realcarlos
newbie
Is it better to place your CFL lighting vertically or horizontally?
Lighting Vertical or horizontal?
- Thread starter realcarlos
- Start date
I've grown horizontal always. I decided this by holding the bulb while lit vertically in my space and then horizontally and seeing where the light fell. In an empty cabinet with a vertical bulb I found that alot o light was cast on my walls. With a horizontal bulb I found a lot of light was cast on my floor and ceiling- and by adding a reflector I made from
Flashing from Home Depot I got almost 2x more light going to the floor by reclaiming all that light that was headed to the ceiling. Try it- in a room that otherwise is pretty dim. A bulb and aluminum foil is all you need to stage the experiment and you will see quite clearly what the best orientation is for your setup- as far as moving the light where you want it to be.
Flashing from Home Depot I got almost 2x more light going to the floor by reclaiming all that light that was headed to the ceiling. Try it- in a room that otherwise is pretty dim. A bulb and aluminum foil is all you need to stage the experiment and you will see quite clearly what the best orientation is for your setup- as far as moving the light where you want it to be.
realcarlos
newbie
Thanks guys, my friend had no issues growing horizontally and he tried vertically one time and he said the plants were growing extremely slow. He wasn't sure what the issue was, I didn't think it had to do with the bulbs being placed vertically.
Well- you know autos- every little thing can slow them down- and stunt them permanently. Without seeing the whole picture however- I would certainly think- based on my experience growing under cfl that the light orientation was at least a real contributing factor in the slow growth.
I'm going to go ahead and disagree. Hung vertically, cfls or any light for that matter, produce a higher lumen footprint. There is a point where hoods are more convienent than having vertical bulbs hanging everywhere, but for most personal closet or tent grows, I'm all about vertical.
Light is emitted in all directions equally from bulbs, when you're horizontal even with a reflector you are losing lumens. If you hang your cfls vertically between and above your plants, more light from those bulbs is aimed directly at your plants. Cfls lack in penetration because your 1600 lumen 23 watt bulb is not 1600 lumens in one direction, that is total emission in all directions added up. You lose some light to the interior walls of the bulb itself even. So with that in mind, and the fact that every foot lumen footprint decreases by 75%(i.g. 1600 lumens becomes 400 lumens at a foot, then 100 lumens at 2 foot), keeping your cfls as close as possible and at the lower, middle, and upper branches is the best method for penetration and efficient lumen delivery.
I used to run a vertical 600watt tent with the plants colliseum style around the bulb and it consistantly damn near matched my friends 1000 watt standard horizontal/reflector standard style grow at harvest; and we used clones from the same mothers.
Light is emitted in all directions equally from bulbs, when you're horizontal even with a reflector you are losing lumens. If you hang your cfls vertically between and above your plants, more light from those bulbs is aimed directly at your plants. Cfls lack in penetration because your 1600 lumen 23 watt bulb is not 1600 lumens in one direction, that is total emission in all directions added up. You lose some light to the interior walls of the bulb itself even. So with that in mind, and the fact that every foot lumen footprint decreases by 75%(i.g. 1600 lumens becomes 400 lumens at a foot, then 100 lumens at 2 foot), keeping your cfls as close as possible and at the lower, middle, and upper branches is the best method for penetration and efficient lumen delivery.
I used to run a vertical 600watt tent with the plants colliseum style around the bulb and it consistantly damn near matched my friends 1000 watt standard horizontal/reflector standard style grow at harvest; and we used clones from the same mothers.
So there's the other perspective. Plenty of evidence that both ways work- and no real reason not to try both and see which you prefer, or performs better in your setup.
You'll want to note that there were some other pretty specific growing techniques utilized in conjunction with the verticle light to achieve the above posters results- and you may want to look into what they involve as well, it's reasonable to expect that a scrog with horizontal bulbs with reflectors will achieve similar effect. Can't wait to see hat you come up with!
You'll want to note that there were some other pretty specific growing techniques utilized in conjunction with the verticle light to achieve the above posters results- and you may want to look into what they involve as well, it's reasonable to expect that a scrog with horizontal bulbs with reflectors will achieve similar effect. Can't wait to see hat you come up with!
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