Upgrading my 400. STILL can't decide which route to take.t5 Side lighting? 1000w?CMH?

PussymOneyWeed said:

^ not really, I'd say acceptable at best. I mean I use a 400watter in a 2.5 x 3 ft closest and that works great. I mean a 400watter does def. work in a 3x5 but a 600-1000watter would be much more beneficial in utilizing that space.

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A 400W would be fine and a 600W at tops but a 1000W lol OVERKILL!!! It will be too hot, too bright & will bleach the hell out of your little ladies lol, A 1000W bulb will not only cost you a shit load to run, but be a waste in that space, Dont go higher than a 600Watter 600's give amazing results - STELTHY

Thanks for the info, i have already in fact settled on a 600w. I am going magnetic ballast as for now i am keeping the lighting cheap as possible so the future upgrades when they are refined will be less of a decision.

I went with a 400w CMH bulb as well that i am using now for the first few weeks in flower. Then i will switch to the 600w hps for a few weeks, then the final weeks i will use both. In my 4x3 area this should give me around 10,000 lumens a sq/ft and a broad spectrum of light.

I seriously entertained the notion of t5 side lighting until i actually did the math. Here is what i posted in another topic for only a 2x2 tent.

4 bulbs per wall, assuming 2ft vho bulbs, = 16 bulbs +4 on top so 20 bulbs total in a 2x2 tent.

20x3750 = 75,000 lumens... not bad at all! in a 2x2 tent your getting around 18k lumens per sq/ft haha maybe overkill

now the 4ft bulbs are about 100w each. so say 50 for each 2f

that gives us 50x20

eeek 1000w of floro for merely 75k lumens. sooo scratch that. well dare to dream about 360` lighting



This is what my result was. Just too many watts to make it feasible.

I have also been thinking about running the 600 all day every day for flower, and using my cmh 400 for a few hours each day. Really not sure yet, still figuring it out.

Hi Karr any updates/pics I look forward to seeing your 600 all set up and raring to go I'd only run the 600 for 12 hrs per day in flower, if you run it all day the plant will revert back into veg stage and also be very stressed! Forgive me if I misunderstood what you meant in the last part of your last post = STELTHY

ah my idea was something like this

1hr (400w cmh) 10 hours (600w hps) 1hr (400cmh) so 12 total hours with the mixed spectrum on at the sunrise and sunset. just thinking out loud really.