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Advice on T8 fluorescent

B

buddingattempt

New member
Hiya all,

I'm totally new hear, long time lurker, recent poster! Basically today I was exploring my new house and rumaging amongst junk in the basement and came across 13 T8's with f18w/33 cool white bulbs in, this sent me on a little investigation into the loft where I found five more mounted to the walls.

Anyway, there is a fair amount of lighting there but im not really in the posistion to grow a forest, was just wondering if some one could point me in the direction of some advice on flourescents, i.e how many of these T8 will I need for how many plants?

I've done a bit of outdoor before so im not a total newbie, just new to lights.

Cheers
B
 
statusquo

statusquo

Member
T8's are going to produce some weak and spindly flowers but they will get you something...I would recommend PLL if you are doing flouro. I use 32 watts of T8 in my veg cycle and for clones. It takes about 1 week longer to veg than if I were using a 400W CMH and the growth is more spindly in general but it works and its cheap.
 
B

BudZad7

Active member
Hi All!!

Hi All!!

:) First, do not use those T-8 tubes, go to Home Depot get the Phillips T-8 32watt 48"
natural sunlight tubes for $7.50 each, so $16 for 2 tubes including tax....
these have a kelvin rating of 5000K,,,also mount the fixtures on the wall sides
and some hanging from above in the area of choice,also make sure the walls,
floor, and ceiling are flat white in your area....and keep your plants of choice as
close to lights as possible......they produce no heat....good luck!!! check these out under flouros week 4....:yoinks:
 

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magiccannabus

magiccannabus

Next Stop: Outer Space!
Veteran
statusquo said:
T8's are going to produce some weak and spindly flowers but they will get you something...
Click to expand...

I flowered with T8 and did not get spindly buds. I'm using them plus an HPS now, but T8 is hardly useless. They just work better when used creatively. They can't be as far away as HPS can.
 
M

MDsmoke

T8s penetrate good for about 1-3 inchs probably.....


Do a SOG, and keep them small as possible, and you'll be fine..

DONT LET PLANTS STRETCH!!!!!!!!
 
river rat01

river rat01

Member
the best way to utalize t8s is vertically & 2 dimensionally. that is hight and lenght but very little width.
think- sanwiching them between the vertical lights. like this- l*l , the asterisk is the plant, the vertical lines are the lights.

using them over the plants is the worst way to grow.
 
statusquo

statusquo

Member
magiccannabus said:
I flowered with T8 and did not get spindly buds. I'm using them plus an HPS now, but T8 is hardly useless. They just work better when used creatively. They can't be as far away as HPS can.
Click to expand...

There will always be outliers but to try and argue that CFLs generally don't produce spindly buds is silly. Not only are horizontal reflectors extremely inefficient for CFLs, but the penetrating power is terrible. This means that only the select few that take these variables (plus a few others that I have left out) correctly into account will get good flowers.

But then again I would love to see your flowers with only a t8...
 
B

BudZad7

Active member
Magic.......

Magic.......

Hi All!!! See....T-8's work well if they are setup correctly......Magiccannabus
you are the MAN!!!:woohoo:Peace!!!
 
magiccannabus

magiccannabus

Next Stop: Outer Space!
Veteran
Yep, I vegged horizontally, but I have now changed my veg setup so it's part vert party horizontal. My newer plants are grown a bit differently. The new cabinet is not so restrictive on floor space, for now anyway...... The new cab is a 250W HPS on top and 384W of T8(6 shop lights) around the edges. I plan to change to a 400W HPS overhead when I can afford it, but otherwise I'm pretty happy with the arrangement as it is. T8 is great for flower, but HPS adds a lot too. Gives me a lot more red to work with. Plus I now cover the vital tops which before I had nothing shining on from above. Now all directions except the bottom have light coming from them.
 
statusquo

statusquo

Member
Very nice buds magiccanabus. I will retract my original statement but I still maintain that the majority of people that use flouros will end up with spindly buds. If dialed in, as you have shown :), i guess they can yield nice dense nugs! Thank you for the negative rep stumble :)
 
G

good drown

don't underestimate these lights. if you can put them really close, many o' buds will grow
 
0

007Puff Daddy

New member
Look man go to Dr. Foster and Smith on the Net. Put in the search Sun-Glo. The light you need will pop up. Hit more info. for the color chart. I got Sun-Glo for some red and Marine-Glo for the blue. They good lights. I small cap like 2ft wide 1ft deep 4ft high 2 tubes. They will grow. Dr.Foster and Smith the light are Sun-Glo and Marine-Glo.
 
magiccannabus

magiccannabus

Next Stop: Outer Space!
Veteran
007Puff Daddy said:
Look man go to Dr. Foster and Smith on the Net. Put in the search Sun-Glo. The light you need will pop up. Hit more info. for the color chart. I got Sun-Glo for some red and Marine-Glo for the blue. They good lights. I small cap like 2ft wide 1ft deep 4ft high 2 tubes. They will grow. Dr.Foster and Smith the light are Sun-Glo and Marine-Glo.
Click to expand...

In my experience, specialty tubes aren't enough better for the money, sometimes not better at all in performance either. I know there are some good tubes out there, but the commercial lighting industry has pushed T8 pretty far, the specialty market can't really do a whole lot to make them brighter, which is the biggest thing they need. It's just that specialty tubes are often 10 times the price(or more), and only 10-20% better at most. For me to get 16 four-foot T8 tubes from a specialty source, I'd end up spending over 200 dollars for the tubes I would want. I can get 8 2-packs of high output T8 lamps at home depot for 7 dollars each, or 56 dollars total. If money was no object, that little extra output might pay for itself with time.
 
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