Newbie CFL lighting question.

Hello,

over the last couple of days I have been getting informed on starting my own grow room.

Right now my biggest concern is lighting. I don't want to invest in something that might need upgrading in a few months, but at the same time I want to keep it on a budget.

First off, I would prefer going CFL mainly because of the heat issue, but I'd like to be capable of growing approximately 1lb every 2 months. How many plants approximately would yield that if they are grown indoor in soil?

I plan to have a flowering room and a vegetative room (if I understand correctly, it's also called the cloning room when you try to have a continuous cycle).

Approximately how many plants am I looking at and can it be done with CFL?

if you're looking for a pound from a grow, then you're looking at fairly large setup - at least by cfl standards
cfl's will be more expensive than hps, from the number you need to cover the area and for the lower efficiency of cfl's versus say 600-800 hps setups

agreed, definitly pick up a HPS (400w) they are cheap online, CFL are great for pc grow cases or single plants but for the yeild your looking for total waste. i would search this site for HPS setups or google it, if possible get a remote balast and a cool tube and your heat problem is gone.

Good luck BTW

Thanks for the reply/.

How big of a setup are we talking about though? I was thinking about 20-25 plants.

So i'd try 5'X5' with one 400W MH (Can i do MH? I can buy them at aquarium stores and raise little suspicion)... This would be for the flowering.

The veg space, I won't have so much room available, I'm going to use a closet, the closet is about 2'X3'. Hopefully it will be able to cater to 25 smallers clones next to each other. So that will need another 400W MH.

What about the mother? I can have her under CFL right?

I'm trying to also cut down electricity bill We're all going green now (pun intended)

Hey hows it goin. Well 1 lb. every two months is a job for cfls. You will definitely want a 400w hps for flower and I'm really not sure you can yield a lb. every two months that...more like 2 400w hps. For veg cfls are fine but a mh or t5 floro is better. Are you going soil or hydro?

Ouf! 20-25 plants with CLFs? You're really better off gettin' yourself an HPS, or anything around there. Tell youself that you usually need 1 foot² per plant, as far as distance of each touching each other for optimal condition.s

Your mom, thouhg, can probably go under CFLS. But for the main grow it's REALLY better to with an HPS. Otherwise, you're look to spend almost twice the amount for the approx same lighting.

Oh, and Ouf! 1lb a month? Good luck, man. I can't really think of any indoors that easily grow 1pound, unless you get yourself something quite big, still.

Hey Welcome. For the best investment to get a lb per month, I would recommend getting a 250-400w mh for veg. Get a 400-600w hps for flowering. Mh is better for veg due to its blue light spectrum. HPS are better for flowering due to that they're red spectrum. If you want to avoid suspicion order them online by money order to a friends house or somewhere safe. Here is a good site http://discount-hydro.com . These lights will pay for themselves. CFL are fine for veg, but I would discourage from flowering with them.

HTG Supply sells 400w hps new for $119.

If you grow with 12/12 from seed, you can harvest every 2 month's and you could get a really good yield, depending on how much space you have..but, unless you have clones, only about half of your seed's could be female's (or less), there are really a lot of thing's you have to do yield so much so quick. there is a really good thread on why growing with 12/12 right away, produces bigger yield's. And when you do it that way, it produces one big bud, so you don't need a lot of light's, because there won't be as many fan leaf's in the way. I'm definately going to do a couple that way, once I finish the ones I got right now. And growing with 12/12 right away, you can harvest..actually I think he said you can harvest every month, but you have to have a big cycle going. I'll definately try to find that thread and hook u up though, if you wanna produce mass amount's..

I would recommend HPS too, if you are going to do the mass grow style. But CFL's work just dandy if you get the Y splitter's that hold two bulb's...You just want to add light, WHEN the plant need's it. But the more the marrier, for sure!

BradyBoe said:

I would recommend HPS too, if you are going to do the mass grow style. But CFL's work just dandy if you get the Y splitter's that hold two bulb's...You just want to add light, WHEN the plant need's it. But the more the marrier, for sure!

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You guys are replying way faster than I can reply

Ok so I'll head the MH and HPS way. I see they range around the same price on some of the web stores you recommended. I'd like to avoid crossing borders though, so i'll have to find something more local in Canada. I'll even go to my local high times store, hopefully they won't gouge me on the price.

lorden said:

You guys are replying way faster than I can reply

Ok so I'll head the MH and HPS way. I see they range around the same price on some of the web stores you recommended. I'd like to avoid crossing borders though, so i'll have to find something more local in Canada. I'll even go to my local high times store, hopefully they won't gouge me on the price.

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Ebay will ship right to your door. HTG supply (sorry no link) is probably the most reliable and cheapest. They ship stealth also.

Ya, ebay!! way easy and reliable..he's broke but he is very wise!!! lol

Hehehe, this is exciting. I can't wait to get all my stuff, set it up and start growing Been smoking for 10 years, never thought i'd grow my own.

BradyBoe said:

Ya, ebay!! way easy and reliable..he's broke but he is very wise!!! lol

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LOL...I'm broke cause I just built a new grow room and bought 5 1000w to run my forrest.

lorden said:

Hehehe, this is exciting. I can't wait to get all my stuff, set it up and start growing Been smoking for 10 years, never thought i'd grow my own.

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Well its really pretty easy. Just make sure you follow one rule...NO TELLING ANYONE! One thing though, smoking weed isn't really addictive, however growing it is!

Yeah, growing weed is awesome, except for the waiting part. I mean, seeing it develop is sweet, but seeing it go from seed to bud in my pipe/bong/joing/blung/vaporize/knife hit's/gas mask/double perk's/triple purks/ hookah's, is soooooooooooo GREAT!!! I just want to be rich so I can grow marijuana and play poker...hahaha..im a stoner, so I would also need a barn full of munchies....walk in freezer's full of frozen food and ice cream.......funyon's...lmao..sorry

BradyBoe said:

Yeah, growing weed is awesome, except for the waiting part. I mean, seeing it develop is sweet, but seeing it go from seed to bud in my pipe/bong/joing/blung/vaporize/knife hit's/gas mask/double perk's/triple purks/ hookah's, is soooooooooooo GREAT!!! I just want to be rich so I can grow marijuana and play poker...hahaha..im a stoner, so I would also need a barn full of munchies....walk in freezer's full of frozen food and ice cream.......funyon's...lmao..sorry

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Is that all?

lorden said:

Thanks for the reply/.

How big of a setup are we talking about though? I was thinking about 20-25 plants.

So i'd try 5'X5' with one 400W MH (Can i do MH? I can buy them at aquarium stores and raise little suspicion)... This would be for the flowering.

The veg space, I won't have so much room available, I'm going to use a closet, the closet is about 2'X3'. Hopefully it will be able to cater to 25 smallers clones next to each other. So that will need another 400W MH.

What about the mother? I can have her under CFL right?

I'm trying to also cut down electricity bill We're all going green now (pun intended)

Click to expand...

MH is good for veg, HPS has a FULL Spectrum so if buying on a budget eith buy both MH and HPS or just HPS, you could add some 100w CFLs to aid in veg if you want, light is the one thing you cannot over do (just watch for heat)


what i would do is, grow two to five mothers (dfiffernt strains okay) keep them under CFLS (6500k), for flowering clones i would use a 400w HPS and a few 6500K CFLs (incase you want to veg the clones) the issue is power space and heat, 400w is less than most home computers or stereo equipment or microwaves use, but running constantly will increase the power bill a little (but you have to pay to get the resaults) now in that small space you want a cool tube (the is a DIY around here somewhere) this will help tons

Good luck