Lighting help!

caesar537

caesar537

New Member
Just a quick question about lighting. I have a small growbox which I'm using until my babies are big enough to move outdoors but I need to know if my lights are strong enough. I believe they're both 15W CFL's, my temp and RH % are good, about 76-78 temp and 56-60% RH, will these be strong enough or will I need to go with like 23W or higher? Here's a few pics to help out:



Let me know what you think!
 
Re: Lighting help!!!

WHATS UP MAN!!!...welcome to the house!......If you get some fans or a fan in there somehow....not blowing on the little ones..but enough to keep the heat out of there you could go with a bigger light.......I have a seedling that has its second set of real leaves going right now and it is under a bulb like you got...the cork screw kind....and mine is 100 watt with a little tiny fan blowing around the air, she is doing great....it is under my bathroom sink....so its a pretty small space too....hope this helps and good luck on the grow man.....i'll be watching and if you ever have any questions feel free to shoot them.....thes guys here will make it so you cant screw up....if they can help an old hippie like me have a grow....anybody can do it............PEACE
 
Re: Lighting help!!!

thanks a bunch hippie! +reps! Do you think that a 23W would be too little lighting for the space? Should i just go with the 100W and get a small fan or would 2x23W be enough?
 
Re: Lighting help!!!

bump........Do the 100w....these new corkscrew bulbs dont put much heat out...do the fan to...a little one will work just fine.....I have a grow on here....go to my name and its the one that says "hydro grow...wholebedroom grow....and check out my grow...I had 430 watt T5's about 10 inches from my seedlings and those lights put out the same heat as my 100w ..which was nothing.......didnt even have a fan to start with......I'll shoot you a pic of my seedling 2morrow with the 100 watt hanging 3 inches above her 12 hrs a day...the lights just went out or Id show you now......let me know if theres anything else I can help you with....your in good company for your grow..........PEACE
 
Re: Lighting help!!!

Okay I think I'm gonna do that man, thanks for the help! Also, do you think it's worth it for me to keep those home made reflectors in my box? Or should I just go with better lighting and scratch the whole reflector thing? I was also wondering since my one lamp doesn't have a hood or anything should I put something around the lamp on the top so I don't waste the light? Also, check out my grow and let me know what you think!
 
Re: Lighting help!!!

I would dump the refflectors...allum foil is supposed to be bad for them...it creates hot spots on the plants leaves and such.....you'll see mine 2morrow and I dont have a shade on my either...just the bulb......the reflecting light will Be more important down the road...you just want them to get there feet (stalk) under them for now....I'll gladly check out your grow man...........PEACE
 
Actually a fan blowing across the plants is a good thing. Not a gale, just a decent breeze. Builds strong stems.
 
actually i would go with 1 100w bulb or u can get 4 23w cfls and that would equal to 300watts,you can put it 2 inches away and with a fan your good to go,try lst it and get better yeild.

try 24 hours light for a month then go 12/12
 
Please don't call a CFL "equal to x watts (of incandescent bulbs)."

Incandescent bulbs have no use in growing plants so any ad-speak comparison to them is pointless in our world.
 
Later on when the plants get bigger your gonna need more space and better reflective material! more ventilation! do you already have a set area for flower?
 
these plants are only gonna be in here for about 2-3 weeks to get em going then they'll be moving outside. Will the 100W bulb be too much for my lights though? One is an old table lamp and the other is just a desk lamp...I'm pretty sure I may have a 40W in there right now, if I'm not mistaken.
 
TorturedSoul said:
Please don't call a CFL "equal to x watts (of incandescent bulbs)."

Incandescent bulbs have no use in growing plants so any ad-speak comparison to them is pointless in our world.
Click to expand...

READ CAREFULLY!

no one is comparing a cfl bulb to a incandescent bulb,what i said is a 15w cfl bulb is considered 60 w so a 24w cfl is around 100-120 so 3 of them 24w should do good for each plant
 
faithster said:
READ CAREFULLY!

no one is comparing a cfl bulb to a incandescent bulb,what i said is a 15w cfl bulb is considered 60 w so a 24w cfl is around 100-120 so 3 of them 24w should do good for each plant
Click to expand...

Comparing? If you consider a 15-watt CFL bulb as a "60w" and a 24-watt one to a "100-120" then it seems that is in comparison to an old-fashioned incandescent bulb. Maybe I was mistaken. What kind of lighting exactly did you mean then that you considered the CFLs to be equal to 3-4x as much of? If it is a kind of light that is capable of growing plants, such as a MH or HPS, then such a consideration has relevance here - and I'd like to get a bunch of those CFLs lol - but otherwise...

faithster said:
actually i would go with 1 100w bulb or u can get 4 23w cfls and that would equal to 300watts,you can put it 2 inches away and with a fan your good to go,try lst it and get better yeild.

try 24 hours light for a month then go 12/12
Click to expand...

Oh. If you meant for him to end up with 300 ACTUAL watts of CFLs then I apologize. But from what he posted, caesar537 only has 30 watts' worth of lights at this point and I don't see how 30 + 100 or 30 + (4 * 23) would ever equal 300.

OTOH, if you'd suggested he pick up a 200-watt CFL and an 85-watt CFL, well, that plus the 30 watts he already has would equal just over 300 watts.
 
Okay so I have one 13W CFL (850 lumens according to packaging) and another two 13W CFLs (just added one today) which should also be 850 lumens each. Does this mean I'm pushing around 2500 lumens? My 13W CFLs are equal to 60W regularly or so the packaging says, but it's hard to know what's right on the packaging and what's not relative. I'm looking to have about 6 babies going on at once, will I have enough light in here? My growbox is 1 1/2" square box, length, width and height are all the same. What do you guys think?
 

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