Basic growing questions (CFL etc)

Discussion in 'First Time Marijuana Growers' started by hashmonkey1, Oct 21, 2010.

  1. Questions:

    Growing Northern Lights in a closet/dresser.


    • For 3 plants, how many CFLs do I need?
    • Should I change lamps in flowering stage, to a red-light spectrum or can I go blue/white spectrum the whole way?

    I'll add more questions later :)
     
    • How many CFLs per plant? I'm going 30w (120watt thereabout). How many of those a plant?
     
  2. You need 100 actual watts per plant so you need 4 of those bulbs per plant and it would be best for you if you went red for flowering.
     
  3. So on average, 4 x ~100 watts per plant?

    Seems good, but I don't know if I should buy blue spectrum for veg, then red spectrum for flowering..It will hurt my wallet.
     
  4. for 3 plants you'll want a minimum of 300 actual watts (not equivalent). you can use the 6500k through the whole cycle but your plants use more of the red spectrum during flowering so if you want to make it worth while, get some 2400k bulbs
     
  5. #6 Zhris, Oct 21, 2010
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 21, 2010
    In the end, the more light the better. Blue spectrum for vegetation, red spectrum for flowering, but it has been proven a mix throughout both stages gives the best results. Personally, during vegetation, I use twice as much blue as I do red, and during flowering, I use twice as much red as I do blue. The complete wattage you should use is based on a number of factors including grow area dimensions, number of individual bulbs, reflective material etc, not just on the number of plants you wish to grow.


    I think CFL's produce 60 to 72 lumens per watt.

    Zhris
     
  6. If seedslings require 500 lumen per square foot, what happens if it gets around 2500 lumen?

    Because I don't want to burn the seedlings/sprouts
     
  7. #8 Zhris, Oct 21, 2010
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 21, 2010
    CFL's produce "low" heat, I keep every CFL around 1 inch from the plant, no more than 2 inches, and I have never burnt it. Light intensity diminishes the further it has to travel, therefore the closer you can get it the better. You just have to make sure you check on your grow area and adjust the lights accordingly. You described using multiple bulbs (which would be my preference, but i'm stuck using just 2 large envirolites). Therefore the light intensity will be spread more evenly, reducing heat on a particular area. In the end 2500 lumens isn't excessive and I can imagine it would only increase the speed of growth. You could adjust the lights to say 4 inches from the plant if it worries you. I went a little crazy on my current grow and gave my single seedling over 20,000 lumens in a very small grow space (I don't advise doing this). I noticed that she grew faster than similar grows. I had no issues with her regarding light.

    Also, I pulled the quote above from another forum, after a little bit of further research, a better target during flowering would be 5000 lumens per sq ft. The more the better though.
     
  8. the rule of thumb is..and i hate these..100 actual watt first plant..50 actual watt per extra plant...6500k for veg....2700k for flower..mixed spectrum is good...want your main lighting above plants but cfls do not penetrait the canopy so you should side light your plants with smaller..no smaller than 23 actual watt...cfl's right up next to the plant..the more light the better until you run into temp. trouble..get em real close to the plant as you can:smoke:
     

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