T5 vs. HPS

jake55

Active Member
I am currently running a 1000 watt hps. I was talking to my local hydro shop expert about lighting b/c i am going to expand. He said i should use T5 lighting instead of HPS. Has anyone done a comparison grow with the two. I am concerned with yield. I dont think that the T5s will be as good but they advertise 40,000 lumens or more and you can run a better spectrum b/c you have multiple bulbs. Any help/advise would be great.
 
yield will suffer severly tho t5s have its pros and cons compared to hps...
You can save on elec bill,put lights closer and a few other things but i would just stick with the hps honestly.Thats all you need..
 

jake55

Active Member
My friend showed me some plants that he was growing under the T5s and the buds looked just as good as the ones i grow under my 1000 hps.
 
pics woul dhelp with that but I will tell you HPS buds are denser and larger if grown right. T5's dont have the penetration power as the HPS so the tops of the T5 will be nice but the inner branches wont be as good as with a T5. How many plants are you growing?
 

jake55

Active Member
i grow 8 under the 1000 hps. I was doing some math. Check this out. T5s put out 40,000 lumens at the light and you can pretty much set them ontop of the plant (not much heat) so i grow in a 2ftx4ft. thats 8 sqft = 5000 lumes per sqft. 1000 watt hps @ 2ft is 35,000 lumens = 4375 lumens per sqft. (mine is air cooled and i keep it at 2ft above the plants)
 

jake55

Active Member
pics woul dhelp with that but I will tell you HPS buds are denser and larger if grown right. T5's dont have the penetration power as the HPS so the tops of the T5 will be nice but the inner branches wont be as good as with a T5. How many plants are you growing?
i agree about the penetration.

Do you know if there is a diminishing point of t5s at a certain distance
 

Oldreefer

Well-Known Member
I too start all my seedlings under T5HO for 3-4 weeks, then transfer to 400 + 150 w hps.....works great for me.
 
I can just go from my results in vegging with a T5 and flowering with a HPS.
There has to be a diminishing point to a T5, IDK what it is but my T5 is no more than 4" off the top of my plants.
 

jake55

Active Member
I have been trying to find what the lumens are at 1ft, 2ft, 3ft, ect on a T5. I have the stats for a HPS.
 

golddog

Well-Known Member
Anybody who reccomends T5's over HPS is no expert, unless their reasoning is less heat.
I know someone who grows all the way thru with T5's and swears by it ....

But it is not the quality of a plant grown with HPS lights.

He grows 100+ little bitty plants, because of the lack of light penetration. He is growing High Yield Blue Dreams. It is not even as good as my OD Blue Dream.

Rep+ NewGrowth :leaf:
 

333maxwell

Active Member
If you have a choice, stick with HPS... of course you can embellish that light additionally with t-5 or other..

Me myself, I would stick with HPS and toss some 6500k cfls around too..

IN fact, I will play Devils advocate and say I myself have found much better results with CFL than T-5 simply because I can pack more lumens in a smaller space and concentrate it where I like, and drop it into the actual plant at time.. vs T-5 which is fixed and you have one level playing field of light..


--

But no, for anything bigger than a very small space, stick with HPS if you got it already..

Just my thoughts.
 
. 1000 watt hps @ 2ft is 35,000 lumens = 4375 lumens per sqft.
A 1000 watt bulb can produce as much as 135,000 lumens, not 35,000. In a 8sq. ft space that would put you at almost 17,000 lumens per sqft. Much more than the t5's, and probably much more than your plants could use if you built a proper tent with bright diffusive walls. A 400 w HPS or a 4' 8 bulb t5 setup would produce enough light for that space, although the t5 will use more watts and produce less lumens.

t5's are not more efficient in producing light. HPS is the most efficient way of producing light, followed by MH, then high efficiency fluorescents. Look at the lumens per watt of a high quality bulb and you will see for yourself. A nice 400w hps will produce almost 60,000 lumens while a 4' 8 bulb t5 setup will use over 400w and produce under 40,000 lumens.

fluorescent bulbs do produce much less heat than MH and HPS. This is because they don't have a filament burning at several thousand degrees.

As for penetration, the light from a point source diminishes at 1/r^2. From a theoretical infinite line source light diminishes at 1/r. For a typical rectangular hood, the light will diminish somewhere between these two rates. The more surface area your hood has, the closer it will be to 1/r, which means more penetration. This is in addition to the effect of leaves being able to block light from a smaller source. So whether you use a bunch of fluorescents, or H.I.D.'s with hoods, your penetration will be based on surface area of the hoods and the total lumens produced. T5 hoods spread the light much more evenly than most HID hoods, mainly because of the size difference of the bulbs. On the other hand, as noted earlier, you can produce much more lumens with HID systems and I believe the raptor hood provides very even diffusion with a large surface area and dimensions that fit my room well.
 

cary schellie

Active Member
try doing a constant harvest leave ur hps on 12/12 and get some t5s for veg and clones. u'll save alot of electric not running a 1000 watt for veg, cut a few clones every few weeks:leaf:
 

40ozSkunk

Active Member
hps will no doubt yield more. if you wanna see how 4 plants flowered under t5s, check the link in my sig. i just put them under hps two days ago (getting my tent ready for the new and improved round 2). These plants were vegged under 6500k lamps and flowered with half 6500, half 3000k, plus a few 3000k cfls. The buds are small and airy looking, and forget about having any buds worth keeping underneath the canopy. all the lower buds are tiny little specks.

I'm looking forward to my next grow, where i veg with the t5s and flower with the hps. Then i will truly be able to tell the difference in hps vs t5 yields.
 

Ctznsnips

Member
ive flowered under both hps and t5's with mixed spectrum bulbs. you will get a quality product it just wont be as dense as hps flowers.
this is a t5 flowered WW
 

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