OVERKILL LUMENS??? What do you think?

If you mean "does the fixture plug into an ordinary outlet" then yes. If you're asking "will a T5 bulb fire in a non-T5 fixture" then no. Bubs and ballasts must be matched. I have a 4-bulb fixture by Sun Systems ... it's great for early veg. I'm running a "Super Actinic", two "Fiji Purple" and a "75/25" bulb in mine ... photos under that light have the red/blue look of LED grower pics ...
...96 watts. Honestly i think that it'll do your space like a champ, if you don't wimp out and get normal white "color temperature" T5s. Those 96 PAR watts should go toe-to-toe with a 150 HPS, esp. in veg and early flower. For late flower you'll need to have a couple of red bulbs handy ... Red Sun was the brand a year ago, but there's a new bulb that the LED without LEDs crew are liking a lot. cn

What I was trying to ask is if you can get something to plug a T5 bulb directly into a power outlet. Like the thing you can get to plug a cfl directly into a outlet.

Like this for a T5??? Cuz Than I could have a couple T5's below my HPS without the need for a whole T5 hood and shit.

npcghost said:

What I was trying to ask is if you can get something to plug a T5 bulb directly into a power outlet. Like the thing you can get to plug a cfl directly into a outlet.

Like this for a T5??? Cuz Than I could have a couple T5's below my HPS without the need for a whole T5 hood and shit.

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No ... each T5 bulb need a ballast that's in a fixture, and T5s are double-ended like the classic shop light tubes. You're stuck using strip-style fixtures. cn

npcghost said:

thats pretty much a humidity thing right? too much moisture in the air causes mold?

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yeah its a humidity thing but there are things you dont want to do that could make the perfect environment for mold to grow. Like overwatering. I did this. So now I let the soil dry out pretty good in bewteen waterings. And the plant(s) will transpire so you need to have an adequate exhaust to egt rid of this moist air. When I did my closet grow i grew beauty's but they all got mold because i 1) overwatered 2) didnt have enough air circulation and Im pretty sure the DIY yeast/water contraption I made for co2 had something to do with it.Shit was fermenting in there way to long. And the alum inum foil i lined the closet with had powdery mildew inbetween the wall and foil(moisture got trapped in between)

About $2,400 down the tube. I had to throw it all away...

bde0001 said:

About $2,400 down the tube. I had to throw it all away...

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That's a huge hit. My sympathies. cn

cannabineer said:

No ... each T5 bulb need a ballast that's in a fixture, and T5s are double-ended like the classic shop light tubes. You're stuck using strip-style fixtures. cn

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ok. So this would be instead of HPS? I really havent done ANY research into T5's. But sounds like they run cool. And I have seen a couple T5 fixtures that were only about 3'' tall. That would be AWESOME for my space since the reflector for a hps is around 10'' tall unless I went with a cooltube.

Just saw a couple 2ft 4 light T5 fixtures on ebay for under 100 bucks. This with some added cfls thrown in during flower might be the shit. Looks like an awesome use of space and heat wont be as much as an issue....I think.

BUUUUUTTT, the 4 light fixture I saw only puts out about 10k lumens. Are these "more efficient" lumens so to speak kind of like LEDs? Led without leds make sense if thats the case. haha

and ya damn man. Thanks for the heads up. That would be devistating. (mold issue)

80 watts per square foot will grow anything you want including sativas. 100 watts probably all that and maybe things you don't.

Bingo. Lumens are indexed to the human eye's response, which has a pretty sharp peak in the yellow/green, exactly where plant response curve dips. Your getting less lumens (a human-biased measurement) but more µmol of active photons. The LEds thread is a great read imo ... my first post here is in there ... ~nostalgia~ cn

bde0001 said:

yeah its a humidity thing but there are things you dont want to do that could make the perfect environment for mold to grow. Like overwatering. I did this. So now I let the soil dry out pretty good in bewteen waterings. And the plant(s) will transpire so you need to have an adequate exhaust to egt rid of this moist air. When I did my closet grow i grew beauty's but they all got mold because i 1) overwatered 2) didnt have enough air circulation and Im pretty sure the DIY yeast/water contraption I made for co2 had something to do with it.Shit was fermenting in there way to long. And the alum inum foil i lined the closet with had powdery mildew inbetween the wall and foil(moisture got trapped in between)

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Basic tenet: Go big to grow big on air, containers and lights. Aluminum foil is a terrible reflector and helps retain heat.

cannabineer said:

Bingo. Lumens are indexed to the human eye's response, which has a pretty sharp peak in the yellow/green, exactly where plant response curve dips. Your getting less lumens (a human-biased measurement) but more µmol of active photons. The LEds thread is a great read imo ... my first post here is in there ... ~nostalgia~ cn

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What do you think of that guys thread "LED without LED" where he used T5 and tropical fish and coral lights to mimic the same wave lengths and colors as LED grow lights? Here on RIU.

cannabineer said:

Bingo. Lumens are indexed to the human eye's response, which has a pretty sharp peak in the yellow/green, exactly where plant response curve dips. Your getting less lumens (a human-biased measurement) but more µmol of active photons. The LEds thread is a great read imo ... my first post here is in there ... ~nostalgia~ cn

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Ok I will check that out. I was thinking a 150w hps puts out around 17k lumens and these lil 2ft 4 bulb T5 fixtures around 10k. So I didnt see how they would compare, but than I rememberd the greatness of led's. haha

Well shit. I think thats what I will probably end up doing than. Getting a 4 bulb T5 fixture and throwing in some cfls. I have 12,800 lumens worth of cfls right now. (8, 23 watt cfls at 1600 lumens/piece)

On these T5 fixtures the ballast is attached? so no remote ballast? Concerned with heat but I guess its probably no worse than throwing a 250w hps in there. haha

youre not even close to the point of light saturation. go at least 250.

cannabineer said:

That's a huge hit. My sympathies. cn

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Thanks, It was only 4 plants but they were big. I never found out the dry weight but even at 2 z's a plant thats 8 z's and at $300/z(im on the eastcoast) ...yeah...

I have noticed a lot of confusion and misinformation regarding the lumen output of peoples' lighting setups. I have noticed a lot of growers quote the output of their lights as a sum of the lumens from each bulb. This, however, is not really how light works; instead, if one were to place two 1000 lumen bulbs side-by-side and measure the output from 1 foot away you would measure about 1000 lumens. More point sources (bulbs), however, do increase your available optimal space and coverage so another bulb is still a good thing.