This 15w CFL vs 9W LED?

KrazyG

Well-Known Member
For veg you would be better with 5000k or 6500k, either CFL or led will work fine. Personally led are better!
 

redivider

Well-Known Member
For CFL's go for around 40-50 actual watts of lighting per square foot of grow area.

If you have a 15W light you need 5 each per square foot. It is more efficient to get a few 60 actual watt CFLs in warm white and 3-4 smaller 23 watt cool white ones.
 

3rd Monkey

Well-Known Member
Depends on where you are growing. The cfl will throw more heat.

Fact is, one of each isn't going to cut it. You either need a daisy chain of cfl/led or a real light.
 

Kingrow1

Well-Known Member
I thought halogen was bad too much radiational heat - not sure but at those wattages stop being cheap and buy a real light :-)
 

BudmanTX

Well-Known Member
run the 6500k cfls for veg, you'll be fine, when you read add the others bulbs you gave 1: for my lums. 2: for also a better color profile....
 

Col10grows

New Member
My first grow was with CFLs and they definitely get the job done, however, what I understood about them is the wattage of the CFLs isn’t what it says its “equivalent to”. you need to know the real wattage being used. I had to use a lot of CFLs (about 80 real watts) and kept them really close to the plant bc if you don’t the light rays don’t go that far and it won’t work, but too close and your gonna burn your plants. And they grow very fast towards the light, making CFLs a lot of work when growing. So for my second grow I got a 400 watt HPS (High Pressure Sodium) and MH (Metal Halide) system that work wonders on plants. the MH is for veg bc of the high kelvin(K) color temp. And the HPS is a low color temp perfect for flowering. I recommend getting these instead of LED or CFLs. Your gonna get way bigger yields with half the work
 

bam0813

Well-Known Member
I dont think the last part of that is true. Atleast not with quality led light. I do agree cfls are crap
 

Col10grows

New Member
I dont think the last part of that is true. Atleast not with quality led light. I do agree cfls are crap
your absolutely right, I misspoke about LEDs. they used to be mostly crap a while back ago but now were engineering new ones that have the power of 1000 watt HPS’s while only using around 600 real watts and some can be the full color spectrum to where you can have the high kelvin veg lighting and the low kelvin flowering light in both the same panel with the turn of a nob. making it more realistic to the natural sun. LEDs are not a bad buy, but they are one of the most expensive grow lights to buy.. so it’s up to you if you want to dish out the dough for em
 
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