Flourecents or metal halide during veg

[burnalot420]

Hey guys, for the longest time i have been using metal halide for veg, and only used flouresents right after seeds pop for about the first week. Some good friends in nor cal told me that using t5 or t8 flouresents during veg will prevent stretching and are much better that metal halides, is this true and if so how much better?

 

[been]

How many watts are we talking about here?

 

[burnalot420]

i am using 400w mh and am being told that i am causing my plants to stretch due to the hid

 

[been]

Your plants look pretty damn good to me bro; if it ain't broke don't fix it.

 

[diesel]

each type has its own benefits i think, hids are good when plants are over a foot as the light penetration on t5's or 8's are much less. But they can be place much closer to the plants which are better for the young ones. I use both and the flouros for plants in 1/2 litre pots till about 4/5 nodes then i dump them in the hid and repot at the same time. I can have a shelf with 3 shelves of 2 3ft flouros which gives me lots of growing up space.

Peace

 

[burnalot420]

yea, i mean all of what you said is exactly what i was told by the friend who originally made me questtion using the mh,the funny thing is, the grower who told me this , is the same nor cal grower who gave me the seeds for my last run, so with him growing them out and having no phenos that were stretching during veg than i was kinda seeing truth to him telling me that the mh is making them stretch. so i dunno like been said, my last run wasn't bad, but for me wasn't good,out of those three that i have pictures up of, it only yielded a qp. Other than that i couldn't complain, but now it just brings the thought back into my head that i stressed them out during veg. Anyone have an idea if that was a factor and if i should give the flouros a try

 

[ehole]

i personally had a seperate area for seeds and cuts that i used t-8's in the 6700k color spectrum which as blue as non specialty fluoros get. i seemed to have pretty reasonable results especially considering i was using 168 watts for vegging. you can litterally drop the t8's right on top of the plants with no heat problems at all

 

[burnalot420]

yea, i've seen pictures of some of my friends plants under t5 and t8 and they look like little cabbage patches, the plants stay a lot shorter and don't stretch at all, he is working with the same genes as me right now and last run mine stretched under 2 400w mh

 

[dredidread]

theres so many factors bro, the problem with the mh is the heat issue. the light isnt making them stretch, the distance the light is from the plants is causin them to stretch. my babies dont stretch one bit ever. and i swear by metal halide. including durin flowering.

 

[burnalot420]

yea but i'm keeping the light 18-24 away, the heat might be a little bit of an issue reaching 85 for an hour or two on the hottest days

 

[homebrew420]

I've used both and depending on how close you can get the lights to the plants without doing damage or causing stress. I know that's a little ambiguous but after a run or two you will be able to see. From seed I think nothing beat the fluoros. You can get the lights within inches and watch as the plants stack the nodes right on top of each other. I find that to be great no matter what light is given to them after that. I would switch to halide after about 6-8" tall, regardless of number of nodes. Ehole and diesle got it right. It is about intensity at the leaves and some times too much is worse than not enough.

 

[MediVapeMan]

I use T8 for clones/seedlings and HO T5 for moms and veg. The Pioneer series by Sunleaves will take the Pepsi challenge against a 400w MH anyday. The MH works great, but you'll pay twice as much to purchase and run it and only get a limited benefit. As others have previously noted, since you have to keep the plants 2-4ft from the MH, the lumen output is actually greater with a HO T5 3 inches away. The only time I would recommend a MH would be if you are a commercial grower with 9+ plants per light and need to penetrate the canopy. If you're just growing a few plants for personal smoke, I'd go with the Ts.

 

[Djmers]

I agree with the comments about using floures for seedings because of the heat issue with mh but I have been using for years hps through out the whole grow from seeding to smoke with great results and never any stretching issue infact I get more stretching using floures.

 

[LordDankinstien]

im thinking a minium or 4 4ft t5's for vegging 6 plants to be placed into a 1000 w 4x4 scrog. what do you peeps think?

 

[Lost]

im thinking a minium or 4 4ft t5's for vegging 6 plants to be placed into a 1000 w 4x4 scrog. what do you peeps think?

I think a MH would work better :)

 

[burnalot420]

i am far far away from commericial, but am just looking for the most eficient while causing my plants minimum stress during veg, i mean i have alwayus used mh except for seedlings but the flouros i used is a two bulb hydrofarm, neither t5 nor t8, lol not even sure exactly what kind of flouro it is