250W MH or CFL

[soilmaster]

This grow I want to add some blue spectrum to my setup.
I was thinking about adding a light in the middle of my 4 plants vertically to give them that. Also last grow I noticed only the very tops of the plants had any nugs. So that would fix that too.

Do you think this is worth it? I'm going to do 4 plants under a 1000w solarmax hps. I'm thinking about adding the 250W bulb vertically inbetween my plants.

The advantage of the CFL is that it doesn't put out much heat. My 1000w HPS will be air cooled. Do any of you guys know how much a 250W MH puts out?

So do you think this is worth it for the extra par watts and blue spectrum? Also would you go for the CFL or the MH?

Cheers.

 

[cyat]

I would say mh. Im tryin to get away from cfls cuz they are full of mercury and give off a lot of radiation. not as green as they want us to think.

 

[Laventille]

Doesn't sound like a light deficiency dude.
4 plants under 1K sounds great!

full of mercury and give off a lot of radiation. not as green as they want us to think.

Mercury contained is a few milligrams... recycle if you care...hopefully you do

A very small number of people have reported skin problems relating to UV or Electromagnetic radiation emitted by CFL... a very small number of people.

Don't be scared

 

[yesum]

Sounds like you need to bend the plants over or top them. You should have plenty of power to reach the bottom of 2 or 3 foot plants. I take off any fan leaves that are blocking bud sites after 2nd week of flower.

For the other, I would go mh or cmh for vertical and better spectrum. The cmh throws a little uv which is good for the plants. Hortilux hps bulbs are another option, which have added blue.

 

[Phaeton]

An HPS can always use some blue supplement. Another member had a thread where he put many 3 watt blue LED's all around the edge of his HPS reflector and it made a difference. I have room so I use T5 aquarium lights, 460 nm and they are BLUE. Not sure how much they help, but certainly no harm is being done.

Laventille and yesum agree it is getting the light to the right parts of the plants, enough total light is available. The physical geometry of the cabinet and color make as much difference as the light itself.

I know a grower puts a row of his plants along the walls of his room and never turns them. He has lotsa lights, but all his wall plants have buds on one side only.

 

[IwannatokeNbone]

one 20 watt 6400 cfl over say 2-4 plants growing under a hps will perk up the whole canapy in about twenty minutes, plants LUV it.

 

[CoCo_Crazy]

one 20 watt 6400 cfl over say 2-4 plants growing under a hps will perk up the whole canapy in about twenty minutes, plants LUV it.

One 20w cfl is like 1000 lumens. The 1000w hps is probably 100 000+ lumens. So i think its obvious there will be very little difference from adding one 20w cfl to a 1000w hps. That tiny amount of extra blue light will do very little.

 

[IwannatokeNbone]

One 20w cfl is like 1000 lumens. The 1000w hps is probably 100 000+ lumens. So i think its obvious there will be very little difference from adding one 20w cfl to a 1000w hps. That tiny amount of extra blue light will do very little.

100,000 lumens of what yellow orange n red, not good enough for me or my plants anymore, one cheapo 6400 cfl or several added and your off to the races with plants reaching for the lights all day.


and forget about your 120 dollar enhanced bulbs, its theese enhanced bulbs u pay 90 dollars to much for that by the time the 5 percent increase in blue light hits your plants from 3ft away of a 1000hps that u got your 1000 lumens u paid the aforesaid 90 extra for , no thx, ill go with the 4 dollar cfl from the drug store for my 1000 lumes and get my hps more in the 2000k range were it should be n not the 3000k range were enhanced bulbs are wasting my money on green n yellow light. so again, one 20 watt blue cfl does wonders. most of par is in the hps range, i find hps with added blue cfls to be the best lighting strategy going for the money n effect.

and yes this might mean 4 cfls not one, i was just trying to make a point.

 

[ProfGerbik]

I would say mh. Im tryin to get away from cfls cuz they are full of mercury and give off a lot of radiation. not as green as they want us to think.

sad but true im always so scared if i break a cfl.. hope it never happens.

 

[Phaeton]

I did a small single grow test with 430 watt HPS and Hydrofarm 6400K T5 growlights. Hydrofarm fixtures set sideways, 4 tubes at 54 watts/tube in a 4" square with light tops same height as plant tops. The HPS fixture is in a 23" lowbay white reflector 18" above plants.

Harvest is not here yet but the fan leaves are NOT turning yellow and stretch slowed visibly from nonsupplemented plants. Bud growth is close to the same as the HPS only rate.

I used the 6400K with 20,000K HID violet on top for 3 weeks just to see. The stretch stopped completely, the plants got no taller for that time. Pretty much stopped growing altogether, stayed healthy though. Lost those weeks of bud growth, the buds are just staying smaller on those plants.

Would 20 watts have the same effect as 800 ? Note above about plants not gaining ANY size without the HPS. HPS has NO blue.
It is a trigger effect from the blue, the blue is not actually feeding the growth directly. 800 watts is overkill, but the lower limit has not been tested for. 20 watts with blue is hundreds of times more blue than HPS alone has. It will make some difference. :kitty:

 

[Laventille]

sad but true im always so scared if i break a cfl.. hope it never happens.

But it isn't true... I posted the truth in direct response to this scaremongering rubbish.

To recap...

You are scared of lightbulbs?

 

[Phaeton]

Research backs this up, but quoting journals gets ignored by those that find the whole idea silly, and the growers that care pretty much have the access and understand the principle by observation anyway.

I keep posting because new folks continually show up without being top experts before they got here. When I joined I made changes every 3 weeks as my trays came out. Listening to those who grow well has improved my crop every time. Ignore the BS and pay attention to those with years of growing.

It's been 5 harvests since I joined, the harvest coming on the 10th is the juiciest yet. I am not afraid to make major changes where my methods fail in comparison, even though I have grown 'good enough' for years. Stubborn is not a learning attitude.
:kitty:

 

[Laventille]

I lost you in the end but anyway....

Why flower under blue light? Doesnt it make the plants more leafy?

Try using HPS rather...

I switched from HPS (400w)
Growing personal herb in a small space, I had trouble managing heat and humidity...
Fed up with the results, I considered moving over to CFL
People wasted no time telling me about wispy buds off skinny plants and not to bother trying...

Originaly I intended to use blue CFL for veg and then switch spectrums at flowering... but I never switched bulbs, and got results that blew me away. Flavours. Clean highs.
Beautiful healthy compact plants, far superior to anything that I had grown before.

That doesn't mean that I think I am doing something that is 'right'... and it doesn't mean I consider HPS inferior to CFL

In a nutshell... I do things in a way which "will not work" and get good results. I want to see this stuff get discussed properly.

 

[CoCo_Crazy]

I veg with 2/3rds 6400k cfls and 1/3rd 2500k cfls and i get great results. I will never veg with HIDs again. Then i flower under 400w hps's.

I think you should at least try to flower under 2/3rds 2500k cfls and see if there is a positive difference. They cant do worse right? Maby go half half? Ive read so much about adding 2500k cfls for flowering, you were debating earlier that the addition of blue light should help, im sure the addition of orange light will help your setup.

You should post some pics of your plants, i think it would interest alot of people that you can run a plant thru its full cycle under just blue cfl's. I would have thought that would result in skinny leafy buds but seems your setup shows differently. Also what strain was this? Perhaps different strains react differently to only blue light?

Interesting stuff.

 

[Laventille]

I think that's where I'm heading Coco... 6400/2500 mix... but not just yet.
My pics are linked via my signature and I hope they lend some credibility to my comments.

I agree with your statement... there will be a level where the plant starts to notice an increase in an area of the spectrum. Below that level you are perhaps just wasting energy.

I also have some questions like the one you posed later on... will the effect be on yield and will it be worth it? Will it affect quality or finishing times etc?

 

[CoCo_Crazy]

They certainly do especially that Nebula! Looks fucking delicious! How many watts were you using?

 

[Anti]

I love my CFL buds. They consistently blow away (in terms of quality - taste, appearance, odor, etc) the HID buds that I sometimes get from friends.

People who don't think CFL can produce are attempting to use it wrong.

​

You aren't going to grow Heath Robinson trees with CFLs but you can grow SOG style all day FTW.

 

[Laventille]

Only using 2 x 125w over a 2ft x 2ft area CoCo... thank you for your comment

 

[Phaeton]

I run 2 budrooms. I quit using HPS 6 years ago because I hate yellow dead leaves.
After joining this forum the evidence is undeniable-HPS grows larger buds.
My second budroom was just for testing HPS. I added blue until the fan leaves lived all the way through harvest. Using T5's in a band around the plants it took 800 watts of 6500K to counteract the 430 watts of HPS. No way for that to be practical. PlusRite (yeah I know) makes a full on blue HID, no spread, blue 430-480 nm, works on the older M59 ballasts. 2 blue HID's with 3 HPS keeps the plant green until the end. Growth is at the HPS rate.

That plus 2 CMH are the main budroom lighting now, growth and health are both phenomenal.

The tests are not always good, I have an extra 5 HID bulbs I tried very hard to bud some plants with. Note to self: 20,000K flowers coral, not land plants. :kitty:

 

[Laventille]

Phaeton
How do you 'mix' the different light sources...do you move plants around or does it all just bleed together?

CFL's have to stay low over the canopy of course, which isn't the case with your lights.
Perhaps using one red / one blue (enviro style bulbs) would cause my tent to develop a split personality?