HELP me experienced T5 (and or) LED growers! You’re my only hope!

Now is when I wish that we HAD a LED & T5 forum.

I have grown outdoors before but it was many years ago and this indoor stuff is new to me. I’ve read my ass off here on RIU and tried my best to get up to speed on bubbles and nutes and indoor lights along with the rest of the requirements and problems. Thanks to all of you for your insightful posts and hard won lessons that you have shared with us! I’ve learned a lot from you all.

Because of heat and stealth reasons, I decided to go with T5 fluorescents and a 300 Watt, UFO, LED fixture. Also, I love being on the cutting edge of technology and learning new stuff.

The big UFO (13”wide X 19”long) will be in the center on chains and the (2) 2 foot 8 bulb T5s (24”wide X 25”long) will be hanging on either side of the UFO in kind of a bat wing slant of maybe 20/30 degrees on chains. Everything hangs so that it can be raised or lowered together or adjusted individually as needed.

The 2 foot T5s have (6500 kelvin lamps for vegging and 3500 k lamps for flower. The UFO LED is a 3 spectrum (RBO) unit.

I have good timers for the lights and accessories and installed a new 20 amp GFI breaker into the service running out to the grow. If the GFI keeps tripping because of the pumps, I'll just swap it out for a standard breaker. I will be starting out at 18/6 in veg, lights out for 24/36 hours then go into flower at 12/12. I have Dutch Masters Reverse that I will be using as directed just in case.

I have DWC, 5 gallon buckets, 6” net tops, Hydroton, micro pore H stones and Sunleaves 600 gph pumps. I am growing from seed in rapid rooter cubes. I’m using Panda film, heat/humidity meter and will run carbon filter/blower during flower. I have all the nutes, super thrive and pH up/down. I have a carbon/filter setup for my water supply and the city tap water here is good to start with.

I posted a question in the thread “decent pm/ppm meter” in the bubbleponics sub forum and would REALLY appreciate some feedback on my questions.

I have some SEXY GIRL beans of Indica dominant strains from several seed banks.

Question: How many plants will this LED/T5 setup support through flower realistically? Will 4 plants be too many for this setup or too few?

I’ve seen some pretty good results from you guys using T5 and LEDs and would really appreciate your input on my planned setup!

Thanks to all for your thoughts, Smuggler

Hey Smuggler guess what.....you can grow more using HID lights.

Buhahahahahahah! Now that's funny right thare, I don't care who you are!

Rereading the OP, it did come across a little harsher than I intended so I edited it. S

Bump, please

I grew 16 small plants under 4 X 4'T5s and had great results (sog). My next grow was under 8 X 4' T5s and had amazing results. I switched to a 120W LED and grew out 4 plants under it with okay results, not great but what I expected. It was my cheap light I got free with my 300W LED. I didn't use my 300W yet ( I started to) as it made to much heat. I'm redoing my closet to run my 300w for 4 lights but plan on growing them big. If it was a SOG then I'd have a lot more plants. The SOG method does work great for led as the plants are shorter and helps compensate for the penetration problem with LEDs. It really depends on how big your plants are that you plan to grow, but with that set up 4 huge plants should be no problem. What I also thought to do is don't put the T5s on top angled but run them verticaly to iluminate the bottoms and middles of the plants or horizontally lower down. Your set up shoould do really well, I just use my T5s for veg now.

That sounds good, use the T5's to offset the lack of penetration. That's really why I was going to slant them downward and aim them at the plants but I think you're right, just hang them vertically and maybe turn the plants 1/3 or 1/2 a turn a day. Great idea, thanks. S

the t5s are really good to compensate for any short comings of the LED. I love my LED, although all that no heat with LEDs is a myth, my T5s ran a lot cooler than my 300W. Although yes compared to HIDs it is a lot less heat.

And a lot less heat is where I need to be with no ventilation access or HVAC to tie into. My grow space is too small for a free standing AC unit and I will need to rely on fans for air circulation/cooling. Thanks, S

lol, I know what you mean. I use 2 closets in a room with no where to vent. I vent the closets into the room and rely on fans to keep things cool.