Lighting stress question....

[S_a_H]

I want to move from CFL's for veg to a 400w MH for veg but in the area it is i'll have serious heat issues. So what I want to do is put up the 400w on a timer coming on for 30 minutes and off for 15 minutes leaving one 65w CFL on 24/7.

Its a crappy old spare bulb so I am not worried about it striking to many times and blowing out. I have several and if it does blow the CFL is going to be on to keep them on 24/7 veg. But what I am worried about is the stress of the off and on of the brighter light.

S_a_H

 

[Smoking Gun]

It sounds like the MH would be a waste of time and money. If you want more light in there why not just add another CFL or two? That should provide you with sufficient lighting without raising your temps too high and you won't have to worry about a light striking 24 times a day.

 

[PaullyHighBred]

I wouldnt think it would cause too much stress, kinda like the sun going behind a cloud, outside I move my container gals from full sun to shade and back again on really scorching days with no ill effects...

 

[SICE]

Try it

I veg for about 15hours and continue to 24hours using 80w cfl then. This is with 1000w

 

[jayjayfrank]

my veg tent is actually a 400w on 12/12 but also with 100 watts of cfl on 24/7. seems to work fine, growth was faster with the 400w 24/7(too fast).

 

[señorsloth]

people have vegged under strobe lighting, the guy that made the 12-1 light schedule says you wouldn't even need the cfl on to keep them hapilly vegging, i vegged 12 on 5 off 2 on 5 off, everyday and they didn't mind at all, though they didn't grow fast enough to give me all the clones i wanted to i switched back to 20 hours on 4 hours off...

cfl's are a pain in the ass and they are hot as hell, they only got popular because so many of the people on these growing forums are underage kids growing in cardboard boxes under their beds, in larger scale growing they are highly uneffiecient compared to t5's...

have you looked at t5's? i'm sure you know veg doesn't require the 65w per foot that budding does so it might help with heat to just switch to them, or even an led ufo or two, but when i design my veg i try and get around 25-30w per square foot, gives me good growth rates with low heat and i don't have to deal with some crazy light schedule to keep my temps down, even in this record hot summer were having and me having no air conditioning since last fall...