My 164 Watt CFL Grow

havocdb said:

CFL lumens dont "add" like HID because the intensity isn't very high. The light doesn't travel as far. A light meter only a few inches from even a larger cfl bulb shows massive falloff. hps and mh lights produce light that travels far enough to make the "adding" noticeable. If you tied two cfls together and measured the light right between them, about an inch away, you would see the lumens "add." larger cfl's do get better "range," but cost per lumen goes down considerably.

I use a mix of both. during veg i use smaller 26w bulbs above and vertically hanging between plants for maximum coverage. for flowering my scrog, i use higher wattage bulbs above the canopy because i dont need any "sidelight."

i like quotation marks today =/

READ THIS THREAD:
16k lumens HPS vs. CFL

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First off, that thread is not measuring lumens but rather LUX, and here's a wikipedia quote to show the difference(Btw, pretty fucking skeptical about that guy and his Lumens, lux, and adding it all up thread. I don't know how he acheives 65000 lux from one 42 what cfl, WHICH IS ABOUT 20 TIMES A 42 WATT CFL'S INITIAL LUMEN RATING!?!?!? That would mean that that little cfl produces AT LEAST 65000 initial lumens, right? either tell me where i can get some magic cfl's too or... wtf?)

Lux versus lumen

The difference between the lux and the lumen is that the lux takes into account the area over which the luminous flux is spread. 1000 lumens, concentrated into an area of one square metre, lights up that square metre with an illuminance of 1000 lux. The same 1000 lumens, spread out over ten square metres, produces a dimmer illuminance of only 100 lux.
Achieving an illuminance of 500 lux might be possible in a home kitchen with a single fluorescent light fixture with an output of 12000 lumens. To light a factory floor with dozens of times the area of the kitchen would require dozens of such fixtures. Thus, lighting a larger area to the same level of lux requires a greater number of lumens.


SEE, that guys measuring illuminance, not intensity. And a real experiment would be to measure the lux of a single square meter, keep adding 23 watt bulbs, and see if it ever gets over the single bulb rating of 1800 lumens(or 1800 lux as they are the same when only measuring a square meter, my understanding anyway) which it shouldn't. although, I am losing faith because this is such a source of controversy I don't even know if I'm right anymore


And, could this no longer be a topic in my thread? I need help with a plant problem and this topic seems to trump everything. Well I choose not to participate in the Lumen debate anymore, the whole argument seems to be turning into a pissing contest, and to all who agree lets move forward. Those who disagree, SAVE YOUR DRAMA FOR YOU BABIES MAMA!

Hello? Is anybody out there?

Aladdin1337 said:

IM new to growing and was thinking about starting my first grow would 8 T8 flouo tubes supplemented with 3 105 watt CFLs be sufficient for flowering? A little help will be greatly appreciated

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Yes... just make sure you get the right color temp.

Aladdin1337 said:

If so what type of budding can I expect

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You can't get a real answer to that, since lighting is only one of many factors that will determine your yield.... Take your time, do lots of research, plan out your grow, and make it happen.

Aladdin1337 said:

Hello? Is anybody out there?

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Hi.. =]

Update on that browning and curling thing. So, its worse after the plants dark cycle, which pretty much rules out heat, god this sucks. took a couple more pics i know they are bad sorry, from my phone. Notice on the inner blades you can see them curling at the very tip, and the edges around the tip are browning, but not drying out its weird... Oh, and to make things even better, its started on the next leaf set as well, FUN. I have no idea, not much experience with troubleshooting plant problems, maybe over-watering a possibility i guess but, i don't really think thats the problem here, other plants are fine. HELP MMMEEEEeeeee

Update: I was looking on the growfaq trying to figure out the problem, and I came across potassium deficiency. characterized by the browning and curling of leaf tips, and necrotic patches on the leaves themselves. I think this may be it, but I would like some input before I proceed with any changes.

Give them one more day and see what they do...

If the get worse tomorrow, then give them a low dosage of vegging nutes... thats what I would do.

Ravioli said:

Lol I'm glad to see you took my advice to heart E!

Let's all get off Dankness's ass about his choice of light, and congradulate him on starting this beautiful grow! Awesome job, bro. Can't wait to see the end results.

Secondly, (as we've all heard) CFL's lose lumens significantly by distance, so I can see where people assume the bigger the amount of lumens, the better, but if you have to keep a 4800 lumen bulb 4 inches from your plant you're probably actually only getting (+/-) 2400 to the plant. This is what E=MC420 was saying. A 2400 lumen bulb can be placed closer without damaging the plant, giving 2400 lumens directly.

It's whatever you choose to make it. I think you're doing a great job, but remember the plants will grow and will need more light! Keep it up!!

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I am glad you liked that Rav. In the future I will I will start that statement with... As my wise friend Ravioli once said, ".....". Lets put the lumen addition debate to sleep, paragraphs copied from wikipedia give me a headache.

Dank - good luck to you with those. Be careful with the nutes, especially while your plants are young. Do you use a temp gauge? Plants will curl under when too hot and sometimes visible burn damage can manifest during dark periods.

Dank,
Forget the nutes. Just water 1/2 cup of water every other day. If you are doing more then that with a young plant you will kill it. I wouldn't worry about the curling either. Just water and make sure temps in the grow area are under 90*. In a few weeks start your nutes. Also, pH may be something you want to mess with. Check the pH of your water and adjust to around 6-6.5, which is slighty acidic. You can lower pH using a drop of vinegar and raise with a little bit of baking soda. Good luck
GTG

TheDankness said:

Update on that browning and curling thing. So, its worse after the plants dark cycle, which pretty much rules out heat, god this sucks. took a couple more pics i know they are bad sorry, from my phone. Notice on the inner blades you can see them curling at the very tip, and the edges around the tip are browning, but not drying out its weird... Oh, and to make things even better, its started on the next leaf set as well, FUN. I have no idea, not much experience with troubleshooting plant problems, maybe over-watering a possibility i guess but, i don't really think thats the problem here, other plants are fine. HELP MMMEEEEeeeee

Update: I was looking on the growfaq trying to figure out the problem, and I came across potassium deficiency. characterized by the browning and curling of leaf tips, and necrotic patches on the leaves themselves. I think this may be it, but I would like some input before I proceed with any changes.

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Light burns seem to spread. Don't worry about it. Don't give it nutes! You're still really early in veg. Also, I'm sorry if you said this in a previous post, but make sure you dissipate the chlorine if you're using tap water. Chlorine gives weird little spots, too.

well thank you all for the advice, the nute thing is kind of out of my control. I know enough now not to give any nutes to plants until at least 3 weeks, but unfortunately I didn't when I bought my soil, it has those little nute balls already in it and the babies were already all well rooted and developed before I found out this is a no no. really necrotic spots can appear during the dark period? well maybe it was heat that caused it, it did start right about when I lowered the light, hmmmm. but the other plants are fine this is the confusing part, i guess ill have to keep tinkering with her.

TheDankness said:

Just thought some of the other CFL growers might like to check out my set-up. This is a project that has been going for a few weeks now. I wanted to try and grow some decent buds myself because my locality has been notorious for over-charging on pot lately, and to be frank, I am tired of that shit. 60 dollars is still a lot of money to me, and I don't like using it to be ripped off on a shitty eighth that I felt obligated to buy because a friend is "hooking me up". Growing myself, I will be able to take my time finding good quality ganja deals as I will always have my own to fall back on. All of the little guys are bag seed. Two of the seedlings are three weeks old and the others two weeks. I plan to LST the two plants in the larger containers and top the small ones, maybe a couple times. I do intend to buy a larger pc fan later on in the grow, at which point I will use the small one I have now to feed the exhaust. The exhaust will later be attached to a home made carbon filter to be constructed soon as I am already able to smell the plants just a lil' bit. The light hangs from the cord so I am able to adjust the height to meet the babies needs, thinking about adding another later on we'll see. Any tips are welcome as I'm pretty new to this.

Light: sylvania 65 watt 4100k roughly 5000 lumens(this cfl is HUGE)
Soil: miracle grow all purpose potting soil
Ventilation: small 12 volt pc cooling fan with exhaust hole near top
Nutes: plan to use cheap wal-mart organic bloom nutes(there is enough nutes to veg in the soil)
Space: a cardboard box(thats right motha truckers, a cardboard box) lined with stark white sketch paper
Photoperiod: 18/6

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With all the arguing over lumens I saw no one mention the 4100k. Did I miss it? You probably wont get what you expect, or could achieve. It will grow and flower better if you get 5000k+ and 3200k- bulbs. That 4100k bulb is right in the middle of the spectrum that the plant does not use much of.

rkm said:

With all the arguing over lumens I saw no one mention the 4100k. Did I miss it? You probably wont get what you expect, or could achieve. It will grow and flower better if you get 5000k+ and 3200k- bulbs. That 4100k bulb is right in the middle of the spectrum that the plant does not use much of.

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RKM -
On like the second or third post I told him a 4100k light was like trying to drive your car in neutral. Dank has purchased a new high watt CFL...

TheDankness said:

well thank you all for the advice, the nute thing is kind of out of my control. I know enough now not to give any nutes to plants until at least 3 weeks, but unfortunately I didn't when I bought my soil, it has those little nute balls already in it and the babies were already all well rooted and developed before I found out this is a no no. really necrotic spots can appear during the dark period? well maybe it was heat that caused it, it did start right about when I lowered the light, hmmmm. but the other plants are fine this is the confusing part, i guess ill have to keep tinkering with her.

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Dankness if you can't transplant them, then I think your only option is to keep flushing them every 3 days or so.... Just check the soil about an inch down and water when it feels dry.

Dood luck man and keep us updated.

E=MC420 said:

RKM -
On like the second or third post I told him a 4100k light was like trying to drive your car in neutral. Dank has purchased a new high watt CFL...

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My bad, by the time I got to that post I was already tired of the lumen debate.

dude bbut im not usin the dinky little ones i got 12 35-55 watt ones n all together i got 20000 lumens ya need at least 10000 to do any good so 1 bulb aint gonna cut it

In case anyone is still following my thread, I have some updates. First, I've rid my box of the 65 watt monster, mostly because of the 4100k color temperature. Its been replaced with 2 40 watt 6000k daylights and 2 40 watt 3000k soft whites(where the hell does one find high watt warm white cfl's other than online?). The babies are all doing well, the two indica phenotypes seem to be thriving while the two sativa's seem to be struggling a little from the miracle grow soil nute burn... but they're alive. I started the 2 in the 6 inch pots on their LST, and topped the other two, all seem to be responding well, Ill update with pics soon.

Whats up Dankness glad to see an update man !!

As for bulbs which one you want ? 2700K or 6500K ? I found PERSONALLY that Home Depot is FULL of 6500K bulbs and Wal-Mart had a tonne of 2700K But I think your looking for higher Wattage. If 26W and 42W is good for you then hopefully my suggestions help

-Tdot

Oh man I wish my local home depot was like yours... wal-mart too, at mine they have up to 30 watt daylight, and up to 40 watt soft white. the only warm white they have are like 18 watts and shit. Oh well soft white are 3000k and warm white 2700k so it shouldn't be too big a difference. Hey compliments to you FT on the start of your grow, looks like things are going ok, hope those other babies open soon for you if they haven't already. I got lucky, all 4 bagseed, all 4 germinated, must be fate, hope they're all girls though! Ill post some pics soon, wish I had something other than a cell phone to do it though cause they suck!!!

ii just got a 150 watt cfl and i am super excited about it, i need to buy the hood and socket still but i cant wait to see what it can do with some side lighting, good luck on this grow sorry it had controversy but RIU is a diverse place lol you should keep your 65 watter in there and use the 42s for side lighting..just a thought, it might get a little hot but you will make it happen..

Thanks brendon my man. Oh I hear those 150-200 watt daylights can really veg plants fast, good luck brother you should get some good results. Sucks that those fuckers require you to buy a special socket though... Yeah I definitely encountered some controversy, still don't know if I'm right as a matter of fact. I thought for sure I was as I heard my argument from many reputable sources, but who fucking knows anymore its all so complicated. Its okay though we all seemed to have moved past it. about throwing that 65 watt in there, NO WAY JOSE, once I made the bump to 160 total watts there was a very noticeable heat increase in there. I was running pretty cool to start, around 75 degrees, so I think I'll be alright but probably not so much if I add that 65 watt... Maybe an option after I upgrade the vent system a little bit, we'll see. I have a question for anyone out there in RIU land. If anyone saw the shitty pics of the yellowing/browning/curling sativa I have growing, it got much worse. I'm pretty sure I've established it's nute burn, the other strains I have must be more resistant to the excessively nuted miracle grow soil? Anyway it got much worse, then I proceeded to flush it a couple times, and it still seems to be lingering. Slower and less intense, but lingering none the less. what has me worried is that now its happening, albeit slightly, to the side shoots that are very important to me(LST, side shoots become vertical shoots). Just keep flushing or what?

How often are you flushing Dankness?

Thats too bad about your sativas, but I'm glad to hear your indicas are doing well... I'm more of an indica man myself... but enjoy a good sativa high now and then =]

Post some pic as well as you can.... phonecam pix are better then no pix =]

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