400 Watt or t5s for veg?

IndigoFarmer

IndigoFarmer

Member
I'm new so bare with me. I only have 12 x 8 foot room to work with. That means i have to veg and bud in the same room.. Which sucks but its my only option.

So i have 2 600w hps for flower and now im wondering what to get for veg. The only thing i can think of is to put a grow tent in the far left corner of the room. My goal is to only veg for about a month or so just big enough to be able to get some clones off of them. I want to be able to veg maybe 8-10 plants. Maybe more? Idk how much 2 600w can handle for flowering, i might get 3 600w for flower idk tho.

Anyways, should i get a 400 watt MH or some 4 foot t5s with my grow tent? I don't wanna be wasting light for only 10 plants so i didnt think i needed a 600 watt for veg. Please help, i wanna make a decision here soon so i can pop my Tina danza beans.
 

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dopeleader

dopeleader

Well-Known Member
Use your 600W lights for vegging, I vegged my plants with HPS bulbs but you can use MH bulbs with most ballasts aswell.
So go buy yourself 2x MH globes and veg with those or even use the third as you said.
If you only veg for 1 month youll only get small reward for effort, if you want a larger yield from your plants (especially with that space)
You need like 20L pots and to veg for 2 months to pull anything worth using 3x 600W lights
 
Final Phase

Final Phase

Well-Known Member
A 400 MH will work fine! More light would make it grow faster, but if you're not in a big hurry 400 is fine. I would invest in the newer kind of digital ballasts that are dimmable. I have one that goes down 50%, to 75%, to 100%, to Extra Lumens (10% brighter and I like that)

The t5s work also, I just haven't ever used them enough to give any advice in that area...
 
IndigoFarmer

IndigoFarmer

Member
Thank you guys for the opinions. Dopeleader, i was just being impatient lol. I suppose it would be worth it to veg for 2 months. How many plants do you think i can flower under 2 600 watts I might even just get 3 for more light. But yeah i probably will vegg with these but i was trying to get cycle going. I can veg with these 600watts and clone the mothers but what about when i throw them into flower? i still don't have a veg room. i cant Veg with the flowering plants going on 12 and 12. Thats why i just figured id get a veg tent for the corner of the room and light proof it. But didn't know what kinda light to use. 600 watt for veg? I don't even know how many plants im trying to deal with lol. I'm a noob, but id like to at least fill up the room and use it to its potential
 
dopeleader

dopeleader

Well-Known Member
Im currently doing my first grow, im 4 weeks into flower atm and I started with 1 120x120x200cm tent...
Now I also have a 140x140x200cm tent which I use for flower while the other is used for growth and I also have a small 80x80x120cm tent for seedlings...
So as you can see its easy to expand once you get excited haha!
So I use 2X130W CFL's for my seedlings/clones for about 2 weeks, then I bang them under 2 600W MH into growth room and then they get put under 2 600W HPS in the flower room so I can always have a production line sort of thing going :P
I have 5 plants flowering in my tent sizes because you don't really want 10 plants just to grow straight up, without a vertical cage type grow anyway...
So with my 5 plants I have them mainlined to around 8 crown buds and also tied down using LST methods, during flower they make a bunch of budsites aswell so you just chop the shit ones and keep the good ones and youll get ALOT more weight that way than with simply filling a room with heaps of plants.
With the exception to the SOG method when you have some more experience or balls :P
I am flowering 4 plants currently in a room less than half the size of yours with 2 600W HPS lights, so I could imagine youll probably need 4 lights to get the maximum return however for your first grow 2-3 lights would be fine if you are on any sort of budget.
 
dopeleader

dopeleader

Well-Known Member
Basically if you give every plant in your grow area/tent about 1.5-2sqft of room each you will have enough room to walk around and also to get your plants trained and vegged into some fucking sizey buds.
Otherwise youll be struggling for light penetration and it will be impossible to get into the area.
 
mo841

mo841

Well-Known Member
you can comfortably run 15 plants in that size room. I would go with 3 600w 3x3 air cooled hoods in your situation. would run at least two 400+ cfm inline fans through the hoods.

I would shoot for a final height of around 4ft for the plants. If I was limited to one room Ide veg under as much light as I could to speed up the process a bit since you wont have the benifit of a perpetual grow.
 
IndigoFarmer

IndigoFarmer

Member
mo841 said:
you can comfortably run 15 plants in that size room. I would go with 3 600w 3x3 air cooled hoods in your situation. would run at least two 400+ cfm inline fans through the hoods.

I would shoot for a final height of around 4ft for the plants. If I was limited to one room Ide veg under as much light as I could to speed up the process a bit since you wont have the benifit of a perpetual grow.
Click to expand...
Thanks man. Yeah 3 600w would fit nicely in here, but the hoods is what i need to get i only have open air. I deff need those fans so i can put the lights closer to the plants.
 
GuyLeDuche

GuyLeDuche

Well-Known Member
I bought a roll of panda film for $40 and sectioned my room into 2 "tents", a 4'x8' and a 4'x4'. Perfect for 2 600w for flower and a 400w for veg :) Although it's getting increasingly hard to find someone unhappy with cheap LEDs for veg (much easier for flower ;) )
 
IndigoFarmer

IndigoFarmer

Member
whitebb2727 said:
T5 will veg just fine. They will flower to. Of course I'm using 432 watts of t5 in a 2x4 area.

Why not split the room with a wall. A 4x8 veg room and a 6x8 flower?

Two 400 mh in the veg and two 600 hps in the flower?
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Thats not a bad idea, I was gonna buy a tent for the veg but like guyleduche said i could use panda film to create the wall. Thank you both! i think thats what i'm going to end up doing is splitting the room into 2. And i have the closet for clones. Thanks for all the reply's. Gonna have a grow journal on it lol when i get the room divided.
 
whitebb2727

whitebb2727

Well-Known Member
IndigoFarmer said:
Thats not a bad idea, I was gonna buy a tent for the veg but like guyleduche said i could use panda film to create the wall. Thank you both! i think thats what i'm going to end up doing is splitting the room into 2. And i have the closet for clones. Thanks for all the reply's. Gonna have a grow journal on it lol when i get the room divided.
Click to expand...
Good luck. Have fun.
 
newbuddy

newbuddy

Well-Known Member
Im on the poor route and have used cfl's
I know theres better stuff but I cant afford it-so a massive bank of cfl lights!
 
dopeleader

dopeleader

Well-Known Member
CFL will be just as good as HPS/MH if you have a 600W HID light and you try to compare that to 200W worth of CFL you will be disappointed.
However 600W of CFL vs 600W of HID is a whole new debate.
 
xmatox

xmatox

Well-Known Member
I have used both MH and T-5's and stuck with the T-5's. My MH's would work well, (slightly better than the t-5's) but when reading the PAR levels I noticed the T-5 had more equal coverage. MH also transfers thermal energy better than others (according to phillips lighting support team), so the temperatures usually are slightly higher.
 
tyke1973

tyke1973

Well-Known Member
Not sure what mine is its the 4 tube one also got a 2 tube one,but i just use the 4 tube and a 3 ft flourescent on the wall of the unit
 
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