It is a 22w floro that I think is pretty fucking bright but I have never seen a HPS so I don't know what to compare it too other than household incandesant bulbs. http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/7350/picture1msu.jpg It has a magnifying glass that should come in handy http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/6417/002ppu.jpg
Yeah sorry man, that light just WILL NOT grow shit for you. At best, you might be able to keep a seedling going for a little while, but really you're going to need a lot more than that to grow. Not all is lost.. you can get a pretty cool rig going for only like $50 or so using CFLs. So.. whats your situation? Lets work this one out.. no reason to stop growing or anything. :bongin; ~Experimentalist
You want 100w per plant, if you got a 4 pack of those in both spectrums it would work. Get a power strip and two Y-splitters and you'll be set on lighting for a single plant. You'll just need a good box to grow in and train the plant to grow multiple colas.
4x22=88W, not 100. I guess "to each his own" in this case, but I think that light fixture is going to be a huge pain in the ass and those circular fluorescent bulbs are harder to replace and cost more than normal tubes. Plus,it looks to be T12, not efficient, and will be banned in the USA soon with T8 as the "de facto" standard for now. I just bought two, four foot, T8 fixtures w/ 4x 6500K T8 bulbs for $40.00 total. It emits 11,600 lumens in total, consuming 136W. I'll be using them for a vegging chamber. Best option in this case.. go 27W CFLs with "clamp on" fixtures w/ the two way splitter as suggested. In my opinion, of course. ~Experimentalist
Oops, I thought he was talking about 22w CFLs lol. Do what he says. Go for GE or Philips bulbs, they last way longer than most brands.
I will try to get some new lights. Didn't realize how expensive all the indoor requirements were. It is a T9 too and don't really know what that means.
"The successful gardens I have observed use a minimum of 1000 lumens per sq. ft during vegetative growth and 1500 lumens during flowering." -http://cannabisguide.com/closet_culture/Chapter_8.htm I looked up my light and it is about approx. 1400 lumens but that is not lumens per sq ft. I will just see how it goes since this is just experimental and I am not really doing this for the yield. But if my plant starts to significantly diminish I will definitely splurge for some new lights.
Yeah dude thats just not going to work. Think about it.. even assuming you were growing in a small 3x3x3 cabinet, thats 27 square feet of space in there. Your light emits a peak of 1400 lumens. 1400 divided by 27 is only 51.85 lumens per square foot. I'll wager its mean lumen output is only around 1100 or so. Your plant will NOT grow under that light. Not anything past a tiny seedling anyways. When the person you quoted wrote that you need a minimum of 1000 lumens per square foot, that really is the minimum! You should shoot for 1500 or 2000 if you can. The more the merrier!! ~Experimentalist
K I will def buy another light then or try to find some. I think I have some of those long floros in pairs somewhere. Thank you again +rep
Lumens already is "per square foot". It isn't an actual measure of light output, it's a standardized way of comparing bulbs. And 1,000 lumens on each square foot of the grow sounds woefully inadequate. For example, a 250w HPS can cover a 2x2 area and throws out in the range of 28,000-35,000 lumens, that's about 8,000 per sq ft.
Actually you are calculating cubic feet, which isn't the relevant calculation for a light's footprint. But still, at 3x3 that's 9 sq ft, 1400 lumens means 156 per sq ft, but a fluoro is not going to have the light penetration to cover an area that size anyway, so you really would be getting perhaps 1400 lumens in the center square foot and very little light around the perimeter.