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Plant Light

Pingu

Pingu

Bluelighter
Joined
Nov 14, 2004
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3,337
Could anyone recommend a light that I can grow one or two plants with? Don't want to spend too much money. Cheers.
 
High pressure sodium / metal hilade (spelling?)
Wish I could be more specific lol

Gets the job done for 15 plants ;p
 
60 watt compact flourescent light. they're sold at regular hardware stores for about $8. that'll be good for a few plants so long as you have a reflector behind it

pin's suggestion also works
 
CFL's are the cheap option for me. Using the 42 watt units that are available around here, about 4-5 of them do pretty well. They recommend the bluish daylight ones for vegging and warm ones for flower. If you only get one type, use the warm ones.
 
^ I'd use a combination of cool- and warmwhites; 1:2 warm/coolwhite.
 
You can get a decent 400w Metal Halide lamp, reflector, and ballast for a little over $100.

It's worth spending the extra money IMO. Fluorescents suck for flowering.
 
^agreed but if I were to set up a small grow room I would ask for at least more than 2 plants ;p Hook some more up and get one that switched high pressure sodium / metal halide if u got some to spend. Need to find a link to the one that my friend has. Flourescents are good when setting up a seperate seedling/cloning chamber.
 
fluorescents suck. you need atleast 4 of them to get something decent from 1 plant. i used those for my first grow and it was such a dissappointment. buy a metal halide, don't waste your time on fluros. you can use them for vegitative growth or starting off clones, but for flowering...they are shitty.
 
I would only use them for starting off clones and seedlings for the first 2 weeks
 
Why is everybody suggesting to buy a metal halide? Great for vegging, but crap for flowering. HPS is more versatile, it works great for both flowering and vegging.

Anyways, he's asking for a cheap alternative to grow 2 plants with, metal halides and high pressure soidum lamps are both a bit expensive. I'd go wiith 5 fluoro's or something.
 
Blowmonkey said:
Why is everybody suggesting to buy a metal halide? Great for vegging, but crap for flowering. HPS is more versatile, it works great for both flowering and vegging.

Anyways, he's asking for a cheap alternative to grow 2 plants with, metal halides and high pressure soidum lamps are both a bit expensive. I'd go wiith 5 fluoro's or something.
Click to expand...

How are Metal Halide Lamps crap for flowering?
 
They pretty much only emit a blue spectrum of light, which is great for the vegetative stage, but you need red for flowering, so that's not gonna work.
 
energy saving, fluffier nugs longer growing period, HPS/MH tighter nugs, but more dangerous in terms of heat, but much better and pay them selves off!
 
I suggested the switchable high pressure sodium/ metal hilade 1000 watt light that someones friend uses ;p If you are going to cultivate indoors then you might as well invest and get a full setup that will produce and produce :p As long as you know how to properly ventilate your area then you do not have any heat issues at all. Longer growing period on flourescents would drive me crazy.
 
funks_hybrid said:
60 watt compact flourescent light. they're sold at regular hardware stores for about $8. that'll be good for a few plants so long as you have a reflector behind it
Click to expand...
No way. You'd barely get away with vegging a few plants under a 60w fluoro, don't even think about flowering.

If 60w is all you can use, then i'd suggest only one plant and flower it as soon as you see it mature. Perhaps this might be best suited for Lowryder, in which case you can keep the light on 24/7 right through till harvest, since it's auto-flowering.
 
Blowmonkey said:
They pretty much only emit a blue spectrum of light, which is great for the vegetative stage, but you need red for flowering, so that's not gonna work.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying it's the best choice, but it's silly to say MH won't work for flowering. Both have their advantages.

Metal Halide:

-Cheaper

-Creates plants with tighter internode spacing

-Promotes higher resin production

High Pressure Sodium:

-Give bigger yields

-Grows plants faster

-Runs cooler


Now, throw one of each in a flowering room and you've got the best of both worlds. =D
 
I have one plant under 230 watts CFL. It has been on 12/12 for 35 days and starting to frost up very nicely. I realize that this will not produce the big yield of a 400HPS. The process is slower than that which could be done with HPS not to mention HYDRO! I vegged this plant for 2 whole months. The method does offer several significant advantages. 1.Few heat problems. 2. Low cost- 5X9=$45, plus a few bucks for cords and sockets. 3. No ugly paper trail. I have gone to a couple of hydro stores and found the prices higher than what I have seen on the 'Net. I don't want to pay the high store prices or leave an ugly trail for Bush to follow. I am considering building a simple HPS setup- but the HOME DEPOT near me doesn't have any HPS bulbs worth a damn, (too small if any).

It is too late for this grow anyway. The current plant isn't doing that badly. If you have a setup where you can adjust each lamp separately,(in this case a coat rack), you can focus the light intensely on the individual promising bud sites.

I will have to post a pic once I figger out the modus operandi of this particular site.
 
GenericMind said:
I'm not saying it's the best choice, but it's silly to say MH won't work for flowering.
Click to expand...

It's silly not to say it. Ofcourse you'll grow buds, but you're wasting your energy, literally. Btw, explain to me how there's going to be bigger resin production with a metal halide when they're not suited for flowering? You get big resin production when the circumstances are perfect, which they aren't with only a blue spectrum during 12/12.

You were suggesting a metal halide because in your opinion fluoro's were crap for flowering, when in reality, they're both equally bad for flowering. Now, the guy was asking for something cheap and fluoro's are the cheapest and most cost effective here. We can all dream on about using both MH and HPS, but it's just out of the question here. If you want to give advice, at least look at the question and know what you're talking about.
 
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Blowmonkey said:
If you want to give advice, at least look at the question and know what you're talking about.
Click to expand...

I've flowered great buds with a Metal Halide bulb. I know others who have flowered great buds with a Metal Halide bulb. I know still others who prefer to flower with a Metal Halide bulb. Saying that MH and (most)Fluorescent bulbs are equally bad for flowering is simply incorrect.

MH outputs UV which HPS does not. The plants secrete resin to protect the buds from the UV rays, hence more resin. They also create more compact plants with tighter internode spacing which can be invaluable to an indoor grower with limited vertical space.
 
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