Beginner CFL Wattage Question

A

apstoned

Active Member
Hey so I'm nearing the harvest time for my first grow, and I sort of went into it without knowing a bunch. did some research on here, but i am limited by my grow room size (2'x2'x5') and also I am moving soon so I wanted a temp. setup.

Anyways, I ghetto-rigged a hardware store setup and got the strongest CFLs I could from there. So I have 2 plants under 3 100w CFLs. Unfortunately, I think they say that use 18w with an equivalency of a regular 100w bulb. Reading other posts, it seems you guys are using CFLs that are actually 100w of usage, meaning that their output is much greater right? like around 600w output?

I threw away the boxes for the lights, so I don't know the lumen output, is there any way to estimate or compare to other peoples' setups?

All that being said, my plants are looking pretty good, but I think the yield will not be what I expected. In any case, I am supposed to be harvesting around the end of the month. Is there anything I can do towards the end here to increase yield a bit? I will post pics ASAP.
 
Garden Knowm

Garden Knowm

The Love Doctor
Hey AP..

Sounds like you have figured it out... yes... a 42 watt cfl is a 150 watt equivalent.. this is what most people are using around these parts...

THE BIGGER the light the better :)

cheers

i look forward to seeing the pictures
 
A

apstoned

Active Member
haha....thanks garden knowm, im glad i have it figured out, but im not really sure how from your post. sorry for the basic questions, but i didn't really get what you said. i have 18w CFLs that are 100w equivalent. i have 3, so that should be 300w equivalency. is that enough for 2 plants? i thought it was, but like i said, i have a week till harvest, and it doesn't look like the yield will be that great.

what do you guys average for yield per plant per watt? any previous experiences could help me...
 
Inneedofbuds

Inneedofbuds

Well-Known Member
apstoned said:
Hey so I'm nearing the harvest time for my first grow, and I sort of went into it without knowing a bunch. did some research on here, but i am limited by my grow room size (2'x2'x5') and also I am moving soon so I wanted a temp. setup.

Anyways, I ghetto-rigged a hardware store setup and got the strongest CFLs I could from there. So I have 2 plants under 3 100w CFLs. Unfortunately, I think they say that use 18w with an equivalency of a regular 100w bulb. Reading other posts, it seems you guys are using CFLs that are actually 100w of usage, meaning that their output is much greater right? like around 600w output?

I threw away the boxes for the lights, so I don't know the lumen output, is there any way to estimate or compare to other peoples' setups?

All that being said, my plants are looking pretty good, but I think the yield will not be what I expected. In any case, I am supposed to be harvesting around the end of the month. Is there anything I can do towards the end here to increase yield a bit? I will post pics ASAP.
Click to expand...
yes, you are right, there are a lot of members that are using 'actual' 100 watt cfl's. The 18w you are using are actually on the low end of the spectrum. I would recommend 1-2 plants at most. If it were me, I would wait for flower, hopefully get 1 female, and then have 1 light on top and 2 on each side. But with three lights on 1 plant, you can probably pull and ounce or so.
 
W

wbd

Well-Known Member
Forget about "equivalency", it's totally meaningless.

I don't think I've ever actually seen a true 100W CFL bulb -- they are usually 125W. I have a 125W bulb in my setup and I wouldn't recommend it over multiple 42's. The 42's are more versatile when arranging the bulbs around the plants.

You need 100-150 watts per plant. So 3-4 42W CFL bulbs per plant would be perfect. If you do 4 42's per plant, and grow a high-yield strain well, you could get 2 oz's per plant I think, but easily you'll get 1-1.5oz per plant.
 
S

stonegrove

Well-Known Member
apstoned said:
Hey so I'm nearing the harvest time for my first grow, and I sort of went into it without knowing a bunch. did some research on here, but i am limited by my grow room size (2'x2'x5') and also I am moving soon so I wanted a temp. setup.

Anyways, I ghetto-rigged a hardware store setup and got the strongest CFLs I could from there. So I have 2 plants under 3 100w CFLs. Unfortunately, I think they say that use 18w with an equivalency of a regular 100w bulb. Reading other posts, it seems you guys are using CFLs that are actually 100w of usage, meaning that their output is much greater right? like around 600w output?

I threw away the boxes for the lights, so I don't know the lumen output, is there any way to estimate or compare to other peoples' setups?

All that being said, my plants are looking pretty good, but I think the yield will not be what I expected. In any case, I am supposed to be harvesting around the end of the month. Is there anything I can do towards the end here to increase yield a bit? I will post pics ASAP.
Click to expand...
roughley 60 lumens per wat.
 
S

sicknasty

Well-Known Member
I agree my seedlings are in the dirt for veg I have 8 6500k 26watt daylights = 14000lumens and 2 2700k 26watt warms = 3500 lumens
for veg

+8 2700k 42watt warms = 24000 lumens
and one 275watt UVB tanning bulb.
for flower

so at the end of flowering I will have 18 CFL bulbs with a total real wattage of 596 watts and 41,500 total lumens. The 275 UVB bulb I will only run for short periods or it will fry anything in sight.

However, I'm pretty much overkilling the shit out of this grow.
So unless I get my hands on some bag seed in the next week then 2 purple people eater plants will finish with around 300 watts each.

I am doing this as I will have 41500 usable lumens (they will be very close) as I can place the lights all over my trees, as opposed to HPS where the tops are massive I want to experiment and see if I can make the buds all fat.
 
Garden Knowm

Garden Knowm

The Love Doctor
sicknasty said:
I agree my seedlings are in the dirt for veg I have 8 6500k 26watt daylights = 14000lumens and 2 2700k 26watt warms = 3500 lumens
for veg

+8 2700k 42watt warms = 24000 lumens
and one 275watt UVB tanning bulb.
for flower

so at the end of flowering I will have 18 CFL bulbs with a total real wattage of 596 watts and 41,500 total lumens. The 275 UVB bulb I will only run for short periods or it will fry anything in sight.

However, I'm pretty much overkilling the shit out of this grow.
So unless I get my hands on some bag seed in the next week then 2 purple people eater plants will finish with around 300 watts each.

I am doing this as I will have 41500 usable lumens (they will be very close) as I can place the lights all over my trees, as opposed to HPS where the tops are massive I want to experiment and see if I can make the buds all fat.
Click to expand...

picture please :mrgreen:
 
N

nameloc88

Active Member
Ok I have a very important question that will determine the outcome of my grow. Here it goes.

I went to lowes and bought a 150w soft white CFL. Is this the right bulb to use for growing a single plant? I have a small setup and only want to grow 1 plant. The bulb is actually a 40w = 150w bulb with 2600 lumens output. Is this any good to use or do i need to add more bulbs?
 
M

madinthe717

Active Member
you need more trust me i found out the hard way you want atleast 3 of thoes lights and make sure you change the blubs for veg and flowering
 
Garden Knowm

Garden Knowm

The Love Doctor
nameloc88 said:
Ok I have a very important question that will determine the outcome of my grow. Here it goes.

I went to lowes and bought a 150w soft white CFL. Is this the right bulb to use for growing a single plant? I have a small setup and only want to grow 1 plant. The bulb is actually a 40w = 150w bulb with 2600 lumens output. Is this any good to use or do i need to add more bulbs?
Click to expand...
GREAT BULB.. now you need a couple more..

cheers
 
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