Alright I just built a 4'(d)x4'(w)x8-10'(h) room the ceiling is slanted. I've painted the walls flat white for reflection. I plan on using cfls to grow my plants at this point I have 6 plants about 1 month since they've been planted and they're about 2-3 weeks into veg. Right now I have them under 3 26watt 5700k 1600 lumen daylight cfls, when I get the electric set up in my new room Ill move my plants there so I can set up more bulbs. I have a fixture that holds 4 cfl tubes and one that holds 2, I am going to hang the 4 tubed one from the ceiling and mount the 2 tubed one on the back wall. I will then use the 6 bulbs I have to get light where its needed in various places in the room. I'm just wondering if I am setting these lights up the most effective way, also I plan on LSTing my plants if that changes anything for how I should set up these lights.
If you've got the budget, go for HID. Florescent is okay for veg state, but I really feel like HID lighting is essential for good buds in flowering. Other than that, you could ScrOG instead so you can keep your canopy even then stick your lights real close.
I want to use HID but we cant afford what its going to add to the electric bill. I've done some research and watched some cfl growing videos and I think that with how many watts I plan on having that I will be happy with what I do get. Also Im not sure what you mean by canopy and would scrog increase my yield compared to lst.
the scrog ohspyro was talking about is a form of lst...if you were planning on doing lst and as he said, that will probably be your best bet to have an even canopy to make the most use of the cfls but trust us.....no matter how many watts you are using.....before you waste anymore money on cfls!......you want to try to change to HID....even if it's really low watts, just try to switch to HID the light penetration difference is enormous AND you are in a 16 square foot growing room? how many watts of cfls are you throwing in there? it will have to be a lot enough to make switching to HID much more cost effective
CFL's work man... you know they do because youve looked into it lol. HID is just easier, and you will almost certainly switch eventually, so in reality i agree with the mob... In that space you want HID, but if you are heart set on CFL just be prepared to get real tricky positioning those things. They are only worth a shit from 4 inches or less... usually much less, but my best plant right now is cfl in a closet case and is in no way starving for light. That being said, get HID... HID systems are never more expensive... you just said you are going to be running 250 watts of CFL, and 250W HID system will give you more lumens for the same wattage. They are more efficient. Period. and are cheaper to boot. They are big and scary lol, but that is their only downside. no other argument against HID really holds weight unless you are doing 100W grow in a super small space. You are not doing that, and should go 400W HID and be mad happy about it. You will waste all your money on CFL and change to HID in the end anyways lol... we all do. Again if you wanna talk CFL though and just are set on that I have some pics and pointers on the matter for flowering... right now those fixtures hanging over one plant each will veg as well as anything.
Until I get a job and can pitch in on the electric bill I cant use HID at this time however I do plan on switching when possible. I wish I could make the while situation clearer but I don't want it on the internet. Will the room size really matter if I have the cfls extremely close anyways, I plan on hanging the 4 tubed fixture on a pully system to be able to adjust height. From what Ive seen people have gotten really nice buds with a decent amount of cfls but is what you're saying that if I were to run 400 watts of cfls that will cost as much as one 400 wat HID on the electric bill?
Yes lol... more in fact. You get more lumens and usable light per watt with HID. Not a ton more, but more. So even with what you are going to run it would make better fiscal sense to just get a 250W HID system. But seriously what scares you about 400W?? that like 30 dollars a month for most people... Cops never showed up at my house when i left my xbox on. Same power usage.
Ive been looking at a site called 100Obulbs.com at the HID lights what type should I purchase for flowering since I can veg with the cfls. I am going to try and get the okay to use HID lights if I pay what they cost on the bill. How many watts should I be looking for to grow 4-6 plants at a time and what brands of HID tend to be the best? Also how much would you guess they add to the bill.
400w 400 watt HPS MH Grow Light System Set Premium Kit Dimm Green House - iPower | eBay 400W will be plenty of awesome for a while lol. if you run that for flower on 12/12 you are talking like in the 20 dollar a month range.
well....do what you can, if you can't afford it, you can't afford it....all we can do is try to help you get the best buds you can! and we're only trying to help you avoid wasting money....a lot of us have extra cfl setups sitting somewhere, collecting dust and taking up space i'm not saying that cfls can't grow weed.....some guys do really awesome....but for the same effort, even those very same guys, could get sooooo much more potent and more amount of bud, for even the same wattages anyways...as zippy has mentioned, i would go with a 400w hps/mh at a minimum that one he linked is great, aircooled, everything you need in one package, AND it's not expensive at all for what all you get based on my own experiences, i have been using a 400w for a long time in a 2 foot by 4 foot area, and it's been okay.......i am getting a 600w for this grow though, it should go a lot better than past grows, now that i have everything else dialed in, and a big enough heat range to accommodate the extra watts anyways, the moral of the story, you have 16 square feet......i have 8 square feet......you want to do 6-8 plants (i believe you said)......i do 2 plants.......i personally think 400w is *not enough* for *my* space if you are planning on filling up that 16 square foot space with canopy/kolas.....you will possibly even need a 600w, just to give a heads up cfl wise....i'm not even sure....on that scale, cfls don't penetrate well, and the light itself does not travel well (you have to have the cfl bulb 3 inches away from the plant.........)....so you would probably need a lot
Well at this point it looks like Im stuck using cfls for now but I have 6 plants at this time all from seeds so for veg I will for sure have 6 plants but when they go to flower Im not sure how many will be kept. Im still confused about how a bigger room takes more light to grow. I mean I understand a bigger room takes more light to illuminate it. If I use cfls the only light that will help grow is within the first 4 inches so why does it matter where all the light goes if the useful light is close enough that its being used. Ill post some pics of the room later.
You are right on man... it makes me cringe every time someone says CFL doesnt penetrate or whatever. Watt for watt they are real close to the same. HPS does a little better lumen per watt but MH doesnt. Its the same as flouro basically. They dont penetrate because they are smaller bulbs lol but they also run cooler so you can keep em close. Like i said its purely a convenience thing. in fact for one plant you can do way better with a bunch of small cfls than with one HID of the same total watts simply because you can dedicate a bulb to each bud site and lower ones will produce well. Its just a pain to position them all the time when stuff starts growing... youll see. And its not really a bigger space that matters. Its a bigger (2-D) area you are covering that matters... when you start doing multiple plants with only lighting over the tops of the plants, you will understand the "canopy" concept... most lower leaves die off and lower budsites barely produce... its all about the first 3 inches at the top of the "canopy" that gets light. You need about 2000 lumens per square foot for decent growth over any square footage. Of course when the plants are only 4 inches across and you put a 24 watt bulb half an inch away you are giving it plenty of light because even though its only 1500 or so lumens, its only lighting like a fifth of a square foot... as you move the light farther away, it lights a bigger area with the same number of lumens, so the lumens/sqft drops off quickly to a point where its not enough for growth. The big HID bulbs just put out a ton of light... 400W HPS is around 50000 lumens so you can cover up to 25 sqft with it, but for weed we want much more. 5 x 5 would grow, but not super vigorously. Stay inside 3 x 3 and keep the light close enough to only light that 3 x 3 and your hps will give you (50000 lumens / 9 sq ft) more than 5000 lumens per square foot which is double the minimum and will work solidly. its all about keeping the bulb as close as you can to the canopy while making sure all the green gets light and nothing gets too hot...
cfl grower here harvesting my 2nd 4 girls this weekend with 5 or 6 moving to 12/12. room size means little if u lst, top properly and have lights all around the girls. my tallest girl in a 4 gal pot is 23 inches from bottom of pot to top of colas, ill get 2-4 oz dry per girl. next harvest, last of oct.
Thanks for the detailed explanation and now I understand what canopy means but Im thinking I could hang the 4 tubed fixture above the plants and place bulbs around the lower parts of the colas that the fixtures light doesnt reach. Edit: I plan on lsting so all the branches coming up would be colas right?
[quote name='"tomascat"']cfl grower here harvesting my 2nd 4 girls this weekend with 5 or 6 moving to 12/12. room size means little if u lst, top properly and have lights all around the girls. my tallest girl in a 4 gal pot is 23 inches from bottom of pot to top of colas, ill get 2-4 oz dry per girl. next harvest, last of oct.[/quote] Do you have a grow journal or anything so I can see your setup?
Here's some pics of the room and my plants. The pics of the room aren't that great I couldn't really get an angle where I could get a good clear picture.
Here's a pic that I drew up on MS Paint that will help describe what I plan on doing before I do all of it and its no good. - Got a little carried away with the circles I don't think Ill be purchasing that many bulbs unless I need that many. Edit: the tubes are 40 watt, 5000k, 2200 lumens, 90 cri. Also the one four tubed fixture is actually two, two tubed fixtures.
yea man.. thats solid! you do see what i mean about it just being a pain in the ass right? at minimum you got like 12 chords there alone and no venting or cooling yet lol... That will work, and work well, the way you have it designed, but it will cost more to run than HID, almost triple cost in just initial startup purchases, and you will have to be johnny on the spot with the moving of lights. My bet is you are using one big bulb by middle of this grow... start of next grow at the latest lol. Its fun to learn our lessons though.
[quote name='"zippy657"']yea man.. thats solid! you do see what i mean about it just being a pain in the ass right? at minimum you got like 12 chords there alone and no venting or cooling yet lol... That will work, and work well, the way you have it designed, but it will cost more to run than HID, almost triple cost in just initial startup purchases, and you will have to be johnny on the spot with the moving of lights. My bet is you are using one big bulb by middle of this grow... start of next grow at the latest lol. Its fun to learn our lessons though.[/quote] Yea my plan actually changed a bit but I have my room semi set up at this point Ill get some pics soon. At this point I already wish I could have just went with one bulb the startup process was a nightmare and The cost wasnt too bad considering I already had a lot of stuff around. It turned out that I only had two, 2 tubed fixtures so the bulb spacing is a little more than I would like.
These are some pics of my plants after being transplanted to some better soil and of my light setup at this time. Some of the plants look pretty sick or deficient.