Lights for vegging?

V

Vinny1989

Active Member
Would I get good results in veg if I used 2 125w cfls? On the info about them it's says 2 of them will produce 24000 lumens, there's also a 4 tube T5 light I've seen but that's 18000 lumens.. ive already got a grow on at the minute using a 600w dual ballast.. but i always seem to get heatstress/ leaf curl..which results in moving the light further up..which in turn will slow growth down..i want fast as possible growth without any heat stress/leaf curl.. dont want my plants to end up dying from heat stress
 
Not really unless you keep your plants very small. CFLs are great for starting seeds or vegging small clones. Once your plants get to a certain point with cfls you end up with a lot of space in between the nodes which can seriously diminish potential yield later on.
A T5 fixture will distribute the light in a wider space but conventional bulbs do not penetrate a thick canopy very well so again you can end up with lanky plants unless they are kept low. Cool thing about T5s us you can upgrade the bulbs. Check out the hortiluxe power veg and/or agromax full spectrum T5 bulbs; I run them in my bloom room for finishing plants under a UV spectrum.
Small LED panels are actually pretty good for vegging small plants compared to cfls but they also have a somewhat limited amount of penetration. Of course high end LEDs will do the job if you can afford them.
A 400w mh IMO is the standard for vegging plants with nice tight nodes. When your plants develop nice lateral branching the buds eventually touch each other and form continuous spires of bud during flowering. Donkey dick colas abound....
I have similar heat issues with my own 600w hps but I think you need at least this amount of wattage to push nice big flowers. I can never grow weed as dank in summer as I can during winter due mostly to higher temps. Options are to add an a/c or upgrade your ducted inline exhaust fan to pull out the extra heat but I realize this also means higher electricity bills.
 
Richard Drysift said:
Not really unless you keep your plants very small. CFLs are great for starting seeds or vegging small clones. Once your plants get to a certain point with cfls you end up with a lot of space in between the nodes which can seriously diminish potential yield later on.
A T5 fixture will distribute the light in a wider space but conventional bulbs do not penetrate a thick canopy very well so again you can end up with lanky plants unless they are kept low. Cool thing about T5s us you can upgrade the bulbs. Check out the hortiluxe power veg and/or agromax full spectrum T5 bulbs; I run them in my bloom room for finishing plants under a UV spectrum.
Small LED panels are actually pretty good for vegging small plants compared to cfls but they also have a somewhat limited amount of penetration. Of course high end LEDs will do the job if you can afford them.
A 400w mh IMO is the standard for vegging plants with nice tight nodes. When your plants develop nice lateral branching the buds eventually touch each other and form continuous spires of bud during flowering. Donkey dick colas abound....
I have similar heat issues with my own 600w hps but I think you need at least this amount of wattage to push nice big flowers. I can never grow weed as dank in summer as I can during winter due mostly to higher temps. Options are to add an a/c or upgrade your ducted inline exhaust fan to pull out the extra heat but I realize this also means higher electricity bills.
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Cheers for the advice mate that's saved me wasting money..cos if it ain't gonna produce good stuff then it's a waste of money an more importantly for me...time! I've raised the 600w dual spec hps to 4ft above the canopy..Now my temp ranges from 23-25 an humidity 40-50% an the lux is 24,000 right above the canopy..Is this a good environment for my plants? An are the likely to still suffer from heat stress/leaf curl with these temp/humidity & lux?
 
You might still have some leaf curl issues and/or heat stress at those temps but that is par for the course growing under electric lights in warmer weather. Keeping the canopy low and even helps to keep the fans from getting singed. Upwards of 29 deg C is when trichomes begin to degrade so if you can keep it under that your plants should be fine.
 
Richard Drysift said:
You might still have some leaf curl issues and/or heat stress at those temps but that is par for the course growing under electric lights in warmer weather. Keeping the canopy low and even helps to keep the fans from getting singed. Upwards of 29 deg C is when trichomes begin to degrade so if you can keep it under that your plants should be fine.
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Okay no problem so the heat stress won't kill my plants off then with them only being 5 weeks old from seed? Temp never goes above 25 degrees C anyway
 
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