looking for input on lighting.

Ok, some it has been a good 6 months last time i was on the boards and i am now able to start up again. i just put a order in for an indoor dark room.

(http://www.thelashop.com/product.php?productid=843&cat=77&page=1)
and now i really would like some good info from everyone on the lighting that would be going with my new room.

I am really thinking about going with a T5 lighting system.

(http://www.htgsupply.com/viewproduct.asp?productID=50100)
8,000 total lumen for this fixture, which would come with 4 6,400k grow tubes and i would also be ordering the 4 3,000k bloom tubes for the flowering cycle. I have limited space and also wanting to keep it from running my power bill up any more than it already is and thats one of the main reasons i am thinking about the T5 lighting system. I am not opposed to growing with a HPS or MH ballast but if i went with one of those it would only be 200watts at the most.

If anyone has used the T5 lighting i would love to hear your thoughts on it and if you have a journal i would really enjoy checking that out. any input on any lighting systems would be great, up untill this point i have been using a ton of CFLs and have not had the desired results so i am upgrading to hopefully get a crop that is worth the time, effort and money.

I will not be ordering any lighting for another few weeks.

so nobody has any input on T5 compared to MH or HPS?

I have vegged under T5's and it worked out pretty well. The fixture is lot cooler than a MH, but it also does not supply the same quality of light. By this I simply mean that the plants grew quicker and "fuller" under my 250 watt MH. I know that there are a lot of people that have used T5's to grow their crops. I am sure that there has been some success as well. I just had a lot better results under MH/HPS systems of equal wattage.

Where the T5's really worked well...cloning. You can get the bulbs right down on the plants with no burn. The clones that I have rooted under the flouros have always rooted well with minimal wilt from shock.

Flourescent lighting does not have the penetration and large amounts of light in the usable spectrum like HID lights of the same wattage do. That's why most lean towards HPS or MH.

I should mention though, T5 is great for vegging plants. Applications like sustaining clones, mothers or just full on vegging under them is great.

ok i guess ill speak up....
ist im using the Quantum Bad Boy got it on ebay 8 lamp for 220$ free shipping..if you cant afford that there is a great lamp on EBAY for $165 as for bulbs there is many different views but my views are t5=better..I have proof check my posts HERE HPS and MH are all about lumens. im all about PAR and PUR. standard "Bloom" and "Grow" bulbs are absolute SH!T...again check my link above. its not that fluoros dont penetrrate its that they are not the right type of fluoro. standard veg and bloom bulbs emit too much visible light and not enough PUR lumens. by buying the appropriate lights i can give the plants exactly what they need and nothing more. by removing the yellow and green and orange spectrum i can follow the photosynthesis curve perfectly. if still in doubt see this pic!

pr0fesseur said:

ok i guess ill speak up....
ist im using the Quantum Bad Boy got it on ebay 8 lamp for 220$ free shipping..if you cant afford that there is a great lamp on EBAY for $165View attachment 1102589 as for bulbs there is many different views but my views are t5=better..I have proof check my posts HERE HPS and MH are all about lumens. im all about PAR and PUR.

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This is very true. There are plenty of great results with flourescent and it's all a matter of making your set-up as efficient as possible regardless of lights you use.

(PS, look into PAR and PUR)

If you weren't happy with CFLs then why move to a T5 setup? The amount of work it takes just to keep the lights within 2 inches of the plants is completely not worth it IMO. Maybe if you were looking to go with something super low profile and trained like a rackable scrog, but I think their price still makes them basically irrelevant. CFLs are at least dirt cheap. Most likely you are gonna end up spending enough on those T5s to get a more than capable HPS setup and your results will not be nearly as good.

thanks for the input, i will prob now look more into all possibilities of lighting. i would like a HID light but venting would be a issue. but i will keep it posted on what i decide to go with and once i get everything set up i will def have a journal going. https://www.rollitup.org/members/pr0fesseur-72060.html

That's the major drawback that usually determines whether CFL is what you want. Taking all that heat and moving it away from your plants is going to take more $ and planning in the long run. Sometimes HID is just not viable to the grow.

If you use the T5 for veg/clone how long can the mother plant stay under this type of light? Would it just be the regular 18/4 hour or do you have to leave them on all the time?

i know what you mean. if i do opt for the HID i will prob try and get something around 200-250watt HPS. the dark room i ordered is around 5 feet tall and i have some 5" cpu fans i can mount to the ballast to cool the bulb and im sure i can rig up something for the intake to keep the air circulating. i had given thought to going with just a top of the line photo-tron, seeing peoples results on their grows was one of the reasons. Looked into it and the photo-trons use T5 light and i just thought i would save some money and but the T5 ballast and grow/bloom tubes.... but i am growing not for money but for yield, i just like to have a good amount to go between harvests.

GreenBell said:

If you use the T5 for veg/clone how long can the mother plant stay under this type of light? Would it just be the regular 18/4 hour or do you have to leave them on all the time?

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18/6 light cycle.

AbsoluteChron said:

If you weren't happy with CFLs then why move to a T5 setup? The amount of work it takes just to keep the lights within 2 inches of the plants is completely not worth it IMO. Maybe if you were looking to go with something super low profile and trained like a rackable scrog, but I think their price still makes them basically irrelevant. CFLs are at least dirt cheap. Most likely you are gonna end up spending enough on those T5s to get a more than capable HPS setup and your results will not be nearly as good.

Click to expand...

ok first you dont have to keep the lights 2" from your plants..second i have 0 heat issues...in a 4'x4'x6' tent with a simple bathroom duct fan as exaust... 2nd i never said that i had problems with cfl...only HID. HID lights if you read my posts produce more heat than light again google PAR and PUR values. LED's have Great PAR and PUR values but they cant penetrate as well as say a MH. MH and HPS produce unwanted heat as a byproduct of their light production, as well as unusable yellow orange and green spectrum which plants DONT NEED. that wasted energy is lessened by T5. Standard T5 "grow" bulbs use too wide a spectrum for them to be efficient.. so my T5 setup has LED pinpoint color with HID amount PAR and PUR.. my lights are 100% absorbed by plants, something your HID lights cant boast. I use less power and get more usable light? Isnt that the point afterall ? how is that a NEG? its all about efficiency....ill bet dollars to your sense that watt for watt my plants will grow healthier faster and cooler than any HID.. these lights have been industry tested for over 20 years in the aquarium scene.. no one has put 2 and 2 together except LED peeps who have AMAZING results with very little wattage.. again EFFICIENCY! dollars to doughnuts 600W of led will kill 600W MH any day! just do the math! pur values of led and spectrum correct t5 are 100%....hid are 75 at best..i save money in the end.. HID lights loose half their light in about 6 months...t5 just over a year LED 5 years...5 of my bulbs for one HID.. im winning...$ wise...check my pics they dont lie.. this is 324 watts, two of my bulbs arrived broken.my bulbs are 16.99-19.99 for 54w each.i keep my lights bout 3 inches from the top and raise them to 6 when i get home...once a week i have to readjust an inch or two...for growth...View attachment 1102789View attachment 1102807

GreenBell said:

If you use the T5 for veg/clone how long can the mother plant stay under this type of light? Would it just be the regular 18/4 hour or do you have to leave them on all the time?

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For cloning, 18/6. For vegging, 24/0. They do not use too much elec so your bill will not get too high (unless you start running a bunch of fixtures).

For 250 watts of HID, I have almost always gotten away with passive cooling. They really do not generate that much heat. At 400 watts, the need starts coming in for displacing the heat, but even then the need is easy to meet. I did not start getting into real heat issues until I got into the 600 watt range.

that is good to know klmmicro, b/c i prob would not go higher than a 250 watt HID until i can get into a house with enough room and then i would prob step it up to a 1000 watt.

but i was looking around today and found a pretty good deal on some LED lighting.

(http://www.thelashop.com/product.php?productid=393&cat=47&page=2)

this site is selling a lot of 12 LED grow flood lights with the 12 mounting sockets for 199$
its a little more than i want to spend but i have seen super results from LED grows. anyone used these on their grow before and have any advice to offer?

Although I'm new to the forums, I have been in the hobby of saltwater reef-keeping for over 2 years. I have a tank with many different types of corals - each has specific levels of lighting needs. I have a 4 bulb T5 HO light unit that is 156 watts total. The amount of heat this unit puts out is only a fraction of what an MH bulb of similar wattage would do. T5 lights are great, but many people in that hobby say there is no substitute for MH lighting. The same coral would have better colors and grow faster under MH than T5's. I plan on setting up a grow tent with MH because it is a better light source.

jiggaw00t said:

Although I'm new to the forums, I have been in the hobby of saltwater reef-keeping for over 2 years. I have a tank with many different types of corals - each has specific levels of lighting needs. I have a 4 bulb T5 HO light unit that is 156 watts total. The amount of heat this unit puts out is only a fraction of what an MH bulb of similar wattage would do. T5 lights are great, but many people in that hobby say there is no substitute for MH lighting. The same coral would have better colors and grow faster under MH than T5's. I plan on setting up a grow tent with MH because it is a better light source.

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Im just posting facts. backed by math. MH has better light penetration, agreed. thats not my arguement. mine is $4$ theres more bang for your hard earned cash. Less heat less cooling lower energy bill monthly higher Return on investment.
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]PAR is the abbreviation for Photosynthetically Active Radiation which is the spectral range of solar light from 400 to 700 nanometers that is needed by plants for photosynthesis. This is found from actinic UVA to infrared; 400-550nm (of which 465-485 has the highest PAR of the actinic range) which is the absorption bandwidth of chlorophylls a, c², and peridinin (the light-harvesting carotenoid, a pigment related to chlorophyll) and ~620-700nm which is the red absorption bandwidth of chlorophylls a and c².
[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]PUR (Photosynthetically Usable Radiation) should also be considered. PUR is that fraction of PAR that is absorbed by zooxanthellae photopigments thereby stimulating photosynthesis. As noted above, PUR are those wavelengths falling between 400-550nm and 620-700nm.
Most MH and HPS produce light that is OUTSIDE the "ideal" PAR and PUR range. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica] If PAR is considered to correspond more or less to the visible region, then a 400 watt metal halide lamp provides about 140 watts of PAR. A 400 watt HPS lamps has less PAR, typically 120 to 128 watts, but because the light is yellow it is rated at higher lumens (for the human eye). MH and HPS lights suffer a loss of light through whats called "restrike" where a large majority of light is lost due to light being reflected back into the bulb, therefore being "lost"[/FONT] T5 actinic and far red bulbs only seel dim to the naked eye because the light emitted is OUTSIDE the human viewing spectrum...

Numbers are great, but having grown with both...well, T5 bulbs just do not equal MH/HPS for flowering. I grew two plants under 200 watts of T5 and another 2 under a 250 HID system. During a short veg all seemed equal. Then came flowering. The difference was dramatic to me. The plants under the T5's simply did not do as well. Same strain, nutes and everything. The only difference was the light source.

Looking at the way the plants grew, I would say that if you had an even canopy where you could get the lights right down on the plant, the T's could work. The heat from the HID was higher than the flouro, but in the 200-250 watt range is not an issue for either set up.