cfl scectrum questions.

Hey guys... its brian. I had somthing id like to throw out there regarding cfl growing.

There are several types of cfl bubls ranging from warm, to cool, to daylight.

I understand the usage of blue spectrum for veg and red spectrum for bloom. I know cool bulbs offer more blue and the warm bulbs offer more red.However daylight bulbs puzzle me. In my understanding these bulbs replicate daylight like the natural sunlight. Could you theoretically use these bulbs throughout the entire cycle without switching from cool to warm? If they replicate the natural daytime light it seems do-able doesn't it? I mean the sun doesn't change color mid-cycle...

...just something I'm pondering

Babybudboy: don't feel bad if you're confused by the way they're marketing lamps these days. I think: soft, bright and day light are marketing ploys and not particularly important to us. What seems to be important is the temperature or color of the light as indicated by the Kelvin rating, and there seems to be a lot of variance there.

From what I've read and experienced if you use anywhere from 5,000K to 6,500K's from seed propagation until flowering with a high nitrogen diet you'll be okay. Personally, I use 5,000K's from seed propagation through vegging on a progressive light schedule that starts with 20 hours on and 4 hours off and decreases the light by one hour a week until they start to showing signs of preflowering. That usually occurs at around 14 or 13 hours of light and ten to 11 hours of darkness and it works fine for me.

When I force flowering I switch their diet to one lower in nitrogen and higher in phosphorus potassium and the lamps to red 2,700K's. I continue dropping the light interval until they hit 14 hours off and 10 on and I hold it at that until harvest. I've had good luck with this program. I hope this helps. Hank

Hmm thank you. I'm pretty up to date with feeding. But the switching of the lights was my concern. Right now I'm using all 6500k bulbs. Maybe blending 6500k and 5000k will give the girls a more wholesome dose of light. Thank you.

also, I'm intrigued by the way you gradually diminish the photoperiod. I've only heard of vegging at 24/0 or 16/8 and flowering with 12/12. Is there any reason you do it that way?

Hmm thank you. I'm pretty up to date with feeding. But the switching of the lights was my concern. Right now I'm using all 6500k bulbs. Maybe blending 6500k and 5000k will give the girls a more wholesome dose of light. Thank you.

also, I'm intrigued by the way you gradually diminish the photoperiod. I've only heard of vegging at 24/0 or 16/8 and flowering with 12/12. Is there any reason you do it that way?

Do some reading bro. Basically your replicating what happens outside. During the spring up to end of August beginning of Sept there are more hours of light then darkness then it reverses. As it reverses thats the signal for Cannabis to enter flowering. So why do we do that indoors...to induce flowering. Where as inside you can control when you do that outside growers have to wait till that happens.

As for your above question. Daylight bulbs do not replicate the suns spectrum fully. Thats just marketing that they put on the bulb. They give off a redish spectrum. The others a bluish white.

Hmm thank you. I'm pretty up to date with feeding. But the switching of the lights was my concern. Right now I'm using all 6500k bulbs. Maybe blending 6500k and 5000k will give the girls a more wholesome dose of light. Thank you.

also, I'm intrigued by the way you gradually diminish the photoperiod. I've only heard of vegging at 24/0 or 16/8 and flowering with 12/12. Is there any reason you do it that way?

Babybudboy: I've been taking hydro classes for a couple of years now and the progressive light schedule was offered by one of our former instructors who claimed it would be more natural as in what actually happens in nature. I think I was the only one in the class who actually tried it and it worked great for me. I suggested it here and at Rollitup's forum but mostly got got scorned by folks who are afraid to try something new or are just looking for a reason to make you look bad. A couple of people here have had good luck with it. I did a write up on lighting I'm going to include here for you.Let's see how much of this you agree with?
Lighting is a very complex subject but some people try to make it a lot more complicated than it needs to be. First, you need to understand how they measure the light that you're using for what you want to do with your plants. I’m not an electrician and I certainly don't have all the answers but I'll try to simplify it for you.
Wattage is the load rating of a lamp or the amount of current or electricity that the lamp draws or uses. As I recall from a Physics class I took in the mid 70's, but don't hold me to it now because I don't have the book in front of me: “Watts is amperage draw times the supplied voltage,” and it's usually read in a relatively small number. CFL’s typically draw:14, 17, 21, 29 watts. Incandescent light bulbs draw: 40, 60, 100, and MH and HPS draw: 250, 400, 600, up to a 1,000 watts. What that means is that the higher the wattage rating on the lamp the more electricity it uses and the more it costs to operate.
That's what got us all into all those little curly-cue CFL's, (compact fluorescent lamps), and they dropped my electric bill drastically on a level pay plan to a point where I don't even get a bill from the power company for three months of the year. Before my incandescent lights were burning 60 watts each, now they’re using only 14. It makes sense.
The really tricky part of this is that they advertise the wattage of electricity they use and the amount of light they produce and compare it to the equivalent used by an incandescent lamp putting out the same amount of light. The ones I just bought claim they only draw 14 watts but they put out the same amount of light as a sixty watts incandescent light bulb. The one I use on my clone mother draws only 29 watts but claims to put out the equivalent light of a 100 watt incandescent bulb. Now is that clear to you, or are you just as confused as the rest of us? But we're not done yet.
Lumens is a measurement of the amount light, the intensity it projects, the brightness and that's usually measured in hundreds of lumens. I don't know where the top of the scale is but the new brighter, Ecosmart CFL lamps I just changed over to in my home advertise that they generate 850 lumens of light while consuming only 14 watts of electricity. Now you don't have to light a match to find the damned things at night when they're turned on like their earlier predecessors. My wife used to bitch that the old ones being too dim to read under but now she complains that the new ones are too bright. Go figure. Now let's consider the color of the light they're producing.
Color, frequency or temperature of the light it produces is measured when it's run through a prism and seen in the available spectrum of colors. It’s measured in Kelvins; K's. These new lamps I bought are rated at 4,800K's, which is pretty close to the 5,000K green T-5 grow lamps I use in my tent for vegging. The lower the K's, the redder and the warmer the light. The higher the K's the cooler the light and the color goes from green to blue. Cool, green to blue light is for vegetative growth and warm red light is for flowering. Got that? If you can keep that straight think about what the sun produces during the year. In the spring and early summer the light is bright and cool, it has a higher K rating number; it's greener toward blue and our plants grow. If you have a copy of Cervantes’s “MARIJUANA HORTICULTURE THE INDOOR/OUTDOOR MEDICAL GROWER’S BIBLE,” look at page 160. Grow lamps are green to blue and that's the cool light that’s suitable for vegging. Come fall we get those beautiful warm red orange sunsets and the light is red and warm and that’s the 2,700K red light we use for flowering.
Now let’s look at the practical side of this. I’m going to fool my plants with the right diet and lighting to go from seed sprouting to harvest in half the time they will normally need in nature. From seed sprouting through vegging I feed my babies a high N diet that’s low P and K to go along with the 5,000K grow lights and the longer lights on schedule. Right now I'm using 5,000K T-5 grow lamps for my plants to veg under. I'm told this is a moderately green light they like for growth and photosynthesis. One grower uses 6,000K's lamps and another grower uses 6,500K's. I was warned against the higher K rating by a person I trust at the hydro store. The other lamps cost a little more but my friend at the hydro store claimed he sees less light related problems with the 5,000K's so that's what I bought, and they've worked fine for me. Most people have these on for vegging anywhere from 24 to 20 to 16 hours a day. You choose.
When my plants begin to preflower I change their diet to a lower N and higher P-K nutrient blend and the lamps in their T-5 fixture to warm red flowering lights that are rated at only 2,700K. I also drop the light interval, (the time that they're on). Some folks go directly to a 12/12 schedule but I use a progressive light schedule that starts at 20 hours of light at seed planting with 4 hours of resting darkness and I reduce the light by one hour a week. But that's another issue altogether, and I explained it here already in another post.
After some experimentation I settled on a progression to a bottom figure of 10 hours of light and 14 hours of darkness and stayed with that until harvest. And the strains I'm growing seemed to really like it.
So if you're asking elementary lighting questions I suggest you RTFB. Refer to the following sources: 1. Read: SeeMoreBud’s book, “MARIJUANA BUDS FOR LESS GROW 8 OZ. OF BUDS FOR LESS THAN $100.” 2. Read: Jorge Cervantes’s book, “MARIJUANA HORTICULTURE THE INDOOR/OUTDOOR MEDICAL GROWER’S BIBLE.” 3. Read: Ed Rosenthal’s, “MARIJUANA GROWER’S HANDBOOK.” 4. Read: Mc Carthy’s book, “GROWING MARIJUANA.” 5. You’ll also want to subscribe to, “HIGH TIMES,” magazine. Each issue is chocked full of useful information. .” All these resources are very well written, well illustrated and packed with information that will answer most of your questions before you know to ask them. 6. There's another excellent book I'm reading right now by Greg Green called, “THE CANNABIS GROW BIBLE-SECOND EDITION,” it’s every bit as good as the ones I mentioned above but a lot more technical. All of these resources are available at major book stores and at most growing forums. They will save you and your plants a lot of stress. The only problem with these forums is that if you get in a jam and need help right away it may be a while before we can get back to you.

In all fairness I have to admit that I use Technaflora's, "Recipe for Success," nutes exclusively with this progressive light schedule. I'm not sure if one has anything to do with the other but it works for me.

I sincerely hope this helps. Hank

Wow I own "the bible" and jorge says the same thing! I just wanted confirmation because nobodys perfect....I can also see how the light cycle is more natural. Thanks. You have plenty of knowledgable people your connected to and they really know their shit! ..as do you

I was wondering about 2 more things..

1) I'm using cfls and you use t5's only as far as I can tell. Did you get better results from t5's than cfls or have you just always used t5 bulbs?

And 2) the t-5 bulbs are horizontal in the reflector which I hear is more efficient. My cfls are vertical in Reflective hoods. Should I try using them horizontally? Or should I Try t5's? I'm sure your horizontal reflector is much easier to move up and down...

Babybudboy: thanks, all compliments are appreciated, but I'm just learning like you. I've probably just been at it a little longer that's all. See if your local hydro stores offer free growing classes? I've met a lot of like minded folks and learned a lot there. These forums are good but sometimes you have a problem and you're on your own because we all have our own hectic lives and often we can't get back to you in time.

I started with T-8's in the early 80's because that's all I and my friends knew anything about that we could afford. They worked and I used them throughout the 90's but they didn't offer the variety of light color/frequencies we have now with the modern T-5's. That's progress, I guess. If you can't tell, I'm a real fan of T-5's.

I do use CFL's, a single 29 watt CFL lamp that's supposed to put out the same amount of light as a 100 watt lamp @ 5,000K, in a $12 10" spun aluminum hood and socket from The Home Depot. It hangs over my mother plant when I clone in a 2' by 2' cloning tent. I was soured on individual CFL's by my friends who I think went overboard with them. Their grows took on the appearance of the snake pit scene form an Indiana Jones movie and they became a wire man's nightmare.

I fell in love with the compactness and neatness of the T-5 fixture with multiple tubes encased in a single fixture that completely covers my grow with power fed by a single cord.

I grow in a 2' by 4' by 6 1/2' tent and my ceiling is wall to wall T-5's. I have two four tube fixtures 4' long hanging there. When I have only three or four plants flowering I use only one 4 tube fixture with 2,700K tubes in it. When I have a dozen seedlings getting started or vegging I use the 5,000K lamps in both of the fixtures, plug one into the other and I still have only one cord to deal with. It's a neater, easier area to work in.

My T-5's hang on adjustable cords form the upper frame of my tent and I usually keep them a couple of inches off the tops of my plants unless I'm going out somewhere then I'll raise them to the recommended minimum 6" height. And yes, they are much easier to handle horizontally.

I've got friends who rig side lighting but I can't say that all their work and expense has delivered anymore or any better than what I get out of my plants.

This is why RTFB is so important. there are a lot of ways to do things and the interesting thing is that our Gurus who wrote those books apparently haven't caught on to the simplicity of T-5's. Just make sure that if you become a T-5 disciple you buy a fixture big enough to completely cover your grow. I hope that helps. Hank

I agree, these things need more publicity.

Let me ask.. how does a 200w t-5 fixture compare to a 200w hps/mh lamp?

As far as I know the hid ballast can pull wattage too, making it more than just 200w to operate. Can you confirm this?
Also, Do you know if there's more heat from the 200w t5 or hid?
And can you match the spectrum of the hps/mh by the bulbs you choose?

I agree, these things need more publicity.

Let me ask.. how does a 200w t-5 fixture compare to a 200w hps/mh lamp?

As far as I know the hid ballast can pull wattage too, making it more than just 200w to operate. Can you confirm this?
Also, Do you know if there's more heat from the 200w t5 or hid?
And can you match the spectrum of the hps/mh by the bulbs you choose?

The 200w HPS/MH will over more light intensity then T5s. There would be more heat in the HPS/MH.

How can you match the spectrum of hps/mh?...what do you mean?

Whatever your ballast is rated for is what you pull. If its a 200w ballast it would be pulling 200w.

How can you match the spectrum of hps/mh?...what do you mean?

I mean the hid offers a certain amount of blue and a certain amount of red. Let's say it offers 75% blue 25% red... could I theoretically use 3 blue bulbs and 1 red bulb to try and re-create that? I'm speaking figuratively of course. This is a rough example ^^^^^^^^

Hope you see what I mean

I mean the hid offers a certain amount of blue and a certain amount of red. Let's say it offers 75% blue 25% red... could I theoretically use 3 blue bulbs and 1 red bulb to try and re-create that? I'm speaking figuratively of course. This is a rough example ^^^^^^^^

Hope you see what I mean

Well a HPS or MH doesnt provide 75% of this kind of light and 25% of another. You can have both in one tent. A plant uses more then just the spectrum either give its just they use more of certain types in veg and the same in flowering. Thats why outdoor grows rock its full spectrum light. Its the good LEDs rock they can provide a fuller spectrum. Why plasma lighting has great promise if it comes down in price its full spectrum.

I agree, these things need more publicity.

Let me ask.. how does a 200w t-5 fixture compare to a 200w hps/mh lamp?

As far as I know the hid ballast can pull wattage too, making it more than just 200w to operate. Can you confirm this?
Also, Do you know if there's more heat from the 200w t5 or hid?
And can you match the spectrum of the hps/mh by the bulbs you choose?

Babybudboy: I agree with you and running it through a meter would be the best way to tell for sure. Hank