I'll be getting a 250w HPS for flowering, and I'd like to have some floros to use up until I flower my plants so that I can keep the lights close. The grow space is 21" deep and 30" wide. I'd like to have at least 150w of floros in here. Would it be possible for me to have a setup of 150-200w of floros, with total cost of bulbs, wiring, and mount coming in at under $75? Would CFLs or tubes be more economical? From what I've seen, the mounting for the 2' tubes are $20-$25 for a dual light 2' mount. This seems kinda expensive. Thank you all for any advice and help! Edit: Ok, after thinking, I've come up with an idea with two different routes. Buy a 2x4 for a couple bucks, cut it up. Make either a triangle or a square with it. Either way, I'd mount a 55w CFL to each side, on the inside. I'd then attach a piece of plywood or particle board or something to the top, and cover it with either mylar or paint it white. My only question now is... How would I mount these lights, and how would I make them able to plug into a standard outlet? Would this idea work? I found 55w lights for $16 @ 1000bulbs.com, I might be able to find them cheaper locally but I don't know. Three of those would cost $50~, leaving me $25 for mounting and wiring. This is the part I'm unsure of. Again, thanks for any help!
i dunno about 2' bulbs but i got my four foot ballasts for 7 bucks to hold 2 bulbs and i got two of those and then i got 4 bulbs for 3 bucks so that was like... 20 bucks maybe?
Where'd you get these? I have a space limitation so I can't use four foot fixtures, but thank you. I didn't realize you could get them so cheap.
So... I've been doing some more thinking, and this is what I got. Wood------ $5.00 Fixtures---- $7.50 Wiring------ $15.00 Bulbs------- $70 Total------- $100~ What do you get for $100? 210w of 6500k light, very good for vegetative growth 14000 lumens, not amazing, but we are dealing with CFLs The area I'll be using them in will be 21"x30", which is 4.375 sq.ft. 48w/sq.ft and 3200 lumens per sq. ft What's everyone think? Seems good to me, does anyone see any problems with this? I'd use this from seed to flower, keeping it very close to the plants and training them to stay low and spread out, to utilize all the light. Since the ballasts are all built in to these bulbs, and they're all going to be encased in that small space, that might generate some heat. Maybe I could mount a computer fan or two to the top of that for cooling. Would that be worth it? Would any of this be worth it?
Well the watts per sq.ft is fine as a rule of thumb i always go with 50 a sq.ft which your right on. The only possiable problem will be going from seed to flower with it. As you state you would have 210 watts of 6500k light, which is great for veg, but not for flowering. For flowering your going to want lights in the red specturm. So you would need some cfls in the 2700k light specturm. Not saying you couldn't do it with what your proposing, but your yeilds are going to suffer. The rest of your plan looks great. I am a big fan of using lst on plants I think you get the most bang out of your plants that way. And yes you should have a computer fan or two in there and I'll give you reasons why. 1. Gets any extra heat out like you want 2. Moves fresh air around, which the plants love 3. If you keep a fan blowing on your plants it causing them to thicken up their stem. Thus creating a sturdyer plant. Hope this helps and good luck.
I totally agree. Some low K fluro bulbs are pretty much a must in there. You should see what people with only 108W 3300K fluro power can do on a 4 feet surface : http://forum.grasscity.com/showthread.php?t=91096
Yeah Moggy, I'll only be using these until the flowering stage, and then I'll be using my 250w HPS light, sorry for not making that more clear. Once it gets to flowering I want the penetration of the HID light. I'd just prefer not to deal with the heat and stretching that would be brought by the HPS, which is why I want to use this CFL setup. Thanks for the support everyone!