Considering T5's, anyone have any experience with them?

Hello

I am considering using a T5 lighting setup as opposed to a HPS/MH setup(Less heat, and less electricity).

If I do decide to go with the T5's, I will buy a UltraGrow T5 High Output Fluorescent System. 4 feet long, 8 bulb capacity. I will use eight 6500K lights for Vegging and eight 3000K lights for flowering.

Before I go and drop $400+ on these lights, do you guys think I will have a decent grow and yield from this setup(Having the lights as close to the canopy without burning)? I have seen some pictures on other forums, but I would like to hear some feedback here(And I do not want to hear "You will get a better yield with a HID setup blah blah blah. I want to know how good it will be with the T5 setup, not how good it would be if I had a HID setup. I am very indecisive. ).

Well this is my first grow with T-5's. I have a 4' 6 bulb and a 2' 4 bulb.

These pics. are of 2 White Sharks that are around 23 days old under my 4' light.

I am using my 2' for my auto's at this time.

But so far so good. I love the fact that you can pretty much control your internode spacing withyour light height if you play around with it.

I keep mine around 5" from the tops. The only sign of light burn was when a leaf was about 2" from the bulb, I would never go closer than 3" ever, 4" is o.k. but keep an eye on it throughout the day unless you have prime temps. At 6" you will see a slight stretch, which is a good thing after a set has developed, the T-5's keep the nodes close, when at 7" you can guarantee a good spacing between the next set. Noticing this, my next grow I can almost set the light everyday to a certain height to get the exact spacing I want with these.

Keep in mind that T-5's don't penetrate the canopy like HID's, that is why I went short, topped, and LST'd the girls. If I had a bigger area I would do a Screen of Green to get the most out of the light.

Hope this info. helps you out. This is my first grow with these like I said before.

Anyways hope other people give you some input aswell, I like em.

I love my badboy 8 bulb. Vegged awesome and stays cool. Can run 240

Heres my set up

t5's are great for veg (better than MH imo) and I have seen impressive results flowering with them. I would only use them for veg though because it is difficult to get the red spectrum bulbs to penetrate into the canopy. In a scrog this isn't as much of an issue.

Those plants are gorgeous! Beautiful first grow. I only hope mine will turn out nearly as well as yours.
Could you explain to me what "topped" and "LST'ing" is? I'm aware it has something to do with making the plants shorter, or less dense(I'm a little high right now, if you can tell by my incessant rambling.)

Thanks for the reply too, much appreciated.

Here are 2 great threads to get you going.

Uncle Ben's Topping Thread:
https://www.rollitup.org/advanced-marijuana-cultivation/151706-uncle-bens-topping-technique-get.html

LBH's 4way LST Tutorial:
https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/438784-lbhs-4-way-lst-tutorial.html

T5s will grow great bud, did it on my first grow. It has its pros but the main con is less yield. If you have good genetics and are just growing for personal stash i say go for it.

T5's are what I started on and they are a very viable option for growing. The big thing I didn't like about it was the size of the reflector, it makes it a bit of a pain in the ass to adjust. If you ever want to switch over to HID lights then your florescent reflector should work well for seedlings (that's what I did anyway). And those are some nice plants PakaloloHui.