Lighting dilemma

[woodydude]

Hi
So I will be reorganising my veg room.

As you can see, it is a reasonable space but is very difficult to work with, having to reach over the front plants to get to those at the back.
My plan is to move things around in my growroom so I can have these 2 tables side by side, making them easier to access.
My main problem is lighting, just now a plant usually veg's for 8/10 weeks and when going into flower it has lots of tight growth but no real height or substance to it, quite disappointing really.
Plants move right to left at the back while vegging, each bucket having a stronger nutrient solution than the preceding one.
When they get to the front tote, that is full strength, along with the small buckets, whcih I use primarily to keep the roots apart once a plant get bigger.
My main aim in all this is to reduce veg time from rooted cutting/seedling from the current 8/10 weeks to a more reasonable 6 weeks thereby reducing the stages and my plant numbers, I want to reduce numbers from the current 22 down to 12. To do this, I need to change the flouro's you see at the back. They burn 144W and emit around 8/9k lumens, pathetic really!
At present I am carrying some plants through to my flower room on a daily basis for around 8 hours to give them some decent lighting but cannot do this with the plants in totes/hydro.
In my flowering room I have 1 x 600w magnetic and 1 x 600w digital ballasts.
What will give me the best lighting to accomplish my aims of changing the layout, reducing my plant numbers, speeding up veg growth etc, dual spectrum HPS, metal halide, t5, CFL's?
Cost is not really an issue, getting the best equipment for the job is. T5's are great for tight growth and lots of internodes but I am finding the growth painfully slow.
The space will be around 4' x 2'. My thinking atm is to buy a 600w switchable digital ballast and run it with a 400w metal halide bulb or dual spec hps.

Suggestions anyone? W

 

[woodydude]

I should add, you cant see it in this picture but there is a 4 tube 4' T5 fisture covering the plants at the front, the flouro's are only for those at the back and contain cool white tubes.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

You are thinking of putting 1000W of metal halide in 8 sq ft?

I do not find that the vegging growth from T5s to be "painfully slow". I didn't get any better growth from 400W of MH than I get from 216W of T5. My veg space is approx the same size as you're planning. And I also run 2 600W HPS in my flowering space.

I would keep the 8-10 week veg time and go with lower plant counts--this should give you greater yield. Having too many plants in a space is counterproductive.

 

[woodydude]

From your answer I am thinking I did not explain my situation very well.
In the picture, there are 22 rooted plants in 4 totes and 4 small buckets, As plants move round the system, they spend 2 weeks in each of the stages, giving roughly 10 weeks from rooting to flowering. I am wanting to get rid of 2 of the totes/stages so my veg time is reduced to 6 weeks. To do this, I need to make some changes and the most effective I can think of is using a dual spectrum hps OR metal halide, probably a 400w. I was thinking of buying a digi 600w switchable ballast because that will offer me more flexibility and they are almost as cheap to buy as a 400w digi.

What has prompted me to think about this change is the growth I have had by giving a few plants 8 hours of 600w hps a day, it is roughly what I get from 6 weeks under my flouro's or T5's! I have also seen a few friends grows where the veg growth is phenominal compared to mine. I should point out here that the biggest plant I have put in to flower recently was 15" high and my average yield is just under 2oz per plant. In my book that is utter shyte and I need to do something about it. I think my flowering room is ok, temps, air, lighting etc are all within 5% of what most would consider perfect.
Quite simply, if I put bigger plants in to flower, I will get more bud at harvest. If it is taking me 10 weeks to get a plant from a rooted cutting to 15" tall, I am doing something wrong somewhere and my expereince with the test plants under hps tell me it is my lighting.

 

[docfishwrinkle]

ime woody, hps make em stretch in veg. you should be able to rock some bushes at 10 wks w/ a t5 or t8 for that matter. you should fab up a reflector for those floros you have now. at least cardboard & mylar come to mind.

what are your temps: air-hi & lo, & water? what are your nutes? by the looks of it youre all dwc or poss some aero in there?

 

[Locked]

I wld rock some HO T5's over HPS or MH.....I hve had the tightest growth in veg since switching over to T5's from HPS.....plus I don't have to battle the heat. Jmo

 

[woodydude]

Hi doc.
Its all dwc in there. The totes have 11l (2 1/2 gal) nute solution in them. Solution ranges from 33% to 100% strength, AN Sensi nutes at 2ml A and 2ml B per l for full st with Voodoo Juice and B52 at 2ml full st.
There is diamond mylar on the walls all round.
Lights are 24/7, with the 144 you can see and a 4 x 4 T5.
Temps are usually low 80's but occasionally go as high as 92 and humidity is around 35%. I know they need sorting out.
Water is tap water, with an ec of 0.14 and ph 7.3. I have gone back to checking the ph daily and keeping it between 5.5 and 6.2

 

[docfishwrinkle]

im thinking its your tap water & rez temps as for slow growth. lowering air temps & raising rh will help but tackle the others first. .14ec = 98ppms (.5 conv) which really isnt all that bad, but do you know what makes up this tds? how often are you adjusting water ph?

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

I (still) don't quite understand your "different stages" and the need for them.

How big is your space and what kind of lumens are you pushing. How far above the plants are your lights? Like I mentioned before, I get better growth with T5s than MH. I am with Docfishwrinkle about the stretch from HPS--are your vegging girls you are putting under the HPS part of the time growing or stretching?

 

[Growdude]

Ive vegged with HPS and MH, this last grow I did T5 all have worked just fine and did not see any stretch compared to the MH.

I had a post here where I showed the vegg from HPS next to a MH and you could not see any difference, both very bushy.

IMO you need to figure out why your plants are growing slowly, I only vegg "clones" for about 2-3 weeks and end up with very large plants, 3 fill a 10 sq/ft grow area.

My advice is to start using different water and start using GH floranova grow only for vegg, It is much easyer to know there getting the correct balanced nutes from a one part system, go more advanced latter when things are sorrted out.

Keep your PH at 5.8, dont adjust it every day let it swing from 5.5 to 6.1 but the goal is a PH that stays at 5.8 for days at a time.
To get this you need to adjust the feed strength of your nutes and only use the GH flora nova.
Unbalanced nute solutions will for ex. have to much N as the plant feeds the excess N is building up in the nute solution causing PPM's to rise and the PH to fall.The reverse is also true. So the trick is having the proper balance of nutes as well as the stength to maintain a consistant PH.

Did you mention if you have a good fresh air supply? Lack of Co2 in the air can cause slow growth as well.

Hope that makes sence.

 

[Hushpuppy]

Not to be contrary of others here, but I run both MH400w and several T5 lights together. If yu look at my thread under "Hydroponic" "Hey Hemp Goddess her is my grow" and go to page 22 pic 5, yu see 6 plants on a table with black lines feeding each one. They were under 19600 lumins of T5 (definitely not enough). I mounted my T5s to my HID reflector and ran a 400w MH in it with the T5s (Ialso have digital amps), then look at page 29 pic 3 at the same plants about 10 days later. I am not knocking the T5s at all, I am certain that if I increased the number of T5s to give the right amount of lumens, I would have the same results. My point is that if yu have the HIDs run them together with the T5s to get a good spectrum and max lumens. The drawback to that though is the heat generated by the HIDs and the possibility of stressing the youngins with soo many lumens. I also think yu may have a combination of issues that may include some sort of nutrient deficiency. I hope my rambling advice helps:doh:

 

[woodydude]

Doc, the 98ppm's is made up of calcium, nitrite, soduim, iron and chlorine. I got this info from the water authority website from last years report. I live in Scotland and though I have slagged off the water on occasion, it is more the propaganda stating the water here is some of the best in the world that I am annoyed at.
I adjust ph ever 2 days, I find it difficult to walk away when the meter reads a ph of over 6 though I know a few locals who grow with hydro at over 6. The buffers in the solution seem to take it to 6.2 if left. When I checked today, I had to add some water but -ph was sitting at 5.8 across the board.
THG, I have different strengths in the totes because I run multiple strains. If I put a plant into a tote and it shows burn, I put it in a lower strength tote. I know, I should concentrate on one strain at a time but this is what I have atm and this is what I need to deal with. Since reducing all the strengths last week, growth has been noticably better.
I currently have 3 1/2' x 20" (around 6sq ft) covered by a 4x4 T5 which gives 18,600 lumens. The tray you see in front is covered by the T5 fixture at 3,000lumens/ft
The tray at the back is the same size and was intended to be for mother plants so the lumen count didnt really matter as I did not want good growth, just enough for a few clones every couple of weeks. I am changing the setup and no longer keep mother plants, meaning the 3 totes at the back are covered by a meagre 9,000 lumens, half of what I need for veg growth. This is the whole point of this matter, I know I need better lighting for that section but it is which way to go about getting it. I already have a T5 fixture but need to buy a new light for this area, I am just now sure what to get.
The plants I have put under the HPS have grown not strtetched. Comparing a 3 week old cutting under the HPS to the same strain under the veg setup shows the same internode numbers and overall height but the plant under the veg setup is 8 weeks old.
GD, Thanks for the suggestions but changing water or nutes isnt an option, 8l (2gal) of AN sensi grow a&b arrived yesterday and I wont be rushing out to buy any more for quite a while. Even though it is a 2-part, as long as I measure them correctly and dont premix them, change regularly I am certain my problem isnt the brand of nutrients. As for the water, I know others locally who get decent results using tap water. I did experiment with one tote of bottled water and my tap water had a more neutral ph and lower EC so I wont be buying any more bottled water. It was 5 bottles of RO water.
Res temp, for sure could be an issue, I have never checked the temp. Also slow growth could be because of air temp being too high and rh being too low. These issues will be sorted out when I change my rooms round. There is fresh air thanks to it being next to an open window but again this will be changed when I swap the room round.
HP, As I mentioned in reply to THG, I know the lumen count on that back section is an issue, which is why I was asking about lights lol. I wanted to get an idea of others experience in using different types of lights. I am trying to achieve better vegetative growth which hopefully result in bigger buds!
Thanks all for your experience and suggestions. I think what may be my best course of action for now is to swap my room around, take some pics, then you will get a clearer picture of the lighting issue. This will also hopefully sort out the rh, air temp & quality issues I have. I have been mixing the nutes far too strong, at 4ml of each per l when it should have been 4ml/l between the 2 formulae.
Peace W

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

The trouble with trying to run MH and T5s together is that the MH needs to be a foot or so away from the top of the canopy to keep from burning the plants. At this height, the light from the T5s is very weak and probably not contributing much at all to the vegging growth.

 

[woodydude]

Something occured to me last night.
When I first got my T5, I had a major problem with the plants I had so ended up throwing them all into flower. I got hold of some cuttings which I grew on in the system in the pic, DWC under the flouro's followed by 4 weeks under the T%'s so I have never actually had a plant vegged through solely under the T5's.
I will be moving my room around this week, hopefully it will make the plants more accessible for me and should work better than at present for air/temp/rh etc. I will keep the flouro's for a few weeks so I can see how cuttings grow just under the T5's. If they grow ok, I will get another T5 fixture. I saaw a friends grow when vegged under a 250W cfl and it was very streeeeetchy. 4' between internodes for a plant a similar age to one of mine with 1" between internodes so I wont be going down that road!

THG, I would not have used the metal halide at the same time as the T5, the plan would have been for first few weeks of veg under T5, then last week or 2 under mh.

Thanks for all your input guys, the fact a lot of you made the effort to think about my problem then contribute always makes me feel quite humble.
Peace W

 

[Roddy]

I know many have said that using the T5's in combination with HID doesn't work, the T5's block the light etc....but if you place the lights to the sides and aimed at angle so as to shine on the tops of the leaves, I think you can do this nicely! Sure, the T5's have to be close, and they can be without blocking the light.

eta...I merely read the last few comments and not the OP...sorry Woody if this is off-topic!

 

[woodydude]

It's ok Roddy, good suggestion and advice if anyone was thinking of doing that but I have never thought about running both together though it was suggested.
W

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

The reason that it doesn't work well to hook them together and to run them together is because the MH needs to be far away and the T5s need to be really close. If you have T5s connected to a MH and are running both at the same time, the MH will probably need to be 12" or more from the canopy--at that height, the T5s are not doing much good at all.