pr0fesseur
Well-Known Member
+LIKEMy main issue from the very start was the heat (Its been above 90 all week, and my grow is upstairs/south facing...) I started with a 400wHPS in a cool tube and I was able to get the tube right down onto the tops and got a good yield, but in the dead of winter the ambient temps in the room were approaching 90. I was pulling air from my house through the room and exhausing at 800cfm! I had to keep my entire house below 60 to be able to cool the room down to 73 and inside my 6hx6wx3d box is was 87. But I could run 864w of T5 and the box was only 79 with the other variables the same. Thats why I went to T5 exclusive... that and the fact that with equal amounts of wattage, the T5 yeilds were sooooo much stickier!
Im running 1054w, some digital HID ballasts actually draw more than what they're rated at so for our purposes Ill say Im equal to a 600+400... but in my small space theres no way I could squeeze both of them into my hx6wx3d box at 4-5" above tops and still manage the heat... absolutely utterly impossible... if they were in cool tubes I could put them at that distance but I would hardly get any coverage beyond 1-2 plants per bulb, and I could never cool my room down even with the AC I have now. For small/medium sized personal grows, Im gonna say T5's are tits. Commercial Grows with wide open growing spaces with large AC's can grow for yield with monster HID's but wont ever get that connoisseur grade sticky like flypaper shit that people tell their friends about.
All variables the same (nutes, environment, medium/ph etc) feed one of your favorite strain 1000w of HID for 8 weeks and another 1000w of T5 PAR for 8 weeks, you may get a larger yield from the HID but the better resulting flavor and smell and resin production and overall bag-appeal from the PAR crop may be worth more to the small time personal grower or medical patient. I got some experience growing using both and became very educated on the subject and my HPS is sitting in the corner now.
EDIT: a 16bulb badboy consumes 864W on a single fixture.. it fits in a 4x4 area.
sounds like a winner!