23 X 23 watts? Sure, that setup looks sexy. But man, that's crazy. With a 600w HPS and remote digital ballast that was mounted outside the room you'd be creating likely less heat than all those CFLs, producing far more lumens and light penetration with a better light spectrum. I'm sure that with fixtures 23 lights runs close enough to the price of a 600w HPS anyway. To say nothing of the headaches involved with having to constantly adjust all those fixtures to keep them inches away from the plant tops. If height was an issue, I'd still go with 4 150w HPS modified w/remote ballasts in a 2' X 8' space and vert mounted bulbs to an adj. homemade hood lined with Mylar, aluminum foil or painted flat white. Yields of potent, tasty bud are greater with HPS than CFLs hands down.
im pretty sure hes well away hid lighting is better than floros. never seen a 23x23 cfl grow before though and im just amazed at how its going for him. hes got some pics on other threads that are starting to look really tasty tho
i know what you mean i look forward to training my plants and just working in my grow rooms it really gives me joy. u could fit probably up to a 400 watt hps or mh in a 2x2 but the only space i have thats roughly that size is for my clones and i just use 2x23 watt cfls in there lol works fine. not sureif youve answered elsewhere but how many grows have you done?
so anyody got any hints on getting my plants started...??? i am open to any idea`s,, so far i have 6 plants 2 that are 8 days old 2 that are 3 days old and 2 that are 1 day old..lol.. and the damn cat ate the tops off one of the bigger ones,,it was just getting its second set of leaves... and i think mine are males...but how can u tell for sure?? dont the females have like white node on them...and are the visible?? and dont the females produce alot of seeds i.e there bad..
^wise words... I prefer function over form, pretty is nice ...but balls out DIY is more fun than store bought. You'll move on when you're ready
Labor of love has nothing to do with the questionable and unproductive wisdom of trying to work 23 CFL lights for little reason. Here's even wiser words: K.I.S.S. Even in a micro speaker grow (16" X 17" X 38") I've seen a 150w HPS with a remote ballast work very nicely. And I've heard too many who started with CFLs only to switch to small HPS grows later. Disappointed with what the CFLs produced. It's not a matter of personal use over professional commercial results. The idea is to replace the dank you're paying top dollar for with equivalent dank you can produce on your own as efficiently and in as small and discrete setup possible.
at least you got a grip of cfls for veg or clones or even just side lighting when you switch to hid. air cooled and digital is the way to go for sure . if you dont know what im talking about now you definately will when you research hid lighting and if you can really bite the bullet 2 600s is always better when properly positioned than a single 1k for light penetration in my opinion.