Lighting help. Can't really afford metal halide and HID at the moment.

Hey guys, so yesterday I was watching a video where they explained about metal halide being better for veg stage because of its more intense blue spectrum that helps plants grow stronger, and how HID are best for blooming due to their red intensity on the light spectrum. But man those lights are expensive and they eat up quite some electricity
I am on a low budget for my first grow, as I want it to be a learning experience with a prize at the end hehe (if you know what i mean).
What cheaper (regular house hold) lights could I use for veg and blooming, so I can prepare myself. Ive seen ppl talking about CFL, etc, but I have no idea on lights so please help.
Any extra details you can spare would be great.

Thanx.

well if your going the very cheap route cfls would work. you want at least 50 watts PER plant. but really man amazon sells 400 watt MH/HPS with reflector and both bulbs. all the light you'll need for like $130 bucks. i would go that route. wait...i did

GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR GROW MAN!

You could use t5's for veg and flower if you had to. I would just get a small 250 watt hps for veg and flower if money was a concern.

2 Vanity mirror light fixtures - $30
Mix of Daylight(6500K) and Soft (2700K) CFL's - $30
2ft length of 8inch dryer vent for the reflector - $15
Wire & plug - $5

I use this for my veg area.

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But for flowering, you'll want HPS, for the dense buds.

My 600wHPS just arrived the other day, $182 to my door.



Good luck.

Trust me. Don't skimp on the light. You will regret it. And the last thing you want to do is rebuild a grow room with a bunch of plants in it already.

The bare minimum you want to use is 23W CFLs. Nothing weaker. No regular bulbs, no reptile bulbs, nothing but CFL or HID (I know you can't afford the proper LED and the cheap ones are... cheap and worse than CFL).

Beg borrow or steal the money (jk, don't steal!) to get a 400W digital MH/HPS ballast. My cooltube kit was about $150, came with tube, dimmable 400W ballast, MH and HPS bulbs, yo-yos, reflecter and timer.

Don't jerk around with cfls unless you're buying 105w or greater in which case you might as well spring for HID. Seriously you don't have 100 odd bucks you can invest in a grow? You'll get it back in 8 weeks if you do it right.

i bet 80% or more growers start out with cfls and then upgrade.but having said that, yes a 400 watt is only 120 on ebay but its easier to come up with $20 for a new cfl to get started but then you will buy more and more until you realize you just spent more money and time messin with cfls than just buying the 400 watt from the start so alot of those guys that are saying just buy the 400 are right, but most of them started just like you, happy growing.

Pretty much lol. We try and try to help keep people from doing the wrong things we did. I guess it's like the little kid and the hot stove. No matter how many times mom tells them not to, they are going to find out for themselves.. the hard way! But those growing pains ARE learning experiences and in the end help make us better growers, better thinkers and maybe better people!

Thanks guys i think i'll go with 4 cfls to start with, I only wanna plant 2 girls not more, this way I can take care of them easier (i work all week and dont have much time to garden stuff), and I also learn how to grow.
Ofc if I like the result (which im pretty sure i will since I like weed hehe) i'll invest in some MH and HID with a balast and all that. How many W per CFL do you recommend? 40W? more?

cheers.

edit: Also what is the grow time delay if using cfls instead of 400w or 600w MH or HID?
Is there like a scale of grow time per W ??

thanx.

You have to look at a CFLs true wattage, not the equivalent output. The manufacturer will put a big 60WATT or 75WATT or 100WATTS!! label on the box, and somewhere smaller you can see the power draw. 100s are 23-26w I believe. Check the lumens as well. The 100w equivs put out around 1750 for the 6400K bulbs. When it comes flower time switch out half with 2700K redder bulbs.

You will be hard pressed to find larger CFLs at average places. Sometimes Lowes or Home Depot will stock a huge honking one, and if you can find it, get it. Otherwise just get as many 100W (23-26 true watt) as you can cram in there.

Cool thanks for the advice. To bad I'm in Spain and dont have a home depot store or nutes and soil from foxfarm but still I'll do my best and hope to soon get some sprouts to show off.

cheers.

From personal experience having grown for over 5 years. I started with 105w CFL (true wattage) 5 of them at 25 bucks a pop. Later upgraded to a 400w HPS, then added another 400w hps, then switched to LED and am quite happy with my choice. The point of this short story - I blew way too much $$ buying something I thought was the cheapest choice, then realized I wanted better results and upgraded, and upgraded again. If I had to do it over again I would have just dropped a g note on quality leds from the get go instead of spending several hundred on cfl and hid and later flipping them at a loss on ebay. If you decide to go LED do some research though - cheap and effective LED is an oxy-moron. Best of luck!

MH and HPS are both HID types of light mate, just for clarification to help. You can grow with cfls as others have said but your not going to get a ton out of it, but i would get your seeds (if using reg then i would plant a little more than 2 just encase of males) and as many cfl's as you can get and start vegging them out. Start saving up now and in 2 months you will be able to buy a 250/400/600w HPS (with Mh bulb if you can) but remember the higher wattage the more heat so plan that out as well. You can get a digital ballast that you can dim the watts down and they run cooler and quieter but read into them, there is few brands i would trust and the good ones are very very expensive but have a few known problems. I would use a magnetic ballast with a hortilux bulb or another premium bulb.

There is also the route of Fluorescent lights which are great and from what i can find slightly cheaper then a HID. T5's are more efficient, brighter and run cooler while getting better results than most CFL's. A basic T5 setup is great but you can use the same bulbs that they use to grow coral in salt water fishtanks and get amazing results. https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/358190-led-without-leds-my-first.html <- Give it a read it will help you understand a few other things like PAR along with some great information on the T5 lights and using aquaticbulbs for them.

You might want to look into training methods as well. Training your plant to be level so you get the same light penetration all around is more rewarding with smaller amounts of power and intensity (cfls/fluros/and low watt HIDs). Think of it as if your light has its optimal distance away from the plant at 6inches, you have to keep it 6inches away from the top part of the plant so everything below that 6inch mark is going to be getting less light than the top giving you smaller weaker buds than the top is. There are hormones in the plant that have it grow up and that hormone(auxin) likes to go more towards the top most part of the plant so if you bend a plant over your going to see what used to be the side of the plant start growing out like the top of the plant would get all even height bud sites. This is great if your light penetration is low and helps to control height in those tight areas. Here is a few links that might help you

LST- https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/196569-great-riu-lst-thread-low.html
http://buymarijuanaseeds.com/community/threads/low-stress-training-lst-and-more-walk-through-pics.63090/ <--long read
Scrog - https://www.rollitup.org/advanced-marijuana-cultivation/515987-enter-scrog-scroggers-united-post.html <---Read into scrog, its something you might like and works great for what you want.
http://forum.grasscity.com/plant-training/48363-scrog-method.html <--- More great scrog
http://howtogrowmarijuana.com/screen-of-green