I need a Veg Light for 20 Seedlings...

Hi all

I was thinking to get a 315W CMH after hearing the hype, but as they are £200 GBP, I think I will pass.

What do you recommend me to get?

Im wondering about the T5HO 4-8 tube arrays, or maybe a 125W-250W CFL...

Heat is not an issue, or power.

I use T5 HO to veg and flower with, as well as do several other people on here. Just started week 4 with these on Sunday.

Hey Raven, wat rough cost did u pay for the t5 ho? I am in uk, sometimes the prices are above £200...

What tube length/wattage do you use?

How do you feel about craigslist? You may have to do some searching depending where you live, but I just picked up a 4 foot 4 bulb t5 for $35 and a 4" can fan s400 for $40. and I met a guy who teaches yoga on top of all that lol The thing about Fluorescents is they don't have much penetration, so to get the best yield you should try to keep your canopy as flat as possible so all the sites are in the right space. You could get a t8 and retrofit it with the LED tubes, I know you can get a 4' 2 tube t8 for $20 at menards. But I haven't used them myself so I cant speak on how well they work. I do like my Blurple LED UFO, I'm sprouting seeds under it as we speak. going to switch up to my 400w cob after they get grown a bit more

EDIT: Forget the canopy thing, forgot you were talking seedlings lol wake n bake got me good today

Maersk said:

Hey Raven, wat rough cost did u pay for the t5 ho? I am in uk, sometimes the prices are above £200...

What tube length/wattage do you use?

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I paid around $140.00 for the 4' 8 tube T5 HO and it came with 6500k tubes. All T5 HO run 54w per bulb. These are more powerful than most think. I cannot get mine closer than about 10" from my canopy. I would recomend starting at 24" with seedlings, and then lower the lights gradually as they grow.

Raven121415 said:

I paid around $140.00 for the 4' 8 tube T5 HO and it came with 6500k tubes. All T5 HO run 54w per bulb. These are more powerful than most think. I cannot get mine closer than about 10" from my canopy. I would recomend starting at 24" with seedlings, and then lower the lights gradually as they grow.

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Yup if you do the math your pushin 400 watts

Saint Skinny said:

Yup if you do the math your pushin 400 watts

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I also run 2 4' 2 tube 32w T8's, and 2 64w cfl bulbd for side lighting so I have 360° of side light coverage surounding the 8 bulb T5 fixture for a total of 688w fluorescent lighting for flowering. I also suppliment with natural sunlight for 4-6 hrs a day. It's getting a bit to humid though for going into my 5th week from flip. I am going to take 6 of the 8 T5 6500k tubes out next week and add 2 Power Veg 660's, 2 of the 633's, and 2 FS+UV tubes to finish up with.

Im sprouting mine too 3 NL#5 & 3 Aurora regular seeds. I got a t5HO 24w 12000k. Ive never done seedlings under this before so i hope it works out good. 12000k is blue as hell lol. 2 of them are actinic so there extra blue. I have a 300w blurple gravityhydro light with full color spectrum. Would that be better?

I've been curious about the FS+UV, and the colored Powerveg's for that matter.

Saint Skinny said:

I've been curious about the FS+UV, and the colored Powerveg's for that matter.

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Unfortunately I have not purchased them just yet. I have about 4 weeks left of flower at this point, and used a bad bloom booster snd now have P tox in my Holy Grail Kush girls. Luckily my Kandy Kush is doing ok. I am starting my next run tomorrow and will actually use natural sun to start them until my others harvest, then veg them under the t5 another couple weeks before flipping them. I am working on a seperate veg room at the moment.

Saint Skinny said:

I've been curious about the FS+UV, and the colored Powerveg's for that matter.

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However I have been told by a few sources that the Agromax tubes are comparable at a fraction of the cost. Not really sure which way I will go just yet. Possibly even do a mix of the 2 brands for shits and giggles.