Help me decide which lighting I should use!

[Veon]

Hi everyone. Recently, after 5+ years of smoking bud, I've been getting the urge to start growing my own plants. I was getting fed up with disrespectful dealers trying short me so I thought I might as well produce my own. Money isn't the problem, but the fact that the sellers are that desperate to earn money makes me not even want to see their faces.

Anyhow, after doing some research, I've figured out what kind of nutrients and growing system I will be using. In a 4'x2'x5x grow tent, I plan on using rockwool for germination and then eventually sticking it in coco coir in a 3-4 gallon pot. For the nutes, I want to use the Lucas formula.

As far as lights go, I need help deciding which system I should use. For 3 plants, how much watts do I need for hps, cfl, and led? I understand that using a hps lights will need a ventilation system and I am fine with that.
Which way is the most cost efficient while yielding as much as possible?

Feel free to comment any flaws in my vision, and advises are much appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Icemud]

Re: Help me decide which lighting I should use!!

Hi everyone. Recently, after 5+ years of smoking bud, I've been getting the urge to start growing my own plants. I was getting fed up with disrespectful dealers trying short me so I thought I might as well produce my own. Money isn't the problem, but the fact that the sellers are that desperate to earn money makes me not even want to see their faces.

Anyhow, after doing some research, I've figured out what kind of nutrients and growing system I will be using. In a 4'x2'x5x grow tent, I plan on using rockwool for germination and then eventually sticking it in coco coir in a 3-4 gallon pot. For the nutes, I want to use the Lucas formula.

As far as lights go, I need help deciding which system I should use. For 3 plants, how much watts do I need for hps, cfl, and led? I understand that using a hps lights will need a ventilation system and I am fine with that.
Which way is the most cost efficient while yielding as much as possible?

Feel free to comment any flaws in my vision, and advises are much appreciated. Thanks!

Hey Veon! Welcome to 420 Magazine! I thought I would chime in and see if I can help you out a little.

1st off here is a link that you may find of interest in your research.

This links you to the 420 Magazine Grow Lighting area where you can find details on every type of light imaginable.
Grow Lighting

and also

Here is a link to 420 Magazine sponsors. I have used 2 different LED manufacturers from here, and both are great. (feel free to check out my journals)
Sponsors : 420 MAGAZINE ®


Now that the links are out of the way, I have a tent the exact same dimensions...

I have used Ceramic Metal halide 400w, and also the Top LED 144wx3w in the same tent size and they both worked well. I only use it as a veg tent though so I don't have any flowering information to give you other than which lights will work that I have used to fill the area with light.

I would suggest LED over HID (MH, CMH or HPS) in that sized tent because its heavy on the tent frame, very expensive to run (power bills), and with emerging technologies in LED, you can get the same results or better, by running less power with LED. Even though the initial investment is higher, over the long run considering the lower electric bills, it pays itself off usually within a year or so.

I also am currently using Intelligent Gro's lights(2x 228w model) in a slightly larger space 2.5'x5'x7' and I am getting very good results right now in veg (just flipped to flowering). The setup I am running would work great for your tent, or even 1 of the next models up would work great too. By Top LED there is also the Mars II, which I run in one of my flowering tents (3x 400w model) and would work for your tent as well. There are also other LED vendors and manufacturers here as sponsors so check em all out. Ive seen just about all of them perform well in all types of gardens.

If you decided to go with HID lights...Then I would highly recommend a 400w Ceramic Metal Halide by phillips. By far the best spectrum bulb for growing besides maybe a couple others, and prices are very cheap. They run much cooler than a typical MH or HPS, and have a very full spectrum, high par value and in side by side tests, is beating out top LED manufacturers in Umol and par tests. Of course with HID lighting, you will need (or its nice to have) a air cooled hood, ducting, and a inline fan to cool your tent because they do run hot.
For your sized tent though I wouldn't go much higher than 400w though if you go HID..I ran this setup in my tent, the same size as yours and had very happy and tall plants. I have also flowered with a CMH and it does an amazing job at flowering.

I've never used CFL's before, but I have seen some amazing buds grown with them. When I think of CFL or see grows using them, usually they are smaller computer, and cabinet grows, but I have seen some larger ones as well. But its not as common. CFL's are good, but you need a lot of them, and they have to be close to the plants from what I read. The do have a benefit though, very cheap to run and buy. And like I mentioned before, grow very nice plants.

Hope some of this info helped and again welcome to 420 magazine!


Now as far as yield, any of these types of lights can be used properly or poorly and can produce large yields or small yields depending on the grower, grow style, plant genetics, environment. So just asking, which will produce larger yields cant really provide you with a specific answer, unless someone has done an exact side by side grow with same controls and only change being the light. What I would say is this, each light can produce great yields, if used the right way, and the intensities and coverage of the the lights is abundant.

Now cost effectiveness...

LED's are a big initial investment up front, but pay off by using less electricity than HID lights to illumnate the same sized space.

So for example. I was paying about $280 a month or so for electric with 2 grow tents running HID's (flowering tent 1000w, veg tent 400w). I went out and paid about $1000 to buy LED's to replace my HID lights. Just by swapping out my lights, my bills dropped into the $130 range, and I added a 3rd tent, with 2 new Intelligent Gro LED's, and my bill now sits at about $160 a month. So by going led, I basically am saving about $1100 a year in electricity, which is 1:1 ROI in 1 year. As far as my plants, growing good, if not better, and much more flavorful and frosty buds as well under LED.

So with LED, you are saving more in the long run, but expensive initial cost.


CFL are cheap to buy, and cheap to run (per bulb) but to illuminate your tent I'm guessing you would need at least 10x of the 65w CFLs, which then you are running 650 watts! very expensive. Again I don't have too much to say on this since I have never used CFL but basically it takes a lot of them, their cheap, but running a lot of them costs a lot in electric, and they have to be very close to your plants from what I read.

HID
HID is expensive to purchase up front and when figuring in the cost of the bulb, ballast, air cooled hood you are looking at about $250 for a low end 400w HPS setup. (not including fan ducting and scrubber because most of the lights mentioned would also need these) With all this mentioned, they are not much cheaper than entry level LED lights that are equivalent in coverage, you are going to end up using up to double the energy that LED would take. Lets say you are running your 400w HID for 12 months, based on my energy rates it would cost me $520 a year to run the 400w HID. For a equivallant LED, lets use the one I am using which is the top led 144x3w one. It has 2 switches, one for veg, one for flowering, veg only consumes 180w, and flowering only 280w, but it illuminates the tent the same as the 400w HID. So to run this LED for 12 months (1/2time veg/1/2 time flower) it would cost me $362 per year to run. Saving me over $158 over the course of the year. (based on flower setting only on LED, not considering lesser veg setting in figures, also not considering most veg with 18 hours of light, these figures were based on a 12/12 schedule only...so the savings are even much larger. )

 

[Veon]

Re: Help me decide which lighting I should use!!

thank you so much for the advice! I will definitely try Intelligent Gro in the future.
However, as of now, I only plan on spending about 150 on the lighting system. Which do you think I will be able to support? Thanks!

 

[David Bowman]

Re: Help me decide which lighting I should use!!

I just purchased a Top LED 96x3-watt Reflector grow light, for that very same size grow tent, for less than $180, including shipping.

 

[Veon]

Re: Help me decide which lighting I should use!!

I just purchased a Top LED 96x3-watt Reflector grow light, for that very same size grow tent, for less than $180, including shipping.

thank you so much! this is exactly like what i was looking for. 1 question though, how many plants is it capable of growing?

 

[Icemud]

Re: Help me decide which lighting I should use!!

thank you so much for the advice! I will definitely try Intelligent Gro in the future.
However, as of now, I only plan on spending about 150 on the lighting system. Which do you think I will be able to support? Thanks!

With 150 bucks... check out TopLED.

Here is the forum...
Mars-Hydro LED Grow Light Discussion


I would say either 1x Mars II 80x5w ($200) or if you could stretch and get the 144wx3w reflector series model(260), you would be happy, your plants would be happy and your electric bill would be happy.

 

[Veon]

Re: Help me decide which lighting I should use!!

With 150 bucks... check out TopLED.

Here is the forum...
Mars-Hydro LED Grow Light Discussion


I would say either 1x Mars II 80x5w ($200) or if you could stretch and get the 144wx3w reflector series model(260), you would be happy, your plants would be happy and your electric bill would be happy.

I really appreciate the help! You should definitely check out my grow journal when I get started!!