Fluorecent tubes

Hello he'll noon here, had a question reguarding cfl and tubes....I know you guys say on here place cfl's a few inches from the plant for vertical growth otherwise it will bush out but does the same go for fluorecent tubes? I'm using gro-lux 48" tubes with 1900 lumens each (2 of them) also do I need to be using another light in congunction with the gro lux? Like at the same time? Or can I just use these until they get more mature? There about 10" tall currently. Thanks I'm advace guys!

how many plants you have? what is the size of the grow room? you should have the lights as close to the plants as you can get them put your hand on top of the plant that will be closest and lower the light until you can feel the warmth of the bulbs.be sure if you have a lot of plants that the lights hits the tops of all them.

if u are not getting any stretch and the plant looks good then u dont need to change anything until flower. the reason people use CFL over the tubes is the tube lights have a huge change in light from the center of the bulb to the tip so growth might be uneven, CFL's have the same amount of light output throughout the bulb.

you will be outgrowing your 2 tubes very shortly
you can use more tubes, or add cfl's, or HPS, or MH, pretty much mix anything in
the tubes will give you pretty airy buds, unless you can pack a lot of them very close to the plant

johnny12r said:

how many plants you have? what is the size of the grow room? you should have the lights as close to the plants as you can get them put your hand on top of the plant that will be closest and lower the light until you can feel the warmth of the bulbs.be sure if you have a lot of plants that the lights hits the tops of all them.

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I only have 2 plants right now, trying my green thumb out before i go bigger. Thats why i figured these lights will be fine for the 2 untill i add more plants then ill add more lights. And thank you!!! i will lower the lights like 2" or so off them because it was branching out. thanks alot guys! ....btw these will be good lights until there more mature and ready to flower right? then i can use the hps?

Lynx1380 said:

I only have 2 plants right now, trying my green thumb out before i go bigger. Thats why i figured these lights will be fine for the 2 untill i add more plants then ill add more lights. And thank you!!! i will lower the lights like 2" or so off them because it was branching out. thanks alot guys! ....btw these will be good lights until there more mature and ready to flower right? then i can use the hps?

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you want them as tight as possible, the branching out will increase
there are limits with any lighting, at some point you will need more light if you continue to veg

growone said:

you want them as tight as possible, the branching out will increase
there are limits with any lighting, at some point you will need more light if you continue to veg

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Soooo your saying branching out is inevitable? To a point anyway?

Lynx1380 said:

Soooo your saying branching out is inevitable? To a point anyway?

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well, that's true, plant has to branch out to some extent
what i meant was the higher the light intensity, the more compact the plant
of course, this strain dependent to some extent
2 40w(?) tubes will create a fairly stretchy plant, i use cfl's so tubes aren't my specialty(yet)
i like fluoro technology, bit less scary on the fire hazard as compared to HPS
but you can grow quite impressive plants with fluoros
i'll post up a pic of a vertical tube grow(not mine), really cool was fluoros can do

this is based on t8 bulbs, not the state of the art, but seemed to work out for this grow setup
i stick with cfl's for the moment for micro grows, when NY goes legal, this is what i want

growone said:

this is based on t8 bulbs, not the state of the art, but seemed to work out for this grow setup
i stick with cfl's for the moment for micro grows, when NY goes legal, this is what i want

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Well crap lol I deffinetly wan. To stick with fluorecent tubes but don't need the stretching by any means. And other 48" tubes you can recomend that are prettty killer?

Good looking plant btw

Lynx1380 said:

Well crap lol I deffinetly wan. To stick with fluorecent tubes but don't need the stretching by any means. And other 48" tubes you can recomend that are prettty killer?

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well, again i'm no tube expert, been using the cfl's in micro setup
i did just buy some tubes, was going to setup a scrog chamber
then it occurred to me a male in a multiple plant scrog would be a nightmare, so the tubes ill be used some day, stick with cfl's and LST for the moment
but the tubes i bought were phillips t8's, got 'em over at the home depot, 3050 lumens per bulb in the 3000k cri
nice lumen output for t8's
you can step up to t5 tubes, these are incredible for their lumen output
they do need t5 ballasts though, they are still pretty pricey for the moment

i have been growing with flouros the while time, my plants are doing very well, i keep a few lights above all the rest so the plant has some light to strech to, but the rest are lower right above the plants, i noticed that doing this to the lights has promoted great growth in the plants, they are getting really bushy, but growing up at the same time towards the higher lights,

i havnt started my project yet, but i recently got my lights which are tube t5 HO fluoros. Down at the head/grow shop it was a $200 kit, 6x48" 6400k (rated at almost 5k lumens per bulb) already installed in a ballast. pretty good deal really and should work as long as i dont plan on going above 2 or 3 plants. also gunna be grabbing a few (3200k?) bulbs for flower (probably go 3 and 3). so effectively 26k lumens using less than 350 watts, iam pretty stoked. ill be sure to post some pics once i get things going.

i personally would look for a ballast setup similar to the one i got i think price vs lumens vs energy its a pretty smart way to go.