T5s or CFL

Building a veg chamber under my stairs 5'x4'x4'tall..........plan on using floros..but which ones?????? want to be able to have mothers and clones....maybe even a plant from seed from time to time.

T5's...........or...............CFL

Any input.

was either thinking eight four foot t5HO or two 200w CFLs.......what kind of coverage can I expect from a 200w CFL.

I would go with the T5 -8 tube setup - it will fill the grow room perfectly.

Been using 1 2x4 8 lamp t5ho with great results. As for coverage I keep it as close as possible so coverage is dependent on pot size. Plenty of room when small, not so if they take awhile to sex.
I had 6 5 gal smart pots that did ok but it got rather crowded quickly.

Cool...thanks guys........so your saying....if the T5 reflector measures 2'x4' then that is pretty much my coverage area?

That would be my thought. My best results are when the light is as close as possible.

Try to keep your plant height uniform to allow you to keep the lights right on the plants (2" off the plant)
If you use a 2'x4' light fixture your effective footprint would be 2'x4' feet.

I used 8-t5's (I think thats what their called. 48" flouro tubes) 8 daytime to veg & then 4 day & 4 aquarium lights to flower. I know my yield isnt what it would be under a 600 or a 1000 HPS but its still not bad. Take a look at my grow. I have no idea how to give you a link but I think you can just click on my name & find it from there.

It was my first grow & it turned out not bad. The weed is GREAT.

Next one will be better

I used to have a box about that size and when i used t5's I had (10) 48" flouro tubes on the top and (4) hanging on the sides. The way i laid my bulbs out across the top was 40w cool 40w warm 40w cool 40w warm and so on. I used this set up the whole way through veg and just cut back the time and left the same bulbs in for flower and it worked great for years. So id go with the t5's and id put in at least 10 of them. Thats just my two cents there may be a better way of doing it. If you go to www.htgsuplly.com you can get a 400w hps/mh system: both bulbs,timer,and hood for $164. I just bougt two of them and they work way better than my flouros did, but I know how it goes if your straped for cash.

*Disclaimer* All statements made above are purely fictional and hypethicaly what I may do if I were in that situation

Awesome feedback......Nate...with the 10 flouros how far were the lights from the tops of the buds.....I am not strapped for cash......Its heat and security that is my concern.......Got the flower room kicking 600w...sometimes 1000w.....getting into cloning and looking to do the perpetual harvest deal....my veg room I am creating will be in a too obvious place in a crawl space under stairs in a finished basement.....cant have a big time exhaust runnin......just kicking around ideas........was thinking LED maybe??????

So...Here is the room

And this is inside

wow....small pic...anyway...you see the rafters that are actually the floor joists of the landing for the stairs above......I was thinking about recessing two 4' T-5s per joist so that I didn't lose any room height....for a total of ten tubes.

What would you think about 4-200w CFLs in their own seperate reflector

Using a 2'x4' 6 tube T5HO setup for my grows, and couldnt be happier. I keep mine within about 3 inches of the tops, but its important to keep light penetration in mind while vegging. Some mild forms of lst may be necessary to make sure your getting proper lower-branch development. Check out my journals, all done under t5's =D (cola in my avatar was almost as big as a spray paint can)

Damn.....that was flowered under T5s

sure was =D it really was too bad it was terrible genetics, the smoke tasted bad and the high was minimal. the blackjacks arent quite as big, but test samples so far have proven a quality that is exponentially higher.

ENDLSCYCLE said:

So...Here is the room

And this is inside

wow....small pic...anyway...you see the rafters that are actually the floor joists of the landing for the stairs above......I was thinking about recessing two 4' T-5s per joist so that I didn't lose any room height....for a total of ten tubes.

What would you think about 4-200w CFLs in their own seperate reflector

Click to expand...

Your image host isn't happy with your pictures... I would take them down and upload them here for posting. Don't get in trouble dude!

Anyways, be sure to seal the hell out of the area or else late night you will see light leaks. And Spiders! I had a moth get stuck on one of my glue boards in my veg room and this big ass spider came after it and got stuck too! Then the spider's two brothers showed up and got caught too! But now one's gone so I'm watching for him!!!!