Will 150w HPS outperform 372w of T5HO?

[crystaliscious]

I used my old aquarium water as the only thing to water plants with for years…..never found anything better available commercially….

[catbuds]

Me too, when I have fish. Not just for nutes, but all sorts of hormones, those for growth, & some that increase feminity! Its great stuff!

[tlranger]

Worked in the water business for awhile, amazed and frightened by all the additives used to make it meet an arbitrary state standard. That's why I catch roof runoff in horse tank, that has gold fish and limestone rock.

Keep up the good work! Quite the experiment. Are you also trying to compare energy costs?

[crystaliscious]

Good Point Tlranger - the chemicals used in most aquaponics are crazy! I have always kept several tanks- exotic fish, simple little goldfish and a huge tank for growing bog plants. I started reading about aeroponics a few months ago and thought it was funny they were putting the fish in with the plants- I have grown all kinds of plants in my aquariums with the fish and have almost 100% success rate with cuttings in aquariums - when the fish nibble at the roots it's time to plant em!

[OMB]

I've meant to ask u this before, we need to compare lumens to lumens. Don't forget to add in the extra lumens from any side lighting. Now I've got to go back & check out your latest pics!

--Geeze! What a difference!

The T5's are at almost 35,000 Lumen Mama. 6 bulb 4 foot is 30,000, plus the little 2 foot 2 bulb at almost 5000 lumen.
The HPS is about 15-18,000 Lumen (I think)...So it was not a fair comparison as far as Lumens. I did ad another 3220 Lumen with the CFL sidelights to the HPS, but I don't see them catching up anytime soon.
I may have to Get all "T5" on 'em!

[OMB]

Fish in the Hydro? Cool... Never heard of anyone doing that, what a great idea! :thumbsup:

[Chromophore]

As I said earlier, we really need to do this experiment with equal lumens and equivalent lighting structure (side lighting, etc). But I am really intrigued with how the T5s are performing here. Couple of questions OMB...Are you confident that the group of plants here are genetically stable? By that I mean are you confident you are not seeing phenotypic variance unrelated to lighting? I ask this because the 4 girls I am flowering are supposedly seed from a single cross, but one of them has a distinctly different growth habit, ie lankier, longer internode distance, and overall "thinner" appearance. Also, are you using a single temperature of bulb in your T5, or are you mixing kelvins, and if so, what is your mixture? Apologies if you've already covered this earlier in the thread.

[OMB]

Hey Cromophore, The 6 bulb 4 foot light has four 2700K bulbs and two 6500K bulbs. The two foot 2 bulb sidelight is 6500K, so I am mixing spectrums.
The 4 plants are all clones from the same original Mother, but a couple of them may be "clones of clones", I don't recall exactly. Some do seem to "stretch" more than other's, but none are very tall. ( I LST them to prevent that, but it's just a stumpy strain I guess). The ones under the HPS are the tallest I have grown, besides mama plant. She is a Bush, I really need to pull her out and take a pic...and do some pruning!

Forgot to add....the internodes are much closer together on the T5 girls, it shows in a couple of my crappy pics. I really need to take better pics....I have the camera and ability, but it's always late and the effort lacks as a result. Lol

[OMB]

Few more shots from a couple day's ago. Mama even got out of the cabinet for a few minutes. That bush is headed for Flower, I am going to make a new Mama.

Attachment 297012Attachment 297013Attachment 297014Attachment 297015Attachment 297016Attachment 297017

[OMB]

Forgot to mention this is 29 days into 12/12...and the Mama plant is almost 4 months from clone. She is well tied, can't see it, but lots of string and Bamboo skewers
spreading her open. She has just gotten too wide for my space, not to mention too tall for my Veg box. I have to keep the light high and it's not convenient to raise all the babies in Veg to compensate.