Hi everyone,
What are some good lights for growing indoors that won't make my electric bill extremely high and possiblely won't have to switch lights
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Hi everyone,
What are some good lights for growing indoors that won't make my electric bill extremely high and possiblely won't have to switch lights
Came to the right place for opinions on what kind of light, there's a supporter of each one here. Take your pick, do some reading. Good questions get good answers. I SURE haven't found the silver bullet. Change mine three times during a three month grow. And number one still complains about the electric bill, the power company put me on a level payment plan, ten years ago!
Best bang for your buck for a closet type grow would probly be a 400w HPS... it will use about the same as your refrigerator for electricity.. and will give you proper light for 4-8 plants depending on strain and how long you let them veg for. HPS works fine for veg and bloom.. some people use Metal Halide for veg... but Ive found this to produce thin wimpy stems that just cant seem to produce as well as the thicker stems when using HPS. LED will use less power.. but in my experience.. less power = lower yield.
XXXJAYXX thanks man..How about high output T5s? I was looking into 8 4ft high output T5s with 8 grow lights and 8 bloom lights plus getting like 3 CFLs
You could do that... But why? 8 HoT5 bulbs at 54 watts a piece = 432 watts.. with way more hassel... lol.. If anything.. go with a 400HPS on top.. and get a couple HoT5's to run along the bottom on either side... this will help your bottom buds fill in.. Honestly.. don't worry about the different spectrums for veg and flower.. In a small space with proper lighting.. you will only be in veg for 10-14 days at the most.. And honestly.. the plants tend to do much better in flower when they are vegged under HPS.. the thicker stems allow more nutes to flow to the buds (and helps hold the big buds up!).. and the bigger fan leaves allow for more light energy conversion by the plant itself... A more blue spectrum of light will produce more "vegetation" on the plant.. but thats not necessarily a good thing... a bunch of small leaves will produce a bunch of small buds... a few big leaves.. will produce a few MASSIVE buds!
Ok thanks for the help looks like i will order a 400w HPS. Now whats the diff with lamp & bulb ?
The lamp is the holder for the bulb.. There are typically 4 main parts to an HPS setup.. the ballast.. the bulb.. the lamp (mogul).. and the shade or reflector... Some places have them as a complete kit. You may want to consider an air cooled shade.. or "cool tube" to help control heat in a small space. Tons of good deals on ebay for this kind of stuff...
ok cool my set up is a large agromax grow tent its 55x55x79 i have two 6'' clip on fans,two 6'' inline duct fans and a 6'' tall boy inline fan & carbon filter combo(raptor odor control system) thanks thats enough fans lol or should i use one of the inline duct fans for the light..I owe u bro your helping me a lot trying to do this on my own have no help out here
Do some research on T5HO, there is thread on here somewhere where they put them side by side and the T5HO offered more lumens for the money and beat out the 150 watt HPS, in. A tent heat is a big issue and T5HO is not quite as hot- just my opinion tho- which we all have and they are all correct! :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Mrgreenthumb530
light bulb conversion:
(1) 400 watt HPS = (10) 54 watt T5HO = (5.5) 125 watt CFL = (42) = 40 watt T12 = (84) 60 watt incandescent lamps = about 50,000 lumen
Now, lumen is relative to our eyesight but PAR is another unit of light radiation used by plants. So usually, a lamp specific for growing or blooming should outperform a standard lamp. I'm now using Eye Hortilux 400 watt HPS Enhanced lamps.