Can I use HPS during flowering and a six light t-5 setup for vegetative? or can i use HPS for the whole entire time? I am trying to spend as little as possible, and I was thinking of running a six light t-5 for veg and then a 600 mh. Will I get decent grow from MH too? I mean from my understanding, HPS and MH are different, and are for optimum grow. Can MH or HPS be used the whole way? thanks.
Serious lighting question
- Thread starter claytonj
- Start date
Zodiakgrower7
New Member
Hey Clayton, if you are gonna get only one of those lights you should get the HPS. The HPS bulb has enough of a light spectrum to veg your ladies as well as flower them, if you had a MH to veg them they would just get a little bigger and fuller. If you can only afford 1 then it should be the HPS. A 600w HPS will be fine unless your garden consists of more than 6 plants.
what if your grow space is very small? maybe just 1 or 2 plants. how many hps watts would you need for the entire grow?
Zodiakgrower7
New Member
As far as HPS systems go you only would need a 400w setup for 1 or 2 plants and they would do extremely well with that amount of light. If you are just starting out from seeds you don't want to use an HPS, you need to start them out with CFLs or something similar.
What are the dimensions of your grow space? how many plants? In theory you could definitly veg with the 6bulb t5 and flower with the hps and that will be quite efficient in terms of electricity. As zodiak said, you are going to want the hps for flower. You could flower with the t-5s but you will get much better results flowering with the hps.
The first question i asked you was kinda important, depending on your space, getting an hps might turn your grow room into a crockpot.
do ya have a journal up and going yet?
The first question i asked you was kinda important, depending on your space, getting an hps might turn your grow room into a crockpot.
do ya have a journal up and going yet?
I think a 250w or even a 150w HID light would be fine for a small grow space with one or two plants. A 400w light creates a fair amount of heat, and it can be difficult to achieve reasonable temps in a small grow space.
Zodiakgrower7
New Member
Setting Sun is correct, I forgot about your small grow space, 250w would be efficient and easier to maintain correct temps 72-78 degrees.
Screwnuts33
Member of the Month 3rd Place Winner (Dec 09')
I vegged with the T5 until I transplanted to 5-gallon pots then used T5 & HPS. Plan to continue with both lights to the end. You could also buy a switchable balast that will run both MH & HPS bulbs. That way you can veg with MH and flower with HPS.
- Thread starter
- #10
It is a seven point five by seven by eight, so it is a fairly large room. I plan on four plants if possible.
you can fit more than 4 plants in there... and if your budget/ventilation allows you can throw a 1k in there.
- Thread starter
- #12
You can veg 4 plants in a two by two closet. It would be nice if you didn't have to split up your flowering room so that you could grow them bushier in there.
Zodiakgrower7
New Member
What are you splitting the room in half with ?
BendMMC
New Member
Hello, After reading some of the posts I thought I might add mine too. I have a Quantum T5 Badboy 12 lamp fixture. Running on 240v. Cycle is on veg 16/8 at the moment. Plants are 5 weeks old, 11"-12" in height, 14"-17" in width. I have 20 plants experiencing explosive growth. I have to keep moving the light almost daily. I keep the lights about 4 inches from the plant canopy. So far I have had to add heat in the room to bring the temp and humidity up to 70 degrees, 50% humidity. I have been doing this a long time and havent seen or found anything that gives you this much bang for the buck in a longtime. My power bill last month only went up $15.00 I'll try to add photos of the room tomorrow. check my prof for updates
BendMMC
New Member
Thare,
We have not completed our flowering phase, in fact we just started flowering again. If you had seen previous posts, some of our plants turned male when switching to 12/12. Killing 1/3 of the crop. There are many reasons this may have happened, I just cant narrow it down to an actual cause.
Now we are starting to flower again and everything seems fine so far. Im happy to report and we'll post photos later, that femalesare in the flowering stage. Room is asleep right now. no flash allowed.
So in closing, Yes we are going to go full cycle with these lights. Its happening right now.
If you'd like to see some pics of completed T5 buds, check out heavyherbs photos. Impressive.
We have not completed our flowering phase, in fact we just started flowering again. If you had seen previous posts, some of our plants turned male when switching to 12/12. Killing 1/3 of the crop. There are many reasons this may have happened, I just cant narrow it down to an actual cause.
Now we are starting to flower again and everything seems fine so far. Im happy to report and we'll post photos later, that femalesare in the flowering stage. Room is asleep right now. no flash allowed.
So in closing, Yes we are going to go full cycle with these lights. Its happening right now.
If you'd like to see some pics of completed T5 buds, check out heavyherbs photos. Impressive.
