T5 Lighting Questions

Putting together the grow room and just had a few questions about the T5 lighting system.

This is what I have at the moment:

4' Ballast that holds 8 flourescents
4 Blue bulbs (54w each)
4 Red bulbs (54w each)

I plan on using 2-3 gallon pots to start the germinating process and get the seed going. As far as I know these lights should be just a couple inches above the plant at all times. However I'm not too sure on when to use certain lighting. From what I have read, the blue is for the plants growth and vegetative state while the red helps it flower. Should I be just using the blue bulbs for now or is it ok to have all 8 bulbs in the ballast? If I should only use the blue bulbs, then do I need to have 8 or will 4 spread out be fine?

Any tips on how to start out with the T5's would be greatly appreciated.

I don't have any direct experience but I think four 4' bulbs would be plenty of light (almost 20000 lumens) until the plants are ready to flower, or at least until the plants are 5"-6" inches tall and are spreading out.

I recently got a 6 bulb 4 foot T5 fixture. My plan is to veg with three cool bulbs and then to flower with three cool and three warm for a couple weeks before moving them to a dedicated flower room.

What I would say is to use 6 bulbs. In germination and vegging have all six bulbs the blue 6500k daylight spectrum, which is the most important for germination and vegging thats about 30,000 initial lumens. Then for for flowering I would say six 3500k red bloom bulbs, which is important for flowering, again 30,000 initial lumens. How many plants do plan on growing?

you can use all eight but i'd start off with less then add more when the plants spread. I've heard a full sprectrum is better though. Both blue and red. Or more blue during growing 6 and 2 red and the opposite for flowering.

Hope this helps.

You can work fine with what you have now. The white/blue (4500-7000K) light is better for germ and vegetative growth and the orange/red light (2000-3500K) is better for flowering, but a mixed spectrum is always good to have. I would start with 3 blue and 1 orange and add bulbs from there. But you can start all 8 if you want. When flowering if using same light you might want to get 2 more flower bulbs and go with a 6/2 ratio of orange to blue bulbs. I would start the light about 6-8 inches over and as they grow you can let it within an inch or two depending on your temp. Keep on growing.

heh. Good advice gardenman. We got good bulb ratios going!