T5's for Flowering

Just because of electricity bills, I am thinking that T5's (HPO) are the way to go for the flowering phase. What do you think for 4 plants would 4 T5's be enough or would it have to be 8?

It will work. Gonna come down to the light positioning and how many watts you want to stick in your grow area though. In all honesty there is really no electricity savings, the only upside to fluorescent lighting is it doesn't come with the heat and ventilation issues that HID lights have.

I grew 3 plants in a cabinet (I have a journal on here some where) under just 8 t-12 shop lights. NOt a great harvest by any means but it worked & I got 3 mason jars of nice smoking bud out of it. I am trying, this time, adding 2 150 watt HPS lights in the cabinet to see if that makes a huge difference.


HPS is better, but the t-12 will work & my understanding is that t-5's are better that the t-12's I used already.

Good luck to ya though.. its always fun growing your own stuff.

sm315 said:

It will work. Gonna come down to the light positioning and how many watts you want to stick in your grow area though. In all honesty there is really no electricity savings, the only upside to fluorescent lighting is it doesn't come with the heat and ventilation issues that HID lights have.

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i HAVE to disagree.... my cfl save energy... i think the package says that 4 of my cfl bulbs put out the energy of one "regular" bulb..... maybe my cfls are special tho...

but as for the t-5 i dunno how much they save.... i use t-8 but im getting some t-5 today

sm315 said:

It will work. Gonna come down to the light positioning and how many watts you want to stick in your grow area though. In all honesty there is really no electricity savings, the only upside to fluorescent lighting is it doesn't come with the heat and ventilation issues that HID lights have.

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There is zero electricity savings using the T5's at all? I am not sure I understand?

Also, can you explain how the wattage works as far as how many plants can be flowered? I am really wanting to do 4 plants at the most.

dojaguy said:

i HAVE to disagree.... my cfl save energy... i think the package says that 4 of my cfl bulbs put out the energy of one "regular" bulb..... maybe my cfls are special tho...

but as for the t-5 i dunno how much they save.... i use t-8 but im getting some t-5 today

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I don't think you quite followed my post.

To grow effectively you need so much light (lumens, or more specifically photosynthetically active radiation - PAR), watt for watt, you get a lot more PAR with HID lighting, plus a lot more penetration of the canopy so you don't need as many.

That's not to say that you can't grow with CFL's or T5's(I am on about 300W of CFL's). But a 52W T5 bulb is about 5000lumens, so you need 4, about 200W to match ~250W HPS which will be able to reach a lot more of the foliage if you cool and ventilate properly.

dr.feelgood69 said:

There is zero electricity savings using the T5's at all? I am not sure I understand?

Also, can you explain how the wattage works as far as how many plants can be flowered? I am really wanting to do 4 plants at the most.

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If you want to grow 4 plants I'd say you need about 400W. Whether that comes from a HPS, or from T5's doesn't matter, but they are going to use the same # of kWh's. Unless you keep it to very small plants.

i have flowered with t5s. the key is keeping them close and SIDE LIGHTING. either t5 strips or cfls on the side will make a major difference. i did 5 plants under a 48'' 6 tube fixture. each bulb is about 53w so i think we're on the same page. i had about 350w of t5 overhead and another 200w of cfl and t5 on the side. i could have gotten away with fewer watts if i had a better way to hang the lights, but i would say you want to use at least 400w on 4 plants.

If your worried about electricity use, you could go for a led. But then again, you will need 3-4 times the initial purchase price(of a nice hid) to get a led unit that will actually satisfy you(hopefully). I would continue waiting on LED tech to come down in price

Another option is a 150-250watt CMH light. They produce a bit less heat than hid, but have a very broad spectrum. One light for the whole grow and they are pretty cheap.

Otherwise i learned from my last grow that you need to toss in a crap ton of CFLs/tubes if you want the coverage of an hid.

I went with an HPS system(since i dont really veg) because it is just nice and proven tech.

sm315 said:

I don't think you quite followed my post.

To grow effectively you need so much light (lumens, or more specifically photosynthetically active radiation - PAR), watt for watt, you get a lot more PAR with HID lighting, plus a lot more penetration of the canopy so you don't need as many.

That's not to say that you can't grow with CFL's or T5's(I am on about 300W of CFL's). But a 52W T5 bulb is about 5000lumens, so you need 4, about 200W to match ~250W HPS which will be able to reach a lot more of the foliage if you cool and ventilate properly.

Click to expand...

nah your right... i was faded sorry... but yeah i totally agree with you