envirolite or other brand?
- Thread starter hashdude
- Start date
brewing up
Well-Known Member
there ok for a small grow
Hard to tell as I never used Enviro, however I have 250W and 125W cfls from GreenLamp and they seem to be doing the job just fine( I use them for vegging only). But if you're thinking about doing a whole grow on cfls I'd suggest you get few smaller ones(you can position them around and closer to the plants) instead of just one big bulb as cfl light is rather weak and doesn't penetrate the foliage much.
Well in if you're doing scrog than perhaps one will work for you, but still I think you should consider a T5 fixture like GeeTee suggested too, I'm pretty sure it will cover the grow area better and more uniformly than one big cfl.
My 250w was fine for vegging 2 plants but when I wanted to 4 it just wouldn't cut it and I had to add this 125w. I'm just starting another grow now and I know it will be the last one using cfl for veg, I will be switching either to T5 or more likely to MH.
Why dont you go with HPS?
hps is a nono to me, im not a heavy smoker, 1-2 plants is enough for me, an ounce will last me for a year, second, a good setup with ballast and cooling fans will cost me anywhere between 100-800, with cfl i can do it under a 100, third, dont know how true it is, but hps uses more electricity i could be wrong about this... i will have a look at t5 grow, never even seen anyone growing with it
Fair enough. Look at T5 though, they're basically the same technology as as cfl just done differently. Something like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/Via-Volt-T5-Fluorescent-Fixture-2-ft-4-Lamp-/260632532426?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3caee8d5ca should suit you fine for what you need it and actually a lot of people grow with them, but ultimately the decision is yours. Good luck!
Thnx a million for that, so the difference is only that t5 are longer so are perfect for scrog grow rather than cfl, but how t5 compares to a cfl in terms, bulb price, lumens output, electricity used, bulb fragilesnes, and what about size? Are they all in one size or you can get then shorter for small grow room
No problem. T5s come in various lenghts, the fixture I linked is for the 2ft long bulbs which I think are the shortest ones, but don't take my word for it. The manufacturer of the linked one states 2000 lumens per each 24watt bulb so 8000lumens total for 96 watts while 150w cfl will put out about 9000 lumens, but I still think that T5 fixture for scrog will be more efficient than one big cfl. As for bulb cost I can't help you much because I'm in the UK. And they both are pretty fragile - after all they are glass tubes with gas inside, but it's not like you are going to throw them around
What I think the best thing for you to do is to go to CFL/fluorescent section of the forum and post your questions there, folks that actually grow with those lights will surely tell you what the best option for you would be.