T5 8 bulb questions!

[komakulshan]

Hey Hey,
So I am in the market for a new light. I am on a budget and want a light that can do it all. I have seen 4-5 ops that have gone from seed to harvest using t5s. The buds looked great and the price seems right. I was wondering if anyone would steer clear of t5s or just go for it a 4ft 6 or 8 bulb set up.
Id love any feed back from any experiance with the t5s
PEACE

 

[habeeb]

I think T-5's are best suited for micro grows ( 2 foot and no more then 4 bulbs )

I would do a 150-250 HPS

 

[ddrew]

I really like mine.
I use them for vegging only, and they work great for me, way less stretch then with regular shop lights.
Never flowered with them, but I was just thinking about trying today.

 

[Cutty]

I have had a 4x4 for years and love the thing. I have vegged and flowered under the it. Even the same cuts that I did under 1K and there was no difference in bud density or tricomes.

It's a great all around light.

Have you checked out the new 95 watt air-cooled T5's? Similar prices on both fixtures and tubes.

 

[kcbudz31]

I have had a 4x4 for years and love the thing. I have vegged and flowered under the it. Even the same cuts that I did under 1K and there was no difference in bud density or tricomes.

It's a great all around light.

Have you checked out the new 95 watt air-cooled T5's? Similar prices on both fixtures and tubes.

you talking about the VHO T5's? those look neat

 

[Mr. Greengenes]

"way less stretch then with regular shop lights." Just got my new 4'x4 T5 a few months back and I can confirm the more compact vegetative growth over conventional 40w fluorescents. With some artful Plant Jiu-Jitsu (bending) applied, one could easily harvest same GPW's as with HID's.

 

[Maj.Cottonmouth]

I have a Sunleaves 8 bulb T5 light and I like it but I think for the cost you would better off going with an HID light. Mine came with veg bulbs and the flower bulbs are $15 each locally so I was looking at spending $120 for bulbs to switch to flower on top of the almost $300 I paid for the light. If I had it to do over again I would not buy the T5 and would have bought 2 more 400w CMH setups instead. The heat from the CMH is not much more than what the T5 makes. My 2 cents, best of luck.

 

[Castelvetro]

id recomend going with a hid. same heat outpoot and just one more thing that smaller in your grow space n much easier to adjust and move out of the way, and to be honest, u can get a very nice brand new hid setup cheaper, get a 250htg hps 117$ and buy a cmh 250 bulb, youll have the best of both worlds , just my opinon, no doubt the lumes are there with the t-5s and the buds they produce are great. recently i was schooled through first hand experience that cfls are hotter then h.i.ds, got about 80 watts of cfl and my 150hps is just as cool or dam close.

 

[sparkie480]

here is a link for a good light at ok price
t-5' s are nice good for a cabnet grow not so much heat vs light output

http://www.htgsupply.com/growlighttypes.asp?categoryID=1&subcategoryID=107

 

[Castelvetro]

dont base your decission on heat outpout, the t-5 will be on par with hids, read the forum they are about the same, as well as the fact that they dont even put out max lumen untill they reach 95 degrees so that should tell u somehting.

 

[wdcf]

I have a Sunleaves 8 bulb T5 light and I like it but I think for the cost you would better off going with an HID light. Mine came with veg bulbs and the flower bulbs are $15 each locally so I was looking at spending $120 for bulbs to switch to flower on top of the almost $300 I paid for the light. If I had it to do over again I would not buy the T5 and would have bought 2 more 400w CMH setups instead. The heat from the CMH is not much more than what the T5 makes. My 2 cents, best of luck.

I also had the same problem 15 dollars a bulb fucking ridiculous so I went wholesale and bought 40 bulbs for 80 dollars.... 3500K bulbs but they have other light spectrums available too...

http://www.e-conolight.com/Product/EFamily.asp
Dont know if they have the T5s on the site, but if you call them they are available...

 

[Socomvet]

I got the 8 bulb 4ft by 2ft Sun Blaze floro for $250 with the bulbs (all blue) and I use it for my Veg. Works great saves space and keeps temps down compared to a MH.

 

[Mr. Greengenes]

Fluorescent lights have the advantage of a large, flat even illumination. By contrast, HID's in any position or reflector have basically bowl shaped lightprints that are far from even on a flat surface. It's much easier to get all the efficiency out of a fluorescent setup by positioning plants right up under it than getting plants arranged in an even bowl shape around an HID. In theory, HID's should make larger yields, but many of us have found fluorescent lights can do as well per watt because it's easier to set thing up where the leaves block virtually all the lumens you pay for.

I haven't tried T5's for flowering yet, but from the way I've seen them working on my vegging plants, I'm confident that they would be a great choice for space limited grows.

 

[sidewing]

i love the 4 bulb t5 for veg.. keeps your growth short and bushy.. very very nice ... i always recommend at least a 600w hps for flowering.. the t5's will get the node growth very nice then they will fill in amazing during flowering.

 

[cactusjack]

Yup. e-conolight has the tubes as well as fixture at reasonable prices and they are now shown on their web site. Tubes are currently $2.20 each in a case of 40. An eight-tube fixture with specular reflector is running $125.90.

I have run an eight tube unit over a 2ft x 4ft scrog in place of 3 x 150 watt HPS previously used. Yield is slightly superior and I save a lot of height. IMO, if you are height conscious and you scrog, you can't beat a T-5 bank. Make sure you have a quality reflector. It makes all the difference. I custom built my unit several years ago using high grade aquarium reflectors, but I believe the reflector on the e-conolight fixture is fairly good as it is.

 

[D Rock]

I've grown some pretty good bud under T5's. My grows are on this site. T5's are really good for the whole grow and not just for seedlings and veg.

 

[wdcf]

I've grown some pretty good bud under T5's. My grows are on this site. T5's are really good for the whole grow and not just for seedlings and veg.

As long as you dont grow huge plants, I have a T5 8 bulb as well and it works great, but if you growing tall plants it wont work as well because it has poor canopy penetration IMHO

 

[Caille]

I am using two 2ft 4 bulb t5s for vegging and I can only say I am loving it! My plants are short bushy and after some LST are creating a canopy the likes of which I never got until I switched to t5.


As for Flowering I cannot say, but I would imagine with the right care, control and management you could do decently under flouro. I will say this though. Lumen wise there is simply no comparison between hid and t5. My 1000watt HPS will be putting out 147000 lumens, my two 2 foot long 4 bulb t5s put a combined total of about 16000 lumens. However space by space comparisons will show me that each one sqare foot of my flowering chamber gets 9187 lumens my t5s push 4000 per square foot.


So at a certain point you may actually even get more lumens per square foot with t5.


For instance if I had a 400watt hps in that same 16 square feet I would be getting less light than 4000 lumens per sqare foot. But I would need A LOT more t5 lamps to achieve that same 16 square feet of canopy coverage at that 4000 lumen range. At which point power usage might very likely outweigh the hps, making it ineffective in larger areas as others have pointed out.



You could probably do quite well in a small cabinet set up where you can keep the lumens at a decent lumen/sq ft ratio thus ensuring decent canopy penetration.


Alexis
*smiles*