Quote:
Originally Posted by jfaunda
Correct on the lighting for winter months and only 1 plant. The foot print at the canopy is closer to 1'x1'. After reading up on spectrums of LEDs and CFLs, I switched from the household style 35 W LED 5000K which wasn't PAR38 to a set up of 2 13W CFLs at 5000k at 8.5 inches away following the inverse square law with the light on for 10 hours as I have added on 30 minutes every day for the past several days to ease it into hopefully "better" and more intense lighting. For whatever reason the hardware stores around me don't carry 6500K lights in E26 sockets. Currently looking at a 200 W CFL 6500K and horizontal reflector, just need to find a source without wild shipping prices. Will try to upload pics soon.
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Here are two vendors which I have used in the past for CFLs.
Do check them out��
https://www.1000bulbs.com/fil/categories/light-bulbs
https://limostudio.com/collections/bulbs
You can also purchase an E26 adapter for use with the oversized mogul bases with the large bulbs.
The Menards up the street has a pretty decent selection this year of indoor growing lights and pendant fixtures. Their CFL selection is decent too.
5000k bulbs work fine if 6500k is not available.......dont sweat it.
I use a few DYI configurations that work for me.
This one is a simple CFl setup.
IT consists of three 68 watt full spectrum daylight/warm white spiral CFLs.
Output per bulb is equivalent to 300 watts for a total of 900 watts for the plants below.
Daylight bulbs are for the white and blue spectrum and warm white bulb is for the red spectrum.
You can mix bulbs to customize the color spectrum you want.
Lights are on 12+ hours a day.
Works on a 5x5 area with plants up to 4-6 feet tall depending on your ceiling height.
You can do the exact same thing with smaller wattage standard CFLs for a smaller area or just one plant like your current configuration.
With splitter sockets you can put as many lights above the plant you want and still be under 25.00 for the setup.
It will grow your plants just the same.
Usaully it takes about 2+- weeks to notice any difference with a plant after lighting changes.
Grow lights 3x 68 watt spiral cfl
by
Hostafarian,
on Flickr
.Splitters to get more light to the plant on a budget.
Splitters come in configurations from 2 additional sockets on up.
CFL splitters
by
Hostafarian,
on Flickr