Flowering lighting

I was wondering if you can continue to use cfl's during flowering or if you have to switch to a mh or hps?

You can stick with CFLs, but your yield wont be as high if you were to have an HPS.

You'd need to get the right color spectrum though, warm white lights in the color spec of 2700k are the ones you're going to be looking for if you decide to stick with the cfl's.

Good thing i'm using those kind of bulbs right now! got 4 CFLs total. 1 daylight 23W, 2 26W warm, and one giant 32W warm CFL bulb. Just started my 12/12 on these hoping to get two ladies.

I used 42w CFL's they flowered nicely. I had 2 of them and 10 26w's.. lol but the 26's were blue not red.. =/ I ran short on money and only got a oz yeild.. haha but HPS ftw next time

I laugh now at people using cfls T5 T8 for flowering/ growing, I was talking to a guy today and he was bragging about a Qp off of 9 plants veg'd for 2months i laughed at him and said you can get that off of 4 plants under a HID light and veg for a month. Then he started asking about the dirt i was using and nutes and temp blah blah blah, so i told him get the right light and stop wasting your time

Ok so then a second question, I have a HPS bulb but no ballast. Is a ballast completely necessary to use a HPS bulb?

Yep, you need a ballast to run a HPS.

Yeah. Investment will be about $250 for both ballast and bulb. Check out specialty-lights.com I got my ballast an HPS and an MH bulb for 280.00 and the shipping was free.

i've seen metal halides for 99-199 online

Cant you put a colored saran wrap, inbetween your light and plant?

If you live in a city, you might be able to snag one on Craigslist. I grabbed a 400W HPS Ballast, bulb, and reflector for $100 in my town. When I searched, there were 4 for sale in my area, and I live in a fairly small city. It could be worth a look.

Cant you put a colored saran wrap, inbetween your light and plant?

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lol, maybe. If you could have some way of knowing what colour temp the colour filtered light would be.

bigbudeddie said:

lol, maybe. If you could have some way of knowing what colour temp the colour filtered light would be.

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green is a gauranteed plant killer fo sho. I did this as a science experiment in a science class. ther results varied with the substances that I used to change the color of the light. Im guessing now as i am older its actually the color spectrum that makes the difference. check out this thread that pretty much died.
bulb covers for t12 fluro
I never orded anything to try because I rearanged my op so that i didnt need side lighting.

HPS will rock your yield compared to CFL for flowering. go HPS for sure.

yeah they r not cheap. did alot of research on these. you have to have the right ballast for the bulb and that's where it gets expensive. 400 watts is good enough for about 16 plants in 5 gallon buckets.

Ya so I went out and spent the money today. I built a sort of enclosure out of plywood (because ive been worried about neighbors seeing it in my back yard) mounted my 400w HPS inside w/ my new ballast. Bought an outdoor timer and set it to 12/12. and Its all hope from there. I've noticed my plant developing alot more trics and becoming more smelly and sticy (F**king awsome) and im pretty sure its still got like 2-3 weeks left before harvest thanks for all of the input ill post some updated pics tommorow.

Here are some updated pics of the flowering process everything is a-ok I had a branch break during a storm other than that its great

To throw a random number at you, id say you have about 6 weeks left. Im guessing she has been flowering for about 3 weeks? Looks very nice, good job!!!!

Where is your hps mounted?