Lighting for mothers?

budLIFE60

budLIFE60

Well-Known Member
So i have a 3x3 tent im planning on keeping some mothers in. Right now i have 4 mother plants but will be expanding very soon. They are under a 400 watt MH and was wondering if this is a bit over kill? Could i get away with a good size t5 light or a 250watt MH and save on a bit of the electric bill? Will be doing a sog type grow and will need a good amount cuttings. About 10 or so each plant every month/ month and half. Any comments apprecaited
 
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fleshfeast

Active Member
I've often vegged plants up to 3ft with a single 200w cfl. The growth on those same plants is explosive once they get some decent watt MH but for a mother I'm guessing you want to keep things health with a realistic growth rate so yeah you could definitely drop the watts on her.
 
dbkick

dbkick

Well-Known Member
Flash63 said:
T5s are the way to go,i have been maintaining my mothers under them for many yrs...
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If you wanna change out tubes every 4500 hours use.
I'm certainly not a believer in LED being best for flowering but for veg they're very very good.
 
dbkick

dbkick

Well-Known Member
For veg nothing real fancy or expensive. The only panel I've had experience with is the onyx Grow .
28 cree xml2 6500 kelvin which is cool white and runs about 226 watts or so. Blue is what you want but not TOO much and the onyx at 6500 kelvin has some blue. They Onyx does a nice job but I'm sure there are other lights with more bands and spectrum that do fine too. Predominately blue .
Cool white works well.........
wtf was I saying??? Promoting led?? I meant LEC.......jk although the LEC might work well too for veg, I haven't gotten a chance to try that.
 
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churchhaze

Well-Known Member
You could get away with 90W of DIY cxb/cxa easily for 9sqft of veg. I'd call a 400W MH overkill.

This is also the route I'd recommend taking considering veg lamps are on for such a long period of the day, you really get your money's worth.
 
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ryder7788

New Member
I kinda have the same question.. Except I do mothers/babies only. So keeping my mothers pumping cuts Is important. I did a 300 watt SunSystem Ceramic plasma light On a 8 foot light runner, tracking 8 feet 18 hours a day. I had 15 plants in a 10x7x6 GrowLab tent. The plants got HUGE and were putting 50/80 cuttings per plant every 15 days or less. GSC and BD. I ran two 128 site EZ cloners 24/7 7 days a week also. I got bad gnats from some bad soil and ended up over kill on my moms. To say the least, I have 3 left out of 8 main moms. Now I'm starting over and wondering if maybe a 300 watt plasma is also overkill for mothers. It seems that when I put a 8 bulb t-5 in the tent the plants look happier. They grow up towards the light with leavs first. It almost appears that the plants are always trying to flower under the plasma. Wondering if they prefer that bright white light over the veg/flower spectrum of the plasma. I should mention I'm pretty sure I pay LESS for the plasma, and more for the t-8. I'm going to do more experiments on this, but anyone else use plasma lights?
 
a mongo frog

a mongo frog

Well-Known Member
budLIFE60 said:
I actually have a 2ft 8 bulb t5 HO i think does about 16000 lumens. Would that cover my 4 plants well enough you think?
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So this is how i have my mothers. 2 under a 4 foot T5 till 8 bulb and when bigger one some times. Really depends on your strains different strains grow different. In the pic are some og's and they grow real viney and lanky. Where some true indicas grow squat and real branchy.
 

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ryder7788

New Member
Those OG's look proper! Nice! I'm not going to say how many babies (soon to be moms) I packed under my t-5 right now! But a light runner did kill it .. At least for growth!
 
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