2 ft 4 tube t5 fixture-Any one with experience?

[Hybrid Whooa]

Has any one used these fixtures? For Veg? Flowering? Just picked one up and gonna give it a go. I have a 24"x20"x3' high tent that I built. This lamp emits 7200 lumens @ 96 watts. So with just under 4 sq. ft thats 1800 lumens/sq ft or 24 wts/sq ft. This is pretty low, no? SHould I add supplemental lighting? I was thinking some cheap t8 single flouro strips running vertically or horizontally along the sides. Or just veg under the t5's and go for a 150w hps for flower. So many thoughts and ideas running through my head. I want to put some solid thought into this set-up as I want a clean and efficient grow. With this information would it be best to go SCROG because with the t5 fixture i can get even light coverage over the canopy. I have some (Dinafem Moby Dick) x (Afghani Whitegrape) seeds that I made over the outdoor season and have 8 seedlings in a pc box. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Lets get this grow up and running!

 

[statusquo]

50 watts/sq ft of hid +-10 imo. 29 (not 24 =P) is way too low for flouro/that tent. Horizontal flouros on the side have been shown to be relatively ineffective. They help but the watts could be better used. I would recommend using the t5s for vegging and then getting a 150 watt CMH (ceramic metal halide, runs off an HPS magnetic ballast and is essentially an HPS bulb with MH gasses/glass coating inside (or vice versa but pretty sure it's the other way). The CMH is a "white" spectrum and is much closer to natural sunlight. It also runs cooler (slightly) and emmits UV-B (be careful, people have gotten burns and screwed their vision up). I would also recommend vertical growing seeing that you have more height than any other dimension and because vertical grows are inherently more efficient. In a horizontal setup, half the light doesn't even go towards the plants and then is reflected off the hood back through the bulb again diminishing bulb life and decreasing light intensity - light intensity decreases exponentially with distance traveled. It's also easier to cool imo.

 

[Hybrid Whooa]

What is meant by "vertical grow". Does that refer to the position of the bulb, or the way in which you train or grow the plant? I still have alot of learning to do

 

[Pinball Wizard]

I haven't been able to find any 2 foot, HO T5 bulbs rated any higher than 24 watts?

The 4ft bulbs are 54 watt & 5 ft, up to 96 watt.

But ...I like my 2ft, 24 watt, 4 bulb HO T5 fixture for vegging the first 3 weeks...

... ..

 

[statusquo]

Ya check out the vertical growing section in the growers forum. Basically you just hang the bulb vertically, bare, without a hood, and then put the plants around it in a circle. This allows for all ~360 degrees of the light to reach the plants. The plants, being phototropic, can be potted and put on the floor as normal - they will grow towards the light but this is the very vague summary. If you check out the some of the threads in the vert Colosseum section you can see a bunch of pictures and they speak much louder than words.

 

[statusquo]

I haven't be able to find any 2 foot, HO T5 bulbs rated any higher than 24 watts?

The 4ft bulbs are 54 watt & 5 ft, up to 96 watt.

But ...I like my 2ft, 4 bulb HO T5 fixture for vegging the first 3 weeks...

Are you saying that the sum total of the t5's you are using (the 2 footers) is 96 watts? 24x4? Where did you get this thing - I hate using my current 4ft t8's. They are way too long and I would much rather consolidate my veg area with a t5 setup like that. Where did you get yours?

Edit: removed redundant pictures + wanted to apologize for somewhat diverting attention away from the OP. Sorry mang.

 

[Hybrid Whooa]

Unfortunately I dont have enough space for the 4 footer and was attracted to flouros becuase of less heat and energy but at only 50 watts more and basically double the lumens, I think the 150 HPS is obv the way to go.Not to mention greater light penetration. I usually veg indoors before putting my plants outdoors in may so the t5 purchase is a win/win situation(at least I'm gonna tell myself that for now)
Statusquo I wish I would have researched a bit more because with the CMH bulb you basically have a dual ballast without even switching the bulb...lol

PinBall- those plants look really nice veggin under that t5, what strain?

Next step is finding a good inline fan and scrubber. Will a 4" fan be enough? What CFM do I need to effectively use a scrubber?

 

[statusquo]

Unless you already bought a digital HPS ballast, you can still do CMH. Also the bulbs are actually cheaper than many HPS grow bulbs (some run upwards of $100 while the CMH are $50 even).

In regards to CFM, that's more important in relation to air exchange. As long as your CFM isn't too high (not enough time for the terpenes in the air being exhausted to absorb into the porous carbon) or too low for the volume of carbon you have, it's fine. There is a precise way to calculate this but I'm not sure what it is or where it is. Everyone I know usually ends up exchanging all the air in their room every 1-2 minutes. I personally just shoot for between 2-3. To determine this, take your total cubic feet (l x w x h) and then divide this result by the CFM of your fan. or do the cubic feet/x = (the amount of minutes to want it to take for all of the air to be exhausted and replaced, say 2 for the sake of convenience). A 4" fan will definitely be enough. I'm assuming its ~110 CFM and your tent is only 10 cubic feet. This means that you would replace all of the air in your tent 11 times per minute.

 

[Pinball Wizard]

Are you saying that the sum total of the t5's you are using (the 2 footers) is 96 watts? 24x4? Where did you get this thing - I hate using my current 4ft t8's. They are way too long and I would much rather consolidate my veg area with a t5 setup like that. Where did you get yours?

Edit: removed redundant pictures + wanted to apologize for somewhat diverting attention away from the OP. Sorry mang.

access discounts...I buy all my gear from there...since 2005

(the seedlings are nirvana WW, homemade, third grow)

 

[Hybrid Whooa]

Status Quo , I did some further research on the CMH set-up. You need a pulse start MH ballast to run CMH bulbs between 20-150w. CMH bulbs can be used in HPS ballasts ranging from 250-1000w. I think Im just gonna veg and flower under this t5 fixture that I have. It seems alot of people use t5 for veg but havent seen many people use for flowering.I'd like to see the results. Should be interesting, I might throw some additional CFL lighting in the tent during flowering . Also I may keep my height relatively low and do a scrog with the t5's. it seems like the most logical approach with such lighting. Eventually I will graduate to the 150 or 250 HPS. I'm excited for this T5 test run

 

[McLabia]

Ive used one of those for three grows, Ive seen decent results, but they work best for vegging rather than flowering. If you make sure to switch your lights when you go to flowering though, you can pull a decent yield. I did however just purchase a 150 watt HPS for flowering. Imo, having both of them is always helpful if you can afford them. I paid 45 for my t5 and 72 for my HPS.