Hey Hemp Goddess; here my hydro grow

[Hushpuppy]

As per our discussion on lighting and hydro growing, I had promised some pics of my system and pics of my diy(kind of) lighting system. The reflector hood in the middle hold the 600whps for flowering and the T5s are High output "Sunblaster" 3' 39w 3624 lumens each, for veg. The wholeunit is suspended by yo-yo hangers to be adjustable. the reflector is vented and air cooled from the outside air through flex hose. There is an inline turbo fan that really moves the air but I forget how many cfm. We originally had 2 reflector lights in the same room, one MH and one hps, but that got complicated on too many levels. I think the T5 hps setup will do quite well. the hydro system is a modified drip aeroponic system that has worked pretty decent so far. As yu can see, we have 6" net pots that sit down into the top of the hydro unit. each pot has coco coir over hydroton. The roots are allowed to hang down inside the unit while water dripped in from above runs over the roots. the enclosed systems maintains high humidity for the roots while allowing air to also get to them. there is a resevoir beneath each table that catches the water and recirculates it back. the rez has an air stone to aerate the water to try to get good oxygen to the roots. we have the air pump mounted high in the room so to get the lighter oxygen that moves up in each room. each room is ventilated to the center "work room" so that we can maintain temp, humidity, and CO2 input. We use a natural source of CO2, us. one or both of us goes daily and babysets the girls for a couple hours to breath out all the CO2 we can. The one room with the T5 setup is a bit smaller and holds only 6 plants. While the bigger room has a mobile table that is setup right now to hold 8 plants. I want to increase the capacity so that we can do a SOG but my partner is afraid to try that just yet. BTW, the girls in the small rooms are some "carolina creeper" (local beans), and the bigger room has new "Blueberry Punch" from Greenlife seeds. the BBpunch is 3 wks into veg right now. We have 2 400wMH lights over them. We just switched from T5s over them for the last 3 wks. When it comes time to flower we will switch out the bulbs with hps600. Once we get a few more grows under us, we intend to do some sog and scrog to compare yeilds. One question tho, for those plants being vegged under T5, how many total lumens do yu recommend? room is 3'8"sq

 

[Hushpuppy]

I couldn't attach all the pics in the first post so here is a pic of my "EZ cloner" that I so love (got it used for a steal). All the clones in it came from the mother that is standing beside it. the other pics are the 3rd room which has a modified DWC. "creeper" is 3wks into flower and doin well. the screen is there for support rather than scrog method as we were too late into veg when we learned about scrog. I am hoping these girls fatten up a lot b4 harvest.

 

[4u2sm0ke]

Sweeeeeet....Nice setup my friend...Im just a Dirt Farmer but Know when I seee a nice one...

take care and be safe:bolt::bong:

 

[Gixxerman420]

VERY clean set up Hush; keep up the good work!

 

[wasson]

Very nice and clean, think im gunna get rid of my MH aswell get myself some T5's. Love the cloner too!

 

[Hushpuppy]

It is a labor of love. Cant wait to try out the bluberry punch
These new T5HO bulbs really put out the lumens also. around 5k for the 4 footers

 

[Locked]

HO T5's FTW in veg.....I can't say enough good things about them.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

Thanks for sharing the pics. Clean looking set up. I would shoot for around 3000 lumens per sq for vegging.

I would try and get some kind of reflector over your bulbs. I think you are losing a lot of lumens by letting them just shoot up to the ceiling.
I prefer T5s to MH. I have 2 400W MH that I do not use anymore. I found that I could get just as good vegetative growth from 216W of T5s that I got from 400W of MH and with far, far less heat.

 

[Hushpuppy]

yeah I meant to put a reflector behind my T5s when I built them but forgot. I got some really good reflective insulation from Lowes that feels like mylar but it is dimpled which will prevent hot spots. I have it on the walls in the one bigger room. It seems to work really good for reflecting both light and temp back into the room. the downside is controlling the heat of HID lights. I am gonna put T5s on the HIDs in the big room next and do away with the MH like yu said.

If anyone is interested in getting those T5s, I get mine from "access discounts" online. best prices on lighting and good delivery time.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

yeah I meant to put a reflector behind my T5s when I built them but forgot. I got some really good reflective insulation from Lowes that feels like mylar but it is dimpled which will prevent hot spots. I have it on the walls in the one bigger room. It seems to work really good for reflecting both light and temp back into the room. the downside is controlling the heat of HID lights. I am gonna put T5s on the HIDs in the big room next and do away with the MH like yu said.

If anyone is interested in getting those T5s, I get mine from "access discounts" online. best prices on lighting and good delivery time.

What did you pay for them?

Remember that just because something looks reflective does not mean that it actually is a good reflector--mirrors and foil come to mind....

 

[Hushpuppy]

The T5s are $23. for 2,3, or 4' single fixture with the 6400k bulb. They are called "SunBlaster" n they have the ballast incorporated within the fixture. Each fixture comes with both a plugin wire with thumb switch and a daisy chain wire to use to plug several units together and control with one switch. yu can also get the 2700k bulb for like $11. The 4' bulb puts out around 5k lumens, 3' puts out over 3k lumens, and I think the 2' puts out a little over 2k lumens. They swear that these T5HO units put out 95 lumens per watt. the online store "Access Direct" has the best prices that I have found, and they have been pretty decent service wise.
Yeah I know about reflective surfaces. I read somewhere that mirrors are the worst for using with grow light as they reflect the worst part of the light spectrum and create hot spots. I am honestly not sure about this insulation, but it seems to do really good for keeping my IR signature down, which was my intention, along with just insulation value, but the reflective material is supposed to be like 95% reflective and it feels like mylar stretched over styrofoam. I got it at lowes.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

It is neat that they have internal ballasts and can be linked like you are doing and that you can buy 3' tubes, but without a reflector of any kind, i"ll probably stick with HTG (they also have replacement bulbs 4 for $20).

 

[Hushpuppy]

It is neat that they have internal ballasts and can be linked like you are doing and that you can buy 3' tubes, but without a reflector of any kind, i"ll probably stick with HTG (they also have replacement bulbs 4 for $20).

What is HTG? that's something I've not seen that I know of. How many do yu use? lumens?...My partner was telling me today that my setup isn't working as well as his, but I told him that he is using 8 4'T5s that are in a reflector hood and should be pushing around 5k lumens each, while I only have 6 3'ers at just over 3k lumens each. He was wondering if the "actinic blue" bulbs were better than the 6400k that I use. I told him that everything I've read says that the 6400k is the best spectrum for veg growth. They also offer a 2700k that is supposed to be within the right spectrum range for flowering. Have yu ever tried those or think they would be enough? I am doing a small scrog that I will need to have serious heat control over, and if those work well enough I could forgo the Hps and its heat. BTW, yer DIY scrog has the pvc pipe within the rez rather than a stand alone screen...did yu do that for a specific reason n have yu changed it since then?

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

HTG is High Tech Garden Supply--hXXp://www.htgsupply.com/. I buy a lot of stuff from them. They also retail on E-bay. Sometimes stuff is cheaper on E-Bay than it is through their web site.

I am not familiar with actinic blue bulbs, so can offer no opinion.

I had 2 150W HPS over my scrog in a space approx 22 x 28 with no heat issues. And of course, if your buddy has more lumens and a good reflector, his plants are getting a lot more light than yours. A reflector is really quite important--basically over 1/2 of your light is "lost".

I designed the scrog I used that way so that I could remove the top of the res, the plants, and the screen all at once if need be.

 

[Hushpuppy]

Thanks, I will check that out. I am going to add a reflector this weekend to my lights as I understand the losses from not having one. a round bulb puts out light in 360* of which only one third is really going straight at the plants. What do yu use for reflectors? Yu said yu use the T5s for veg? how much? I thought yu said like 412watts, how many lumens is that with yer lights? how long do yu veg yer scrog b4 switching to 12/12 to flower?

 

[Dr. Manny Bowles]

Nice looking setup Hushpuppy!

I just want to add, stay away from the 'AgroMax' T5's from HTG, they are complete junk. I bought a BUNCH of them about 4 months back, every single one was burnt out within 60 days. HTG will not return my emails... Just a heads up.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

I have had very good luck working with HTG and have never had any problems with them.

The T5s I bought from HTG came with a reflector--I did not make mine. I use a 4' 4 bulb unit that uses 216W and puts out 20,000 lumens. Although this makes the space slightly underlit (less than 3000 lumens per sq ft), I have such good growth that I have not added more light. I always let my plants get well established in the cloner before I put into the DWC. I probably had about 3 weeks in the cloner and 5 weeks vegging for the scrog I did.

 

[Hushpuppy]

Cool, that's what I figured. I was lookin at HTG last night and saw what yu were talkin about. I also saw they have a 2' 4bulb fixture that they say puts out 20k lumens. That's 5k per (2') bulb. I wonder if that is an error in their ad as the only 5k lumen bulbs I've seen are the 4'ers. I intend to order some more of the 3footers from AD as they fit my system. My brackets should hold 2 more lights on either side and I will definitely put a reflector behind them. That should give me a little over 18k lumens per side. If that doesn't do enough, I may raise the fixture a bit and put a 400w MH in it and see what that does.
BTW TY DR. for the info. It seems like with any of the discount places somebody will run into a crappy deal on occasion. I was dealing with a company in CA called horticulture resource and had my credit card info stolen and used to buy some stuff. Fortunately I am usually broke so they couldn't steal but $100 from me. I can't really blame HR for it as I can't prove the info breach.....I do all of my dealin with DH and AD and have had no trouble so far, but ya never know.

 

[Dr. Manny Bowles]

Yeah, I was pretty disappointed that they didn't get back to me. I have had nothing but good dealings with them in the past. Sometimes you do get what you pay for I guess...

I think you will like the T5's for vegging:aok: Along with some of the others here, I too have an old 400w MH no longer in use. T5's give better coverage per watt and stay much cooler. I have seen much tighter nodes on my girls since the switch also.

It sounds like you have a great plan for your grow, I can't wait to see more:hubba:

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

Cool, that's what I figured. I was lookin at HTG last night and saw what yu were talkin about. I also saw they have a 2' 4bulb fixture that they say puts out 20k lumens. That's 5k per (2') bulb. I wonder if that is an error in their ad as the only 5k lumen bulbs I've seen are the 4'ers. .

No, not an error. These are a special 2' double tube bulb (PPL 55) that does put out 5000 lumens. I have one of the 2 tube ones that I like very much.