MH?? T5??? What to use in veg?? and how do i wire it correctly?

Hello anyone and everyone on earth,

I'm a new member as of 10 minutes ago. I've looked on here a couple times for random things, very informative.. I'm not new to weed or anything surrounding it, but I just moved to cali last year, my first grow was outdoors last season (09) I used maxsea and raw organic fish emulsion.. I lived just north of mt. shasta at the time in northern cali, had a well and the ph was 6.7 right off the tap, lol, wish i could say that here.. had 11 plants all different, clones unless i specify: G-13, Purple Fire(seed), Black, Blue Skunk, U2 Kush, White Widow, GooBerry, Pheno Thai(seed), Blue Dream, Himalayan Gold(seed), & Cotton Candy Kush.. they came out wonderful, I hung each plant to dry for 2 1/2 weeks as a whole plant.. then trimmed, and jar'd up, and burped everyday.. I fucking suprised myself!!!! wow, most all cured up excellently, some genetics were better than others (if you're in northern cali buy your clones from Nature's 420 nursery) top notch genetics!!

So now I'm goin for some indo.. I have a half a setup I got all at one time for a pretty good deal, so I just said fuck it... I have:
- 4 1000w XtraSun ballasts and matching hoods
- a box of silvania 1000w bulbs
- a 5' by 1 1/2' round carbon filter
- a centrifugal fan

I have a basement area i'm using, i have 3 rooms, veg flower dry. veg and dry rooms have low celing space, both like 8'X8' and 5' ceiling. the flower room has bout 7-8' ceilings and is about 12X12. obviously the 1000's will be in the flower room, and the carbon filter is whatever, i live in the mountains in cali.. Where I need input is on the electrical and the lights for veg.. I've heard to go with the T5's, they give good light and, are energy efficient (which I am a huge fan of!). then I hear to go with like 2 600W Metal Halide's, which i hear make for more dense nuggies later on in the flowering stage(which I am also a huge fan of!) so I guess the final product is what I'm really after so any input would be awesome!! I've heard not to use the HPS in veg.. any input on that.. and also i was gonna wrap the grow rooms in black/white plastic or panda film whatever you call it.. any input on different films or mylar or red mylar?? certain way to wire things, or better breakers to buy? I wanna know everything!

I have 36 blue dream clones I will be getting next week and would like to buy my lights and set up by then.. thanks for the help!!!

Truth,

You basically answered your main question. If you go MH you don't necessarily get better nugs (provided you t5 the fuck outta the place, but in my opinion(based mostly on the insane amounts of reading I do, I'm a newb) the MH will get you there faster. People use HPS for veg, but they're usually backed up with some CFL's or T5's, to get some blue. If your flower room is 12x12, you're gonna want all your current HPS power in there. If it were me, I'd go the MH route. You're obviously goin big, might as well go big. I say panda or flat white paint all the way for sheer simplicity. Mylar has quite a few drawbacks for it's minimal contribution.

Good luck!

yo, thats whats up.. I think i'm goin the MH route, still havent decided, goin shopping on tuesday, will post what I decided on.. def appreciate the input..

yo, i actually went with the t5, got a sunsystems sun blaze 48, which is 8 4' blue bulbs uses 432w and puts off 40,000 lumens.. got it sittin of the ladies now, and they look happy!

Nothin wrong with that decision at all. I will likely have bought 5 bulbs before you even have one tube go out. And those bitches are cheap as fuck. I really wanted t get the sun blaze too. But I couldn't beat the price I got my switchable system for. Gonna screw me in the long run. Post some pics of what ya got goin on. I'd like to know how those sylvania's work out for your flower room. At $20 a pop, I may give em a try. I payed over 100 for each of my 2 bulbs. Bought into the hype.

Most of the time it's way more cost effective to just veg with T5s but a lot of people are too lazy to be moving lights every few days since you have to keep em so damn close to the plants

damn i didn't know the sylvanias were that cheap.. i got them with everything else, hope they're not bullshit.. I've been building out the room downstairs, will post some pics soon..

The switchable worked better for my situation in that I only have one room. I would be changing out the entire light switching to veg/flower. I think the sylvanias will do fine. I can't imagine they're 500% better than hortilux's, which the cost might suggest. Get some pics up!

nice!!! jim lahey.. lololol, fuckin love that show.. yo so i went with the T5's and now they are flowering under the hps, check out my grow journal, link is in my signature.. oh and if you find those sylvania lumalux 1000w for 20 bucks i'd buy them up dude.. they are on sale for 75 at the hydro shop up here.. or you could spend 130 on the hortilux super hps.. couple more lumens.. but i like the lumens/freq of these bulbs i'm using..