2 months of light left outside - help choosing bulbs for indoor!

[canirelax]

Hi im new to the forum and im sure ill get the answers im looking for here so lets start.
soon i want to start growing inside my house, something really small - 2-3 plants max maybe only 2.
i was thinking of gowing for fluorecent just becausei its compact and i dont have much room.
im planing to grow in a room which is seperate and in a small corner where its hidden, i was planing to buy one of these:

and having a 80 or 125 cool white fluor.
would this be enough for 2-3 plants? is this an ideal or ok way of growing? i prefer using cfl's as my first grow so i would like to know that im doing right at the start of my grow.
thanks

 

[canirelax]

i was thinking of maybe a 2 in 1 hps light that does both veg and flower, what you guys think about it.?

 

[nibec]

you best bet for yield would be flowering under an HPS. but CFL's or fluro's will work too.

typical rule of thumb for hps is 100 watts for the first plant, and 50 for each aditional, as long as you are keeping them small enough.
the same plant under cfl's, i would reccomend 150 for the first, and 100 each after. or in my case, 350 for one but im growing a monster for cfls.

6500k is best for veg , and 2700k for flower when growing with cfls.

hps will do both, but, they arent that great at vegging. even if you were to veg with CFL, and flower with hps, it would be much better,

 

[canirelax]

can i use one 125w cfl with reflector using mylar for reflection?

 

[nibec]

i would go with a 250cfl, or a couple 125's.. and use flat white for reflection. not mylar. mylar can cause hot spots and injure your plants. (kind of like a magnifying glass) where as flat white reflects better, and wont cause the spots.

if money is an issue. make a DIY light fixture out of 23-26 watt cfls. i personally run 14 - 26 watt cfls in a home made air cooled (not sealed though) reflector... i have them half an inch of the top of the plants, and it the temps at the tops is 74F, where the room itself is 72F.

 

[canirelax]

i would go with a 250cfl, or a couple 125's.. and use flat white for reflection. not mylar. mylar can cause hot spots and injure your plants. (kind of like a magnifying glass) where as flat white reflects better, and wont cause the spots.

if money is an issue. make a DIY light fixture out of 23-26 watt cfls. i personally run 14 - 26 watt cfls in a home made air cooled (not sealed though) reflector... i have them half an inch of the top of the plants, and it the temps at the tops is 74F, where the room itself is 72F.

i also wanted to go with 2 125's but the price is way to high, i try buying it off the net but shipping costs more than the actualy piece... i already ordered mylar blanket off ebay, iwill try to use it somehow so all parts of the plant get light. what do you mean by flat white, how do i get it? can i find it on ebay?
i was thinking about buying a 4 in 1 light fixture and using 4 42w cfl's, would that be enough for 2 plants?
also is it crutial to have a light reflector above the light aswell, and if so what can iuse for it?

 

[Agen36]

I've read enough to suggest that if you stretch the mylar tightly enough (without any wrinkles) you shouldn't have any hot spots.

Although a newbie myself, I understand that excellent reflectivity will really enhance the amount of light that reaches your plants.

 

[nibec]

mylar CAN be used... but...

by flat white, i mean, literally just paint your space with a flat white paint... works better, and IMO easier. just a brush, and $10 worth of paint goes a very long way. just make sure its FLAT white, and not glossy white.

as for reflector... its good to have, but no, not 100% needed.

if you want to cheap out... out comes the paint again... get a piece of wood... paint it flat white, and put it above your lights.. not as good as say, the proper ones you can buy from home depot or walmart for $15 a piece... but... a hell of a lot cheaper, and better than nothing.

using mylar, works... but like i said before, flat white works better, AND you are guaranteed to not have hot spots.

as far as people who argue that and say "mylar is more reflective" yes and no...

think of a mirror.. using mirrors in your grow room will do you next to no good. you are wanting the light itself to bounce off of surfaces, not reflect like a mirror. not sure how else to explain it.

 

[GigaGrew]

i agree with a lot of what Nibec says.

variations...

because of inverse square law. a few high powered CFL's are pretty crap, using LOTS of low powered ones give you much more energy directed where it needs to be...right close to the growth.

the normal thinking is 6500k for veg and 2700k for flower...but its actually more myth than biblical law.
you can veg perfectly with 2700k bulbs as they contain a healthy dose of the blue light, granted not quite as much as the 6500k but the difference is far less than people realise....and 2700k bulbs are litterally everywhere and dirt cheap, hell in a lot of countries energy companies give them away for free as part of greener energy projects.