CFL'S!! Who uses them and what do you think???

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

hairchick40v

closethead...
Joined
Nov 13, 2008
Messages
94
Reaction score
67
Who uses CFL's??? What kind and do you think they work???? I am using them and I seem to have very slow growth... Not strechty, but not an inch a day or anything like that.... I also haven't been fert. enough,so, that is part of it... But, I just don't know about these lights??? HELP!!!:confused:
 
What kind of CFLs are you using (initial lumens or wattage)??? Also how big is your grow and what growth stage are you in (veg or flower)???
 
:yeahthat: CFL's are great if you are using enough of them.
 
Yo Ho hairchick40v,
I use six 48" growtubes and I love them, But just for the vegging. I tried to use them all the way through my first indoor grow, but I ended up with very light and fluffy buds, and I didn't get the potency that I should have.
Like I said if you have enough lumens from them, they are great for vegging.

smoke in peace
KingKahuuna :cool:
 
If you tell us a little more about your grow, we will be better equipped to help you. :D

I also veg with fluorscent tubes--I use a 4' 4tube T5 fixture. This is my light of choice for vegging. However as KK said, there is nothing like a HPS for flowering. One of the things that new growers generally do not know is that CFLs are actually more expensive to use for flowering than using a HPS. Watt for watt and lumen for lumen, CFLs put out more heat, cost more to purchase initially, and cost more to run that HPS of comparable wattage.
 
Right now I have 3 female plants, I started them on oct. 1 , I took them off 18/6 for 5 days until they sexed and now that they are sexed I have them back on 18/6... They are about 2 1/2 foot tall including pot... I have them in scott's potting soil mixed half with perlite... The lights I am using I got from stealthhydro.com... Sunlite dual spectrum high output flourescent, they say they have 3400 lumens a piece and one is for veg, and the other for bloom... I have 3, one over each plant... My plants look really healthy and green, but the fan leaves are huge and the nodes are small, just don't seem to be bushing out very quickly...:eek:
 
Check out mebeafarmers grow, he demonstrated what you can do with cfls, i think he flowered under cfls with his ww and got like 4 ounces dry off one plant.
 
theres alot of difference between a floro and a cfl imo. i have used both and had good results after i got enought of them.. what type of box are you usin. what the deminsion of it? you want 5000 lumens per sq ft of floros and/or cfls. hope this helps
 
You say that you have one bulb over each plant, so to make things easier we will say that each bulbs light is only given to one plant (this is a reasonable assumption because 1) every photon that is absorbed by another plant will be donated from that plants light and 2) light very far from a source is not very intense and will therefore account for a very small amount of total energy). Taking the average flowing plant as 2ft across, the projected area (area on the ground if you are looking from directly above) is 0.27 m^2 ( A = pi*r^2) and for veg the average plant is about 1 foot across so the area is 0.08 m^2. Then from a post I made on light requirements earlier, we can find the maximum distance a plant should be from a light source as:

d = sqrt(P/(I*A))

Since plants require different amount of lights at different stages of their life we find that:

Flowering = 107500 lux
VEg = 27000 lux

So
For Flowering the maximum distance your plant should be from the light is:

d = sqrt(3400/(107500*0.27))= 0.58 ft
and for veg:
d = sqrt(3400/(27000*0.08))=1.25 ft

So my conclusion is that your flowering plants should maybe have some more light and the veg plants have just enough light. Be creative about your light configuration to allow the CFDs to be as close to as much foliage as possible (halfway up the middle of the plant???).
 
yes all the above ,,,but in lamen terms :p,,,,more light the better and the closer you get to your plants the better ,,,i use cfls for vegging ,,,hps for flowering :48:
 
i have a MH and choose to use cfls for veggin.the plants grow just as well as they do under MH.less heat,easier to work with.i will go back to MH when i set up my bigger area.but for now cfls rock.tight internode growth and fat lush plants
 
when I started out in early Oct I was using a 400w hps but I couldnt keep the temps under control, so I switched to a 2' 4-bulb T5 HO setup for veg. I dont know the watts of each bulb but it says it puts out 8,000 lumens total.

Do you guys think this is enough for two plants? I was going to buy another T5 setup for flowering but now that I read thsi thread I think i'll go back to using my 400w hps
 
hairchick40v said:
Who uses CFL's??? What kind and do you think they work???? I am using them and I seem to have very slow growth... Not strechty, but not an inch a day or anything like that.... I also haven't been fert. enough,so, that is part of it... But, I just don't know about these lights??? HELP!!!:confused:
http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=91586&d=1228440120 Had a little nute burn, buy still nice.

Check out my thread. My plants are 3 weeks. See last pics in thread.http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=34319

I am changing to a 4ft 6 tube T5 setup. 29,000 lumens( 6500K to Veg and 3000K to flower)
 
I use CFLs for vegging and flower right now cause I cant use an HPS with height restrictions and I love em. Just grew 4 Auto Hindu Kush and 3 Auto White Russians. Looking at about 1/2 to about 3/4 oz per plant. You will need a lot. You need both White spectrum and Daylight spectrum when flowering with them. I have various sizes and my plants took a little long to flower but the potency is pretty good for a CFL grow IMO. If you have heat or height issues I think CFLs are great but when I can get outta this apartment I will be growing with HPS, ya can't beat it! But something you can do with CFLs and not the HPS is move them around easily. Great for getting the sides or lower bud sites where light is not reaching.
 
The lights I am using I got from stealthhydro.com...

Hairychick I got the same lights as you. I bought the 3 cfl bulb with reflector. This is the pic of a bud I flowered with it. I also added 3 80 watt cfls I bought from home depot and rigged up a tin pan reflector. It rocks for veggin but the buds although good to smoke had absolutely no density or weight.
 
hairchick40v said:
Who uses CFL's??? What kind and do you think they work???? I am using them and I seem to have very slow growth... Not strechty, but not an inch a day or anything like that.... I also haven't been fert. enough,so, that is part of it... But, I just don't know about these lights??? HELP!!!:confused:

Right now,I am using 14,000 lumens of CFL's. They are doing very well in the Veg stage,,,
but I am changing to the 4ft, 6 tube T5's 29,000 lumens Floras, with Mylar on walls.( 6500 k for veg and 3000k for flower) I have seen what they will do. No doubt that HPS is better(more intensity),,but for me(small grow) I like the footprint of Floras. Besides I have no heat problem at all.
 
personally i use 2x 15 watt (18inch) phillips aquarium bulbs for vegging a couple of clones (for 2 weeks after clone planted) then chuck them under 600 watt mh for 5/6 weeks :)

600 watt hps flower for 8+ weeks
 
Thanks guys... I am gonna keep my girls veggin for a couple more weeks, then I gonna just have to force the hps issue!!! My husband is just gonna have to work it out... I want to free my dependance on foriegn weed!!!! So I don't need alot, but I do want it to be good!!!! Thanks for all the input!!
 

Latest posts

Back
Top