Your $0.02 on CFL Growing

I'll try to keep mine short and sweet. I think it works and it works great. I do believe their is a decent amount of trial and error involved in order to get the best results but I personally think that is part of the fun/hobby etc...

I have noticed 2 things throu most of my trials in order to get maximum growth with the most important being Pot size. 1 Gallon minimum "Bigger the better" with the next being water. Anything over 250ppm was giving me nothing but trouble but once I switched to 0ppm water I got an instant change.

At the moment I'm only using 6 Bulbs, approx 185 Watts @ 11,000 Lumens and am having no problems maintaining 4 mother plants "each a different strain" while I'm also rooting a few cuttings + have a few seedlings going.


Next setup for me now is to build another light using 2700K bulbs for the Flowering stage. But I would love to read what everyone else thinks as well as what types of tricks or methods being used to gain max results vs I personally believe CFL's are a great source for a low-profile/budget grow.

I just started my first grow with cfl's today. I hope it works out pretty good, I was using 2 florescent tubes, and actually got some good plants going. How long do you usually veg your plants with cfl?

Mine are 35 days old today. I veg'd them for like 3 weeks. I have 4 22watt and 6 15watt cfls. Mine are in 1 gallon pots. If it was not for cfls i would not be growing at all. They are cheap and easy to use. Make a simple reflector and you are set.

All i can say is there are great 2pack 125watt 6500k bulbs on ebay for 40-50us also some 85w 2700k for around the same price. Thought that was really cheap and they work great. In case you want cheaper lights.

Man a thread asking for honets cfl grow thoughts sweet lol.....Well the cfl bulbs suck doney dick big time. They dont cover enough area,put off to much heat for the amount you need per plant, the grow time is amazing as slow as can be, the yield after that long wait is very poor, the buds are very airy and non compact.The only use able cfls are the kind like environlight or vitalumnes whoch are actual 125 watt or bigger the bulbs are 18 inches longs.Now if you talk straight florescent bulbs the T8 and T5 tubes when used with enough are great for an entire small grow.I use T8 lights to veg plants but go to my 600 and 1000 watt hps lights for bud as you need them to get a good yield with hard tight sugar coated crystals.Just before any cfl lovers come to flame me for dogging them this thread asked for everyones 2 cents and thats mine. I bought cfls and put them in every house outlet I had to drop my electric and then use my hps lights with little extra cost figure a 1000 watt light on 24/7 adds $45 a month to your bill but changing 15 65 watt incadescents with 23 watt cfls you make that up and more and its actually cheaper to use then when your not.

Im just wanting to use cfl's to veg. while I say up for a 400W hps and metal halide. =D

you can get a digital switchable 600 watter for $119 or a 1000 watt digi for around $280 at Maryland Hydroponics they usually have 400 watt digital switchable ballast for $99 when in stock. or check insidesun.com for good packages

I still use them for seedlings/clones/vegging small plants, however i wouldn't waste my time flowering with them again, that's what HPS is for...

The jury is out as far as I'm concerned... but I'm optimistic. My first grow yielded shit bud, but I think I was screwed from the get-go with the seeds I used. This time I'm using good seeds, and hopefully correcting some of the mistakes I made the first time around, but I've still got 4-6 weeks to go. My buds are very yummy looking, as long as they don't end up being airy like the first time around, I've got no complaints except that they are a pain in the ass to configure and set up around your plants and constantly adjust. That and my sativa stretched like a mofo and I'm assuming I could have minimized that with better lighting.

I cant find the 600w on the maryland hydroponics site. I might would look into getting that instead off 400w hps from htgsupply.com

Its the mh600 watt digital sometimes they move the price some like 10 bucks but if you email them and tell them you saw it before for the $119 he usually will give it to you for that.I grabbed my first 2 of them from him when he had them on ebay and I got them for $115 each

FilthyFletch said:

Its the mh600 watt digital sometimes they move the price some like 10 bucks but if you email them and tell them you saw it before for the $119 he usually will give it to you for that.I grabbed my first 2 of them from him when he had them on ebay and I got them for $115 each

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$119... is that for just the ballast or does it come with the hood/reflector?
I found a great site to buy 400w hps bulbs for $16.99. check em out at LU400 | C400S51 | 400W HPS Bulb Mogul Base Clear - ProLighting.com

I like it because every setup is unique. I like to watch peoples new ideas. You can only do so much with hydro systems, lol.

unique or not, sometimes being that way costs you in the end.

Im doing my first grow cfl, about a lil over 200 watts totall of the 26 watters, i would say their not doing to great because my plants are flowering, got some pea buds going on and there is a dissapointingly slight dank smell to them, but then again its some mexi bag seed weed so i guess i cant say shit. But there not hermies, contrary to popular saying.

FilthyFletch said:

Man a thread asking for honets cfl grow thoughts sweet lol.....Well the cfl bulbs suck doney dick big time. They dont cover enough area,put off to much heat for the amount you need per plant, the grow time is amazing as slow as can be, the yield after that long wait is very poor, the buds are very airy and non compact.The only use able cfls are the kind like environlight or vitalumnes whoch are actual 125 watt or bigger the bulbs are 18 inches longs.Now if you talk straight florescent bulbs the T8 and T5 tubes when used with enough are great for an entire small grow.I use T8 lights to veg plants but go to my 600 and 1000 watt hps lights for bud as you need them to get a good yield with hard tight sugar coated crystals.Just before any cfl lovers come to flame me for dogging them this thread asked for everyones 2 cents and thats mine. I bought cfls and put them in every house outlet I had to drop my electric and then use my hps lights with little extra cost figure a 1000 watt light on 24/7 adds $45 a month to your bill but changing 15 65 watt incadescents with 23 watt cfls you make that up and more and its actually cheaper to use then when your not.

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Hey,you wont get any flaming from me man. As far as I'm concerned everyone is free to their own opinion and trying to make them see different is just a waste of time and energy that could be better off spent on a solution.

I can however agree with a few of your points, but at the same time disagree and the only reason I would disagree is because I have yet to encounter it.

Coverage... I'd agree that its poor indeed.

Heat... I have yet to have any problems. Temps stay between 70-80 and I keep the bulbs approx 1.5'' from the plants without ant burning.

Grow time... I will also agree it is slower, but I dont find it "that" much slower. Starting from seed is obviously even slower but by continuosly cloning, you eliminate a good 4-5wks. Also throu a couple of experiments I've done of my own, I've found that the bigger the Pot, the quicker the plant will grow regardless of light ouput.

As far as yeild goes vs time vs results etc etc... I have yet to flower under CFL's so cannot give much input there but I'm curious to try it out. I personally prefer to grow outdoors and normally just start some mother plants indoors over the winters, weed out the strong & healthy then get them as big as possible so I can do as much cloning as possible then plant all the clones outdoors etc... I normally would use T12 or T8 shop lights but wanted to give the CFL's a try to save some space vs 4' fixtures.

As far as cost goes as well... I've invested approx $50 tops in supplies to build my own light setup + bulbs + soil etc and my hydro bill has yet to change. So I see it as win/win cause its working out perfectly for me as Im in no hurry.

Im glad to hear it Dr G.Finally a reasonable cfl grower who sees its fine to disagree and no hard feelings.People should take notice.We dont all have to agree and can state it and not take it personal.You my friend now have the top ranking cfl grower spot with me just for the great attitude and down to earth reasoning.

do you place your mothers out in the sun aswell ,im still debating on whether i want to invest in a real light or just move them outside when it gets warm enough either which way i am going to have me a outdoor grow somewhere this summer. i got some seeds sproutin on my roof waitin for spring!

FilthyFletch said:

Im glad to hear it Dr G.Finally a reasonable cfl grower who sees its fine to disagree and no hard feelings.People should take notice.We dont all have to agree and can state it and not take it personal.You my friend now have the top ranking cfl grower spot with me just for the great attitude and down to earth reasoning.

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Hey thanks

So far I'm actually liking the CFL's thou, especially vs T12 lights. They save alot of space and as long as your able to control the heat and know a thing or two about growing, they seem to work great. Mind you thats for vegging only.

JESSE said:

do you place your mothers out in the sun aswell ,im still debating on whether i want to invest in a real light or just move them outside when it gets warm enough either which way i am going to have me a outdoor grow somewhere this summer. i got some seeds sproutin on my roof waitin for spring!

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As soon as the weather is nice enough outside I'm finished indoors and move everything outdoors right away. Only reason I'm going to give it a shot flowering with CFL's is because I want to see for myself what type of results can be had. For example, yeild vs quality vs time and whether you can substitute say yeild for quality and if so, how well. All in all, I'm just bored this winter so thought I'd screw around with some things.

I love cfl's. I use them in the house and shop and office.
I use them on the veg side of the grow. I use them for moms, clones, and some veg with my MH's.
I wont be using them for flowering.
I dont use anything smaller then 85W true. So they do get pricy when you buy them 10 at a time.
Bulbs.com good stuff.
My .002
DMG