flourecent vs hps

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

blondlebanese

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2014
Messages
397
Reaction score
27
my questions are about lights. right now I have one grow room I'm using a 1000w hps light. I have the room to set up a vegging room. I've read a lot about flouro lights, t5 54w. I know about the benefit of low heat and less power used with flouro lights. what about the plants progress? under flouro lights are the plants growing slower, or less in volume. compared to a hps 1000w light. if vegging under flouro lights makes plants that grow faster and more full then ... specifically what are the differences in the final product? please go into detail. this must have been asked before but I couldn't find the post about it.
 
I flower under HPS as well but I veg under t5s...now I'm sure other people will chime in on this that have more knowledge than me but during a plants vegative stage it likes to have a different spectrum of lighting than what the hps provides...not to say that they won't do well under one...now I know MH are very good for vegging but the t5s IMO work just as well if set up correctly...one advantage is the heat output of the bulbs...with the t5s you will be able to put them within inches of your canopy without having to worry about burning your babies...also as you mentioned they do use a considerabley less amount of electricity...so in theory you could use a lot more t5s and have them closer to your plants while still using less energy and giving your girls all the light they need...now I am sure I haven't covered everything here and I'm sure people will chime in and correct me if I'm wrong on anything...like I said I am not a lighting/electric expert but I have been growing for a while and this is what I've been able to tell for myself...good luck!
 
Also when I first started out I used hps for everything and when I switched to t5s I actually liked them for vegging a lot better...trust me they will fill out just fine if u set up correctly!
 
Big Tree has pretty much nailed it. During vegging, plants do better with light in the blue spectrum, around 6500K. They grow fuller and bushier with closer intermodal spacing during the veg process with that spectrum. This is the reason that most people veg with either MH or fluorescents.

Many people pick the T5s over the MH because of less heat, better distribution of light, and being able to keep the light extremely close to the canopy. T5s put out the same lumens per watt as a MH, so their efficiency is about the same, although the T5s will not have the penetrating power of a MH. However, I found that I could swap out my 400W MH for a 216W T5 just fine--without any loss of veggy growth. I put this down to the fact that the T5 spreads the light over the area being used evenly and that you can put the plants within an inch or two of the tubes.

Plants vegged under HPS may look like they are growing faster because the red light of the HPS is going to cause stretch. However stretch is not productive growth--it is stem lengthening without corresponding bud sites. The fewer bud sites, of course, the fewer buds.

Difference in the final product will most likely be less bud as the plant will stretch more with all HPS and thereby produce less. Red light just does not produce the growth phase of the plant like blue light does.
 
ok t5 54w it is. I have a 6'x8'x9' room. how many 4' bulbs do I need?
 
Are you actually going to use all 48 sq ft? If so, you would need 29 4' tubes....and you will also need 2 1000W HPS lights--one is not nearly enough for a space that size. Setting up a room that size is going to take some cash, time and energy.
 
no I'm not using the entire space. I asked this question on another post. do I need to light up the whole room or just above the plants? the grow box is 3'x6' centered in the middle of the room. probably not using the walls to reflect light the way I should be. right now I'm vegging and flowering in the same room so I can raise only 6 plants. hence the 3x6 grow box in a 6x8 foot room.
 
If you do not have some kind of reflective partition to basically make the room smaller and reflect the light back to the plants, the light will disburse throughout the entire room and yes, you will have to light it all. I think I mentioned this in one of your other threads. Since the room is 6 x 8, you would probably be better taking 3' along one of the 6' sides so that 3 sides are walled off by the original room rather than trying to use the center of the room. You could probably have a veg space in that room, too as vegging spaces can be about 1/2 the space of the flowering room.
 
THG is right, try to reflect the light spills from the sides, I just cut cardboard sheets to size and paint em matt white
 

Latest posts

Back
Top