I am getting ready to set up my own little grow room but i can't decide on wether or not i want to use a standard shop light or cfl. If i use stand shop light fluros then i will probably ust get one of them, but if i go with the cfl's i may do two of those y things. My question is, is there a preference of one over the other and how many watts do i need on each bulb in either situation. I am planning on using something close to 6500k for the veg stage and something close to 2700k for the flowering stage. Thanks in advance.
The only real difference I found is their size. It sounds simple but it has some implications : Fluro tubes cover a lot bigger piece of the plant's 'sky'. This means less shadowing effect. You can grow plants closer to the tube since it runs a bit less hot then CFL. Tubes are better for SCROG grows because of their shape. Also, tubes are a bit cheaper in the long run. I use both. My growbox is 4 feet wide so I can't fit in 4 feet tubes because the fixture doesn't fit.
i am still a litle undecided on which way i want to go with it, but i appreciate your information, and love your setup. Did you do that yourself?
just get as many of both as you can. floros (either) work great for vegging but you'll need either more floros for flowering or an hps. what i mean is that if you want a really good yield you'll want a shit-load of floros, or an hps.
CFLs are fluoros. None of us should lose sight of the fact that the biggest difference is whether the tube is straight to cover a wider area or twisted to cover a tighter area. For that reason, the answer lies in how many plants you are growing in how much space. If a small number of plants I recommend CFLs because the tubes will be throwing too much of their light out away from the plant. Conversely, if you are growing more plants then the tubes will be more efficient in covering the wider area those plants take up.
I appreciate everybody's comments so far. I have decided to use a 4 ft. shop light fluro for right now with two daylight (6500k) 40 watt bulbs. This is going to be my first grow and i think i am prepared for it, but how far should i keep the light above the plants once they germinate and sprout? I am going to be growing 5 plants in 10 inch pots.
Keep the light 2-3 inches above the tops of the plants. Make sure you can easily raise the lights as your plants grow. I think you will want more than one shoplight with two bulbs in it, get several and angle them in to the plants -- for example, with three shoplights have one at a 45 degree angle in on one side, one directly above, and one at a 45 degree angle in on the other side. You will not regret adding more light.
Would it be as beneficial for me to make a custom reflector that would reflect the lights at those angles or is it a matter of wattage and lumens?
u will need more watts/lumens down the road... how big is ur space and how many plants are u growing?
Right now i am just going to start with 5 plants that are being started from seeds, but my big plan is to grow these 5 until the flowering stage then clone the females or start 5 more that way i will have 5 in the veg state and 5 in the flowering state. I am thinking about using CFLs for the flowering stage though. I really don't want to invest in a MH or HPS light until i have perfected the process from start to finish. Also, I think I am going to use two seperate rooms one for vegging and one for flowering they will probably both be 4.5 ft x 3 ft.
Right now I got a fish tank flourescent light that is pumping barely 1,000 lumens.. im gonna use that untill i can get a ride to lowes so i can get a more expensive one that pumps way more lumens.
um 1000 lumens is nuthing, but it might work for the first days of their life, but you should get lots of lumens