have you had a chance to play with the t8 LED replacements. Switched over seedling/clone rooms awhile back and getting ready to try to switch out the veg rooms as well since I dont veg anything over 12" just to try them out. Love the massive heat reductions (hot state)even though they dont compare in lumens. I figured I will add more tubes to almost match the wattage of the t5 to see how much cooler the rooms will go
Hard to think T8 flourescents being too hot and ive seen led grow lights first hand and the leds really dont emit much heat, the massive heat sinks strapped to the back of each led panel do kick out some warmth - which kind of made sense of physical laws on energy conversion for me at that point.
T8s are nowhere near as hot as T5s. I had nothing but T5s for seedling/clone rooms and also ran them in the VEG room and got tired of the heat they produced. I was getting readings of around 159F/bulb at the surface using infrared therm. The T8 leds dont compare in brightness/lumens as the regular T5s so im still debating on whether to try them out in the VEG room. LED lights can create some heat especially if you compare watt per watt. I have a friend that uses 9 Helios (each drawing over 400 watts) in a flower room and he has to use a decent sized AC because of the heat it creates and those fixtures can not be vented
I just have my t5 unit open in a corner in my room. I keep room at 20°c and a fan pointed at my t5's keeps canopy temps 23°c no probs. Room is heated on thermostat with humidifier. I ditched veg tents as my house temps were good enough and few flouros wont get you busted.
Looking very good. Just be careful. Ive never had luck feeding seedlings. The promix we get here has almost nothing but what the peat naturally brings which is usually used up in first few days. I dont even recall seeing any nute values on the bag and Ive successfully germinated all the time with nothing but phd tap for the first 10-21 days. Dark green mature plants are a plus, however seedlings do not need to be dark. In all of my prior experiences, feeding seedlings or even accidentally feeding 2 week old plants what I thought would not be a hot mixture have mostly led me to hermies. A few years ago I have made sure to run nutes very conservatively on plants from seeds in the VEG stage (10-21 days) and have never had a hermie since. Even after repurchasing same strains that originally hermied on me from same breeders (Cali connections comes to mind) Ive never had hermies again. Also I will mention I do not stress about light leaks and I constantly interrupt grows for the hell of it while lights are off to check up on things and have had no hermies as well./// wanted to add that when i did feed seedlings they would look good at first but then stay stunted and small instead of doing their initial stretch for the first few days followed by that few days period were it almost looks like they do nothing. This do nothing period is what I look for as a sign to begin feeding
