Veg room light question

How many 12 inch plants could one reasonably fit in a 250 watt MH 3x3 veg tent? The bulb is 23000 lumens (2555 lumens per square foot) and I’m thinking 1.5 gallon containers will suffice. I'm no expert, and would like to know if one could "jam-pack" as many plants as the tent will hold with the 250 watt.

Could I possibly get away with a 150 watt?

A 3x3 space is about the top space a 250 can cover. Yes you can pack as many plants as you can fit which would be about 9-16 plants depending on the pot size (12"-8"). Is it a cooled hood or a bare bulb? Cooling is good but the only problem is the glass piece. Cuts down the light a bit and you have to put the light closer to reach the same intensity. Which will make the amount of space it lights well smaller. If you want to fill the whole 3x3 I wouldn't go any lower that a 250. This is only veg so I'm sure it'll work just may not be the best. If this was a flower room I'd at least go 400 but the 250 should be fine for veg.

I decided to go with LED; will a 90 watt (400 watt HPS equivalent) suffice? Do they really work as well as people say they do?

Wrong decision. Dont do led. Cost to much do cfl instead. get 150w hps keep 16 inchs away and let them grow on 24/0 light

No not really. They work well but dont throw that long and dont cover a big area so unless you have the cash for more than 1 idk. If your space wasn't 3x3 I'd suggest you get 2 4' t5 ho 6-8 lamps. You can buy bulbs for coral like ATI true actinic blue (blue veg), KZ fiji purples (blue and red 50/50) and some UVL redsuns (red flower) but IDK about the how availability for 2 foot lamps is like. I usually see 4 foot ones more. If you can find them at 2 foot I'd get 2 of those. It basically the idea of LEDs in t5s this way, since the coral lamps peak at much more specific wavelengths than your 2700k and 6500k standard cfl/t5s. So you can basically line up the peaks to match the highest absorption rates of the chlorophyll for photosynthesis. Thus making your grow highly efficient like LEDs, while saving on heating compared to HIDs like LEDs. Also since very little green is emitted it keeps the grow low key and not like day glow in the area. I don't want to go too much into because I'm not an expert with them. edit ....to find more info google PAR t5 growing, or I think theres a good thread on here called LEDs without LEDs or something.

My main problem is my breaker won't be able to handle a 400 watt, and I know it's not safe to put HID on extention cords. I have a 50 foot, 15 amp, 12 gauge cord.....is it safe to put say 400 watt of flourescents on it?

i don't know about over country's
but in the uk i could put over 2kw through a 15amp extention cord without any problems

I thought V x amps = watts. So a 400 w hid should be 400/120v = 3.33 amps. So you could technically run 3 because you never want to come close to overloading the circuit. Which would be around 12 amps. IDK about the extension cords but I use one most of the time. I guess they wouldn't give you all the power you try to pull but if its the proper gauge I don't see it being dangerous or anything. Yea it would be safe for fluorescents too.

in the uk the mains are 240

but 120v x 15 = 1800 watt
so your safe to use 1200 watts

i don't think it make any difference what light is using the electric if both light need the same watts , but a 400w hps would bet 600 watts cfl hands down
in every way but cfl runs cooler

just can not compare a grow with cfl vs hps
if your growing in a room without hi temps

if you can keep temps low i would use 600w hps and 2 ruck fans 5" and 6", 6" carbon filter , 12" oscillating fan this will still use less than 900 watts

and you can grow a lot of high quality weed

I decided to go with the 240w Blackstar... it's rated for 6 square feet, and i'm only going to use it for veg...so is it possible to get away with using it in a 3x3...oir should I get a 3.2 tent instead?

Ya go with a 200 watt cfl or something. They are like 17,600 lumens and they require a hell of a lot less electricity. Yes, a MH rated at just 200 watts ends up using as much as 600 watts after you throw in the ballast. Read into it and you will find out. You really want to be paying that kind of electricity costs?

http://www.agriculturesolutions.com/Grow-Bulbs/MaxLume-Compact-Fluorescent-Bulb-200w-Cool-Grow.html?gclid=COn75I_q07ECFcFrKgodF1sA-w

so alley. walker
how can even talk about a 400w hps vs a 200 watt cfl blue veg light

what are talking about, i would love to see your 2 oz grow under this 200w cfl veg light

i know this is a 600w hps but able to get 10oz's plus (on 600w) and its if you set on 400 watt it will use 400 watt



http://www.greners.com/lumatek-600w-digital-ballast.html

stoner6626 said:

I decided to go with the 240w Blackstar... it's rated for 6 square feet, and i'm only going to use it for veg...so is it possible to get away with using it in a 3x3...oir should I get a 3.2 tent instead?

Click to expand...

this is your grow but this light will reduce your yeild a lot
good luck with your grow

large buds obviously doesn't use cfls t5s or leds so frankly he shouldn't be talking.

I know its going to cost a fortune, but will a 240 watt suffice for 9 square feet (veg) or should I go with 2 90 watt? maybe a 300? I know all the websites state the coverage area of each light, but I don't really don't have any experience with LEDs. I want to get this shit right the first time if i'm going to kick out all that bloody money. I know whatever I get will be made with Cree LEDs

but i do use t5 and cfls and looked into led grows and seen the good and bad points of all of these lights

they are good for veg but not for flower as the penetration for the led bulbs 3w,5w is not good, but you can get a good yeild from a scog

cfl have not got a very good spread of light may be 4 plants a under a 300w "red" cfl 2ft x 2ft foot print of good light 4" from the canopy, good size plant topped or lst

and high powered t5 light will do for a large scog grow with a good yeild of small buds just hard to get them dank under t5 with most strains

but for penetration and yeild, hps/mh is one of the best on the market but still 2nd to gavita pro 600 which cost a lot but is the best

With LEDs you have to keep them directly under the lights like t5s and cfls. So no it wont really cover 3x3. Coral T5s are similar to leds but more spread out that's why I suggested them. LEDs are the future but the price needs to come way down until they are the answer for everyone. They work great in a scrog lst or sog situation but you have to rich to be able to cover the same area other lights would. Even a DIY costs too much right now. They also save electric from low heat and emit no wasted light. They have a fast par fall off rate like cfls/t5s. You can keep them closer because they emit less heat. You can grow as good and as dense of dank as HIDs with t5s though. That's where I disagree with largebuds. Though because CFLs have a fast fall off of par they don't really add up completely and sometimes get a bad wrap. Like if you have 400 watts of cfl, a plant isn't going to get much light from the bulb on the other side of the tent so your each plant isn't really under 400 watts. When you talk about growing 1 plant with say 150 watts of cfl and have another under a 150 hps the yields are the same, maybe better with no training and numerous cfls because you can strategically place the light exactly where its needed instead of only having one static source. You do have to flatten your canopy tho with anything but HIDs. None of that matters when your not flowering in there and using a hps to flower. I got a little too high so I hope its not all incoherent.

i would agree with most of what you said and fair point about using lots of small cfl's to add up to 150w and comparing to a 150w hps,
and you can get some good bud under t5
but i like growing large dank buds more than maxing my yeild

so i use air cooled hood with 6" ruck fan and a 600w hps and get the light 6-8" from the canopy
3ft x 3ft foot print with some large dank buds when it comes to the chop with 4 plant max per light, organic soil grown sweet bud
just the way i grow and i can't see me or any one else getting that with cfl, leds t5

Yea, but I've used hps t5 led and cfl to flower and the size of the buds isn't really much different. A little longer but with a full canopy that prevents light penetration in any of the techniques you would use with fluoros to flatten your colas there's basically no difference. If you want fat nugs with flouros growing a bunch of one cola plants in sog would get you big buds. Once you grow dank nugs a number of ways you see the light source becomes negligible when compared to what you help your plants do below the surface. Smart pots and keep a healthy fungus (when growing organically) has a bigger impact on yield per plant than what kind of lights you run imo. I've yielded slightly more from 420 watts of cfls on 8 small plants than doubling vegging time with a 400 MH and using both 400 watt mh and hps for 4 plants twice the size. The month veg cfl plants were in 1.75 gal pots lsted and the double 400s were in 5 gals. I had the cfls stacked 2 layers in a cab I built and the 400s were in a closet. The hids took up much more space created more heat. From then on I've tried to grow more and more efficiently rather than just worry about plant sizes. Different strokes for different folk tho. You gotta do what works for you.