using cfl's. how best to place them

[halospaceboy]

hi my plants are in flower and im using 5 cfl''s over 3 plants white widow. thats two 30 w cfl's and three 20 w cfls. thats about 420 whats from all lights i think. buds are not huge at this time about 4 weeks flowering. any tips or hints would be greatly apreciated and welcomed. thanks

[Abattoir Dream]

put them as close to the growth tips as possible without letting them touch ;)

[LIP]

And make sure they're are not getting to hot.

The bud will only just have started forming at 4 weeks in, in the last 2 weeks is when the buds put on the weight, and when the THC starts maturing.

[brookerosebud]

stay about 2-3 inches away from your plants or you'll get burns. buds will stay kinda small and airy with cfl's only; if you can add an hps, do so.

first is from hps, second from cfl...

[brookerosebud]

hmmm, bad pix... i'll try again later.

[LIP]

stay about 2-3 inches away from your plants or you'll get burns. buds will stay kinda small and airy with cfl's only; if you can add an hps, do so.

first is from hps, second from cfl...

From looking at your pics i can tell you right away why you got such a low yeild using CFL's... simply, your plants are too big. CFL's are for smaller plants, as they cant penetrate the canopy very well, unlike HPS. I can tell you know if you'd kept your plants smaller it would have yeilded better than it did.

HPS will always be the best though, because it's got the lumen output and it's the perfect spectrum.

But CFL's can give VERY nice yeilds, if used properly.

[brookerosebud]

very true... they kinda got out of control, had to do some super lsting, and 4 48"flouro tubes, and 16 23w cfl's weren't enough for 5 plants. hps made all the difference. the real reason for such a bad yeild, was the two week early harvest. the other's gave about 1 1/2-2 oz, hps plant gave up a qp

[LIP]

I admit, when i first came on this site it was the first time i'd heard about CFL's, and i was pretty sceptical, cos i was strictly a MH/HPS conversion guy, but i eventually got some CFL's and grew out some LR's.

CFL's are only realy good for small plants, short bushy indicas. ut damn, they work good.

I dont bother with LSTing, i guess i dont have to worry it. I only grow them to about 1 foot and give em a dose of the 12/12 and they end up getting to about 3 foot, my grew about 3 foot just in flowering. They got a bit big, but i just chopped it in half and still got a lovely cola. As big as my arm lol.

All i use CFL's for now is side lighting.

I used to have 1000 watters but it was too much for my area, so i got 2 250 watt MH's and 2 250 watt HPS for flowering, with about 10 20 watt CFl's for side lighting.

Works a treat.

[brookerosebud]

flouro's and cfl's got me through about three quarters of my first indoor grow. after a realy bad day, i'm down to remodeling, getting ready for future projects. using mainly flo's in veg/clone room, and hps+mh solarmax gold for flower.

[halospaceboy]

thanks all, i realy thought my buds were small there about the size of a cigerett filter at the min, still got six weeks to go if i dont smoke by then as im getting kinda hungry

[midlifecrisis]

hi my plants are in flower and im using 5 cfl''s over 3 plants white widow. thats two 30 w cfl's and three 20 w cfls. thats about 420 whats from all lights i think. buds are not huge at this time about 4 weeks flowering. any tips or hints would be greatly apreciated and welcomed. thanks


I think you might be getting your watts confused, 420 watts is probably the incandescent equivalent your cfls put out.....you want to go by the actual watts of the cfl 2x30 + 3x20 = 120 watts....that is not much for three girls.

Most hardware stores will carry 43 watt cfls (about 6 bucks ea.)....warm color lights for flowering....

I have a two plant cab with 385 watts of floros and I still want to add more lights......

Good luck to ya...

[Garden Knowm]

brook.. send me lots of pictures NOW..

iloveyou

[justaseed]

cfl's are great for small scrogs. this was my 335 watt cfl only scrog cabinet(2ftx2ftx2.5ft). it yeilded a qp regularly and the buds were pretty dense. i was extremely suprised with the quality/quantity at my first cfl harvest!

[halospaceboy]

hi midlife, so i need more lights? i can only find 30w and they cost around 16euro. how much light do u think i need? for my girls. hay just a seed how manyy plants in there looking very good.

[hudson88]

Hi halo, i'm using around 150w of cfl's in a space 2ft x 1.5ft. I'm near harvest now you can check my grow thread at http://boards.cannabis.com/showthread.php?p=1140715&posted=1 to give you an idea what sort of results to expect. My buds arn't as big as i'd hoped so for my next grow i'm gonna up the lights to about 250w. The regular cfl's can get expensive as you need a lot, i've got a 125w envirolite which cost around 30 euros, It saves on wiring loads of cfl's too. Just something to think about.

Yeah justaseed your grow looks really good, hope my next grow looks as good!

Peace :rasta:

[midlifecrisis]

wow...16 euros, that's $20 US....my wallet feels sorry for you...over here a 6 pack of 26 watt floros is $16 US...
I would try to get at least 100 watts per plant, my first grow was with 3 - 43 watt floros on two plants and it did ok....I added 85 more watts on the next grow and it did better, now I'm up to 400 watts and they're looking better still....
The envirolite that Hudson mentioned sounds like it would be your best bet.

[Volker]

cfl's are great for small scrogs. this was my 335 watt cfl only scrog cabinet(2ftx2ftx2.5ft). it yeilded a qp regularly and the buds were pretty dense. i was extremely suprised with the quality/quantity at my first cfl harvest!Woo hoo! That gives me hope for mine. Mine total 290W. Looks like same basic concept, slightly different approaches. Currently most in 2700K cuz im starting bud next week.

[halospaceboy]

hudson man u got a pic of that envirolight so i no what to look for
thanks everyone for ur help

[hudson88]

Hey halo, here's a link to a 200 watt envirolite system, to show you what they look like, i got a 125w bulb for £20 and paid £10 for the fitting and cable from a local hydro store. Most hydro shops will sell them or there's loads of companies online that sell them, just do a google search for envirolite, also you can get them from ebay.

Peace :rasta:

[midlifecrisis]

http://www.envirolites.co.uk/

http://www.3countieshydroponics.co.uk/pages/lights/lights_envirolite.htm

http://www.starlitesystems.co.uk/acatalog/Flourescent_Lighting.html