Is this lighting good???

I am growing only one plant, but soon to be 3. I was looking to get a new and better lighting set-up. I was looking at a 45w Flourescent screw in bulb (SPECS: 2900 lumens, 45w) would this 1 bulb be sufficient for growing my small crop indoors?

Also my grow area is small only about 3 sq. feet.

If it is close to the plants it should be fine for a little while, bump it up to ~2,3 lights. When flowering get as many as possible (wWarm White)

Well what I really want is the tube florescents but when I was looking in the store they only had ones with no higher then 725 lumens at 20w? These were 18in tubes by the way, which is what length im looking for. So if my math is right 2 of those bulbs would only equal 1450 lumens at 40w which is still a long shot away from the single 45w bulb I was asking about......maybe just the store I was in didnt have any variety?

Look around for the t5 tubes, they produce more lumens, i think, I could just b a little high also. lol

personally i think tubes suck. I upgraded to hid and was stunned at he improvement. I even went back and ran some "experiment grows" using several t-12 fixtures. I tried my ass off but in the end i think tubes are a waste of time and money. I picked up some 100 hps for less then 2o bucks and orderd a 250 hps online, which will blow away anything i ever managed to grow with flourescent tubes.

Ok, first off no, a 45 watt cfl will not be sufficient for 3 plants. You will need much more than that especially for flowering. Secondly lumens do not add getting 2 725 lumen bulbs does not make 1450 lumens. Lumens are a measure of light intensity and placing extra bulbs next to eachother does not increase there intensity it only lets you cover more area, so try to go with fewer bulbs of higher lumen rating over more bulbs with less lumens. I also agree that cfl's are usually a better bet than floros because you can be more accurate about where you aim the light and how close you can get the bulbs to your plant(s). Now it is obvious that HID (hps or mh) lights are a better source of light for our purpose, but that is not possible for everyone and you are obviously going to be working with flourescents and they can do the job, though you will get less yield. So basically if you are using cfl's go out and get as many of the highest watt cfl's you can afford and you can fit in your space and try to keep your plants short as the lack of lumens (intensity) cannot penetrate very deep and that is how you end up with terrible fluffy buds. Good luck with your grow.

TBH I think that CFL is overrated. I think I calculated cfls to produce around 60 lumens per 1 watt.

I have 4x48w CFLs now.

captain pothead said:

personally i think tubes suck. I upgraded to hid and was stunned at he improvement. I even went back and ran some "experiment grows" using several t-12 fixtures. I tried my ass off but in the end i think tubes are a waste of time and money. I picked up some 100 hps for less then 2o bucks and orderd a 250 hps online, which will blow away anything i ever managed to grow with flourescent tubes.

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Well Yeah the t-12 suck major ass, I have 8 of these 80 watt fixtures. I just use them for early vegging and cloning, Next the t-5 High output fixtures do produce(5000 lumens/220 watts, just like a cfl. Just a thought. But like another said, you can get hid at reasonable price, just if you can get the heat vented, but personally my veg/clone room has ONLY flouros, and it stays hotter than my flowering room with hids. The attached ballst on flouros STILL get hot, again just some food for thought.