What is better for Veg HPS or T5s

mouthmeetsoap said:

6500K T5s would be better unless the HPS is a 600+ watt lamp and even then I'd rather bathe them in blue during vegetative stage.

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First off, what wattage is the HPS? Second, does it run off a magnetic of digital ballast?

If the HPS has a digital ballast it can burn a metal halide bulb and a HID light with a 6500K metal halide bulb would by far be the better choice. If the HPS has a magnetic ballast a metal halide conversion bulb can be purchased, which usually are around 4500K so they are more of a mixed/full spectrum bulb, so in that case, unless someone would be vegging to a very tall height, I would have to give the edge to the T5's if they are 6500K, even though I really HATE all forms of fluorescent lighting for any stage of growing.

rojotierra said:

Have found that combo spectrum works great. In veg- one 1000 watt MH and a 400watt HPS. I also have a 1000watt MH in Flower room amongst several 1000 watt HPS's.
Plants that do best are usually recieving both spectrums. Have flowered under just MH, just HPS and just T5's. All with good results. Best results have been with a mix. there is a 1000 watt MH in flower room in vid. sorry for crummy embedding. still learning.
http://www.youtube.com/v/9xRODdo1-7U?fs=1&hl=en_US"

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You might want to consider using a dual filament 1000-watt bulb. It gives you 600-watts of HPS and 400-watts of MH all from one bulb. You wouldn't have to burn as many lights or use as many watts that way and have an easier time of temperature control.

Just a bit of food for thought there.

Brick Top said:

You might want to consider using a dual filament 1000-watt bulb. It gives you 600-watts of HPS and 400-watts of MH all from one bulb. You wouldn't have to burn as many lights or use as many watts that way and have an easier time of temperature control.

Just a bit of food for thought there.

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There are many advantages to using multiple light sources as well.

bird mcbride said:

There are many advantages to using multiple light sources as well.

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That depends on what you mean, as in if you mean positioning of lighting and if some are on light movers and what wattage the mix might be, but if you only mean light spectrum, if you can get what you want and need from one bulb what you can from two or more lights it makes sense to go with the single bulb.

Now if you were talking flowering stage I would say adding a light with a high output of UV-B rays, like are used in aquariums with reptiles in them, would not at all be an injudicious thing to do. That will increase resin production. That would be a case of adding lights, running multiple lights of different types being well worth it.

t5/mh 400 is good enough

Brick Top said:

That depends on what you mean, as in if you mean positioning of lighting and if some are on light movers and what wattage the mix might be, but if you only mean light spectrum, if you can get what you want and need from one bulb what you can from two or more lights it makes sense to go with the single bulb.

Now if you were talking flowering stage I would say adding a light with a high output of UV-B rays, like are used in aquariums with reptiles in them, would not at all be an injudicious thing to do. That will increase resin production. That would be a case of adding lights, running multiple lights of different types being well worth it.

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What length of time or times each day do you suppose it would be best to run UV-B lighting if it were to be used?

Brick Top said:

That depends on what you mean, as in if you mean positioning of lighting and if some are on light movers and what wattage the mix might be, but if you only mean light spectrum, if you can get what you want and need from one bulb what you can from two or more lights it makes sense to go with the single bulb.

Now if you were talking flowering stage I would say adding a light with a high output of UV-B rays, like are used in aquariums with reptiles in them, would not at all be an injudicious thing to do. That will increase resin production. That would be a case of adding lights, running multiple lights of different types being well worth it.

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The one thing you didn't mention is that if the one lightbulb burn't out your plants would be left in the dark. I skirt my F&D lava rock flood table with daytime tubes as I only use one 1000/w/hps. My moms fill a 6' x 6' area and a single lightbulb would not have the dispersal and there would be to many shadowed areas.

bird mcbride said:

The one thing you didn't mention is that if the one lightbulb burn't out your plants would be left in the dark. I skirt my F&D lava rock flood table with daytime tubes as I only use one 1000/w/hps. My moms fill a 6' x 6' area and a single lightbulb would not have the dispersal and there would be to many shadowed areas.

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I do admit that it might be easier for me in that I am retired and home a lot and due to where my plants grow it is simple for me to see if the light is burning or not, but if a bulb burns out, I replace it.

Unless you have a generator that automatically switches on in case of a power failure, or you are home at the time to manually switch it over and start your generator, your plants could easily be left in the dark too if the electricity goes out. That sort of thing can and will happen now and then.

I would have to see your mother areas but what to the human eye appears to be shadowed can in actuality be flooded with the spectrum of light that plants need. When light strikes a leaf it only absorbs roughly 15% leaving the additional roughly 85% of light to pass through to strike lower areas and more spread out areas.

Chlorophyll in leaves reflect the green light spectrum. The human eye is most sensitive to the green light spectrum. What appears to be areas that are less lit or in shadows to the human eye is only an illusion, a trick of the human eye, that is unless of course you have totally inadequate lighting and a far to small footprint or something.

That is why people came up with the inane idea that they need to remove fan leaves so more light will strike buds and strike the lower portions of plants. Their eyes are incapable of seeing how much light in the spectrum plants use that is still flooding the area so they believe portions of their plants are in low light conditions. They also fail to understand the importance of fan leaves and how inefficient buds and small leaves are at attempting to do the job of fan leaves.

Light to plants is not at all as it appears to the human eye.

Brick Top said:

That is why people came up with the inane idea that they need to remove fan leaves so more light will strike buds and strike the lower portions of plants. Their eyes are incapable of seeing how much light in the spectrum plants use that is still flooding the area so they believe portions of their plants are in low light conditions. They also fail to understand the importance of fan leaves and how inefficient buds and small leaves are at attempting to do the job of fan leaves.

Light to plants is not at all as it appears to the human eye.

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I keep seven moms in a six foot trough. If I don't keep it pruned I'll enevitably be cleaning tons of dead leaves out of the center of the hedge. I may as well get them green then they're good for binder.

bird mcbride said:

I keep seven moms in a six foot trough. If I don't keep it pruned I'll enevitably be cleaning tons of dead leaves out of the center of the hedge. I may as well get them green then they're good for binder.

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Mothers are a bit different than flowering plants, and I do believe I did not make myself clear that I was talking about flowering plants when I mentioned the cutting of fan leaves. But with enough light your mothers would not be losing leaves due to lack of light. In your setup that might require multiple lights but with the right lighting setup and plant placement unless someone has a very large area a single light would more than handle things.

I am curious, what reflective hoods are you using? I am not saying you have placed too little importance on the highest quality and or the best designed, size and shape reflective hood for your situation, but many do resulting in the need for more lights than should be needed.

Many will purchase a 1000-watt HID light and not end up with nearly the light footprint they could get from the light they could get from it, and still have more than adequate lighting over the entire footprint, because for whatever reason or reasons, they chose the wrong reflective hood for their situation.

Having the right or wrong reflective hood size, shape and design for any given situation will make or break a lighting system.

Brick Top said:

You might want to consider using a dual filament 1000-watt bulb. It gives you 600-watts of HPS and 400-watts of MH all from one bulb. You wouldn't have to burn as many lights or use as many watts that way and have an easier time of temperature control.

Just a bit of food for thought there.

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thank you. great idea. expensive bulbs- but would soon pay for themselves with electricity savings.

With the 400w/mv(which is considered daylight) and 8, four foot daylight tubes, I can easily pull off 200 plus clones a week. I send them out for $2.00 canadian per snip, unrooted. The tubes and the mv are really cheap and they use about 700watts of power. A wall receptacle delivers 1850watts of power. Cheap timers can be used on smaller bulbs without relays etc.

Thanks for the the info, I have noticed that the floresents make them larger with out stretching, plus I can get them closer than the hps lights. A big plus since this is a closet grow.

ironLUNG310 said:

Thanks for the the info, I have noticed that the floresents make them larger with out stretching, plus I can get them closer than the hps lights. A big plus since this is a closet grow.

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I have never tried T-5's so I cannot speak from experience about them but I have tried 6500K CFLs and in that case the nodal spacing was not as tight as my HID light using a 6500K bulb and the growth was slower, and I more than gave them enough CFL's to do the job.

Each type of lighting has it's own use and for some, depending on their situation one might be better than another. In this thread it was asked if it wold be better to veg with a HPS of a T5. Well HPS puts out a light spectrum that is best for flowering, not vegging, so that right there makes the HPS not all that desirable for vegging, period, thee end. But the assumption people made about the T5's was that they would have the 6500K bulbs and not the 3000K bulbs that can be used in them or mixed with 6500K bulbs. If the 3000K bulbs the T5 would not have much of an advantage over the HPS, the light spectrum would be similar enough to a HPS that it would not be a real plus. If that were the case a HPS light using a MH conversion bulb would be a better option because that would give you 4500K, a more blue light spectrum than the 3000K T5 bulbs would give.

So people all went on the assumption that the T5s would be 6500K and the HPS would be around the 2100K they tend to average. If the assumption is true, the T5s would be better, at leas for shorter plants and then later, if vegging tall, a HPS with a conversion bulb (if it is a magnetic ballast) would be good to go to. But if the HPS has a digital ballast and can burn a 6500K bulb, the HPS using a 6500K MH bulb would be superior.

Brick Top said:

I have never tried T-5's so I cannot speak from experience about them but I have tried 6500K CFLs and in that case the nodal spacing was not as tight as my HID light using a 6500K bulb and the growth was slower, and I more than gave them enough CFL's to do the job.

Each type of lighting has it's own use and for some, depending on their situation one might be better than another. In this thread it was asked if it wold be better to veg with a HPS of a T5. Well HPS puts out a light spectrum that is best for flowering, not vegging, so that right there makes the HPS not all that desirable for vegging, period, thee end. But the assumption people made about the T5's was that they would have the 6500K bulbs and not the 3000K bulbs that can be used in them or mixed with 6500K bulbs. If the 3000K bulbs the T5 would not have much of an advantage over the HPS, the light spectrum would be similar enough to a HPS that it would not be a real plus. If that were the case a HPS light using a MH conversion bulb would be a better option because that would give you 4500K, a more blue light spectrum than the 3000K T5 bulbs would give.

So people all went on the assumption that the T5s would be 6500K and the HPS would be around the 2100K they tend to average. If the assumption is true, the T5s would be better, at leas for shorter plants and then later, if vegging tall, a HPS with a conversion bulb (if it is a magnetic ballast) would be good to go to. But if the HPS has a digital ballast and can burn a 6500K bulb, the HPS using a 6500K MH bulb would be superior.

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Dude you are the man, If you dont mind I wanna add you as a friend. You sure do know your shit. Much respect my friend plus rep+

[SIZE=-1]"O foolish men, and quick of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!"[/SIZE]

Look up Photosynthesis, read up on it, you will find that LIGHT INTENSITY is much more of a factor than color temperature. As long as you have a red and a blue component you are good to go with green plants. HPS puts out plenty of light in the blue spectrum for growth.

The general equation for photosynthesis is :
2n CO2 + 2n H2O +photons→ 2(CH2O)n+ n O2 + 2n A Carbon dioxide + electron donor(water) + light energy → carbohydrate + oxygen + oxidized electron donor
Nothing in there about color temperature.


THIS



IS BUNK ,Do you even see any chlorophyl activity where the fluorescent spot is? I see hardly any.

The Graph says it is Chlorophyll activity, but that is a outright fabrication, what this graph is really trying to represent (And poorly I might add) is light absorbance. Blue colored light is only marginally better at being absorbed than Red is, but since HPS is so much more intense it more than makes up for the shortcoming. Now a days many HPS bulbs intended for growing already have a Blue spectrum component built in anyway so the point about the temp colors becomes even less important. I know all my Hortilux bulbs have 30% blue in them.


Notice the blue? In the Graph Farmerboi provided (Thanks Dude) it basically tries to tell you that HPS only puts out light in the upper red spectrum, but that is misleading, it puts out light in the blues too, just not with the same intensity. aslo notice the plant sensitivity curve? That is the absorbency, notice the difference from the first graph? Yep, they are trying to get you to buy the inferior Fluoro lighting schemes when you would do just as well with the HPS grow light.


http://books.google.com/books?id=55...&resnum=7&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q&f=false

See page 443 and 444, it explains this in scientific detail with good studies done.

The world needs more objective and critical thinkers, not sheep who rally around those with the gift of Sophistry.

Much respect thank you for the knowledge. I take it all with a grain of salt I throw the now veg ging skywalker plant in with the braindammage plant I have flowering. And after 8 hrs she goes in the veg mother room with flouresents. She is loving alittle of both . plus rep for u too no drama