Fluorescent wattage?

Ok, I have been looking for some Fluorescent lights to buy and the wattage is realy confusing to me. Unlike other kinds of lights it doesnt say the wattage. Instead it will always say something like T5 for example. Is this the wattage but just a different way of writing it? I am buying lights for an 8x8 grow room. I can buy many of them and was planing to have two rows of them stretching the lengish of the room on both sides. Ive been told I will need a 165 to 200 watt Fluorescent light. Is this true? If it is how do I find out if a light is 200 watts? Thx buds and stay green!

8x8 is a pretty big space, and you would need a whole lot of flourescents to provide with sufficient lighting! i think it would be a better idea to use an HID...


SLB

Thx bud. Its not the price of the lights thats scares me. Its the overall electric bill. I no Fluorescent is realy cheap to use. I use them in the family hardware store and in my house and when I heard I could use them for marijuana growth I just figured i'd go for it but if I can find something else that works better for the same ammount of energy or a little bit more that would be great. If I do go with an HID light what wattage and how many lights would I need? Im not sure how many plants I can put in an 8x8 though. Thx

a 1000watt light would be really nice in there, but if you are worried about power consumption, a 600 would do great too, you can probably do 12 plants under that, rather comfortably...and the light would probably only raise your power bill maybe $50-$60 a month on average!!! GL...and i'm pretty sure you would be able to get more than your money's worth on the first harvest!


SLB

Oh. That sounds great! I live in a small three room house. The grow room is outside and is still being built. I'm a contractor so I decided to just build one. I started today and finished the flooring and almost all the framing. I just gata get me a door and some other stuff. I dont get to work on it much thow cuz of work but I hope I can finish it soon. Its just the lights that have realy stumped me but now after you explained it for me I think I'l just get me 2 600 watt HID lights and to grow 20 plants. I want to get more later though. In my little town theres a lot of pot heads and very little bud to go around. as soon as someone has a harvest its sold that day normaly and sence theres so little the growers raise the price because they know they can get away with it as theres not much. No dime bags in this town.... No nickles either... Theres just not enough to go around. Im hoping to change that though!

Look for bulbs between 23 and 26 watts. 5000k-6700k for vegetation, and 2700k-3000k for flowering, and get alot of them. I use CFLs for alot of my grows, and have found them to be an effective, and cheap alternative to HIDs. just get alot of them and set up a simple ballast system. Happy growing!

Well was hoping to have just one kind of lights rather than have these lights for that stage, ETC. Lets say I have 20 plants. How many CFL lights would you recomend I get and how many watts for each light? Thx ya

Stick with your 2 600 watters to do an 8 X 8 area and 20 plants with cfls is just rediculous

SLB gave you good advice

Okie dokie. No disrespect to pig but I think I'l go with the two HID's. Im guessing HID and HPS is the same thing? Every time I look for HID lights in a store it takes me to HPS lights. Even when I google it. I just want a good electric bill and very hapy frinds and my self!

actually HID means High Intensity Discharge, which is the category of lights that HPS, MH, and MV, fall under! and an extra $200 for the...let's say 4 month growing period on electricity, will be easily returned by 20 plants!


SLB

electricity costs the same no matter what, you need more watts of cfl or tubes to get as many lumens as hid. hid is actually cheaper to run with, a standard household incandesent bulb uses about 100-150ws, so each 600 is equal to about 4-6 standard household bulbs energy used wise.

edit-I'm in no way saying anyone should use a incandesent bulb for growing, the comparison was meant to show how 600w isnt really as much as people think sometimes.

also, if you are worried about electricity I have an idea, one which you may of thought of already, if by chance you are still using regular halogen bulbs to light your house go out and buy enough cfls to change them all, i use 13w or 26w, should help quite a bit. It did with me.

I have seen and tried most kind's of floresent lighting and nothing can even come close to t5 lighting.All though this will only realy get you through the first few weeks of cloneing and vegging.The flouresent lighting systems just do not have the wattage or luman out put to get good dense buds......................tyke.........................................................................................................................

tyke1973 said:

IThe flouresent lighting systems just do not have the wattage or luman out put to get good dense buds

Click to expand...

THIS IS SO NOT TRUE: https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/305785-stones-journal.html
https://www.rollitup.org/attachments/grow-journals/916409d1272934514-stones-journal-p1047448-large-.jpg

T5's seemed to have caught up to the other HID technologies in plant usable lumens per watts
not saying they are an obvious choice, haven't tried them yet
but if you're trying to light an 8 x 8 foot room, and trying to minimize the power cost, i don't think you can ignore T5's

darkdestruction420 said:

electricity costs the same no matter what, you need more watts of cfl or tubes to get as many lumens as hid. hid is actually cheaper to run with, a standard household incandesent bulb uses about 100-150ws, so each 600 is equal to about 4-6 standard household bulbs energy used wise.

Click to expand...

I disagree

Because with an HID now you have to beef up your cooling costs. So what you save on the operation of an HID--you're going to pay for in AC and fans...chillers...all kinds of things. The smaller your grow space is--the more true this statement becomes.

The lumens may appear to be MORE...but take into account that the light MUST be further away, so you lose a shit load of lumen right there. Then there's also the shadow effect that one bulb creates when dangling above your plants. T-5's allow for nice even coverage over a square area.

plus you are wasting money on Green Spectrum with HID's which are "tits on a bull" for any green plant.


T5's are the way to go!