Kamel's CFL Guide

What they do is label the package with the wattage of an incandescent bulb that puts out the same amount of light. 26w CFL = 100w Incandescent, 42w CFL = 150w incand. and so on. This is just to compare energy savings by replacing regular light bulbs in your home with CFL's. Not to say there aren't 100w CFL's, but they usually aren't sold in stores unless as a flood light. You'd probly see the 100w bulb = something like 500w incand. Your store may have them, if they're gigantic then they probably are in fact 100w. But if they're the same size as the ones that say 26w, they're 26w.

For 2 1.5 foot tall plants, I would get 8 so each plant could have two on top and two on the sides when they get tall. That'd be a little over 200w used, but only in flowering since they won't need all that when they're short and vegging. Are you planning on getting daylight bulbs too for veg? 2 25 or 30w CFLs would probably be enough to veg under, since they won't get huge. 4 would be better of course. I really recommend using daylight to veg under, they like the spectrum a lot more than soft white. Look for 6500k color temperature.

 

Apparently you can't edit posts more than a month old, so hopefully anyone interested will see this. I was reading and came across an article called Marijuana Optics that at one point goes into detail about color temperature. As I suspected, 6500k is the most efficient spectrum, but he also says to use it in flowering. The red 2700ish K spectrum is for simply starting and ending the day, simulating sunrise and sunset. To sum up his point, 6500k is the best spectrum for photosynthesis, and 2845k is the best for the pigment phytochrome, which controls flowering. The active form is called Pfr, which is converted from Pr under red light.

This makes me believe that using this light in flowering might have the same benefit as it does in veg. It won't be very scientific, but I'm going to flower my next clone with no soft white CFLs, just daylight 6500k, and of course my LED's, but that'll be a constant. I say it won't be very scientific because it won't be on the exact same schedule as any other clone since it'll probly be flowering alone. But I've done enough clones of this plant by now to know what to expect, so if I get a significantly bigger harvest, I'm going to have to change my whole 6500k for veg 2700k for flower view.


Huh, that was long. Thanks for readin!

 

Cyric I'm not sure yet. This is news to me too and I'm working on finding out if daylights can flower as good or better than soft whites. I replaced 42w, 2700 lumens of 2700k light with 2x26w, 3200 lumens total of daylight. It's a little more light, but not that much so I think if I find a difference in yield it'll be safe to say the spectrum was involved. Again, there's no control group in this test, but based on past clones, the size of this plant should yield less than a 1/2 oz. if flowered under 2700k light like I have been doing. So I think it's fair to say if I get over 14g, the daylight helped.

I was gonna do a comparison like that Vtec but my other clone won't root. It sucks having so little space to work in. So many experiments I wanna do. Learning is fun!

Thanks Zarathustra, but I wouldn't bet on this just yet. This idea is pretty much completely going against accepted common knowledge about the flowering stage requiring a red spectrum. Grow shops advertise HPS lights or red spec CFL's as flowering lights. The blue daylight spectrum has previously only been for vegging to most people, including me. I've gotta wait to produce some hard results before I can be sure of this. As for that light though, I've never used a huge CFL like that, so I can't speak from experience. I would expect you'd get a damn good product for that money, but I wouldn't really want one. I grow with CFL's mostly to keep my wattage low. That's why I'm so obsessed with maximizing the spectrum. I'd sooner get a 250w HID light than a 200w CFL, more light per watt. But to choose between 3 65w lights and 1 200w light, I'd take the 65s. You can get em cheap and local (if you're near a wal mart which I'm pretty sure everyone in America is) so if they ever break, just get a new one. Plus, your light is more spread out for even distribution. That's my thoughts.

Thanks again for readin, and if anyone's willing to do a 6500k flowering vs 2700k flowering test, or has, by all means do share.

 

T5's are great. They put out more light than regular fluoros. They're just more expensive, but if you can do the work you gotta good deal there. You'd probably want to make sure you keep your plants short and wide, like LST or SCROG, to be able to use them all the way through flower.

But you know insidesun.com and htg supply sell HID lights for as low as 100 bucks if you're looking for a big lighting system cheap.

 

Depends. First grow had a little trouble and only yielded 17g. Second was 50g. My clones yield 1/4 to 1/2 oz depending on if they veg or not. I'ts pretty easy to get over an oz, just veg for a few weeks till you have a good size bush before flowering.

 

Soft white is about 2700k. It usually says it on the package, sometimes the base of the bulb itself. Those labeled daylight are 5500-6500k, depending on brand. I haven't really seen any other spectra sold on the shelf, it's usually either one or the other. But that's ok, those two are all we need.

You're right about the heat from HID's, one of the reasons I don't use em. As well as the power draw, ventilation required, and expensive bulbs. I guess we're in the same boat. How many plants do you plan to have growing/flowering at a time?

 

No practical way to measure spectrum, other than by looking at it. You can tell a big difference between the light a daylight bulb makes and a soft white, like shining them on a white wall. The soft white will look reddish or orangeish, and the daylight will look blue. I can tell a 4100k "cool white" tube because it looks green. It's a subtle difference, because overall they're all white. But if you put two different bulbs back to back, you can tell. You can't do this in stores of course, you have to plug them in. I noticed while browsing the bulbs in wal mart that: a. they don't sell the conical spiral 30w daylight Lights of America bulbs anymore, which sucks cuz they were my daylight of choice, and b. a lot of the new GE and phillips packaging doens't share color temperature, adding to confusion. At least they still say soft white or daylight. I also couldn't find any more 65w flood lights. I owe LoA an appology, bad mouthing their bulb's quality. I thought my 65w was broken cuz only half of it lit up, but it just takes a while to warm up. I will be putting it back in action soon, 65w for 6825 lumens at 6500k. Nice bulb. Could do a small plant by itself.

If you're just going to be doing 1 or 2 plants, 100-200w of CFLs is all you'd need to get all the way to bud. And if you're going to just be vegging, probably 50w of daylight CFL's would start 4 plants pretty well. But if you're flowering under them, I recommend finding the biggest wattage bulbs you can and getting at least around 100w per plant. It's such a long road to buddage, you don't wanna skimp on flowering ya know? 100w of CFL's will probably keep the plants plenty warm if they're close (as they should be). Again, still not sure on color temp for flowering. I think I'm going to change out the remaining soft white for similar wattage of daylight in my grow, because it's an important question and I want more definitive results. I gotta get outta here...

 

I do. I'm a little extra paranoid. Though I doubt they'd come aknockin just for buying a light.

 

They put out more but not much more, as you can tell. That's why I just say get the biggest ones you can find!