am right now...
http://luemages.net/a/u/10011/growroom.GIF
that's my grow room. add some lights, and some mylar on the inside.. you can imagine it, i know you can
as far as watts... with the fluoro's i'd be using ~250, so it's gonna bumb it up x2 with the HID.
on the plus side, I might be getting a new apartment within the next week or so, so i might get more area/windows to work with.

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

mm I see. I would say go with the fluoros then for that space. I know I wouldn't want a hot HID in a small space like that where I couldn't keep an eye on it all the time. If you can afford it, you might want to look into the long tube fluoros. You can mount them vertically on every wall and the door and completely surround the plants.

 

[user 5533]

Yeah that would work with the tubed ones.... it'd be pretty impressive when i opened up the closet too haha. but, since it's going to take me a little bit to get money for either that HPS HID system OR a bunch of tubed fluoro's (since those are almost 10$ a piece) I am going to wait and see if I'm moving in to a new (hopefully bigger) place soon, and then decide which lights to get for flowering. Thankfully that's a while away right now...... but either way I think I'm going to end up spending more than I want to, so I should probably get the better HID system instead of half-assing all future grows. We'll see... thanks a lot for your help, you've been like my guide book for my lighting planning so far

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

Hey, you're welcome man. Good luck on your growing.

 

[user 5533]

ugh.. so the only lights that come in conviently priced 4 packs are the GE Enegery Saver lights (green package), however, they don't say what they are on the package (I've looked thoroughly) as far as 6500k, or ???K... and they do not say whether they are "cool white" "soft white" "warm white" or anything... they're just in the green package and say Energy Saver, or Energy Smart

Are these good for anything?

 

[theyorker]

Floyd if you are looking to veg only one or two plants all you need is one fixture and 2 bulbs. If you can do some basic wiring, you can make a 24" light fixture that will have room for 2, 20 Watt, T12 tubes. The entire getup with bulbs and a cord would cost you about $40 and you can get everything you need at Home Depot or Lowes. This will give you very cool light that you can put within 1" of the plant. It will provide enough light to get 1 or 2 plants through their vegetative growth phase. Understand that if you don't get more lights for flowering you are wasting your time and money, because you will need another 4 setups like this one for flowering (or 1 HID fixture). Plus you will need ventilation and odor control. If you want the parts list and directions on how to build the fixture let me know.

I have one other question that has been making me laugh all day. When you say Laserkittensgopewpew does anybody think "stinky pussy" :rofl: And don't go getting pist at me laserkitty...I'm just saying...it's pretty funny I think. Later all.