first grow!

[newgrowNY]

looking good.... very nice job

[citizendildo]

exciting reading from beginning to end...i wish you the best

[c1scot]

here's what im going with......didn't get the hpshowever,while i was looking around lowes today,i spotted some 300watt cfl's @ 2700k each,so i purchased two of them.they seem to really light up the room,and you can tell a big difference in the light spectrum from my mh to these.have them both set on a timer for 12/12,so now i guess ill sit back and wait till i can start to see some preflowers,and weed out the males........keeping my fingers crossed.

[c1scot]

considering i only vegged under one 175 watt mh, im thinking these should do ok for flowering.

[RexFollett]

Is that tinfoil? cause if so take it off now it does not evenly distribute the heat and will cause heat spots in the grow area and burn up your plants.. You can use white poster board. If you use a light meter and check the strength of reflection, you will find that white poster board reflects more light than aluminum foil and does so very evenly. That is if ya can't just paint the walls with flat white paint or get some mylar white on one side black on the other side roll and put that up in there..

[NewYorkKush]

The cost of HID lighting gets really expensive when you start factoring in the 150 dollar minimum ballast, the 100 dollar a piece lamps, and the 120 dollar min shade...

For every lamp I have hanging its a 399 lumatek ballast, a 120 dollar lamp, and a 150 dollar reflector.


If you're in it for long term yields and have a bit of cash to throw around they become much more viable, your setup looks great, I would wait out the harvest and then consider upgrading to an HID system.

Good Luck with those buds!

[pixelpusher]

Hey man, sorry to point this out to you, but those aren't 300W cfls. Check the lighter number under the maroon colored '300W'

It says 65W which is the true rating. So you're working with 130W of cfls. You can veg the hell out of em with that, but you might need 'MORE POWER' when you flower.

[c1scot]

first thing first.....i dont have aluminum foil hanging its light grade mylar........second,these bulbs are 300 watts, and only consume 65 watts of power.i would love to be using a hps setup, but money is very tight right now, so these will have to do for this first grow.....

[pixelpusher]

Um, where's the icon for slapping the moron?

[NewYorkKush]

Originally Posted by c1scot

these bulbs are 300 watts, and only consume 65 watts of power

wowzers thats an impressive leap in technology...

[pixelpusher]

Well, this is close enough
So c1scot, you posted a picture of your freaking light bulbs and the box says clearly "300W Replacement"...and then below 65W. Yes, you're right it uses 65W...BECAUSE IT IS A 65W BULB! The 300W b.s. is talking about how bright humans see it and is comparing lumen output between a CFL and a incandescent bulb.

CFL's have more lumens per watt then a standard incandescent thus they SEEM as bright as a higher powered incandescent bulb...

Anyway, let's just talk about lumens. What does it say on your box? Probably something like ~4200. Since you have 2 you've got about 8400 lumens. (I'll give you that since you've got them both directly overhead) How many plants are you growing? How many sq.ft. of space? 8400 lumens is probably enough for .3sq.ft. of growing space....

But forget it, don't listen to anyone on here because we don't know what the fuck we're talking about. Your plants will tell you loud and clear when you can see your hand through your plants' stretched out colas.

[c1scot]

clearly that was my mistake, and i appreciate all comments and anything that can help.......but as it states,this is my first grow,so there is no need in being an asshole!

[c1scot]

despite the little mix up with the two cfl's i bought, i got a 400watt hps setup, so those cfl's will now only be used for side lighting.

[lifted.again]

youre girls are going to love their upgrade

[c1scot]

i hope so, i know they sure looked good this evening after the light came back on.guess only time will tell. here's a few new pics to boot!