New t5 grow tent! questions

[surf420]

looking to pick up this for a new grow tent for a little bit bigger grow than my last tiny stealth grow, which was also my first grow ever

HTG Supply - Mother Keeper Complete Grow Tent System

seems like a pretty sweet deal. the 4 bulb/20,000 lumens should be fine for vegging i hope? but i was wondering if i could switch out the bulbs for flower and get a good yield? maybe add a couple cfl's ? also not sure of the cost of running t5's, so any info on that would be good

any help would be great! looking to get my next grow under way asap!

 

[JJ Bones]

It says HO T-5 bulbs so they should be 54 watts per bulb giving you 216 watts. I would say 200 watts is the minimum to use in that size of a tent so you're decent there. As far as bulbs, I'd recommend all 6500k for veg then a combo of the 6500k and 2700k bulbs for nice results, and throw in a few CFL's if you want, it won't hurt.

As far as cost of T-5, well HO T-5 use a good amount of electricity. For example a 12-bulb runs at like 648 watts I believe so technically its uses more juice then a 600 watt HID system, however you save money on ventilation needs because T-5 is that much cooler.

 

[surf420]

thanks bud, ive read around alot and people say vegging with the t5's are great, but not too many flower with them. can i produce a good crop with them? or should i really look into getting another lighting system for flower? im planning on maybe 3-4 plants

 

[Bandit420]

High Surf420!
Sweet Avatar Bro!!

Here's a pic of my mother keeper. I run a personal grow so it's not as big as the one in your link but it uses essentially the same types of gear. Only difference is I'm using 2' 4 bulb T5s instead of the four footer. I'm also using three single bulb T5s for side lighting.
Today the 4 bulb T5 will be changed out for the Tek 2 light from HTG so I'll have a bit more firepower in there.

You can see this set up does just fine for me keeping two mamas. Very ez to maintain and control the enviroment too.

I cant answer about the bloom right now but in time I will bloom these mamas in this tent with only the T5s lighting up the joint.

 

[surf420]

nice set up man! im new to the t5's, i used cfl for my last. do they throw much heat ? how close you keeping them to your plants ? also kind of concerned in the electric cost between cfl and t5's, dont want my elec bill jumping up alot for "no reason"

let me know how the bloom goes though man! goodluck

 

[Bandit420]

nice set up man! im new to the t5's, i used cfl for my last. do they throw much heat ? how close you keeping them to your plants ? also kind of concerned in the electric cost between cfl and t5's, dont want my elec bill jumping up alot for "no reason"

let me know how the bloom goes though man! goodluck

T5HOs do produce some heat but it's nothing that requires hi powered blowers or anything like that. For this tent I simply keep the bottom vent flaps open and the small 4" desk fan pulls cool air in an blows it up thru the canopy. I also have all the top vents opens so as the warm air rises, it escapes the tent. Average temps in this small tent are 72-80.

No worries with the light bill either. The total power draw for this entire tent is only 155 watts. That's a cost of about $3-$5 per month. Even the biggest T5 systems are only around 800 watts and that's for a massive 4' long 16 bulb light. Those would cost about $30 a month to run depending on your local utility rates.

I'll keep a T5 about 4" above the tops of the plants while the side lights are almost touching the plants

 

[surf420]

awesome man, thanks a ton! didnt know t5's were so cheap to run, soooo stoked to get my tent and get everything set up and growing!

 

[JJ Bones]

T-5 does work very well for flower, I've seen some amazing bud from a T-5 grow. I recently just tried a LED/T5 combo grow and its currently drying but looks amazing.