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CFL guru's please help


Stinky Pete
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Hey Guys

I have been growing indoor for about 3 years now but on a micro scale. 10g of a harvest. But that was for fun. I wanna go bigger but I'm not sure how big I can go.

I have 5 x 20w and 1 x 45w. What size can I go with those bulbs ???

I'm more of an outdoor and auto grower and indoor never got THAT much attention as it should have.

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with 100w more or less you won't go a lot more than this, best way to optimize your lamps would be using SCROG to keep a nice flat canopy and veg them a little longer, you can get around 20 probably i think maybe more if lamps are nice.

minimum to start growing nice plants i think is around 200W CFL, but real growing lamps. and 250w hps if you really want to step in indor world :)

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Bro, I would fuckin ( are we allowed to swear ??? ) love to go HPS, but unfortunately budget does not allow that extra. I have a double grocery cab on hold. Its about 1.2m l x .5m d x 1m h. That's gonna be my hps box as soon as things start improving on the cash flow's side.

But till then I can play around with cfl. My plan was to go the scrog route as well. Saw some sick yields of 63g dry with scrog and cfl. And only 125 w was used. I'll look for the link as post it here.

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ok i understand money is hard to find these days ^^ look on" used" object market too you can find some very cheap 250w often in case there are still few coins hanging somewhere ;)

but if not for sure you can do something with 100w but won't be monsters like we can see, but you know it it's the principal now it's the fun part of the contest to achiave the best yeild possible ;)

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you can make box around 40cm*40cm or 50cm*50cm but not to higher, from lamps to pots 40-50 cm max and use good reflectors to all wall and top. And you need almost CFL with 2700K color temperature and 1 or 2 lamp 6500K but it is not too important.

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  • 3 months later...

im currently switching to a 300w cfl in my 120cm X 200cm bud box because i just couldnt get the temperature down at all , that was running an intake with a pc fan in it , an exhaust an air con unit in there the temp never went below 36 degrees !! its not helped having a heat wave here at the moment either . Ive now opted for a 300w cfl but im wondering if it will be enough light for the whole grow or will i need more light when flowering ? any help peeps ?

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Hey Guys

I have been growing indoor for about 3 years now but on a micro scale. 10g of a harvest. But that was for fun. I wanna go bigger but I'm not sure how big I can go.

I have 5 x 20w and 1 x 45w. What size can I go with those bulbs ???

I'm more of an outdoor and auto grower and indoor never got THAT much attention as it should have.

No guru, but got some input for you.

Use as many CFLs as you can that are either 23w(100w equivalent) or 42w(150w equivalent).

Anything smaller is just too weak. You can always go bigger, but the bigger the CFL the more heat. They do get warm.

At one point during my very first grow, I was using about 30 23w CFLs and 2 150w HPS lights for flowering plants.

Then temps then were as hot as they are now with my 600w HPS!! Maybe 5 or 6 CFLs don't put out much noticable heat, but 30 do :)

You need A LOT of CFLs surrounding your plants bcuz the lack penetration power. CFLs everywhere you can fit them.

The good thing is that you can keep them like 2 inches away form your plants at ALL TIMES and they'll love it. Anything further away, stretching.

Here are some things I picked up that help me make it thru my CFL days:

-http://www.amazon.co... socket adapter

-http://www.amazon.co... socket adapter

Would help to have several of each. Maybe you can find something similar in the motherland. eBay is nice :)

Next tip, use a 3:1 ratio of bulbs during flower and veg to help meet the needs of a full spectrum!

When I say 3:1 ratio I mean the following:

For veg try 3x5000k or 6500k bulbs per every one 2700k bulb. For flower flip that and use 3x2700k for every 5000k or 65000k bulb.

The debate for 5000k vs 6500k in terms or the better blue bulb is somewhere out there raging to this day lol. Either way, CFLs give you more control over the light spectrum than HID lighting, so thats something to take advantage of. You also get added UV from CFLs, so you can expect frostier buds with proper light placement.

And in my experience, 23w CFLs keep the nodes on veggin plants 10x tighter than the 380w T5VeryHighOutput that I use currently use. Just takes longer to do things bcuz thier weaker lights. I got a BUCKET of CFLs just hanging around! Good thing is that they're budget friendly for sure.

And the last tip, train the plants relentlessly during veg to keep the plants short and the nodes tight. This maximizes your ability to get good light everywhere with the CFLs.

You have to LST early and often! Like @Anguscr does here http://www.strainhun...cr-sweet-mango/. It's a must with CFLs, unless you want a plant sprawled out everywhere with airy buds. 1 smoke thru 10g's in 5 or 6 days :)

With a little time and effort you can expect 2oz dried bud from a plant grown with lots of smallers CFLs(23 true watts at least).

My first 3 plants were grown under combo of CFL, and the 150w HPSs were a late addition but smallest yield of those plants was close to 62grams and was a Dinafem Blue Widow.

The other 2 were a Seedsman White Widow and A Nirvana Bubblicious. Each gave me almost 3 ounces dried. The pic attached is just before I harvested these, which i did so as a noob a couple weeks too early :/

But I think everything else has already been said :cool:

Good luck w/ the endeavors brother!

Again, def. no guru yet, just speaking from my brief experience

im currently switching to a 300w cfl in my 120cm X 200cm bud box because i just couldnt get the temperature down at all , that was running an intake with a pc fan in it , an exhaust an air con unit in there the temp never went below 36 degrees !! its not helped having a heat wave here at the moment either . Ive now opted for a 300w cfl but im wondering if it will be enough light for the whole grow or will i need more light when flowering ? any help peeps ?

That bulb will be enough light if you can keep the plant very short in my opinion :)

You can always add a couple 23w bulbs in. Or 42w bulbs. In a really small space maybe a bigger CFL is better.

In a closet I say a bunch of small ones bcuz they're cheap. Those big CFLs cost as much as HID bulbs if not more :fie:

post-26357-0-55303600-1374128035.jpg

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1 300w for 1,20m x 2m i don't think it's enouhg contrary to internaionalG ^^ It will light, and the buds will flower, but it will not be very big for sure, like InterntionalG said to the person before, there is not much penetration with the CFL lighs, and there is no way 1 bulb covers more than 1,5m² successfully, maybe if you could put instead at least 2 x 150w it would be more efficient dispatch of the light :) the best would be to have 1 bulb above each plant, but that's maybe a little more annoying to setup for you ^^

Good luck :)

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