CFL Light Tutorial

Roseman I'm pretty sure, said that you should replace them after each grow, they lose their efficiency very quickly and also that if your plants start stretching or stop growing the bulbs are putting out no "grow energy' so to speak.

I'm milking all my bulbs till this happens, or the plants stop growing at the rate im used to.
 
Also, ALL BULBS lose their efficiency quickly, so take your pick, they're all the same apparently when it comes to "Output" for plants after a certain timespan /on/off period.

Correct me if I'm wrong Roseman.
 
dc534 said:
How long will CFL's really last under continious use conditions and when you have the added stress of putting them close together in a DIY chandelier type reflector setup? I have heard switch your lighting after every grow, but that is a lot of money to go replacing all the bulbs in a setup. I guess my question is how many grows can you get out of CFL's? I mean, has anyone tested when they start to lose their Luminosity (how many hours? Days?)? It says they last up to 10000 hours but those are under ideal conditions, not under Grow conditions. As someone with not a lot of money to spare I want to make the most out of the bulbs and it seems a little wasteful to throw them out after just 1 grow. But if that is what it takes I dont want to deprive the plants light by having inefficient bulbs.

So if anyone has any info on how long CFL's should last, much would be appreciated.
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Its already in this thread.
I bought a light meter, made for photographers.
My 65s, 85s, and 105s all were good for two grows and were very diminished after two grows. They were slightly diminished after one grow. AFTER one grow, they were not still like new but were at 90%. That was vegging 5 weeks and flowering 8 and a half weeks. To the eye, no differcnce, but to the light meter, the lumens were not there after two grows. It was like only 50% to 60% remaining after 2 grows..
 
If I grow the next grow again, with CFLS, I will buy 4 to 6 new bulbs, at about $20 each.
Who would not invest $80 to $120 to harvest a pound of buds? And when I consider (and I did look into it) if I invested in HIDs the big expense would be the venting of the heat. AND HID bulbs don't last forever either and have to be replaced anyway.
 
Roseman said:
If I grow the next grow again, with CFLS, I will buy 4 to 6 new bulbs, at about $20 each.
Who would not invest $80 to $120 to harvest a pound of buds? And when I consider (and I did look into it) if I invested in HIDs the big expense would be the venting of the heat. AND HID bulbs don't last forever either and have to be replaced anyway.
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idk rose i think you could get away with 400, even a 600 vented easily in your closet. and your buds would definitely notice a difference in the light. pluss watching you do magic with cfls makes me wonder what you could do with some hid's.

i bought a stanley blower fan for 50 bucks it hooks up to 6 inch dryer venting, and i got the sunleaves artic cool 6 inch plug and play hood. well 2 of them now. it works great, and pretty quiet too!
 
Trunk5 said:
idk rose i think you could get away with 400, even a 600 vented easily in your closet. and your buds would definitely notice a difference in the light. pluss watching you do magic with cfls makes me wonder what you could do with some hid's.

i bought a stanley blower fan for 50 bucks it hooks up to 6 inch dryer venting, and i got the sunleaves artic cool 6 inch plug and play hood. well 2 of them now. it works great, and pretty quiet too!
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Trunk5, I very highly value your opinion. Over how many tanks would one 400 light up? Just one?
And where do you vent it to? Into a carbon filter or what?
And how much $ do you have invested in the 2 lights, hoods, fan and filters?
 
Roseman said:
Trunk5, I very highly value your opinion. Over how many tanks would one 400 light up? Just one?
And where do you vent it to? Into a carbon filter or what?
And how much $ do you have invested in the 2 lights, hoods, fan and filters?
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ok under my one 400 i ran 2 bins with 4 plants each, but i made it perpetual so i was harvesting them in 4 week intervals. then again i was limited to a 30x20x60 space for thoes two bins. i know i could cover a little bit more area with these lights. my first light set up was $240 shipped this was a lumitek ballast, one of the sunleaves hoods, and an mh and hps bulb. after that hps went out on me "i did 4 grows with it - or replace them once a year" i picked up the eye horti super hps and will never look back. that bulb was $67 on ebay. since the light hoods are sealed with a 6 inch flange on each side i attach a home made carbon filter "soon to upgrade to the real thing" on one side and connect the other to the intake side of the blower fan. sucks the air out of the tent thru the carbon filter thru the light hood cooling the bulb and blows the air into my closet. my temps thus far dont get above 82. and thats if i close up the closet and place towels by the ground. "i sleep in this room".

as for the second set up i havent bought everything yet, i just have the matching hood and i got it for 120 shipped on ebay, the ballast im looking at about 100 bucks then just another horti bulb. hope this helps rose.. hey and dont forget about cool tubes there a little cheeper then full on sealed hoods and ive seen good things from them.
 
Rose, I have two tanks under my 400. A 400 covers 4x4' and a 600 covers 5x5'. You do get deeper penetration with a HID but I still use 3 or 4 - 42 watt cfl's for side lights. I have a dayton blower - 250 cfm (around $109), the cool tube - ( $170.00) and some 6" vent tube ($20). Bulbs for my 400 are around $30 and they need to be replaced once a year but it's one bulb. As always with HID, it's about the venting. If you can't vent it properly then HID is not the way to go.
 
Trunk5, MC, I've printed and saved your responses. Great information too.

I hate being old or old fashioned or finding it difficult to change. I need to learn more about HIDs, I really do.

I do enjoy being able to show newbies how to get started cheaply with CFLS, but it is time to move on, move up, and move ahead................I'm thinking.
 
I look at it more as expanding my capabilities. No one said you had to do it one way or another. I'm amazed you have something left to learn but there it is! LOL!

I'm convinced that cfl, hid, led and all the other techs will only improve as the market matures. This won't be the only thing you'll have to stay up on! Keeps a fella young! LOL!
 
I was first thinking to design my grow room with all CFL's but now I am thinking a mix of CFL's and Tubes. Ive seen you can get 3ft T5 in 2700k and 6500k and at decent wattage for fairly cheap. Tubes seem to be cheaper to replace, but again its all about efficiency. A mix of the 2 should give me what I am looking for though. I mean a 40 WATT tube may not be as bright but certainly for Veg it has to be the way to go to save some money instead of replacing expensive CFL's. I guess I got some homework to do to see what ratio of CFL to Tubes I will want to use for the Veg stage at least.
 
Another advantage to the tubes are that they are cool to the touch and can be place in very close proximity to the plant. The combo is a good idea in general. Surround it with the T5 and place the cfl's at strategic locations as needed. It's all about the lumens that actually get to the plant.
 
I am wondering, from what I have read on these forums, you can use UVB lights, reptile lights basically, and less water to stimulate your plants to produce more resin and THC? If this is so, can someone tell me when you should start doing this, for how many hours, and how many WATTs/Lumens of UVB would be good per square foot?

I read somewhere, I think it might have been in this thread actually, someone said like 6-8 hours during flowering but they didnt mention how many WATTs or Lumens they used. The premise behind this is that UVB is harmful to the plant, as well as to you, and to protect itself it produces more resin and THC in response to this. Very interesting stuff if you ask me.

Sorry to hijack thefirst grow and am trying to plan out just how muc CFL thread to ask this but I decided to go mostly CFL setup with my h money I will need to save up for lighting expenses. I dont exactly have a lot of money to be throwing around on a very expensive set-up if you know what I mean and I want to be as descrete as possible.

Ive done a little research and some say it works well but if anyone has any experience with it, some insightful info on it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Also note UVB is not good for your skin or your eyes so you dont want to be playing around in your growroom when the lights are on from what I hear.
 
dc534 said:
I am wondering, from what I have read on these forums, you can use UVB lights, reptile lights basically, and less water to stimulate your plants to produce more resin and THC? If this is so, can someone tell me when you should start doing this, for how many hours, and how many WATTs/Lumens of UVB would be good per square foot?

I read somewhere, I think it might have been in this thread actually, someone said like 6-8 hours during flowering but they didnt mention how many WATTs or Lumens they used. The premise behind this is that UVB is harmful to the plant, as well as to you, and to protect itself it produces more resin and THC in response to this. Very interesting stuff if you ask me.

Sorry to hijack thefirst grow and am trying to plan out just how muc CFL thread to ask this but I decided to go mostly CFL setup with my h money I will need to save up for lighting expenses. I dont exactly have a lot of money to be throwing around on a very expensive set-up if you know what I mean and I want to be as descrete as possible.

Ive done a little research and some say it works well but if anyone has any experience with it, some insightful info on it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Also note UVB is not good for your skin or your eyes so you dont want to be playing around in your growroom when the lights are on from what I hear.
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Reptile lighting found at pet stores is not ideal for UVB lighting. Yes they do emit a higher % of UVB than regular CFLs but they output less light and emit over 12x more UVA light than UVB light which can harm your plant.

You won't find any knowledgable growers using the reptile bulbs.
 
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