How many CFLs would you use?

[420GrowLyf]

Hey guys

I am currently in the process of setting up a dedicated grow tent and I already have a spare 230watt CFL that I want to use, now the question is - how many would I need for a 1 meter x 1 meter floor space?

any advice would be great, peace!

 

[luftburen]

I am currently using 4x 24w t5's for coverage, one 80w Bulb and another 80 LED-bulb. Works great, even coverage and tight nodes. Of course you could go more, but this is honestly all you need to get compact buds.

Probably could go less, wouldn't do it though...

 

[anduin1]

One issue Ive found with CFLs is that you need a lot of them to grow effectively with. They lose a lot of their juice when they're more than a few inches away from the plant so what you end up having to build is a lighting setup that you have to surround your plants to even it out. This becomes super annoying when it comes to watering and just getting around your grow space. You can achieve this with smaller watt bulbs and y-splitters to make cherry like light setups. This may be out of your options right now but going with a 400 or 600w HPS/MH is much simpler. CFL growing is doable of course but I found the daily adjustments I had to make became tedious when I just wanted to deal with the plants and not the equipment for nearly as much time.

If you don't want to do that you need to figure out how many plants you'll have but start aiming for 50w per square foot and make sure your bulbs are no more than a few inches away. As your plant grows, you'll want to add more to the sides of your plant and in flower get some 2300k lights mixed in.

 

[lexort420]

With CFL lights dont expect to grow trees in my experience the key to using them effectively is to keep the plants short and lst for better light coverage/penetration also remember that most the light from a cfl is emitted from its sides rather then it's tip.

 

[Fuzzy Duck]

I use a 125w 6500k cfl for seedlings & vegging for up to 8 weeks even kept mother plants under it for much longer doing just fine in 60cm by 60cm area... could get away with slightly larger tho perhaps 80cm by 80 cm at best but i would need a better reflector/hood.

Ye that is not a domestic cfl either but a cfl designed for growing !

 

[anduin1]

At the peak of my CFL growing, I had roughly 200w of power for about 3-4 plants. i like the big bulbs but they take up a lot of room and still run into the same issues as the small cfls, once the plants get a little bit bigger, coverage always became my greatest issue. I agree on the LST being mandatory for a CFL grow though. You'll get way more popcorn style budding than if you use a MH and allow the plant to really stretch out. Still if you want anything decent in terms of yield, then get to bending and tying. I have one currently and it's a bush but it took a month just to get it to it's final shape.