Should I go with cfl or hps for flowering?

Discussion in 'Growing Marijuana Indoors' started by aceofspades941, Nov 25, 2011.

  1. It may give off more lumens but the results are clearly different in my experience. To be fair, the fixture I made for the cfl's was of a mansard trough shape and is 28"x19", whereas the reflective area of the HPS fixture is 19"x17". The rather small, 250w HPS bulb sits in roughly one half of the fixture where the CFL's are evenly spaced throughout an area at the top of the fixture that is 19"x10". The HPS bulb, which states it is either a 2700 or 3000k, is distinctly more yellow than the 2700 CFL's.

    Each 42w cfl is rated at 2600 lumens. Regardless of whether this multiplies lumens directly is a moot point IMO. The ideal situation being that you can customize cfl's as needed. I started out with 252w of 42's, but was then able to add side lighting of 27w when and where needed.

    Here's a picture of a plant grown with cfl's. One plant, 14-15" tall that yeilded right at 4oz in 83 days total. Started out flowering with 252w and ended up at 414w total by the end of the grow, so IMO, was the most efficient use of electricity throughout.

    I'm not going to mess with the HPS anymore. I am not after a bud production factory to make money on, I am more after the artisan type grows with creative shaping and bud quality, which is what prompted me to grow my own in the first place.
     
  2. #22 Budlet, Nov 27, 2011
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 27, 2011
    Here is the pics of what worked well for me.

    This is the hood thru veg stage using all 27w-6500k cfl's

    [​IMG]

    And here is the plant.
    [​IMG]

    Notice that the shape and ample size of the hood allowed the side lights to also be attached to it as a self contained unit.

    I used this shade thru veg with 27w bulbs and upgraded to 42's for the flowering stage. You can't adjust HPS lights, even those with the dimmer cntrl as efficiently as you can cfl's really. Also, I just rotated the plant every few hrs to highlight different bud sites if say one bud was lagging behind others a bit.

    Edited to add: I have absolutely nothing against HPS lights and would use them if I was growing professionally at a large scale. But for the hobbiest just wanting some good smoke at an efficient price, I think cfl's is the way to go and the bulbs are probably only going to get more efficient over time.
     
  3. I am currently running a 150w hps with cfls surrounding the outside. Growing 3 plants, started with 4. Check out the link in my sig if you are interested to see what a setup like that looks like.
     
  4. #24 Chrismittty, Nov 27, 2011
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 27, 2011

Share This Page