Lighting Building a Wardrobe to grow autos on CFL, please help me with the top lights. - Resolved

[EagleEyes]

I am searching for a post I read I thought it was ripster's post but I can't find it. Anyway I was doing a mixed cfl lighting and read this post that for T5 and cfl's to use 6500 from start to finish works best with auto's I did change all my lights to 6500 and I think they are flowering more vigorously than before but mine are messed up from other problems so its hard to tell. I'll keep looking for that post and let you know when i find it. I'm a noob just sharing somthing I read not much personal experance. cheers:smokebuds:

 

[agito]

It might be a good call i have no first hand experience with t5's either but grow shop do sell both spectrums and i looked into a few threads that said warm where for fruiting and people have done well on 50/50 mixes. If he wanted to play it safe 4 blues with one warm could be a safe bet. Seems weird that an auto the only veges for 1-2 week would prefer more blue unless the intial veg spurt leads to the overall growth in bloom as it seems to when you run 20/4 for 2 weeks then switch 18/6 with no loss of yield acording to the JD I did check my grow bible and there was not alot written on flurs

 

[AndyBotwin]

That info is in the CFL/T5 sticky at the top of the forum, I think. Ripster has done some testing with T5s and found that the 6500k yielded better results all the way through rather than switching spectrum. I think like agito said it's due to the increased par that the daylight bulbs provide. I ran dual spectrum with my CFLs during flower, but I had some 6500k side lighting and the buds closest to those bulbs developed very nicely. My current grow is under 6500k T5s and I have no plans of switching to 2700k during flower. People successfully grow autos outdoors in the spring and early summer without ever reaching that softer light spectrum you get at the end of the season. It seems that these plants respond best to maximum light intensity, but they aren't as sensitive to spectrum.

 

[EagleEyes]

TY Andy Phew my eyes where starting to see double looking through all the posts

TBM, I tried that kind of spectrum in my last grow and personally, I didn't like the grow. Just seemed that the 6500k spectrum works better with T5/CFL's. I don't know why, but the plants just appear to like it better. Maybe it's because of the distance of the light, compared to HID. But w/CFL's, it seems the light intensity isn't so strong and the heat isn't there so that could have something to do w/it. IDK...

This is the one I was talking about... Here is the link its on page 4 http://www.autoflower.org/f43/t5-cfl-only-thread-2321-4.html#post48898

 

[agito]

give this a look
http://www.mmmfaq.com/?p=869
I think the bottom line is it depends on brand as bulbs are corrected so if i was him 5000-6500k will be his best bet

 

[ripster]

TY Andy Phew my eyes where starting to see double looking through all the posts



This is the one I was talking about... Here is the link its on page 4 http://www.autoflower.org/f43/t5-cfl-only-thread-2321-4.html#post48898

The 6500k is the best for T5 start to finish. Now with the HID, and 2900k might get better results. I don't know for sure. But it makes sense to me that since HID penetrates the canopy way better than a T5. But since these are auto's, for the most part, the plants don't get very tall so the T5 works great as long as you keep the 6500k light bulbs. My




And Agito, your doing much better. Helping out is way more rewarding than arguing +rep for the turn around...

 

[gsbm2312]

Wow, so many people spotted to help that I couldn't get happier! I've readed all the contents you've posted including the huge page bout lights and photosynthesis (very explanatory!)


I have to admit tough that I had some sort of denial with the T5's... Don't ask me why, but I was totally sceptical with them but I decided to put their Specs in the paper and I were actually VERY surprised!

First I had chosen CFL's, as I commented on the first page but aparently the T5 are much better, for both vegetative or blooming color temperature bulbs!
Considering what your advices for color temperature, I should stick to the good old 2700k (3000k for T5's) for blooming and 6500k for vegetative...

Check it out... This is the CLASH OF THE BULBS!

for "blue" spectre (6500k) we have
Philips Twister High Lumen: 65W, 4000lm, 66lm/W and a lifetime of 8000 hours.
Philips HO TL5 /865 : 54W, 4250lm, 89lm/W and a life time of 24000 hours. (it seems that the t5 massacres the cfl... easy like this!)

for the "red" spectre (2700k and 3000k) we have
Philips Twister: 42W, 2800lm, 66lm/W and a life time of 8000 hours.
Philips HO TL5 /830: 54W, 4450lm, 93 lm/W and a life time of 24000 hours. (again a massacre, long life, low consumption of energy and way higher lumen output!)


In the overall the T5 lasts way longer (3x)... I will be reformulating the design of my growing wardrobe and I'll be using ONLY T5's. In my case its not gonna be a problem, but for other people the T5's size might be a drawback... cos these bulbs are actually quite "long"!

I wonder how many lamps I should put tough... I think I shall train my strains good to make them flat horizontally and use as many lamps as possible, flat on the top.... But I really do not know, I accept suggestions!

By now I will be searching here on AFN and also on other forums, to check out how do the other t5 users set it up!

I just would like to thank you all who were kind and gave a part of your time to come to this thread and write me advices, information... cos we all know that not everyone has time to GIVE like this... for free.

So thank you very much, for helping me!

 

[agito]

Just to keep things clear the advice seems to be get more blue than red i would take there advice and they are tried and tested uses of t5's and either use blue to red 2/3-1 or just use all blue all the way through veg and bloom.
my new 200w cf plug and grow is 13000l and you may want a few more lumens than that for flower ideally you need to work out your square ft in space so around 5000-6000 persqft
so a 4x1 (4x1ft plants maybe) would need 20000-24000 min would need 5-6 for flower and 3-4 fittings for veg
Try searching for a grow room calculator it should help
good luck

 

[Stunted]

Here is my on the watts/lumens per sqf using CFL or HID

Personally I use the following as a rough guide:
HID lights around 50 - 75 w per sqf
CFL lights around 75 - 100+w per sqf

See also: the full post

 

[Mister]

Here is my wardrobe and cabinet setup for possible inspiration