CFL Grow Advice Needed!

[TorturedSoul]

When I was growing with multiple HIDs (been a good while), I felt that I got the best product with a mix of MH and HPS in approximately the ratio I mentioned. Yield probably suffered a small amount compared to a straight HPS (during flower) run, but it wasn't enough to bother me or notice, really; I had crops of nice, tight buds that were completely covered with trichomes. I feel the MH added to that.

But it's not a requirement, of course. We can do fine without having every single thing tweaked - and in many cases, "fine" is enough, lol.

I noticed you mentioned the low heat of CFLs twice in a post, above. That's one of the things I meant when I discussed comparing different lights on a "watt per watt" basis. Sure, you can hold a CFL in your hand. Think the last one I hit with my non-contact thermometer (was a higher wattage but still a CFL) was only around 135°F-150°F. No big deal, and way less than, say, a 400-watt HPS bulb in use. But you can set up two completely sealed boxes, one with X watts of CFLs and the other with equal watts of HPS. You'll find that the one with the CFLs heats up quicker and to a higher maximum temperature. It's that old law about... I can't remember what it's called right now (got hit with a piece of hash earlier, please forgive, lol). But the one that says when a light bulb consumes electricity, it produces two things, light and heat. The more efficient light - that is, the one that produces more light per watt - must produce less heat. Add to that the fact that the HID ballasts are usually located outside of the grow room, while CFL ballasts are almost always located right there under the glass part of the bulb, so their heat gets added in. Finally, since the amount of CFL watts required to get an equal amount of illumination as an efficient HID bulb - especially one that has a decent PAR spectrum instead of being primarily for area-lighting - is much higher, actually approaching double in some cases, well... If one ends up with more watts of a less efficient type of light (to do the same job), that's even more heat. And it's a lot easier to remove the heat generated by a HID setup; just use a sealed air-cooled reflector. Harder to do that with numerous bulbs that are all over the place. (And, again, one low-wattage CFL produces less heat than a higher-wattage HID, but folks aren't growing/flowering with one low-wattage CFL.)

I'll give you the lower cost for CFLs over HIDs. <SHRUGS> I guess. I'm not really sure, it's been a while since I priced things out. Like you mentioned, there are deals on CFLs and occasionally offers of free ones and you don't get that with HIDs. Then again, I've gotten free "industrial" HIDs that I only had to separate the ballast from or run by the local electrical supply house and spend $17 on a capacitor to make good as new.

But if a person had to buy everything for a decent-sized CFL grow from scratch, I wonder what they'd spend? Let's see, they'd buy lots of bulbs. Sockets. More sockets or Y-adaptors. Wire. Plugs. Something to mount them to or hang them from. Reflectors. The added expense of removing the extra heat generated (as per above) compared to an equal amount of HID lighting. Power strips (unless the person wired them all to either a single receptacle or a small number of them). That's probably about it.

Think I paid around $224 for a 400-watt Lumatek (drives MH or HPS bulbs in both 400- and 250-watt), a 400-watt Lumatek "high-PAR" HPS bulb, a generic MH bulb, and a cheap reflector. (And by cheap I mean cheaply-made as well as being inexpensive; it's an open style, not air-cooled.)

That's expensive, I guess. But an equal amount of CFL lighting, hmm. Take into account the lesser penetration of CFLs and you'd probably approach 800 watts. What's it cost to build a CFL setup of 800 watts from scratch? Or even 600 watts?

And how do the lower wattage CFL setups compare in price to a 250-watt setup? Or a 150-watt (or 175-watt MH)? 70-watt?

I'm just guessing here, but you'd probably still come out a few $ (or £, as the case may be) ahead buying the CFL stuff.

Until you paid your first electric bill, lol.

I guess since you mentioned that CFLs might take longer than HIDs - something I forgot to even consider - that we should probably consider the "yield vs. time" argument as well. I know people that only grow once per year because they don't require a great deal of cannabis and use 400-watt HID setups & have really nailed the one-gram-per-watt thing - and a ~14¼ ounce harvest suits them just fine for 12 months. You might grow using less overall wattage (even when considering any cooling/fans that you might or might not use) and get less than 400 grams yield at harvest time, but grow more than one crop per year. So you could end up getting a significant harvest when considered on a total yearly basis (probably using more watts of electricity in that year, but maybe not significantly, IDK).

Then again, when comparing multiple harvests with one larger single one, we would have to take into account the (likely) extra time/labor and materials.

Guess things are never simple clear-cut yes/no type answers, lol.

What it comes down to in the end is "as long as everyone is happy with their setup and it's producing the meds that they need, that's the main thing."

BtW... I think I saw you refer to this thread as a journal (I could be mistaken.) It's not. This is the Frequently Asked Questions forum.

And sorry for rambling. It's not my fault, lol; blame it on the hash. It's really good. (Coming unexpectedly during a rather sad dry spell probably helps.)

 

[TorturedSoul]

There really not that expensive man. I got my 400w HPS ballast with an HPS bulb and MH bulb + the hood for 145 shipped. That's after I feel I wasted 40-50 on CFLs + extension chord + bathroom vanity etc I was just shy of buying an HPS in the first place. Not to mention the yield will be substantially higher.

Same ballast normal bulbs. Deff use the same wattage!

That's a good price if it's not one of the lesser-quality brands of ballast. (And if it's an old-fashioned C&C magnetic, they're dead-simple to rebuild so even that's not that big of a deal).

Hey, you didn't waste money on the CFL stuff - if you got a harvest that was worth one penny more than what you spent.

i was thinking i would need to spend around 500 quid, unless the prices are a lot more in the UK, im not sure how this would affect prices

I've wondered how prices for the equipment we use compare between our two countries. I am afraid that the only mention of price I ever hear in regards to the UK is when I get to visit someone with cable television and watch Top Gear (awesome show BtW and infinitely better than the US knockoff, IMHO) and they mention a vehicle and say something like, "And it's only £48000." And then I check the currency converter and learn that £48000 equals $75,936 US - and I find myself wondering, "Just how much does the average resident of England MAKE, lol, my house cost less than that."

ill give my hydro shop a call tomorrow and ask them, for this grow now ill stick with the cfl's i wanted to experient and see the results so i dont think i should change till this is finished

Here's an idea: Continue with the CFLs. Try to save a little bit of money each week and place it in an envelope (call it your garden fund). Or, if you're adding to your CFL setup, try to put the same amount you're spending in the envelope. Just let it accumulate while you go on with your current setup. By harvest time you'll have some money and you can decide then whether to use it to improve your CFL setup, to invest in HIDs, or to give yourself a mini-vacation. Along the way you will have added another harvest and gained both in terms of the harvest and in the knowledge. If you grow the same strain each time, you will have come that much closer to mastering it.

say i was growing 4 or 5 plants, what light wattage wise would be best to buy

It's easier to use the size of your garden area in figuring up how much illumination (wattage) you want to shoot for. What size is your space? Are the walls covered with a reflective surface (mylar, flat white paint, et cetera) or do they only serve the purpose of partitioning the space?

that would allow me to use 2 bulbs in same ballast

At the same time? That adds expense, although it's probably cheaper than purchasing two separate ones. Many of the digital ballast manufacturers offer dual-bulb ballasts. I've even seen ones that powered two 150-watt bulbs, which seemed odd at first - but then I realized that it might be a good solution for a grow space that was very shallow but relatively wide. Or for doing to grows that a person wanted to keep separate (for whatever reason).

ive seen some balasts have a switch in them to swap bulbs

Those were probably C&C (magnetic) ballasts, the older type (heavy ones, lol). They make those in a switchable type that does exactly that. Every digital ballast (Lumatek, Quantum, Thunder, the one that JD Lighting offers, et cetera) that I have seen automatically dealt with both HPS and MH (but not CMH) bulbs, so they don't need such a switch.

Not every C&C HPS ballast can drive both types of bulbs. The firing voltage requirement is different between the two and I think the running voltage (not positive about that) and some can't deal with it.

I just had a thought, if you are in the UK and are interested in going to some sort of HID setup in the future, you might contact Lumatek. I think they are based in the UK so that might be a product that's actually cheaper for you to buy (IDK).

i just g##gled metal halide and growing and it comes back that their best use for the veg cycle and it would be a hps to flower how ever it says hps can be used for both stages, are you using mh just for veg and then switching to hps, see to me this is where it starts to cost a lot of money

You can grow with HPS start to finish. You might find that your plants are taller and the bud slightly fluffier (compared to a complete MH grow) - but your harvest yield will most likely be greater.

You can grow with MH start to finish. You might find that your buds are denser (think rocks, lol) and more crystally. But your harvest yield will probably be somewhat less.

You can grow with MH and flower with HPS (some throw swap the MH back in the last week or two of flowering) and have the best of both worlds.

I used to run 430-watt HPS setups with C&C ballasts that were specced to fire/run the 430-watt bulbs (probably not necessary, but also probably got the most out of the bulbs). The extra 30 watts (possibly more of the total, I never really asked myself that before) was blue-spectrum illumination. It was cool, actually. The first time I showed them to my buddy I fired one up and he said, "Hey, that's blue - and really bright." And then a short time later the bulb warmed enough that the entire 430 watts of light was being produced and he was like, "Wow." But anyway, that setup was a pretty good one for a "one bulb type for the entire grow" setup. The extra amount of blue radiation really helped keep internodal distance down and provided a boost in vegetative growth. It also helped produce tighter buds during flower. Sometimes I miss those days. They produced very well for the electricity they consumed.

im sure you have to replace the bulb every year as well to ensure peak perfomance

That's the case with HPS, MH, and CFL. You don't need to replace them every cycle or X number of hours, but efficiency drops off as they produce less and less illumination whilst consuming the same amount of electricity. I doubt many people run their bulbs until they reach end-of-life (last season's bulb makes a good emergency spare in case something happens).

iIRC, most bulbs drop-off curve is steeper at the beginning and then gets more shallow. You might notice a certain drop-off during the first 1000 hours (if you measure it with a meter) but notice less of a drop-off from then through the next 1000 (or more). If that makes sense. So it's not like you get up one day and the bulb is producing half as much light as it did the day before. People just tend to like to keep their setups at optimum. And what's $30, $50, or even $100 (sorry, I could do the exchange but don't have a clue what they'd actually cost in your country so it probably wouldn't be the same but you get the picture I hope) for a bulb every year or even every cycle if you are producing 200, 300, 400... etc. grams of very high-quality bud every harvest? I don't know what that costs in your neighborhood, but more than a new bulb every now and then I'd guess.

like i said if i had the money and no neighbours id be using both the hps and mh

Depending on the strain... You can probably read ten decent-sized CFL jounals and at least three of the growers would tell you that their plants had a significant odor as well, lol. Don't assume that even a small cannabis garden can never be smelled by the person living in the house next to yours (and if you both live together in the same apartment building (connected flats?), that goes 10x. Always plan for odor. If you don't need to deal with it, it's no big deal. But it you don't plan for it and your neighbor calls the police to report the sweet smell of flowering cannabis - or decides to rob you when you aren't home - then you're screwed. BtW, there are strains that are considered to be low-odor. Others smell more like fruit, or spices, or diesel fuel (lol) than the skunk and pine smells that the average non-grower thinks of when he/she thinks about cannabis.

but the costs at the moment are to much for me and im not in it to make money so to outlay that much just to grow 2 or 3 plants seems a bot over kill for me

As long as you're producing the amount you require, in the time you wish to produce it in, and doing so for the amount of money that you're willing to spend.

There is a member here who used a small 150-watt HPS to produce a small grow. The harvest wasn't huge, of course, but it was very nice for the amount he spent on supplies and electricity. And the plants and buds looked very nice. It would be fair to call it a low-budget personal grow. You might find it interesting. He grew in an 18" x 36" (45.72cm x 91.44cm) space, which is more than I'd recommend for that light, and was still happy with his results. If you found a decent HPS of that wattage and supplemented it with a few (maybe four, one at each corner of the HPS) low- to mid-wattage CFLs, you'd have a decent spectral mix, would probably be satisfied with both the quality and the amount of your harvest... and would almost certainly end up with more than if you had run the same amount of watts, but had gone purely CFL. And you could start your plants under just the CFL then either switch to the HPS & add the CFLs back later or go straight to "everything you've got."

Not saying such a setup is the one for you, it's just a relatively inexpensive one and one that doesn't consume much electricity or produce a great deal of heat. I've seen new "all in one" 150-watt HPS setups for around $65 that included the bulb and a decent-looking reflector. Personally, if I went with one I'd crack it open and remote the ballast so I could stick it in the other room to remove the heat it produces from the grow room (they don't heat like fire, but there is some heat of course).

Like they say, there's more than one way to skin a cat. As long as everyone gets meat with supper, right? (lol)

Here is ChicagoJoe's 150-watt HPS grow thread. Just thought you might find it interesting. IDK, maybe you would wish to compare it to your expected yield or even to a higher-wattage HID grow. Like you mentioned, you're not growing for profit so a smaller setup might be both what you're looking for and easier to manage (and cheap never hurt). Another option and all that.
150W HPS - 18 pics - 9 weeks flower

I think I've jabbered too much in this thread, lol. Apologies for the verbosity.

 

[donpaul.p]

wow, thanks for all the great info, its something im going to have to think about, but like you say each to their own, i did state when i started my journal that this grow is an experiment with cfls, im doing this due to the fact you have people been negative and people who get great results so i decided to try for myself as its easy to set up, the bulbs are cheap and you can have a few in their above the plant and hanging around the plant to increase light to lower and inner branches, etc etc.

at the moment im running 7 cfls, 4 of them are 30watt, 2 are 26 watt and 1 is 20 watt, now even without my fans in their the temp never goes above 75deg f, at the highest point of the plant and thats with my lights been between an inch and 2 inches at most from top of the plant, with fans on just to circulate air im getting constant temps all day and night at 20deg c or 70 deg f, so im happy with the temps, these bulbs build up very little heat, probably would in small cupboard or closet but im in a cupboard thats floor to ceiling and my lights are suspended with home made reflector keeping the light down, their is short video in my journal with my dodgy accent on it showing my grow room, i did find a 60 watt daylight incandecent bulb that looked blue in colour and i had this in their for about an hour and took it out as it threw out loads of heat and took the temps up and you could feel the heat coming from the bulb, but the cfls im using are producing very little heat, maybe due to the space im using been floor to ceiling.

ive changed my lighting to 24-0 and noticed huge difference in growth, loads of new shoots growing at stem, i cant really knock these cfls yet the plants are really healthy and growing very well indeed, im going to see this through with cfls and see how it goes before i make my mind up, i think we have taken up loads of time in this growers journal, click on my link below and have a look at mine and we can talk their, all advice is welcome cuz im no expert and never used cfls before to grow with, ill check out the grow you gave the link for, but when comparing my plants with plants of similar age under proper lights their is not that much difference at this stage. but thanks for all teh great info you seem well informed or have loads of grows under your belt, i have 2 grows and that was going back 9 and 10 years ago, thanks mate

 

[kaptinKhronic]

i just transplanted my 1 month old plants into a 1 gallon pot . when i popped the plant out of its old pot there were so much roots on the bottom it was almost completely white. i guess thats what stopped the growth of the plants . now how many days should pass until the plants start growing again ? they have fresh soil and much more room to grow roots . i will post pictures soon. yellow leaves are growing at the bottom , should i cut them off or leave them to fall off?

 

[donpaul.p]

hi mate, you will probably best leaving the leaves until their dry enough to fall off to prevent any more stress on the plant itself, i had the same problem with pot size, my plants where only a week old when i transplanted them and they was pretty much root bound so now mine are in 3 gallon pots where they will stay till the end, as for noticing a difference i noticed mine get a lot stronger and greener after about 2 days, then they really started to grow, the leaves looked stronger and felt stronger, before the transplant the leaves felt dry and brittle, now they are filling out nicely, another thing i have done is change my lighting schedule from 20-4 to 24-0, and i noticed a huge change in growth, the plants seem a lot healthier and they seem to prefer the constant light, the new growth is growing a lot quicker as well, as far as i can tell it seems the plants dont need any rest period, i always thought they did so chose to have 4 hours of darkness but after reading all i read i thought id try 24 hours of light and trust me the difference is queit a lot, the plants look so healthy and i would say are better for it, they seem to be responding well to the extra light, its only been 2 nights since ive left the lights on but if i thought it stunted growth or the plants suffered i would put it back to 20-4, the plants are bushinh out a lot more and their is less upwards stretch, they are still growing upwards but are filling out a lot more so any bud sites should be more packed and not have loads of small little popcorn buds, well thats what im hoping anyway, but this is also dependant on the strain,

post some pics when you get chance, you should notice difference within a day or 2, dont over water them as i was at first and it stunted growth so try not to over water, since i stopped watering every day the plants have shot up in growth and are a lot less droopy,

good luck and hope you have some very nice girls to flower off,

 

[kaptinKhronic]

 

[donpaul.p]

your plants are looking really healthy mate, mine where pot bouns as well and really taken off since the pot change, but your plants are looking really healthy and nice colour as well, they should really start growing over the next week or so, now the roots can spread more the plants will love it and you will soon notice loads of new growth, i did with mine

 

[kaptinKhronic]

HERES THE UPDATE GUYS !! A LITTLE OVER 4 WEEKS INTO FLOWERING !!! FEED BACK PLEASE (; . AND WHENS IS THE RIGHT TIME TO HARVEST?

 

[sfw88]

hey kaptin ,, plants are coming along nicely ..the lamp your using, you can see light coming through the shade ,,thats lost light , a reflective shade will give ya more useable light....just sayin

 

[donpaul.p]

in the past i harvested due to the way the plant looked to the naked eye, basically when all the white hairs had turned orange and some gone brown i then new it was time to harvest, so left it another couple of days then harvested, but now the best way to tell is using a microscope or magnifying glass, what you are looking at is the trichomes or crystals on the leaves and buds, they are normaly clear, but when you come to harvest your looking got nearly all of them been a milky cloudy white and the odd one looks orange and starting to fall over, this is meant to be the best time to harvest

 

[kaptinKhronic]

how can i make my buds grow bigger?

 

[sfw88]

lights , lights , lights,. ya really need to put some light on em, right from the beginning .. Get a few cheap reflectors from home depot or any farm supply type store . and put some more light on em , from what you have your buds will probably still double in size before ya harvest , but for bigger stuff , you'll need more ,,hate to say it again ...light.. These plants are 1 week into flower ,and they are over my waist high, and I'm 6ft 1"..this light set up was under $100.00 including bulbs

...and you'll get bigger buds , I promise

 

[kaptinKhronic]

still kep them on a 12/12 or 24 hrs?

 

[sfw88]

did em on 18-6 for 8 weeks and then 12-12 for 8 weeks