is a 42 watt 2700k cfl bulb a good bulb

elac1980

Member
I am trying out my first grow and I am going with cfls due to lack of money but my queston is a 42 watt 2700k light good? Thanks a new grower
 

Pirax

Active Member
Im guessing you're looking at home depot? Just asking cus I got the exact light there
Anyway, yes they are fucking awesome lights and WILL grow a plant. I just cut down my first plant last night, was a OG kush from clone. I used 1 68w 2700k, 1 42w 2700k, 2 13w 6500k and 1 23w. heres a pic :)
121113_0002.jpg
Remember, the more lights you get, the bigger and faster your plants will grow. Make sure to get at least 2 or 3 42w's if you really want to start off a good first grow

I would recommend getting at LEAST 80w-100w's per plant. I have 2 plants in my box with ~120w and my white widow is 2x bigger than the one I just cut down, if I had it all by itself it wouldve been a lil monster
 

RetiredMatthebrute

Well-Known Member
i have found that by the time you spend the money to get enough CFL's you could have bought a small 250w HPS for roughly the same cost.

http://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-SBC250-250-Watt-Convertible-Reflector/dp/B0054TCCT4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1352931933&sr=8-1&keywords=250w+hps

this isnt a bad little system for the price, also check out craigslist (just be carefull when buying from people on craigslist)

I understand money is tight and CFL will do the trick but in order to grow premium buds with CFL you have to invest in a few bulbs which can get expensive after a while.
 

THE KONASSURE

Well-Known Member
What kind of plant do you want to grow ?

How big is your pot and what are you growing it in and with ?

You can veg under around 30 to 60w of cfl and flower a plant big enough to be worth the hassle with around 100w of cfl add 50w extra for each plant you want to add

And the whole 2700k for flower and 5700k for veg thing is not exactly what most people make out it is but to make it easy to veg use a 5700k or a 60% 5700k and 40% 2700k mix

When you flower you`ll want to try to get as much 2700k on the plant as you can.

Veg for 2 to 4 weeks after you plant is rooted under your 42w bulb then add another one when you go over to flower and let us know how you get on keep the bulb atleast 11 inch`s from the plant till it`s rooted then put it as close as you can without burning leaves.

You may need to feed a bit more cal/mag if you use 2700k to veg with so look out for rust spots in the leaves but don`t be tempted to over feed as it`s easy to give a low power cfl grow more nutes then it can deal with.

Good luck man post up your set up when you get started and I`m sure people will give you some tips.
 

newgrowr

Active Member
Im goba be starting my 1st indoor grow with cfls soon as my bulbs get here in the mail im using 4 50watt 5200k bulbs with one plant
 

Pirax

Active Member
I hope you plan on buying some extra 2700k bulbs for flower, those will do the trick for veg (although the optimum K temp as far as I know is 6500k) however I'm willing to bet you'll experience airy larfy bud. I went with all 2700k and noticed that my veg was slow but my buds are actually pretty dense, especially for cfl bud. Your setup would be perfect if you added a 2700k bulb or two to the mix
 

elac1980

Member
First off thanks everybody for the imput. I also have a 120w bulb made by philips specificly for plants and reptiles. I was told that this light is garbage(thats what caused me to go back and get the 26waat 2700k bulb). Its in the shape of a bell so its a big bulb plus kicks out a decent amount of heat. So my queston is would this light be good to add with say 1 or 2 more 2700k bulbs? Then take out the light for flower? I am growing my plants in mg moisture control poting mix. It says on the bag of soil "feeds plants up to 3 mths. Should I be all set with feeding it nutes through veg stages?Lastly I want to avoid transplanting a bunch of times so I was thinking germinate in solo cup then right to a 5 gal bucket is this ok or no can you explain. Thankls again a future grower
 

legallyflying

Well-Known Member
42 watt CFL's are awesome. I have one in my porch light, and also a couple more in some lamps in my living room.

Tarzan say MG soil bad. You can google it to find out. No, you don't want to go from solo cup to five gallon. I'm too lazy to type out why but its a moisture and poor root growth from lack of air pruning. Get a 1 gallon and a 5 gallon smart pots. cup>1 gallon> 5 gallon.
 

THE KONASSURE

Well-Known Member
MG will work but you`ll have a hard time flushing or feeding flowering nutes but on a budget it`s cool

The only reasons to take away any lights during flower are 1, heat 2, cost`s 3, stress 4 they space shuttle can see your grow ! lol

The flowering part of weed works via red light trigger it needs to get a lot of red light to trigger hormones but then they have to be gone for something like 10 hours min for most plants to flower 12 hours of dark manages to trigger off most plants

Hence 12/12 for flowering

If there`s not enough red the plant will not flower hence veg lights have more blue

But you can veg under red strong light fine

Just like when you flower there`s no need to take away any 5700k light and replace it with 2700k if you can afford to just add some more 2700k bulbs and run the 5700k`s too then you will get better results as you have more light but.............

if you had 6 x 5700k 40w cfl`s on one plant then adding 6 x 2700k 40w cfl`s to the grow would add 240w to your power consumption and you would not yield loads more from spending this extra power

If you had used that much to veg a plant then I would add the 6 x 2700k 40w cfl`s and maybe keep 2 of the 5700k`s on the plant

Light is light plants use red and blue the best and red is what you need to make a plant flower but that does not mean that during flowering blue light is not used at all

In fact the only thing plants can use better then blue is red hence why led lights use blue and red.

You might even find that a 630nm led 10w to 50w added to your cfl during flowering really helps out.

Lighting is something I could go on and on about all day tbh but a 600w hps is your best bet for bang for buck

Led`s are the coolest

CFL`s are cheap and emit uv I personally like uv in flowering

plasma is expensive as hell but very close to sun light with good output

and induction lights are kind`a like if hps and cfl`s had a baby really the 200w one I use as a work light seams like it would do the job of a 400w hps I just hear most of them need a little red boost to flower with that`s ok red led`s cost almost nothing lol
 
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