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babygrow and Al B. are very right and very knowledgable about this.
But I have to add that when I added 5 85 Watt CFLs to my two 85 Watt CFLs, my plants started growing faster and budding faster and budding more.
More light bulbs made a tremendous difference.
I have a total of 3 blue spectrum and 4 red spectrum now and am very happy with my grow and production and yeild and quality and size of buds.

This is a great thread here, best I've seen, on comparing lights:
https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/8513-cfl-vs-floro-vs-hps.html

hay, got a lil ??...where can i find cfl's with a light spc. of 6500k?

I've already checked wally world and one of the local hardware stores...and we don't have a hydro shop. Anywhere!

stoner_kiddie said:

hay, got a lil ??...where can i find cfl's with a light spc. of 6500k?

I've already checked wally world and one of the local hardware stores...and we don't have a hydro shop. Anywhere!

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42 watt spiral CFLs are at Lowes and home Depot, $11.00 each for the bulbs plus $7.00 to $10.00 each for the sockets and reflectors.
Or STEALTHHYDRO.com or do a google search for high watt CFLs.

stoner_kiddie said:

hay, got a lil ??...where can i find cfl's with a light spc. of 6500k?

I've already checked wally world and one of the local hardware stores...and we don't have a hydro shop. Anywhere!

Click to expand...

Don't be too precious about the colour temperature. 6000K will be as good as 6500K if you're looking for a bluish spectrum for vegging.

Great Stuff Hydroponics > Your online supplier of Hydroponics
here is a link to a site with envirolights at resonable prices
o2

MisoHi said:

Week 3 of flower. 12 CFLs over 4 plants. 3 blue 9 red. ~388w 26k (ish) lumen

Moving to 400w MH when and IF I ever get my bloom bulb...

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Hi did u use Mylar or foil????

Mylar is much better than foil. See Reflectors in GROWFAQ.

Roseman said:

Mylar is much better than foil. See Reflectors in GROWFAQ.

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Rosey's on the trail as usual.

Foil is fragile and can cause hotspots or unintended focus points for reflected light. Mylar isn't anywhere near as fragile as alfoil but it still isn't very durable after repeated cleanings. It can also do the hotspotting thang.

Here at the Fuct Factory Farm, we use panda film, white one side, black the other and almost lightproof in single layers (if you buy the good shit). Panda film (or walls coated with a cleanable flat white paint) reflects within single digit percentages as much light as mylar but distributes the reflected light more broadly. It's also highly durable, sterilisable and cleanable.

quick question al

theres lots of different coverings out there that you can use, but if you got your light up high how much of that actually reflects, i know that jorge cervantes gives percentages but with the amount of lumens from the light at say 5 foot high. does it really make that much of a difference?

nongreenthumb said:

quick question al

theres lots of different coverings out there that you can use, but if you got your light up high how much of that actually reflects, i know that jorge cervantes gives percentages but with the amount of lumens from the light at say 5 foot high. does it really make that much of a difference?

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This distance is very important.
Lumens decrease over distance.

I got a lumen meter.
My cfl's put out around 1k lumen each at 2".
At 4" is more like 400 lumens.

With Hid and Hps you usually want to be within 18" of plant.

midgradeindasouth said:

This distance is very important.
Lumens decrease over distance.

I got a lumen meter.
My cfl's put out around 1k lumen each at 2".
At 4" is more like 400 lumens.

With Hid and Hps you usually want to be within 18" of plant.

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thanks for telling me something i already know, if you want to re read the question though thats fine

7 CFLS, red & blue spectrum mix, 9,000 lumens total, 1 sq. ft. grow space, 4 plants flowering well w/ LST, organic tea nutes, 3(?) weeks from 1st harvest.

big buds getting fatter each day. i'd recommend clfs.

nongreenthumb said:

quick question al

theres lots of different coverings out there that you can use, but if you got your light up high how much of that actually reflects, i know that jorge cervantes gives percentages but with the amount of lumens from the light at say 5 foot high. does it really make that much of a difference?

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Of course, light from any indirect or reflected path is going to be much weaker by the time it hits a leaf, both dependent on the reflectivity of the surface and the additional path distance, compared to light coming straight from the tube to the leaf.

The caveat about hotspotting with alfoil and mylar to a lesser degree applies mainly to sloppily installed stuff with a lot of wrinkling that can create little concave lenses.

Despite the path losses, one of my early rooms, with sloppily installed mylar, did have a couple of focus spots, near to directly under the HPS tube, where leaves on plants in those spots would persistently show heat damage when the room hadn't been over about 27C. Reinstalling the mylar neatly while not stoned fixed it.

midgradeindasouth said:

I got a lumen meter.

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cool, where'd you get it from?

dam this thread is stupid, "orly" is obiously a dumb lil kid trying to be cool by growing bud and saying hes all pro and asking for all this basic shit u shud know already

eastlosg, that's not my impression of o'rly. o'rly is normally quite genuine in seeking information and doesn't try to convey that he's "all pro." You must be confusing him with someone else.

nongreenthumb said:

theres lots of different coverings out there that you can use, but if you got your light up high how much of that actually reflects, i know that jorge cervantes gives percentages but with the amount of lumens from the light at say 5 foot high. does it really make that much of a difference?

Click to expand...

Hiya NGT

It's a valid point. Personally I think the 'volume' and 'intensity' of light being reflected is minimal and that makes the difference between reflective wall coverings of 5-10% in some instances nothing more than a handful of lumens. Which is precisely why I've not bothered with them. Personally I think for value for money flat, matt white paint is hard to beat, but of course if you have to go out and buy a tin of paint specially it's not quite as cheap.

I actually think that matt whte paint put on with a roller, so it dries to a slightly mottled and dimpled textured affect is actually more reflective than ordinary thin mylar as the 'textured effect' effectively increases the surface area of reflectivity and diffuses that light more effectively than a highly polished surface.

Where I think the reflectivity v price curve evens out ie where reflective materials become value for money, is with the diamond patterned mylar equivalent. I'm not exactly sure what that diamond material is made from and I'm not even sure it's mylar, but it performs much more effecitvely than either thin mylar or matt white paint due to the additional surface area of the diamond patterning and better light diffusion because of it, also because it's thicker and therefore easier to hang flat.

So the upshot is, in my opinion, unless you're willing to spend the 10 bucks a metre or however much it costs for the diamond mylar stick with flat matt white paint put on with a roller because the difference in performance from anything else simply isn't worth paying for.

I know this doesn't really answer your question, but then your question is quite difficult to answer because it depends on the indiviidual and the individuals circumstances. Let's say hypothetically flat matt white paint reflects 100 lumens, thin mylar 110 lumens and diamond mylar 130 lumens. Is an extra 10 lumens reflectivity worth paying 50 bucks and an extra 30 lumens worth paying an extra 100 bucks for? In big spaces with several 600w lights the likely answer would be no, in a small space lit by half a dozen 20w cfls the answer may well be yes and cfl grows don't always equal low budgets, plenty of people simple can't handle the heat of hids.

eastlosg1 said:

dam this thread is stupid, "orly" is obiously a dumb lil kid trying to be cool by growing bud and saying hes all pro and asking for all this basic shit u shud know already

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I agree "orly" is NOT an experienced grower and is asking what you should already know. I am really shocked at the new growers I meet here that are too immature, dumb or lazy to read GROWFAQ and they ask so many dumb questions.
But I disagree about this being a bad thread, this is a GREAT Thread. CFLs are getting a bad rep. IF you have enough watts, both spectrums, they can be cooler, less heat, less power used, cheaper and you can move them easily around the plants.
And this is an awesome thread here.
best I've seen, on comparing lights:
CFL vs FLORO vs HPS