T-5 or MH?

I need to up grade my veg lighting. What r my options? Need to control heat in room, need bout 400W. and need to stay around 300$.
Any help is appreciated.

Hey bro, Hydro Farm has one for $250 or so, 400W both mh/hps dual balast and hood in one.....I have 2 in a 4x4x78 tent and heat seems fine with exhaust fan running

What are you running for flower?

600w HPS bat wing soon to up grade to air cooled xxxmagnum 6"

im growing in soil for now. i do have a tester dwc im learning with right now too.

Theres a drastic difference between similar wattage of HID and T5 as far as heat output. I have a 400w HPS/MHc in a cool tube, with the cool tube I can get the HID right down onto the plant tops about the same distance as my T5, but the HID heats up my whole room, and slowly the air being pulled over the bulb gets warmer and warmer and my overall temps get pretty high. I love my T5's for the possibilities of fine tuning the spectrum like those that use LED's, but without worrying about shitty chinese diodes and false claims of power usage (and high cost). An 8bulb 432w T5 will still create some heat and will require ventilation, but theres a pretty big difference. I have leaves that grow onto the tubes and they dont even burn, they just get bleached and turn white where contact was made, but the backside still shows green and the leaf lives on! Im using both 400w HPS and 432w (2 48"x4bulb) T5 for side lighting in flower, and and one 8 bulb 432w t5 for Veg, All PAR specific to optimise output. Come summertime Im going all T5 becuase it will be 115deg outside and it'll be too damn hot in the box w the HPS. Ive seen quite a few successful grows (thru flowering) using only an 8bulb T5. The only complaint being density of nugs being a little more fluffy than w a HPS, but potency (or rather Resin content and trichome development) can be higher if you use bulbs w good UV and Ive heard people claim their single 8bulb matched a 1kHortilux HPS in dry weight yeild... I love it!






check ebay for 4ft fixtures...4bulb for $100, 8bulb for $150, then once you get really knowledgeable about PAR and light spectrums, give yourself about $150 for some aquatic actinics and red wavelength bulbs and you'll get even better results than the generic 6500k and 3000k bulbs

oh, while I was typing you posted that you have the HPS, didnt realize you had exp w HID... duh lol. anyway I'd still reccommend the T5 for the heat issues. you can add it to flower to help there too if you're not perpetual

I like my 400 Mh because I have no problem growing strains of multiple heights. Depending on your area and if you stick you one strain. With the T5 once you get over 4" you loose light like crazy.

I like my T5 for clones and seedlings... it performed just so so vegging.

Check out my grow... I've got a 600, veg for about 6-7 weeks under a 400 mh.

ya my big prob is my veg take soooooooo long that i cant keep my tent full

dude, grab a 400 MH and start cloning. You will have no issues keeping up. I always kill off 1 or 2 every time I rotate some into flower. I just pick out the nice ones.

knitz01 said:

ya my big prob is my veg take soooooooo long that i cant keep my tent full

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FWIW, I found MHs and T5 to veg significantly longer than HPS', all things staying equal.

Simon

Get a t5 and throw in some actinic bulbs and 2 full spectrum bulbs and it will veg fast and not stretch. If your in soil make a 50/50 mix of soil.n perlite. It will dry out faster making the metablolism speed up. Which will make it veg faster. Hid are wack and waste so much light. They light up the room more than do anything for the plant. most hid bulbs are commercial and not designed for horticulture. Its prehistoric technology.

hyroot said:

Get a t5 and throw in some actinic bulbs and 2 full spectrum bulbs and it will veg fast and not stretch. If your in soil make a 50/50 mix of soil.n perlite. It will dry out faster making the metablolism speed up. Which will make it veg faster. Hid are wack and waste so much light. They light up the room more than do anything for the plant. most hid bulbs are commercial and not designed for horticulture. Its prehistoric technology.

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This hinges on one's goal. If it involves discussing technological aspects of the process, there are certainly better options. If one is after growing lots of bud bud and getting the most out of his time, the prehistoric stuff isn't so bad. lol

Simon

Obviously you haven't tried them yourself otherwise you would know the truith.

geekmike said:

Obviously you haven't tried them yourself otherwise you would know the truith.

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I hope you're not talking to me. I run two T5 fixtures - one for starting seeds and a much bigger one for keeping clones in (virtual) stasis. Your post piqued my curiosity, so I took a look at your threads. Best of luck on your first indoor grow.

Simon

No, hyroot has a bit of missinformation... I just switched from t5 veg to mh. Big difference.

Not my first grow brother... just been growing indoors for almost a year. Just use the t5 for clones now.

geekmike said:

No, hyroot has a bit of missinformation... I just switched from t5 veg to mh. Big difference.

Not my first grow brother... just been growing indoors for almost a year. Just use the t5 for clones now.

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I believe your ignorance has you misinformed


Have you ever used aquarium bulbs? the ones that come with the t5's are crap

here is the real truth close minded one

i ran 250's, 400's, 600's and 1000's for 10 years. 6 months ago i switched everything to t5's with aquarium bulbs and even did 2 side by side tests with a 1000w hortilux vs t5 8 bulb. the t5 won both times. check my journal.\







this is the spectrum of a eye hortilux

View attachment 1966521

this is the spectrum that plants use

View attachment 1966522


do you see how all that yellow and green is wasted. plants only absorb 20% of green and yellow.



here is the spectrum of the bulbs I use on my t5

View attachment 1966524View attachment 1966527 .



wattage and lumens means absolutely nothing. lumens by definition is visible light and green plants absorb about 10% to 20% of visible light. chlorophyll A makes up 75% of chlorophyll and absorbs light at 410nm-430nm, 500nm, 660nm-700nm, chlorophyll B absorbs light at 450nm and 630nnm-643nm.

so what you want is highest PAR possible. based on the sun which is 100% PAR. with the combo of my bulbs Im pushing 90% PAR while the best hid pushes 10% PAR.

PAR - Photosynthetically available radiation - is the spectral range (wave band) of solar radiation from 400 to 700 nanometers that photosynthetic organisms are able to use in the process of photosynthesis. This spectral region corresponds more or less with the range of light visible to the human eye. Photons at shorter wavelengths tend to be so energetic that they can be damaging to cells and tissues, but are mostly filtered out by the ozone layer in the stratosphere. Photons at longer wavelengths do not carry enough energy to allow photosynthesis to take place.


here is some links to scientific proof to back up

http://www.uic.edu/classes/bios/bios100/lecturesf04am/lect10.htm

http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/61/11/3107.full

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=6696642

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-1097.1987.tb04757.x/abstract

Hyroot, what are you pulling per square foot with the T5s and what were you pulling (per square foot) with the 1Ks? I'm talking dry/cured.

I'm asking, because I did look at your journal and the pics seem to depict very small flowers. That's not unusual for T5s, but highly unusual for 1Ks.

Simon

I guess for heat alone i will run t-5, thanks for all the input. hyroot which bulbs and where to get them?