Question about 8x8x4 grow box lighting? (CFL Question)

I recently saw a post in where the guy said to buy these lights ( http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ1xh8/R-100676712/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053 ) if I was going to make a lil cfl grow box. I saw that they are NOT daylight bulbs and I dont really know how to check light spectrum yet.

Could anybody give me the difference between daylight and white bulbs? I always thought the daylight grew better plants - now I see a white twist CFL 300w thats putting out over 4500 Lumens.

Are the lumens mostly what I need to look for? If so these bulbs would cut my setup cost nearly in half lol I was going to get like 12 of the 1750 lumen bulbs.

My grow room looks as follows ( Please excuse the lack of exact measurments, keep in mind i have NEVER done anything like this before so its a new field of work for me lol )



In that setup I would have 10 CFL bulbs, 6 in the budding chamber w 4 fluorescent tubes on the sides for undergrowth - With the new information about the 4.5k lumen cfl's I believe it would be smart to lower it to 1 cfl for the two left side cabinets (female clone/cloning station) - 4500 lumens + 4 fluorscent tubes should keep the female alive healthy and out of flowering.

My main question is : In my budding chamber (top right chamber) Would say a Quad-light fixture with 4 300w 4500 lumen CFL's + the four grow-lux tubes on the side - is this enough to bud the plant well? I am only going to be growing about 3 and 1/2 foot plants - I expect the yeild to be low but I am wondering about the lighting im going to buy.

Anybody who has experience with CFLs please help! lol I dont know what the deal is I've heard from MANY ppl that u want DAYLIGHT CFL bulbs to grow - and now I find a white 300w cfl with 3x the lumens in each bulb.

Once again the link to the bulb in question is http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1...atalogId=10053

Thank you so much for your time everybody.

Anybody? lol...

I like the box u have designed. It's similar to my setup. All is well here. I'm using homedepo lites. 100 watt daylight bulbs. 4 to be exact. I'm also running 5 zoo med aquarium flouros. Overhead with the cfls in a lightbar(12$ from homedepo) on the bottom for side and undergrowth. The aquarium lights are working well 15 watts each and I have different ones all meeting the spectrums required.
Seeing lots of new veg so I think it's safe to recommend them.

Alright Thank you very much for your reply. It seems your just as new to this as me and let me tell u its quite a learning process.... Right now im actually leaned over my computer responding to this as im constructing this beast of a set up lol I got the entire thing built and secured, doors made + attached, hinged and knobed with latches to keep them shut. I installed all the "air tight" liner to keep the doors as air tight as possible. Right now im duct taping the seals between the wood to ensure an air tight container only venting through the intake holes and exhaust fan. The bottom layer is going to be on hold for now ( germinating and seeding plants can be done in the top left box until i get myself a nice female to stock and snip clones from

Ive been at this a while. Had many many grows, most were left to survive in the great outdoors alone fending for themselves. Funny thing is I have never done anything more than germinate for them and I always have nice fruits. Now indoors is somewhat of a challenge. Lighting is critical. The cfls will work but you should get some specialty fluorescents from a petland or petco. Zoo med makes lights in all spectrums. They make a 420 actinic bulb for coral and plant photosynthesis. I'm running those with the cfls. My box is 48x36x48. Temp stays around 79-82. Now for vegging time I used a small humidifier I got for 20$ at walgreens mixed a solution of seltzer water(sodium free)and bottled spring water 60% spring water 40% seltzer with 5 drops of my nutes( I use dyna grow) in a 20 oz. Bottle and let it run to bring the humidity up to about 70%. U can lower the humidity if it's to moist but with the lights on and the humidifier running makes for a muggy ass day. Plants love that. That's one little tweak to get them growing super fast. The seltzer will add more co2 to the space. This worked for me,my bitches thrived in it.

Hey tiny, this setup looks great. I want to answer a few of your questions 1. Your new 68 watt cfl bulb is a 2700k bulb which is perfect for flower. 2. Daylight bulbs do work great for veg and cloning (6500k) and so use those bulbs in mother/ veg/ clone chambers. Try something like two 26 watt 6500k cfls in your clone chamber, stuff all those tube flouros in your veg chamber, run four 26 watt 6500k bulbs in mother chamber, and your good with the big 2700k bulbs in your flower chamber. I also think I read a earlier post of yours and you stated you didn't expect much more then an ounce. Well that's bs cause with this setup and a little Lst-ing (Low stress training) you can easily pull 2-4 ounces from two plants every 60-75 days depending on the strain. The thing about cfls is they work great when close to the plant and at about 10" from bulb you will see significant drop off in quality of bud density. So to maximize the bulbs potential try to get as many plant tops growing on the same plane about 3 to 6 inches from bulbs. I hope this helps.

Hey guys, thank you very much for your input - that seltzer idea for the co2 is fuckin genius and trust me i will take your advice. As for minigrow - Holy shit I had no idea as a first time build Id kinda hit it on the mark and thank you SO much for your info but I have a couple more questions that I hope you can answer for me. Heres the deal though ( Id pm u but i cant, says im too new?) -

Whats the ####K light measurment mean, and do you have a link to a specific guide for it? Im not one for light spectrum I just know that the more lumens = the healthier the plant. From what you just told me I assume the Higher K is good for vegetative growth, aka jus to grow plant structure - the huge bulbs (2500k) are a budding spectrum? Does this apply to all lighting or only CFLs? And a sub question off of that one, How can I tell the light spectrum off of the package?

Im going to take your advice and fill the upper left female chamber with the lower wattage bulbs (6500k) to keep it in the vege state. Problem that im having here is that aparently you cant tell a female until it starts to bud. Okay so logically I see a problem lol This is how I believe its handled - the SECOND you find out its a healthy female you put it right back into the vege light cycle to it stops budding and you make your clones, right?

On the upper right I am going to have FOUR of the big bulbs in the middle on a chain to move up and down. On the sides will be one of two ideas... Give me your opinion please.. lol... I may scratch the tube lights in the top right chamber, and throw in four (two on each side one above the other) more big bulbs on the side walls. I KNOW this would be a good thing, problem is the bulbs are 9 fuckin inches long and 4 inches wide, wtf? lol I know the plants can touch them, they dont get hot, but it worries me that if say i decide to plant idk 5-6 maybe 10 and try to keep them small the plants might literally grow around the side cfls. Should I make the side walls the big bulbs? or should I stick with the smaller ones?

On the bottom chamber yes, I am going to take my Quad Tube 24" fixture and use that solely for vegetation. On the clone chamber I was just going to put a dual bulb fixture houseing 2 small cfls.

Sound good?

Ok gonna do my best to get your questions answered. Starting with the light spectrum of bulbs. This is by no means a end all statement but some solid info that will get the point across. Think of the ####k of a bulb as kind of a numerical value for its color it peaks at. Far red-----red--orange------white-----blue---far blue, so those colors in a K number; <1000k----1700k---2700k-----(4000k-6500k)----8000k---->10000k. So basically 6500k is the middle area or a full spectrum(or close to it) so this type of light is good for all stages of growth. Below 6500k is higher in reds and oranges (2700k) which is the best light to promote flowering. Above 6500k is very high in blues and not generally best for plants.

Ok so now when your buying bulbs check out their color temp by looking on the box for the little 2700k or 6500k/warm white or daylight.

Finding a female to make a mother. Well I wont go into it here but basically cut a clone from a hopeful female plant, put the clone in a cup of water with a little B1, put that clone in the flower state(12/12) don't worry about it rooting. In a few days it will show its sex. Many ways to sex plants this is one.

Lastly those big cfls will burn your plants if they touch them, so ditch the side lights and put them up top with a chain. Phone is gonna die ill get back with you later.

Wang, If you read minigrow's post you would understand nearly everything about the cfl lighting. The huge bulbs I have linked are for budding (flowering) and the small bulbs are for veging. I am using two PLANT BULBS to vege right now, i have about 25 lil plants growing atm, I estimate im gunna throw out about 15 males (first grow so i dont kno how to prevent them) so I grew a lot more than I wanted for the veg stage. Plus the lights I have are producing so much light, why the F not? lol

PS Wang from what I've heard you want about 10k lumens per plant for a regular harvest. Keep in mind this is my FIRST grow, I dont know how all of this is going to work - I am based all of my theories on expert opinions on my situation - Yes they will work. Take the fluro tubes out of the top right chamber and replace them with 8 smaller CFL's with a quad light on a chain to lower etc.

Apparently lighting is VERY important, with that being said its not SOOO important in this grow. From what I've read, the reason why people use SERIOUS lighting, under growth lights etc and a bunch of HID's is because they are growing man sized plants - these plants at 2-3 feet at MOST when FINISHED budding - They dont require AS MUCH light as a bunch of 6 foot plants lol

Hey T. I'm gonna go on a limb here, have u thought about LEDs? I have used them. They work. If u can solder or if u know someone you can buy loose LEDs, radio shack has them but I got mine from a site called. The led light.com. If u can get a hold of some royal blue LEDs and mount them in your veg chamber I think u would be surprised. The plants use most of the visible light ee see. They don't use green light. So if u supplement the blue light for your vegging and red during your budding you can get away like a thief in the night with no heat. Use your cfls 6500k for the vegging is good. 2700k for flowering. Look online. Try eBay. I have seen many screwbase led floods. I would add some to your setup. I built my own. I used luxeon stars, 3 watts each. They are bright as hell and my plants loved them.

Na im not trying to grow with a controversial method lol Im using CFLs because they produce little to NO heat. I can leave the entire set up on for 48 hours, open the cabinet and palm the biggest bulb and i dont feel a burn ( and I have softer hands, im not an auto mechanic)

So far the setup is going well, I put my plants in the female chamber for now while i get the vege and clone chambers up and running with the right lighting. Theyre all healthy and doing well - I hate a nute burn scare until soembody told me its probably not nute burn but deterioration cuz its at the point where it NEEDS nutes and I havent given it to them. The second I put in the proper 10/15/10 nutes the damn things looked as healthy as an ox