3 weeks, 1x60watts cfl, opinions pls!

[ojitos1985]

Here we go, my first plant
http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/188/imagen1473qx2.jpg
http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/6948/imagen1474zh3.jpg
http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/2008/imagen1475yn6.jpg
http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/6114/imagen1476vx3.jpg

[psteve]

Hmmmm...
Well, your plant looks healthy enough for now, but you're going to need to upgrade a few things if you want to grow it successfully all the way to finished buds.
1x60wats is barely enough for a 1foot by 1foot space.
Also, your going to need a bigger pot very soon.
What kind of soil is that?

[ojitos1985]

Thx for the answer

Well its just soil from the supermarket, its a 50% and 50% mix from organic and "ready soil", but it has nothing sofisticated you know...
But it seems that it has growth very nice, no matter the soil type, or i am just lucky with the ph it seems...

My friend said that the seed its a brute force seed that will growth no matter anyshit it happen lol, how can be that

[Roughrider]

What psteve said...60 watts is borderline for flowering a plant, unless it's small. You'll probably be okay in veg, though. Looks like your plant is about 4 inches tall, right? (And it also looks like it's too low in your pot.) You're right at the point where your plant should start really picking up some height. If your plant doubles in height in the next week or two, you'll need to repot. That would be a good time to add more light. 75 watts could get one plant through flower pretty well.

[psteve]

75 watts could get one plant through flower pretty well.If it never gets bigger than 16 inches!
You need AT LEAST 50W per square foot of floor space. Even 100W per square foot is still not that much. Especially with CFL's.

[ojitos1985]

Well now it is 16cm of height, and i am really thinking adding another light of the same time, so will be 120watts, in other words 7200 lumens concentrated in 1 sq.feet., the problem is guys... that very soon i could not focus the lumens on the top of the plant because the plant will grow at the point that will be imposible.

Guys a question here, is there enought to light only the top of the plant? Or it is necesary to light it entirely?, i mean the leaves will die if i dont light them all? could be dumb you know..lol


I am working really hard in a LED light system, i will put some pictures soon.

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/5460/imagen1479pk6.jpg
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/4774/imagen1480qw5.jpg

[Roughrider]

If it never gets bigger than 16 inches!
You need AT LEAST 50W per square foot of floor space. Even 100W per square foot is still not that much. Especially with CFL's.

Well, what you want to look at is lumens per square foot...different lights are more or less efficient in producing lumens, so watts (which is a measure of energy used, not light produced) isn't the way to go.

Quick 'n ' dirty chart--

Under 2,000 lumens sq. ft.--Nothing
2,000-3,000 lumens sq. ft.--Next to nothing
3,000-4,000 lumens sq. ft.--Marginal to okay grow
4,000-5,000 lumens sq. ft.--Okay to good grow
5,000 lumens+ sq. ft.--Very good/optimal grow

This is why a 400w HPS is good enough to take care of a 3' x 3' area...that's around 50,000 lumens in 9 sq. ft. 5,100 lumens sq. ft. I've used a 250w bulb in a 27â?� x 27â?� area...27,000 lumens in 5 sq. ft. Works fine. HPS lights tend to be 25-70% more efficient than CFLs, which is another good example of why you should look at lumens, not watts.

60 watts of CFL is going to give you ~ 4000 to 4200 lumens. You're in the okay area for one sq. ft. 75 to 80 watts puts that up to 5,100 to 5,600 lumens. It's always hard to tell if people are growing giants, but I have fit 4 good sized (around 3') plants into a 5 sq. ft. area. I figure a decent plant with a decent yield will take up 1.25 sq. ft. 5600 lumens is about 4500 lumens/sq. ft. for a plant that size... not optimal, but will do okay. I've seen what $7 worth of Wal-Mart Warm White bulbs can do for one plant, and it's goodâ??that's 92 watts and 6600 lumens.

If you're doing massive LST, you may get a plant that's 16â?� tall and 16â?� in diameter. In my experience, with normal LST or topping, a plant is more like at least twice as tall as it is wide. So a 3 foot tall plant is more like 12â?�-16â?� in diameter...and a grow area that's 12 to 16 inches square is between 1 and 1.7 sq. ft. That's 5000 to 8500 lumens to get into the optimal area. So 75 watts is a little short...it's on the low end of that. 90 would probably be fine. But it's still about lumens per sq. ft. CFLs are pretty consistent in giving about 70 lumens per watt, so 70 watts per sq. ft. of grow area will be fine.

[Roughrider]

Well now it is 16cm of height, and i am really thinking adding another light of the same time, so will be 120watts, in other words 7200 lumens concentrated in 1 sq.feet., the problem is guys... that very soon i could not focus the lumens on the top of the plant because the plant will grow at the point that will be imposible.

Guys a question here, is there enought to light only the top of the plant? Or it is necesary to light it entirely?, i mean the leaves will die if i dont light them all? could be dumb you know..lol


It's not dumb at all. The biggest problem with CFLs is that they don't give much light penetration. With an HPS (or MH) light, you've got a lot of light coming from a single source. That focus and intensity gives you more heat...but light depth penetration too. So, actually, with CFLs, you're better off getting some light underneath. You could put all your lights in the sides provided you had enough lights to provide lumens for the grow area (some people use tubes on the sides of their grow in this way). But, really, you're a lot better off having most of your light on top. Just my opinion on that.

[psteve]

Well, what you want to look at is lumens per square foot...different lights are more or less efficient in producing lumens, so watts (which is a measure of energy used, not light produced) isn't the way to go.
Actually, if you want to get technical, neither watts nor lumens are the best measurement of how effective your lights will be. But most people don't even understand lumens, let alone LUX. Watts are something easy to understand, and are marked on the bulbs, so the math is easy. >50W/sq.Ft. is just a ballpark estimate of the MINIMUM light needed to grow cannabis using CFL or HD lighting.

[Roughrider]

Yes, I want to get technical here because what you are saying could be misconstrued or even be misleading. Lumens are the simplest, most readily available measure of light power. Lux simply refers to the amount of lumens striking a specific space...one lux = one lumen per square meter. (Since one square meter is almost exactly 10 sq. ft., you want 50,000 lux.) Anyway, it's much, much easier for growers to use information easily accessible. People can use a tape measure to see how big their grow area is. And easily available information, in the case of grow bulbs, is lumens.

Watts, on the other hand, have nothing to do with light whatsoever. It does not matter how easy they are to understand, they are completely irrelevant to light. They are a measure of the amount of energy a light source uses to produce light. Since there is a wide variance in efficiency between different light sources, watts are a very, very poor way of judging efficiency of lights for grow purposes. For instance--

150w HPS lightâ??15,800 lumens; 105.3 lumens per watt
1000w HPS lightâ??147,000 lumens; 147 lumens per watt
26w CFL lightâ??1750 lumens; 67.3 lumens per watt
4 lamp 4' T5 216w Fluorescentâ??20,000 lumens; 92.6 lumens per watt
100w of incandescent lightâ??1500 lumens; 15 lumens per watt

So, a 1000w HPS is over 40% more efficient than a 150w HPS...which is 50% more efficient than a CFL. In other words, you would need over twice as many watts of CFLs to do the job of a 1000w HPS. You'd need 50% more watts of CFLs to equal the light output of a 150w HPS. But a T5 fluorescent is closer to a 150 or 250w HID light. So there's not only variance in light output efficiency per watt between different types of lights, there is variance within the same type of lights. It adds up to a simple conclusions. Watts are not a good way of judging how much light you are producing.

For a 10 sq. ft. grow area, you would need:

One 400w HPS (50,000) lumens = 400w
Three 150w HPS lights plus 1 26w CFL = 476w
Two 4 lamp 4' T5 216w Fluorescent rigs, plus one 2 lamp 4' T5 108w Fluorescent = 524w
28.5 26w CFLs = 743w

Those substantial differences make the point. Use lumens per sq. ft. Try to get 5,000 per sq. ft. Maximize the light you create with reflectors and good reflective surfaces. With CFLs, that means about 70w to 75w per sq. ft. With HID lighting, the amount is at least 40% lower...even lower as you get into larger HPS or MH bulbs.

[psteve]

watts are a very, very poor way of judging efficiency of lights for grow purposes. Watts are not a good way of judging how much light you are producing.I never said it was the best way to measure how much light you HAVE.
As I said, it's just a quick and easy ballpark estimate.
You don't want <50w/sq.Ft.
If you have >50W/sq.Ft. of CFL or HID, you are in the ballpark where it is possible to grow cannabis.
Many (most?) CFL bulbs do not even put the lumen output on the package, making it quite hard to use lumens as a measurement.

[Roughrider]

No. 50w/sq. ft. is not â??in the ballparkâ?� for HID. Take a 400w HPS light that puts out 50,000 to 58,000 lumens. That will cover a 10 to 12 sq. ft. area very well. That's 33 to 40 watts per sq. ft. ... and that's giving you a very good grow. That amount drops as you get bigger bulbs...when you're at 600w (80,000-95,000 lumens) for instance, it's down to 31 to 36 lumens per sq. ft. So you can easily get by with 20-30% less than 50 lumens per sq. ft. with some HPS lights.

CFLs, on the other hand, almost uniformly put out 65 to 70 lumens per watt. They don't become more efficient at larger sizes like CFLs do. A 600w CFL is twice as efficient as a CFL, so using watts means you'll be off by 100%. That's a lot. 35w per sq. ft. will give you a terrific grow with a 600w HPS. To get comparable lumens, you'd need 70 watts of CFLs per sq. ft. (And, honestly, lumens are more available on CFLs than kelvins...because CFLS like to note incandescent equivalents, they usually put lumens on their packaging)

So, again, using watts is a very, very poor way of judging how much light you need. You can do VERY well with 40w sq. ft. with a 400w or larger HPS and have fewer accompanying heat and ventilation issues. On the other hand, 50W per sq. ft for a CFL is 3500 lumens per sq. ft.; very mediocre. You need to bump the amount of lumens by 40% to be in the very solid area. Different lights = different efficiencies. Don't use watts.

[ojitos1985]

Hey guys!, Pot ugraded, check it out please!! :P

Before and After...

[psteve]

No. 50w/sq. ft. is not â??in the ballparkâ?� for HID. Take a 400w HPS light that puts out 50,000 to 58,000 lumens. That will cover a 10 to 12 sq. ft. area very well. That's 33 to 40 watts per sq. ft. ... and that's giving you a very good grow. That amount drops as you get bigger bulbs...when you're at 600w (80,000-95,000 lumens) for instance, it's down to 31 to 36 lumens per sq. ft. So you can easily get by with 20-30% less than 50 lumens per sq. ft. with some HPS lights.

CFLs, on the other hand, almost uniformly put out 65 to 70 lumens per watt. They don't become more efficient at larger sizes like CFLs do. A 600w CFL is twice as efficient as a CFL, so using watts means you'll be off by 100%. That's a lot. 35w per sq. ft. will give you a terrific grow with a 600w HPS. To get comparable lumens, you'd need 70 watts of CFLs per sq. ft. (And, honestly, lumens are more available on CFLs than kelvins...because CFLS like to note incandescent equivalents, they usually put lumens on their packaging)

So, again, using watts is a very, very poor way of judging how much light you need. You can do VERY well with 40w sq. ft. with a 400w or larger HPS and have fewer accompanying heat and ventilation issues. On the other hand, 50W per sq. ft for a CFL is 3500 lumens per sq. ft.; very mediocre. You need to bump the amount of lumens by 40% to be in the very solid area. Different lights = different efficiencies. Don't use watts.Very interesting, mostly true, but irrelevant.
I personally know dozens of patients right here in Oregon who are growing fine medicine right now using >50W/sq.Ft.

[Roughrider]

Unfortunately, it's completely relevant. The idea that you can take a decent plant through flower and get a good yield with two 26w CFLs is, sadly, untrue. That's more than 50w and unless your plant is small (we are talking about going into flower at maybe 6â?�), it's just not going to be enough to do a good job. You'll need to keep your plant in an area of well under 1 sq. ft. You can get something out of a plant like that, but but you're selling yourself short and wasting your time. You need more light to do well..

And, on the other side, saying you need 50w per sq. ft. with HPS can cause you to get more light than you really need, and that is a big factor in heat and stress issues. If you've got a 4â?� x 4.5â?� grow area, and you say, â??Well, it's close to 20 sq. ft. so I'll get a 1000w HPS...that's about 50w a sq. ft.â?� you are getting more light than you really need. A 600w HPS with a high output bulb puts out 90,000 lumens or even more...it will do fine in that area, used 40% less energy, and give you less heat and ventilation issues.

Because of the differences in efficiency between CFLs and HID lights, and because of the differences among HID light efficiency at various sizes, wattage does not give you an accurate idea of light you produce. And it shouldn't. Watts have nothing to do with light; they are a measure of energy used to produce the light. You can get as much light from a lower wattage bulb that has higher efficiency. Which is why using lumens is always going to be better than using watts. It doesn't mean that using watts will always be wrong...but it is going to be wrong a good amount of time, and wrong in ways (not enough light, extra heat) that can cause real problems. Is that really worth it? I say no.