Grow room heating

[zappa883]

Don't want to go off topic but there's mention of using the T5's for starting seeds ? My heat mat and dome are no where near any light other than ambient light from windows with closed curtains and the light blasting out from the one T5 in another bedroom?

 

[megahot]

Capsicum is right! the reflective hood and the MH light is is enough light for a large square area. My MH light is at the top of my tent and all my plants are getting plenty of light and are growing like crazy!

Thanks guys. The LED itself gave pretty much no heat at all. The T5 gives me a good amount but not enough to burn plants unless I get REAL close which is why I like it. For the growing area I have and the amount of light I get I wouldn't trade it for any HID right now. I'm getting 40,000+ lux at peak output 1' from the bulbs, no need for more than that. Plus I've been reading that the newer bulbs I'm using have a superior spectrum to the MH so I'm giving that a go.

I'll try to keep it in the mid 70s or maybe a bit higher during the day and I think I can do that efficiently at only an hour or two of heating a day. I want to be able to keep my closet open for airflow that's all. The heater would be heating the room away from my plants and pushing that heat around the room and near my plants.

To be honest both are great lights! Use what works best for you! In a garden store you will find that they mostly prefer to grow their plants with MH/HPS lights rather then LED,CFLS, or T5's

 

[Maxsack331]

I'll definitely consider this stuff. I'll have to go grab a few more cheap thermometers and put em all over the place and maybe do some experiments, but time is money as they say. If I can bump up the temps 5 degrees with two hours of space heating a day that's not that bad. Max, did you consider hooking the heaters up on a timer? Maybe instead of doing a HI-LO heating on a thermostat which will probably run at 1200/900W or something you could run a few hours a day at high on and off with a timer. 24 hours a day at low only (900W) would be 648 kWhrs / month... thats around $78 @ $0.12/kWhr just to run the heater. Ouch. 18 hours a day at low only would be 486 kWhrs / month 3 hours a day at high (1200W) would be 108 kWhrs/month or $13/month; just heat three times for an hour each and 4 hours apart and keep the room fairly insulated if possible, seems logical to me. Pretty big difference. I was considering this when thinking about the space heater but I suppose it depends on how fast it heats the room.

yeah, I had a parabolic heater and was trying to use it originally with my thermostat that I use for the heat mats (the hydrofarm ones) but they have a max of 1500w and any heater that would be able to heat the 6x6x6' tent took too long to heat it if it was under 1000w.. and I really couldn't find many besides the parabolic one.. which sucked, but anyways the ceramic one I got had it's own built in digital thermostat.. so I set the temp, and forgot about it.. the only difference between that and the hydrofarm ones, was that the hydrofarm ones will let the temp drop 3 degrees before turning on again.. the heater would turn on once the temp drops I think a degree.. or maybe 2 at the most but it would go on for about 30sec to 1min. then turn off for a few min, then go on.. and so on

I was almost going to return it for one that was manual (oh yeah the problem I couldn't hook it up to the timer, which I did originally so it would only come on at night, was that it is all digital, so you needed to manually turn the power button on once you turned it off.. and re-do the settings..) next year I think I will just make a gift of the space heater I got for my mom who is always cold, and get the manual version of the one I got.. because it put out great heat.. it just couldn't be controlled by a timer


also to comment on all the other stuff.. I haven't used T5s and I would think they are great, if you have all your plants right under the light, and like you said, with fluorescent you really can't beat the lumens at the canopy, even my CFLs put out more lumens than the HID, but that is because they are in a tiny little 2x1' area surrounded with reflective material, and they are about 2-3" from the top of the plant...

but with that said, I love my HID, for a 6X6 area, I was told that 400w wouldn't cut it, or even close to enough light.. and a 6x6 area would probably need more than a 600w HID..and this is for MH, not HPS, I'm not using the HPS, (although I think I am going to give it a shot in the fall when I bring the plants i will overwinter in.. going to keep them producing pods for a month or 2 more, and HPS gives more lumens per w, although I personally prefer MH because it gives out "great light" especially the DigiLux bulb I got)

but as far as getting them close to the plants, you can still get them pretty close, like within a foot... BUT that is, I am pretty sure, completely due to the type of hood I am using, which has a glass vent tube, and most of the heat comes out of those.. I find it also very interesting that when I checked the lumens with the light meter I got (Best decision ever.. it saves me a world of hassle and guessing.. and for $16 or something, you can't be it.. everyone should get one lol) is that right under the bulb, there are not as many lumens as there are in the sides of the bulb/hood... so that right under it, is around 8-10,000 lumens for me, with the light about.. 3-4' or so feet above the plants, and as I move out towards the sides of the tent, I get up to.. I think it was 20,000 lumens when I just checked... but point being is that it is a lot more.. and I am pretty sure that is mainly because of the tube reflecting some of the light, but I actually think it has to do more with the actual reflector hood.. and it's ability to reflect more light off towards the sides than the bulb is actually producing.. or something to that effect.. but you get the idea.. oh and also I forgot that the light meter is great, because you can figure out how far away to move you light based on when you start to loose lumens on the outter edges of where your plants are, and maximize the light being produced.. it's great!

and now on to the LEDs, I am with you, and a 90w LED is not worth the investment unless you have a few baby plants that you want to nurse along and you don't mind it taking a while.. but the one that IS equal to a 400w HID (for the most part.. its ability to "spray" out light light the HID is very diminished with distance) is the 130w LED that I have from XtreemeLED (I had linked it in another thread a little while back) but that is really only effective in a small area, right now I have that set up above my mom's tomato plants that don't really have any room in the grow tent for now, and they fit in a nice little 2.5'x2.5' area.. and because some are taller than others, I have it up higher than would be optimal, because they were frying the leaves (the same LED that I measured at about 2-3" from the LED, which you can more than easily put a plant that close, was measuring 136,000 lumens).. but at about... 2' where the smaller plants are.. and off to the side, it still produces about 10,000 lumens, and the plants are very happy and healthy, the taller plants I think are at about 30,000 lumens or something like that and are about.. 6-8" from the LED (and the LED is a diode, not UFO style, which is known for being able to penetrate much much better... which from my experience so far, it proves very well)

umm.. there was something else lol... oh.. so yeah, the LED is great again, if you have a plant that is worth some good money... or 2-4 smaller plants that can fit under a 2x2' area, and you would be hard pressed to get more lumens for that area, since you can get so close, but again.. I don't need 130w for 4 plants.. and it would take a while for them to get use to it too, since it is so many lumens once I got it really close to kind of "power boost them" and have them at something like 80,000-100,000 lumens..and even in the lower canopy area it doesn't loose much light, anymore than other lights do..


So I guess that it is lol, there was so much to catch up on I figured I would get out what I wanted to say in 1 big clump... sorry for the "book".. pretty sure I said most of it

oh and Capsicum, do you mean that the HPS produces many more pods on the pepper plants because it is able to produce more lumens per watt, or because you believe that the HPS light will promote flowering growth... if the "HPS promoting flower growth" is the case, then I would like to disagree, for not that is, I will say that I haven't had much personal experience with it myself, but from all I know from Bio and reading on here as well as plenty of other sources, is that peppers are influenced to flower by the different type of light.. (I'm not really going to get into it now because I don't really care too much about it, and after the bio test today, my head has had enough bio for today lol, and I am just curious as to what your thinking was behind that).. but I was just curious and I find it kind of surprising that a lot of people on here still hold to the thought that HPS will make the plant flower and MH doesn't so much, instead of the maturity of the plant and amount of light and resources being the reason for the plant to flower.. unlike pot plants, and other short photoperiod plants and all that.. lol and hell, I could be wrong, but like I said, from what I have read, what I said above seems to be the consensus, and was just wondering about your statement about the HPS

Edit: wow, really sorry about the super long ass post everyone haha, I tend to go into more depth than I realize.. lol

Don't want to go off topic but there's mention of using the T5's for starting seeds ? My heat mat and dome are no where near any light other than ambient light from windows with closed curtains and the light blasting out from the one T5 in another bedroom?

so is your question that, should you put a light above your seedlings?.. if that is the case, then you don't need T5s for that, just get some CFLs or some T8s or something to stick above them for a while.. don't need a lot, I have 2 CFl lights above my tray and I had turned off the other 2 (had 4 total) because they were frying them kind of.. measured the lumens at 30,000+ for all the seedlings with the 4 CFLs on, and backed up as far as I could go, which was about... 4" or so, I think, with 2 on they are very happy for now.. so don't need a lot until they get to be a few inches tall.. then I personally think they would be strong enough to blast them with more light lol

 

[mrz1988]

To answer your questions/comments

-You don't need a light while germinating but you should have light for your seedlings as soon as the open their seed leaves. They will need it to begin growth

-The vast majority of T5s cannot compare to HID lighting

-There are newer T5s on the market that are referred to as 'Super-high output'. They are up and coming on HID lighting for lower cost and it is still debatable whether or not they will outperform an HID light. It has been said that they produce results consistent with HID lighting at a lower operating cost.

I'll be honest there isn't a ton of information on these lights, but the results we're talking about here are NOT for the standard T5 lighting but rather for the T5SHO (super high-output) bulbs by Quantum. I did 8 hours research before buying the light so I read up a LOT and decided to give it a go. I'm just encouraging others to try it out with me, especially if you've tried HID in the past, to try to get a bigger dataset on how they do. Yes, you can supposedly fruit very well under these lights.

Thanks guys.

 

[Capsicum]

"oh and Capsicum, do you mean that the HPS produces many more pods on the pepper plants because it is able to produce more lumens per watt, or because you believe that the HPS light will promote flowering growth... if the "HPS promoting flower growth" is the case, then I would like to disagree"



If you can understand that HPS is like the sun rise and sun set and growing with only 5500-6500k would be like growing some where your plants are not getting any sunrise and sunset rays (red).

You need both blue and red. Thats why LED are nice. Still not as effective though. I understand it would be better to only use MH for peppers if you were only using one.

 

[Maxsack331]

"oh and Capsicum, do you mean that the HPS produces many more pods on the pepper plants because it is able to produce more lumens per watt, or because you believe that the HPS light will promote flowering growth... if the "HPS promoting flower growth" is the case, then I would like to disagree"



If you can understand that HPS is like the sun rise and sun set and growing with only 5500-6500k would be like growing some where your plants are not getting any sunrise and sunset rays (red).

You need both blue and red. Thats why LED are nice. Still not as effective though. I understand it would be better to only use MH for peppers if you were only using one.

ok, I gotcha, and actually the MHs (more so the higher end MH bulbs, like the DigiLux and a few others, although I'm pretty sure they don't have a Hortilux 600w MH bulb, just HPS which is too bad) put out the full spectrum of light.. granted it is more towards the 5000-6500k end, but there is suppose to be "enhanced red spectrum" as well.. I wish I could borrow my professors spectrometer I think it was (it's been a few years since taking that class) and see what spectrum these lights actually put out.. but oh well, I just think the HPS is too narrow in it's spectrum where as MH has a much broader spectrum with mostly blues and a "decent" amount of reds in there.. although it's not nearly as efficient as HPS, which is too bad, hopefully in the near future they will improve it.. although the DigiLux 600w MH gets about 75,000 lumens instead of the basic 60,000 lumens, so getting there.. although I need to do a comparison test myself once I get my plants outside with the basic MH and the Digilux one

but thanks, I was just curious, some people just tend to transfer the typical pot growing information and relate it to peppers even though they are pretty different..


haha, could you imagine smoking a pepper?

 

[Capsicum]

Same thing I found with my cherry tomato grow. I did a grow with a 400w hps blue spectrum bulb from seed to harvest, could never do that with the old hps bulb that was full red and grew plants leggy. It was indeterminate bush type, one plant under the 400hps. The blue spectrum grew plants out rather then up. But still MH would have done better in growing structure but the fruiting in any plant needs those deep reds. But like you said MH even cover some red so. I hear about those red spectrum MH. I bet it is better then the blue spectrum HPS as far as covering a wide range of spectrums like you said.

 

[Maxsack331]

yeah, found this on a quick search.. pretty good, and the plants seem to really love it a lot

http://www.skunkskool.com/showthread.php/12524-Bulbs

Have been looking at bulbs for you an I must say
the digilux sure sound like some good ones
DX600HPS Digilux High Pressure Sodium

Product Information
Digilux Metal Halide and High Pressure Sodium bulbs are favored by growers because of the wide color spectrum and efficiency. They are engineered for use in electronic digital ballasts {not recommended for use with magnetic ballasts}
and feature enhanced red and orange spectrums (HPS) blue spectrums (MH), better color uniformity, longer bulb life, and less lumen depreciation.
Digilux bulbs are hot start approved and can be used in both vertical and horizontal fixtures. DigiLux lamps offer superior performance compared to traditional metal halide and H.P.S. lamps.
Digilux MH bulbs deliver 25% more energy in the red and orange spectrums as well as 25% more energy in the blue, violet, and green spectrums for the HPS bulbs.
Digilux 600w H.P.S. Digital Bulb:

95,000 Lumens

Digilux Metal Halide
Digilux 600W Enhanced Red Spectrum Metal Halide Grow Bulb

Only 600W Metal Halide lamp on the market; all others are conversion lamps
Engineered to operate on 600W electronic digital ballasts; runs very well on Nextgen and Lumatec electronic ballasts
25% more Red/Orange spectral energy than standard metal halide bulbs
lumens:

75,000

Have read good reviews about these bulbs to
Folks over at 420 say {an I copie past from them.}

i use them they r bad ass. but ........ if you are going to go with next gen i would highly recomend using the digilux bulbs. i bought mine before the bulbs were even out and when i got to the flowering stage i went through 4 400w hortilux super hps bulbs.now that i have the digilux .......welll let just say its all good

I am using 1000w HPS Digilux bulbs in 4 reflectors with 2 NextGen and 2 Quantum ballasts. These bulbs rock! I used to use Hortilux, but they blew all the time. Tired of going back to the store returning them. I've been using them for 2 cycles now (I'll change them after 3) and I get better results than I've ever gotten with the hortilux. They are absolutely brighter than any other brands I've used. Two thumbs up!​

Last edited by MrsMcGreggor; 03-11-2011 at 06:32 AM.​