• Do you need help identifying a 🌶?
    Is your plant suffering from an unknown issue? 🤧
    Then ask in Identification and Diagnosis.

lighting new lights?

megahot

megahot

Hi my chili friends! I just wanted to know when i should get a new light or lights, as well as what kind of lights. Half of my plants are starting thier true leaves. I would like to keep the spending to $100 or less. I have a total of 9 cups with plants that take up 1 1/2x 1 Ft of space. Right now im using 3 2ft florecent grow lights. I think they are 75 watt lights. I appreciate any help and suggestions. Thanks and Happy holidays!
 
From what I understand, it comes down to two things mainly. 1)Lumens/ft[sup]2[/sup] and 2) Color temperature. I believe it is AlabamaJack who says that you should aim for 3000 lumens/ft[sup]2[/sup]. And optimal color temps for growing are in the red and blue spectrum. The lower the color temp the more red the light is, and the higher the color temp the more blue the light is. For red spectrum CFLs you'll look at 2700k lights and for blue spectrum CFLs look at 5000-6500k lights. Ideally you'll want a mixture. IIRC, blue spectrum is best for vegetative growth and red spectrum is best for flowering/fruiting.

I'm sure there is a bunch more involved here, but that's what I know so far in my extremely limited experience.

Here is an excellent topic by Omri that goes in a lot of depth about lighting.
 
Amazon has a 2 pack of 105W CFL's 6500K that put out about 6700 lumens each for $25 with free shipping (limo studio). I bought an 85W CFL a couple weeks ago and the peppers love it, but I'll probably buy one of those 2 pack 105W CFL's for the grow box I'm going to build in the upcoming weeks.
 
compmodder26 said:
From what I understand, it comes down to two things mainly. 1)Lumens/ft[sup]2[/sup] and 2) Color temperature. I believe it is AlabamaJack who says that you should aim for 3000 lumens/ft[sup]2[/sup]. And optimal color temps for growing are in the red and blue spectrum. The lower the color temp the more red the light is, and the higher the color temp the more blue the light is. For red spectrum CFLs you'll look at 2700k lights and for blue spectrum CFLs look at 5000-6500k lights. Ideally you'll want a mixture. IIRC, blue spectrum is best for vegetative growth and red spectrum is best for flowering/fruiting.

I'm sure there is a bunch more involved here, but that's what I know so far in my extremely limited experience.

Here is an excellent topic by Omri that goes in a lot of depth about lighting.


Thanks alot for the nice response. But, you still never mentioned as to when i should make this upgrade. I wonder how much it will cost? It sounds expensive lol
Click to expand...

mjdiamond83 said:
Amazon has a 2 pack of 105W CFL's 6500K that put out about 6700 lumens each for $25 with free shipping (limo studio). I bought an 85W CFL a couple weeks ago and the peppers love it, but I'll probably buy one of those 2 pack 105W CFL's for the grow box I'm going to build in the upcoming weeks.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the suggestion! Im going to weigh my.options
 
there are alot of t8 4 bulb shop lights that make excellent veg lights, you may want to consider one of those as an alternative to a multi screw in bulb setup.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top