Quote Originally Posted by BuddyBea
Morning Jon,

Thanks for the reply my friend! Hmmm, 7.5x4.5... that seems like a reasonable space, however a bit larger than the 4x4 (by 5' tall) sketch I drew up today in my free time.

I was able to find a better cfl yesterday. It's made by GE and is 6500K, 1600 lumens, 26W (100 equivalent). Thats 1000K more than the "best" bulb I could find two days ago and I will tell you, even though 5/6 of my plants are less than a week old, you can tell they responded to the change in light intensity in just that short time! Currently though I just have the one light on. I read somewhere that you should use the same spectrum when you have multiple bulbs, so I didn't want to use the 5500K and the 6500K at once.

What do you use as far as sockets go? I bought a couple of those metal, clamp on 'work lamps' that they sell at HD/Lowes. Only thing is the actual socket piece is plastic (where as one you get at like a petstore for 2-3x the price is ceramic) seems like it gets a bit hot. Not sure if they are meant to run 24/7?

Also, anyone have any comments on using the koi pond water? I'm not a chemist, however I do know thats it's likely got a great deal of N. As thats one of the biggests chemical processes going on in the pond (the nitrite, nitrate, etc conversion process.) It's all dervied from well water though, which is then softened before hitting the pond. If any of that helps.

I'm on my way. Thanks for the help so far everyone.
As far as sockets go, I use exactly what you went and bought at HD/Lowes. I have not once had a heat issue and I use the big 55-watt 3800-lumen (actual wattage) CFL's as part of the lighting. I only run 18/6 light cycle too. I did run 24hrs for veg when I first started with CFL's but the 18/6 has paid off tremendously. When it comes to using different spectrums, I will highly recomend it when growing with CFL's. During veg I recomend 70%-80% 6500k spectrum over 2700k...During flower I recomend ADDING more 2700k lights to make it atleast 65% 2700k spectrum. You always want more light than you think when it comes to CFL's. Stick to the 2700K and 6500k CFL's and everything will turn out great. Keep them real close but no closer than an inch with the bigger CFL's, they do burn and growth will be atleast an inch daily once they start thriving.