T5/High Output/4 Grow/4 Flower bulbs!

Hey guys I am looking at this light setup on ebay, it looks like a good deal for the price and it is a total of 20, 000 lumens. I am planning on growing 4 plants at a time, so do you think this would be enough for my grow? I am gonna try growing in soil.

oh here is the link, eBay.ca: GROW mh & Bloom hps T5 FLUORESCENT LIGHT 400 watt w (item 260178673906 end time 15-Nov-07 00:15:00 EST)

I was also thinking of buying a couple of smaller cfl lights to hit the sides and underneath of leaves. Anyone have any good tips for me?

Hey kelch....saw this link today, I was looking for ho cfl also...for the price youre gonna pay at that link, lookit this one i found on rollitup this afternoon....you might change your mind like I did....check out their ppm meters too while yer there...
High Tech Garden Supply

good luck, n keep us posted

Ok so when my seed sprouts and I start the veg stage I only need to use One blue light and one red light out of the four lights in this setup? Should I get some CFL's for side lighting? And also should I use a fan or something to keep the plants cool?

Sorry didn't read your post clearly. I think I am going to stick with the 4 bulb setup because I don't think I will be growing more than 4 plants at a time anyway, and I can always upgrade.

But still do you think I should get some CFL side lighting and a fan for cooling?

I got a T-5 4 foot 8 bulb pushing 40,000 lumen I also Have a 95watt CFL 6400k and I just switch my bulbs from veggin to flowering its easy and ya im a closet grower two I think you should be good

So Kali hustla do you use your blue bulbs only when your veggin then switch all the blue to red when flowering or do you mix the blue with red and use them all the way throughout your grow?

Im using a t5 fixture with 8x 4' 54W HO bulbs, 4 3000k and 4 6500k for flowering. I had all 6500k for veg but you can mix them however you want. Mixing them gives a full spectrum effect. For veg I would use all 6500k then for flowering swap out 4 for 3000k. You could even go with all 3000k for flowering if you wanted to. I kindof like the full spectrum effect myself.

ya while veggin I use 6 blue and 2 regular HO bulbs at the end's and then 12/12 I switch to well I dunno if ima go with all 8 red bulb's cause I put a 95watt 6400k CFL in there to but ya pretty much so simple man and hes right with what I have now I figure im pushing damn near 60,000 lumens way more then enough but I know people have budget's but you sound like you pretty much know what you want and it sounds to me you will be fine 20,ooo lumen's push em easy

bro speak english he doesnt even have a T-5 yet or CFL's and your throwin him #'s why does everyone make shit so difficult cause you know hes gonna ask what the hell your talkin about

what I do keltch is during veggin right now actually 32 days but anyway I have 6 blue/cool in the middle 6 slot's for bulb's and 2 red at each end. Then when I go 12/12 I switch out all my blue light's with red but leave two red at the end's I also got a 95 watt CFL so i gotta watch for heat n crap bro your on the right track

nah I switch from veg to bloom red to blue I dont mix them

But is it right to mix them. You are doing it differently from than what all them research shows you should do. Are you getting better results?? VV

Yeah its probably best to go all cool color for veg and all warm color for flowering. I only have 4 warm bulbs for my fixture rightnow because thats all the hydro shop had on hand so I have them mixed for now, but plan to buy 4 more warm color so I have full set of each color. Another thing to keep in mind if your trying to price this out before you buy consider the costs of a extra set of bulbs. (8x12 = 96.00)

Do what you want let us know the results. Research done by experts has shown a mixture of bulbs will give a higher yield. Why do you think 'enhanced spectrum hid's cost more?? Maybe because the dual spectrum is better. I'm done talkin about it...... here. VV

I'm running shoplight fixtures modded out to 2 ballasts per fixture, to overdrive a high output T8 to 5000 lumens +. I use a Lithonia 1241CW fixture, and mod it with 2 ballasts, and I use carpet tape to fasten mylar to the reflector to boost the performance. This is quite a lot of work compared to buying a ready made T5, but then you can use cheap T8 lamps, and I reckon the illumination is in my garden 100,000 lumens over a 4' x 6' garden gives 5.000 lumens per square foot. Note that by building a solid bank of fluorescent lamps, the effect is like a "plate source", as opposed to a point source HID lamp, which follows inverse square, compared to "cylindrical source" of a single flourecent lamp which follows a simple inverse relationship, compared to a "plate source" which is a first approximation of natural sunlight (no falloff of intensity with distance, at the heights that plants grow on Earth). The result is that I can grow sizeable plants with this setup, compared to the
usual short SOG grows.

The above post is for entertainment purposes only, as I do not grow pot and do not advocate breaking the law.

Does anyone know how much wattage an overdriven bulb actually consumes? If you overdrive an 8-bulb sunblaze that normally runs at 432 watts (8x54 watts) 2x by putting on two extra four-bulb ballasts, each powering two bulbs, then the available power from the ballasts would be 128 watts per bulb. Now, would power consumption actually be that high? Would that be USING 864 watts of electricity? Do overdriven bulbs draw and consume ALLl the wattage made available to them?