CFL's

hey guys i was wondering if 8 100 watt 2700k cfls is ok for growing 3 plants iv already gone out and bought them NOT knowing the difference of 2700k and 6500k and now i feel dumb but im broke and can not change them out but i was wondering if its still ok to veg and flower with them..??? sorry this is my 1st grow

I'm sure you could still veg with them but with slower and reduced growth. It's ok to make mistakes, its how you learn.

Well typically less than 3000k are what you want for your FLOWERING stage, but if your unable to exchange half of them then id say give it try, a otof light is better than no light, just keep them on 24 hours get nutes high in Nitrogen.

In all honesty if this is the one mistake you make for your first grow your doing well. Like Skunk said, it well be slower but easily achievable.

If you needed to choose one type of light for the whole grow you would pick the ones you have bought - they will be fine for vegging and be perfect for flowering.

I'm using 7 105W CFLs and a 150w HPS for 3-4 auto flowering plants. Only two of my cfls are in the 5000k+ spectrum and my autos grow and yield in almost exact relation to what the seed banks advertise, on a good day sometimes even better.

red spectrum is fine for both veg and flower.. same with blue, the plant will use what's available to it... for veg the blue is nice though because it's more energetic light(e=hf).

ok new prob guys my babys are about 4 inches in 2 weeks alot of leafs not much growth but my leafs are starting to droop i dont know why why? im pretty sure its not cuz im watering too much iv been doing the 2 inch rule but i started to see them droop so i backed off and now it seems worse! i was thinking of possible too small of a pot?? its 1.5q(1.42L) ...or maybe not watering enough? and sorry for no pictures oh and are really dark green leafs ok?

oh lol one more thing how high should i have the lights? people say 2 inches others say 5 ex..ex...iv been doing 2 inches

I'm just going to pretend like no one else has posted.

First of all, are you really running 800w of CFL for just 3 plants? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say no way. You are using 27w bulbs (at best) and trying to call them 100w. Equivalence has no relevance in growing, you always talking about ACTUAL wattage.

Eight 27w bulbs rounds out to about 215w. I think this would be fine if you had a mixture of bulbs but you don't. Unfortunately 2700K bulbs are not the right spectrum for any plant. Yes, they do contain more red light, but they provide far less PAR (Photosynthetically Active Radiation) than a 6500K CFL. The majority of the energy from a 2700K soft white bulb is in a spectrum that is not especially photosynthetically reactive. The reactive red area of the spectrum constitutes a window from 650 nm to 680 nm (approximately). This corresponds with the color temperature closer to 2100K or 2300K.

I personally have excellent success with daylight CFL bulbs. The picture as my avatar was grown with about 200w of CFL daylight bulbs, 6 bulbs, for 5 plants. This plant was so heavy it fell over. Day Light 5500K to 7000K CFL bulbs provide 90% of their energy in a very photosynthetically active area of the light spectrum which translates into more energy the plant has available. The blue portion of light has a larger window for absorption of energy. In addition, the 6500K and 7000K bulbs provide small amounts of UV energy also which seems to assist an increase of trichomes.

I'm sorry but soft white 2700K CFL bulbs are, in my opinion, not ideal for plant growth.

Return the bulbs if you can. That's my advice.

OK!! i know this and im going to change them out asap!!! but what about my other problems???

Hi, i'm no expert but i just did my first grow with the help of people on this site. Take everything with a grain of salt. Go with what the majority say. But remember, mj is like a child, the more you show her love the more she'll love you. I did a bagseed grow, 6 to start with, ended with one female after sexing. Lighting: Four 23 watt 2700k cfls and three 23 watt 6500k cfls. All three miracle grows, tomato fert, regular and bloom were used. This is what I got from that lighting on ONE plant. I know times are tough but try to get some blue light for mj. she will appreciate it and give back ten fold in $. CFLs are cheap. Try hard.