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So, I have been thinking about it and I am probably going for it and doing a small grow. I have a four tier greenhouse that I was using while growing mushrooms and I think that will be the home for my plants.
Today, I was looking at lighting at Home Depot. After doing some searches and reading other people's posts, I am a little confused about what I am looking for. I will be getting CFLs just to keep things simple. I found several different varieties. I know you are wanting as powerful CFLs as you can find.
First, there were three types of CFLs. Daylight (which I am assuming would be best), Bright White, and Soft White. The CFL with the highest wattage was a Soft White and it was 42 watts (which is 150w in a normal bulb). The lumen output was 2600. The next after that was a Bright White bulb at 23w (100w normal) and 1500 lumens. I was confused even more that the Daylight 23w bulb only had 1300 lumens. I believe I read a post saying that you want 3000 lumens at the minimum. So, I am not sure what to think.
Also, are the lumens something that combine? If I had two 42w Daylight bulbs, would I actually be putting off 5200 lumens, or is it still going to only be 2600 lumens to the plants.
Last but not least, I think I have decided which seeds I would like to grow first. I chose the Bubblicious (Bubble Gum) strain from Nirvana. It is described as having the sweet smell of bubble gum. I was thinking it may be a bit easier to disguise the smell. Any thoughts?
Quote: CaptTrip said: First, there were three types of CFLs. Daylight (which I am assuming would be best), Bright White, and Soft White. The CFL with the highest wattage was a Soft White and it was 42 watts (which is 150w in a normal bulb). The lumen output was 2600. The next after that was a Bright White bulb at 23w (100w normal) and 1500 lumens. I was confused even more that the Daylight 23w bulb only had 1300 lumens. I believe I read a post saying that you want 3000 lumens at the minimum. So, I am not sure what to think.
You're going to need daylight for the vegetative state, and soft white for the flowering state. The reason the daylight bulb has less lumens at the same wattage is due to the fact that lumens is a measure that is placed on a curve that resembles the sensitivity of the human eye. With the daylight bulbs, more of its light is in the blue spectrum, which is weighted less on the curve, which explains why there is less lumens. The good thing is that you can simply unscrew the daylight bulbs and screw in the soft white bulbs when its time to induce flowering.
Quote:
Also, are the lumens something that combine? If I had two 42w Daylight bulbs, would I actually be putting off 5200 lumens, or is it still going to only be 2600 lumens to the plants.
It is still going to produce the same amount of lumens in combination, because it doesn't increase the intensity of the light that is produced, but only increases the way that light is distributed across the space you're lighting, which is still good, of course. You don't want any shadows in the space. The good thing about CFL's is that you can also place the bulbs on the sides of the room and also in between plants (leaving a couple inches between the bulbs and the plants, of course). As your plants get bigger, this is definitely something you're going to want to do, because the downfall of fluorescents is that their light does not penetrate more than a few inches away from the bulb. Getting more light to the sides of the plants and underneath the canopy will really pay off, because otherwise you'll have some really good buds at the top of your plant, for a few inches, and then a long stick (popsicle buds ).
I don't have experience on it, but I'll tell you that, if it were me starting my first grow, I'd go with the Serious Seeds Bubblegum, and not Nirvana's knock-off. Now, there is a legitimate line of thought that its always good to start your first grow with inexpensive seeds, in case you fuck everything up and lose out on the investment in more expensive seeds, but there's also the line of thought that, as long as you learn enough about growing and be careful about how you go about it, its not like you're going to kill them or anything, and the real Bubblegum is going to actually have all of the traits you're looking for in the strain, whereas, with Nirvana's version, you're getting some cheap knock-off f2's, wherein you might get one or two plants that bear similarity to the original strain they are copying. Its really up to you though, as its not like Nirvana's stuff isn't going to be very decent smoke as long as you take care of it right.
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