Coloured fluorescent lights and their viability in growing chambers

I get that. Just lets certain wavelengths pass through. Rose Pink filters apparently filters out green. Also, any time a filter is applied you get a reduction in the amount of the pass through light transmission which varies with the filter being used. In the case of the Rose pink, while virtually no green light gets through there is a significant loss in the blue end of the spectrum (60%) and a (25%) reduction in red wavelengths. This all depends on the filters characteristics and opacity being used. Useful info if you had an outdoor greenhouse, that's the only application I can think of really. I have heard of people doing filters for tomatoes and grapes for example. Typically to modify plant size and yield. It's interesting information.

so you start a thread asking if colored cfl's can work because you don't know if they can. and then everytime someone tells you no and gives you a reason why you're just gonna tell them they're wrong and list a whole bunch of "research"? why bother asking anyone if you only want the answer that agrees with whatever opinion you already have? just throw the damn bulbs in already since that's all you want to do. no one here will ever agree with you that the colored cfl's can be used for growing.

Well if someone provides me with a reason that coloured CFL's CAN'T supplement specific wavelengths ( red or UV for example) AND why; and back it up with data, then I will stop posting in my thread. How's that?
What's wrong with research BTW? AND the only time I told anyone they are wrong was when there was something said that was incorrect, like the green night maintenance light thing and post #4 when mysunnyboy said "no that won't work. just because it's red in color doesn't mean it's red in the color spectrum" which was a bizarre statement.

If there is a quote of me telling someone they are "wrong" and they aren't , by all means call me on it.

I'm not saying these lights would be a viable supplement, although I think they might be, in micro grows (which most CFL grows are). Maybe the filter application totally cripples the light, maybe not. Only two ways to tell.

1. test it in a grow (going to and I will post results, no one else has)
2. get specific data from the manufacturer (not available, but Philips did say they would get back to me, I haven't contacted any other manufacturers)

Both of which we have already established in this thread. What I don't get is why people keep saying it can't be done without the provision of either sets of results. As soon as I have the opportunity to try this I will post results. In the mean time...well we just have to wait, unless someone else can provide more info. Relevant info, like Weedotron did.

Okay...okay...I see where you are coming from now...I hear you. I read your stuff. Are you ready to read mine? Of course!

Elevation and whatever I said being controlled, is building your greenhouse up in the mountains. The filters commercial growers use are super expensive and I use them myself. They are more or less used to block the particular sun patterns and certain uv's, which may not help the plant during certain times of it's life. Eventually they are replaced or removed. The science behind all of this isn't as simple as you think. Post #4, may be bizzare to you, but it hasn't been for everyone else. It's true. CFL's produce nothing really "good" in the first place. The PAR rating sucks. To further diminish it makes no sense what-so-ever. None. I'm not saying don't try it, because it's stupid idea. No, you are on to 'something.' Just realistically speaking, you are wasting your time. No one wants to grow with flourescence anymore and with good reason. The cost. Not that you aren't doing good, do whatever. I've told you to test it, especially if I can't convince you otherwise. Use three plants, clones. Put one under CFL's, one under party cfl's, and the other on the top story of your house's (elevation) window to receive sun. The window will do good initially because it filters out UV light, it's unnecessary this early in the plants life anyway. Even with 9 hrs of direct light, this one will do better than your prized cfl one.

And CFL's aren't exactly good for micro grows either, they just "fit" in smaller areas sometimes. There are three ways to tell (and I'm sure more than that), those you mentioned and testing it in the quick and cheap set up I just mentioned. I don't know why you haven't done it yet...are you afraid of learning you are wrong? That's the best part about science...learning you suck at it, it's very humbling and the best part is, you get to start over!!! Dumping all of the stupid parts in the process.

You trying to make my posts sound impossible? Maybe you should check out your own.

Um, okay, you are right, I am wrong, Stupid idea. My sincere apologies. Really.

canadian1969 said:

Well if someone provides me with a reason that coloured CFL's CAN'T supplement specific wavelengths ( red or UV for example) AND why; and back it up with data, then I will stop posting in my thread. How's that?
What's wrong with research BTW? AND the only time I told anyone they are wrong was when there was something said that was incorrect, like the green night maintenance light thing and post #4 when mysunnyboy said "no that won't work. just because it's red in color doesn't mean it's red in the color spectrum" which was a bizarre statement.

If there is a quote of me telling someone they are "wrong" and they aren't , by all means call me on it.

I'm not saying these lights would be a viable supplement, although I think they might be, in micro grows (which most CFL grows are). Maybe the filter application totally cripples the light, maybe not. Only two ways to tell.

1. test it in a grow (going to and I will post results, no one else has)
2. get specific data from the manufacturer (not available, but Philips did say they would get back to me, I haven't contacted any other manufacturers)

Both of which we have already established in this thread. What I don't get is why people keep saying it can't be done without the provision of either sets of results. As soon as I have the opportunity to try this I will post results. In the mean time...well we just have to wait, unless someone else can provide more info. Relevant info, like Weedotron did.

Click to expand...

wtf is so bizarre about it? i know what i am talking about. you go right on and see how your "grow" goes. i know what works and was just trying to help you out. i don't give a rat's ass if you ever grow a plant, i know mine are looking nice

I'm sure you know what you are talking about, no offense intended there...
Everything else aside, you said... and I quote " just because it's red in color doesn't mean it's red in the color spectrum " So you go ahead and tell me whats wrong with that statement.
All I was trying to achieve here was to find a way to ONLY add red wavelengths to an existing CFL grow, adding a coloured or filtered light to the mix as a supplement seemed obvious. Guess LED's or T5's are my only options.

Oh god. I hope someone has stated this already.

How flouros work - An electrical pulse is sent through fluorescent material (powders and gasses) which get excited and start moving around so fast that they emit light. The Kelvin rating of a bulb denotes the color characteristics as perceived by the human eye; these characteristics are determined by the type of fluorescent material in the bulb.

Red colored CFLs like the one you linked to are a standard Kelvin bulb (generally 5000 or 5500K for the more expensive and 2700K for the cheap ones) that are then covered in a filter. So a 23w 5000K "red" bulb starts off the exact same as 23w 5000K normal CFL and is then filtered of all but a narrow range of light - thus a "red" cfl is essentially a regular CFL that is 5x less efficient (all the light blocked by the filter).

That CFL you linked to is MUCH MUCH LESS EFFICIENT than a regular cfl, not more.

And this isn't even taking into consideration the PAR value of a 5000K bulb versus a 6500K or a 2700K bulb... You can NEVER add more PAR light by taking light away (filtering it).

mr racoon just isn't going to agree gastanker, no offense canadian (see how you can still take offense even when i say "no offense"?)

hey canadian1969, i am saying that, and excuse me because i am stoned and may not be relaying this clearly enough, putting a red coating on a bulb is not going to give you MORE of the red, as in temp/color for better flowering, guy. the fluorescence of the bulb produces the temp, color red, whatever term you wanna use, not the color coating you wanna place on the outside of the bulb. like gas said, you are merely filtering out the light, temp, color created by the fluorescence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescence

good luck in life

Gastanker said:

That CFL you linked to is MUCH MUCH LESS EFFICIENT than a regular cfl, not more.

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Thanks Gastanker, appreciate the info, I can't find a reference to the bulbs being 5x less efficient (but thank god you found it, was driving me crazy), I do recognize that filtering any light source reduces (and / or eliminates) the spectral power output of the source. So, given a typical 13 watt CFL at 900 lumens when you filter it (either with a translucent coating or treated glass, both of which are available and would have different efficiency values) you get reduced performance across the entire spectrum, but also with certain portions of the spectrum completely blocked. (colour subtraction).

If we use your 5x figure then we get an output of 180 lumens after the filter. That 180 lumens is going to be all red of course (within the red wavelengths). The original source light SPD and Filtered SPD would be needed to calculate the differential in power reduction on just the red wavelengths, but I think its safe to assume that it would be considerable, as you have stated. In fact depending on the spectral characteristics of the unfiltered bulb it could be even more significant that 5x, say if the source red spectra was weak to begin with. Ultimately to determine how much red is passed through the filter we would need to know what the filters S.E.D. curve (spectral energy distribution) and Transmission values are. The transmission value is a percentage rating of the source light at a given wavelength being passed through the filter. Which would be dependent on the opacity of the filter. So actually, it could be WAY worse than 5x, and probably is given how dark those bulbs look compared to other colour filtered bulbs (like the incandescent ones or the PAR38 spots). (Parabolic Aluminum Reflector, not to confuse with the other PAR)

You hit it on the head, its about efficiency, $/Lumen/Watt I suppose. I guess the best case scenario is I could get 13.8 Lumens/Watt. Or $0.36 per Watt Lumens or however you want to express it.
Comparing that to a 3 watt LED that costs $5 and puts out 40 Lumens, well then that's 16.7 Lumens/Watt ....thats $0.30 per Watt Lumens, wait can that be right? The LED is WAY more efficient, but when you factor in costs (and I haven't even included the ballasts and stuff).....
I must be doing something wrong in the calculations here.
So why not just put in a plain CFL? Keep in mind my original question was an attempt to build out one section of the spectrum, rather than just "adding more lights", but without the cost associated with an LED panel.
T5 HO's seem to start at about $0.30 per Watt Lumens and go up. When you factor in all the T5 costs though, for coverage they seem to be the most cost effective solution if you want to fine tune the spectrum
I need to do more digging on this. but a 24" 4 lamp HO setup is looking pretty cool.
Anyway, I am pretty tuned at the moment, so I expect some of this to be incorrect or incomplete. Certainly more info than I had yesterday.

I hope you know more than you did before today but so much of what you just typed is really off. If you want to try and target certain areas of PAR light look into aquarium bulbs.

https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/358190-led-without-leds-my-first.html



These are not filtered bulbs but instead bulbs with fluorescent material that fluoresces at a specific frequency to produce these colors.

Not even those in the aquarium industry use these for general growth though - 6500K and 2700K bulbs still win over these.

Yeah, that's what I was talking about when I said T5 HO's. (Atinics, Red Sun etc)
So where was I off on my previous post. I'm not following you on the 6500 and 2700 winning part, you mean 6500 standard T5 HO's versus the Super Atinics and PAR specific variants?
I have read that entire thread. It's a good read, thought I was on track with it.

edit, yes I know they are not filtered, they are more efficient as the phosphors are engineered to peak in certain ranges, I get that. The only comparison I am drawing is that they (like LED's) allow the user to tune the spectrum of available light, much like mixing a variety of LEDs you can mix and match bulbs, like in the photo.

You are a bit off on the comparisons between lumen/watt, lumen/watt/price...

When it comes to general growing of plants - primarily the vegetative cycle for which florescent lights are more suited - 6500K T5 HOs perform better than the expensive PAR specific variants.

The atinics are great at helping with beneficial algae growth in deeper water reef tanks but they are not better at vegging plants - and definitely not better at flowering plants than a typical HID or standard 6500K bulbs - You can go to most any planted tank forum and they will confirm this.

From the lectures I've attended the general consensus is that spectrum is similar to baking - it's all about ratios. Say you have a bread recipe that demands 5 cups flower, 2 eggs, 1 cup milk, and 1 tsp yeast. The majority of the bread is flour, then milk, then eggs and barely any yeast - so if I double the flour, double the milk, and double the eggs I'll have twice the bread and I'll be just as good right? Nope - without doubling the yeast (the smallest ingredient) you end up with flat unleven crackers.

Here's a more grow friendly comparison. When it comes to organic gardening organic amendments must be broken down (mineralized) by bacteria or fungi before they can be used by the plants. The bacteria and fungi that mineralize nitrogen can only process nitrogen in the presence of digestible organic carbon at an ideal ratio of 30:1 carbon to nitrogen. If I have 1 cup of nitrogen to 30 cups of carbon in my soil my nutrients break down at 100% capacity. Guess what happens if I add another cup of nitrogen? If I add another cup of nitrogen then the bacteria and fungi only work at 50% capacity and the plants receive half as much nitrogen as they would have received before.

Targeting PAR light is a must, targeting the correct ratio of PAR light is great, targeting just a few very specific wave lengths and ignoring the rest...not so good. Closer we can get to the actual sun's spectrum the better which is why the newest LED lights are 11+ wavelengths and why plasma lighting is so intriguing.

How did I go from "so much of what you just typed is really off" ...to..... "You are a bit off on the comparisons between lumen/watt, lumen/watt/price"?

I sort of get what you are saying, the analogy seems more appropriate for a conversation on nutrients (made me hungry, lol) I think the guys in the LED without LED thread that are growing with those spectrum specific lights might disagree with you, but they have been having comparison arguments with LED lately, if they considered the 6500K standard HO's as better performing then what the heck are they going down the PAR specific road for with the coral lamps? Seems to me the lighting preference would be (best to worst) LED, T5 HO (PARs), HPS, MV/MH, other/CFL, but that's just my impression from what I've read. The main contention between LED and T5's being cost.

As for the cost comparisons, I guess you need to take the whole rig and coverage into account to be accurate. As for the bulb pricing in my rough cost comparison, I just used a standard HO off the first web site I could find, not one of the Atinics/Fiji etc. Just a quick comparison of the bulbs, not including hardware. The T5's seem to pump out allot of Lumens, so my calc is probably way off, I'll let you guy decide. Small T5 setups seem to start around $250, LED even more. Mixing and matching different bulbs seems to be the only way to improve spectrum characteristics for the CFL grower. It's kinda like when you consider the full spectrum CFL's and think, well the plant really isn't going to use allot of that light energy right, so why spend the extra on the full spectrum bulb, but then when you compare how crappy some of the CFL spectrographs really are, you start to rethink that. Sort of comes full circle for me, in that I have seen the current spectrum of my 2700K's (I'm not even paying attention to the colour temperature ratings on CFL's now, its so way off its not even funny; at best it only refers to a general human perception of how the light looks) and they suck ass in both the red and blue ends, with the majority of light energy being in the green'yellow, so technically they should have slapped a 4000K label on it. I think its safe to say that CFL's have big gaps and big peaks in bad places on the spectrum. The high temperature daylights don't seem to be quite as bad (at least for blues), but still leaves me wondering how to boost the red during flower (without buying new lighting systems). Poor mans PAR, if you will.

You can get t5 fluorescent lights in specific spectrums. They have ones that are almost completely all red spectrum and they have 460nm ones too to get only red and blue spectrums. Check out my grow and you'll see its in my signature

Yeah, thats what we have been discussing. What bulbs are you using? Please link em up and show us the spectral power distribution charts.

You are stuck flowering with just CFLs/T5s?

My fault I didn't read far enough. Gastanker you convinced me of t5's. Are you saying tho I shouldn't be using them for flower?

Gastanker said:

You are stuck flowering with just CFLs/T5s?

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LOL, technically I am stuck flowering with whatever I can screw into a med sized socket (body parts not included) This is a thread IN the CFL section.

I personally have used CFLs for flowering with great results. I actually ran with a 3:1 of 2700:6500 for a more complete spectrum - never needed more red.

I was a HUGE CFL advocate and still am for certain situations but overall HIDs outperform in my experience. There are times when flouros are the clear choice due to enclosure size, heat, budget, lack of ventilation, and on paper supply more PAR mm/w than HIDs but in reality if you can deal with heat and ventilation HIDs are better for flowering. T5s can work great for very neat scrogs and often outperform MHs when it comes to veg but practically, for some reason, HIDs just flower better - I really hate to admit it, I'm a self hating HID user at heart. I believe that LEDs, induction lamps, and plasma lights will eventually replace HIDs but we're just not there at this moment.

If you have to use T5's I would suggest just using a high quality bulb in the ratio of 3:1 2700:6500 for flower and the opposite for veg. I'm a big planted tank enthusiast and accustomed to wavelength specific bulbs:

[video=youtube;nIysWfTOT_A]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIysWfTOT_A[/video]

And I supplement my HIDs spectrum with UV and additional blue in the form of 6500K flouros:

But I really don't think there is a cost benefit to pricey narrow band T5s.

Lets do a simple cost comparison - a decent 18w T8 6500k bulb is $.80 - 1.20. A cheap actinic 17w T8 bulb is $10 and an expensive one is $20. These bulbs should be replaced about every three grows. Operational cost of one 17w bulb for 9 weeks of flower: .017kW * 12hrs * 9weeks * 7days/week * $0.12/kWh = $1.54 So instead of spending $15 on the actinic every third grow you could instead run four times as many 6500K bulbs for the same price with a more complete spectrum.

canadian1969 said:

LOL, technically I am stuck flowering with whatever I can screw into a med sized socket (body parts not included) This is a thread IN the CFL section.

Click to expand...

That's rough but I know the feeling. You can't screw T5's into a socket though

I very much miss my CFL grow, even after upgrading to an HID.

I was pulling an oz a week with 388w of CFL

I would yield ~ 1oz per plant. With 6 in full flower at a time and two others just rotating into the flower box I was able to harvest a plant per week.

This took place in a 2x3x3.5' area of a small closet where ventilation wasn't an option.