I grew my very first plant with 3 18" florescent bulbs. It didn’t go all that well, but it wasn’t just the light that held me back.
To answer your question directly re strains, when it comes to lighting, cannabis is cannabis. It doesn’t really matter what strain it is, they all like a lot of light (PAR, measured in PPFD.) PAR means Photosynthetically Active Radiation, and refers to the wavelengths generally between 400 and 700 nm.
Okay. Science class is over. 
Fixipower I haven’t got me a tool to check that I think there pretty exspensive looking at them my budget as of right know for awhile I can’t efford I don’t want to get a used one might not be a good idea
Apogee makes good PPFD meters, but they are expensive. I picked up a Apogee SQ-520 a few months back. I use it as my plants grow to adjust lighting height as they grow so I can keep them maxed out as best as possible.
You don’t really need one to grow good weed.
Ok @MidwestGuy I’m going going to get one than if a necessary I want wast the money
Definitely not necessary. Certainly spend your money on good lights first.
There are a lot of very good growers that do famously without one.
@Larry you put some fans in there computer fans that blow or suck air onto your plants that’s a good idea something to do
Put some bigger cfl in there
Would be a lot of light with the setup you have for early begging plants
They would get big
“@MidwestGuy alright fixpower a cfl bulb won’t make my plant bud though is that right”
“The light don’t have strong enough power to make it bud though”
Hey mate, cfl’s WILL be able to flip to flower when you reduce the light hours to 12 on 12 off. The problem is generally speaking the buds will be more airy and light and less dense, smokable just not as much of it. It will still flip from veg to flower no matter what intensity light. It’s the daylight hours not the intensity that triggers her to bud👌
It will bud, but it certainly isn’t optimal. Cannabis really needs red spectrum to produce good flowers.
@Ryansway holy moly that is one big bud Ryan I’m shocked
How much that thing weigh?
That’s a half hounce at least
That would last me awhile
Correct it certainly WILL bud. I suck at the quote thing.
A 65W single CFL bulb measures 72.45 PPFD (umol/m2S) at an 18" distance. It measures 148 PPFD at 12" (straight line from bulb to sensor e.g no offset.) It goes down pretty quickly when offset. A 4" offset drops PPFD by about 40%.
For reference, the ideal PPFD levels assuming normal temp, humidity, and CO2 levels for cannabis are:
Seedlings: 300 PPFD
Veg: 600 PPFD
Flowering: 800 PPFD
There was a member here that grew with cfl’s, lots of them. I was always impressed with his results. That being said, I’m not sure that his setup was any cheaper to run than one of the newer high efficacy lights from hlg, plc, bridgelux etc.
There probably arent many members here that buy their lights at the local store. I assume most of us buy them online and have them delivered.
Yeah with that offset dropoff you’d have to have a bunch of them.
CFL bulbs are hard to find. You can get them off Amazon, but no grocery, hardware store, or Walmart had them. I had to borrow one from a neighbor to measure it.
