can i veg with flourescents only?

1djwesty

1djwesty

Active Member
Hi All
I'm 3 weeks into my third grow and need a little advice.At present I'm growing from seed and each grow is taking approx 14 weeks(6 weeks veg,8 weeks flower).The problem I have is electricity consumption.At present I'm running 2 x 600watt lights with inlet and outlet fans plus four desktop fans in the tent.i spoke to the electricity supplier yesterday and they tell me that I'm using 3 times the national average.Now what i'd really like to do is get another 400 or 600 watt light in a small grow room just for vegetation only so i can speed up the grow by a few weeks but this is really gonna boost the consumption and probably attract unwanted attention.My question is could i use flourescent lights only for vegetation purposes.I'm growing in the region of 10 to 20 plants at a time.If it is possible,could someone give me some info eg.Does it affect yield and which type(eg.T5)tubes would be best and how many for the amount of plants I'm growing.
 
Elliesdaddy

Elliesdaddy

Active Member
You can do the whole grow with fluorescent it's just slow, not very good yield compared to high intensity lights and you need thousands of watts of fluorescent with incandescent equals fooling everyone so a 250watt is really like 30 40 watt all the best mate
 
ZenOne

ZenOne

Well-Known Member
IF your only useing the flouresent for veg there will be no problem, Plants will do great!

its all i use for my veg that and CFLs, somepeople like using MH for veg personally i dont have the extra cash to float
for veged plants, Just MY 2 cents
Good luckk!
 
T

TreeOfLiberty

Well-Known Member
I have ALWAYS used fluorescent lights for veg cycle. All I have currently for vegging is 2 shoplights, each shoplight is 2 ft long, but just regular 2 ft shoplights. They will power T8 or T12 bulbs. With twin T8's in a single fixture, I'm only pulling 35 watts with each fixture.

I have 2 of these fixtures >

http://www.esplighting.com/liofam2flshw.html

Between 2007 and 2009, I lived in a place that had a walk-in closet in my bedroom. The closet was rectangular , 3.5 ft x 7 ft wide and long with 7 ft ceiling. When I lived there I was using 3 shoplight T12's but they were 4 ft fixtures. It's a win-win , you get far less power consumption and way less heat. 2 inches from the top of the plants is a good light spacing distance.
 
tip top toker

tip top toker

Well-Known Member
It's not illegal to use lots of power if you pay for it, regardless what the national average may be. My bedrooms power requirement even without a grow is probably around 5x the national average given all the electrical doodahs i have running most of the day.

Nor is it illegal to run grow lights if you pay for the power. Plenty of people grow things indoors other than cannabis.
 
JASON79

JASON79

Active Member
1djwesty said:
Hi All
I'm 3 weeks into my third grow and need a little advice.At present I'm growing from seed and each grow is taking approx 14 weeks(6 weeks veg,8 weeks flower).The problem I have is electricity consumption.At present I'm running 2 x 600watt lights with inlet and outlet fans plus four dpesktop fans in the tent.i spoke to the electricity supplier yesterday and they tell me that I'm using 3 times the national average.Now what i'd really like to do is get another 400 or 600 watt light in a small grow room just for vegetation only so i can speed up the grow by a few weeks but this is really gonna boost the consumption and probably attract unwanted attention.My question is could i use flourescent lights only for vegetation purposes.I'm growing in the region of 10 to 20 plants at a time.If it is possible,could someone give me some info eg.Does it affect yield and which type(eg.T5)tubes would be best and how many for the amount of plants I'm growing.
Click to expand...
if you have some spare cash you can reduce your eletic and increase your yeild

just let me know if you have about £250 and i will tell you how
 
*BUDS

*BUDS

Well-Known Member
Yes, I have 2x 130w cfls (14000k each)hanging vertically with a 400w mh overhead, im getting nice plants good height but bushy with short internodes going a long way down the branch (from the cfls). These bulbs are about a foot long.
 
tip top toker

tip top toker

Well-Known Member
JASON79 said:
if you have some spare cash you can reduce your eletic and increase your yeild

just let me know if you have about £250 and i will tell you how
Click to expand...
Alternatively why don't you jsut tell everyone what you method of saving money and increasing yield is and be helpful :)
 
Slipon

Slipon

Well-Known Member
I did veg my plants under T5HO for 6 weeks ..

DSC00556.jpg

just move in to the flowering room .. up till then (day 46 from seed) they have only been under a 6 Tube fixture (4x 6500K and 2x 2700K)

to be exatly .. 49w T5HO tubes = 294W

5 feet/1½M long ..

got em for free at work (broken as our electrician said .. plastic around them .. outdoor fixtures .. so got 3x2 tube fixtures for free :) put em together and got some nice new bulbs in the right Kelvin (6500 and 2700K) need to changes em evry year or so .. tho T5 is known to not "loose" as much light over time as T8 or T12 ..

get the HO (high output .. or even better if money is`t a problem .. VHO (very high output) but then you need fixtures with inbuild fans to cool em down .. T5HO is good enough for me .. 4650 Lumens per tube (I belive 4 foot tubes have 5K) give me around 27,900 Lumens ..


found out that one inch away is to close (atlest for my plants .. voilator kush) 2-5 inches seems to work .. 5 inches and then I just let em grow up a bit ..

did also LST/FIM em to keep em even under the Tubes .. I belive that is one of the most importent things growing with Tubes .. keep it even and close to the light .. Tubes come in right coulors and with great Lumens (effect) so its perfect for growing .. only real weakness is the light penetration .. dont belive they are wort much after 10 inches ..


this is my DIY fixture (cost me like 40$ for new tubes and some soft drinks for the electrician ;))

DSC00406.jpgDSC00407.jpgDSC00408.jpgDSC00409.jpg



works great .. dont think I ever will get a MH .. maybe just more T5s :) also heat is`t a problem at all !


take a look at this link:

http://www.greners.com/i/grow-lights/fluorescent-grow-lights/t5-fixtures.html


ther you can see/get most kinds and size`s .. and it even seems like they have a sale :)

but do some research before you do anything .. allways sucks to buy sumthing wrong ..

and keep asking questions ..

p.s.
if it was me who schould replace a 400W MH for Veg .. and wantet 4 plants or so .. I would get a nice 8 tube 4 foot fixture and mix the tubes (mostly 6500K)



best of luck ..
 
JASON79

JASON79

Active Member
ok this is what i would do

for seedling in 1" rock-wall cubes i would use a 2ft t5 daylight tube an till there are some good roots (lights on 24 hours a day)

re-pot into a 1ltr for soil/coco and use a 400w dimmable ballast/mh light and keep the light round 6" from the tops of the plant and set it at 50% for 18hours a day

and turn it up to 75% as the plants grow and need more canopy and have the light round 10" above the canopy, again as the canopy gets bigger lift the light 12" above the canopy and set it to 100%

in flower if you are using a 600w dimmable ballast set it at 400w for the first 2 week with a 600w mh light in it and then turn it to 600w and use a 600w hps light
at week 4 turn it up to 670w as this is when the plants need the light most

just lower the hood so the canopy is just covered if the temps are good at the canopy level, light could be as close as 14" to the canopy without air cooled hood and a lot closer with, this should increase your yeild as the mh keeps nodes close and reduces stretching and you use less electria
 
Slipon

Slipon

Well-Known Member
my nodes was so close that I had problems topping .. did FIM insted .. but differcult .. did wait for nod 5 so I had more room .. but before I could do it I had nod 6 comming aso.

and I only used T5HO tubes .. but yea a dimmer light would do a lot to his eletric bill Im sure .. now Im wondering how much my 600W HPS and ventilation/fans use ? I have no clue what so ever ? but Im sure it wont be notice/a problem .. a big Aquarium or tarium with some lights and pumps or a tomato grow would use the same Im sure .. or some geek with 4 big PCs running aso.

as long as you dont go big scale .. I hear or some who used generators to make elektricity to avoyd getting bustet ... but since they had a hugh .. old pig farm and like a fild inside they did get bustet (how I heard about them in the news)

think they had like 5 big disel generators running .. so must have been a lot of driveing to colecting the fuel !
 
tip top toker

tip top toker

Well-Known Member
Slipon said:
I have no clue what so ever ?
Click to expand...
No idea what fans you are using, but let's just be silly and assume you have 100w of fans. so you simply multiply the price you pay per unit of electricity by 0.7 (600w + 100w = 700w so = 0.7kwh). This is how much it costs you to run it per hour. For me, electricity costs say 20p per unit, or kilowatt hour, so 1 hour with the light on is 0.6 x 20p, which means it costs me 12p an hour to run a 600w light.
 
JASON79

JASON79

Active Member
Slipon said:
I did veg my plants under T5HO for 6 weeks ..

View attachment 2230485

just move in to the flowering room .. up till then (day 46 from seed) they have only been under a 6 Tube fixture (4x 6500K and 2x 2700K)

to be exatly .. 49w T5HO tubes = 294W

5 feet/1½M long ..

got em for free at work (broken as our electrician said .. plastic around them .. outdoor fixtures .. so got 3x2 tube fixtures for free :) put em together and got some nice new bulbs in the right Kelvin (6500 and 2700K) need to changes em evry year or so .. tho T5 is known to not "loose" as much light over time as T8 or T12 ..

get the HO (high output .. or even better if money is`t a problem .. VHO (very high output) but then you need fixtures with inbuild fans to cool em down .. T5HO is good enough for me .. 4650 Lumens per tube (I belive 4 foot tubes have 5K) give me around 27,900 Lumens ..


found out that one inch away is to close (atlest for my plants .. voilator kush) 2-5 inches seems to work .. 5 inches and then I just let em grow up a bit ..

did also LST/FIM em to keep em even under the Tubes .. I belive that is one of the most importent things growing with Tubes .. keep it even and close to the light .. Tubes come in right coulors and with great Lumens (effect) so its perfect for growing .. only real weakness is the light penetration .. dont belive they are wort much after 10 inches ..


this is my DIY fixture (cost me like 40$ for new tubes and some soft drinks for the electrician ;))

View attachment 2230497View attachment 2230498View attachment 2230499View attachment 2230500



works great .. dont think I ever will get a MH .. maybe just more T5s :) also heat is`t a problem at all !


take a look at this link:

http://www.greners.com/i/grow-lights/fluorescent-grow-lights/t5-fixtures.html


ther you can see/get most kinds and size`s .. and it even seems like they have a sale :)

but do some research before you do anything .. allways sucks to buy sumthing wrong ..

and keep asking questions ..

p.s.
if it was me who schould replace a 400W MH for Veg .. and wantet 4 plants or so .. I would get a nice 8 tube 4 foot fixture and mix the tubes (mostly 6500K)



best of luck ..
Click to expand...
your setup is very good but a mh will give you better results with larger plants in veg
 
Slipon

Slipon

Well-Known Member
ahh ok .. that atlest give me some kind of idea .. so not that bad .. dont realy care that much .. as long its not astronomic ..

runn a normal 600W HPS .. a table fan (10") a tower fan and a 4" outtake ventilation ... plus a small 100M3 ventilation to help pull ari in from my passiv intake over my window and down to my grow room intake ..

so 4 diffrent fans/ventilators and a 600W HPS pootlight (old German quality lamp from green houses .. got it used cheep)

think power is a bit expensiv here in Denmark .. with all them extra taxes we pay (allmost cost more then the actualy power !)

I normaly used around 40£ a month before I build my room .. in a 2 rooms appartment with tellis..PCs and kitching aso running ..

dunno .. guess I just have to wait and see .. hope my haverst come before the bill :D
 
Slipon

Slipon

Well-Known Member
your setup is very good but a mh will give you better results with larger plants in veg


your totaly right .. MH is by fare the best (have no idea but all I read and all the pictures I have seen proof it)

but I also bet they use more power ? and make more heat ?
I bet some topping/FIM and some LST and maybe a week more in Veg will do the same as a MH .. I guess ?
 
JASON79

JASON79

Active Member
Slipon said:
your setup is very good but a mh will give you better results with larger plants in veg


your totaly right .. MH is by fare the best (have no idea but all I read and all the pictures I have seen proof it)

but I also bet they use more power ? and make more heat ?
I bet some topping/FIM and some LST and maybe a week more in Veg will do the same as a MH .. I guess ?
Click to expand...
i know t5 tubes are very good as they cover a larger area than mh for the same watts and if you are growing a scrog, or lst you plants and keep them short and wide
you will cover a lot more plants with a lot less heat
but it can take a lot longer to veg because you are topping or lst your plants

if you are growing up to 20 plants in veg and what to grow them to 18" tall in 3ltr air pots in a short time
the set up i have put on here, you would only need to veg for 4-5 weeks and there ready repot in 10ltr pots and flower
 
superstoner1

superstoner1

Well-Known Member
wow, i have anywhere from 15-30 in veg at all times and they get 28-30 days, all under t5, and will be 20-26" when going to flower with no topping.
 
JASON79

JASON79

Active Member
i did not think you could grow a plant to 26" under a t5

i thought the t5 light would be good for about 6" thick canopy

when your plants are 26" high, do you get a lot of yellow leaves on the mid/low part of the plants? and

could you tell more about you set up
 
P

purklize

Active Member
If you want something cheap, get T8 shop lights. Make sure the bulbs are 6500k ("daylight"). They will work for sure. The growth won't be quite as dense as with a T5 but it's not really that huge of a difference.

If you're looking to spend more, get a T5 light... they're fantastic, I use one for vegging as well. The plants are as happy as they were under a 400w MH. MH kinda suck... they lose their luminosity fast so they become inefficient within 6 months... lots of replacing bulbs and wasted power. T8s and T5s are similarly efficient when new, but don't experience this same decline.

I got a plant to grow 2ft tall, 3ft wide in 3-4 weeks under a 200w T5, from a clone with one tiny set of leaves.
 
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