What Type of Lighting is Best?

[Smokin Moose]

Fluorescent or metal halide lighting is best for clones and seedlings. Metal halides are recommended for vegetative growth due to their enhanced blue spectrum which encourages bushier, more compact growth. High pressure sodium lights are better suited for flowering, but either can be used for the entire cycle with favorable results.

Durotest Aquatinic 7500K bulbs are my choice for cloning, seedling and mother plant lighting, for which they keep growth sturdy and compact. I switch to SunMaster Cool Deluxe metal halide during the early vegetative stage through the stretching phase of early flowering to keep the plant compact. I finish off the plant cycle with Hortilux high pressure sodium lighting. They are extremely bright and efficient with superior dispersion.

 

[klrb007]

As this post is more than two years old I thought I would revisit it and ask if LED has been an option or evaluated? I recently purchased a 90W UFO light and was wanting to know if I invested wisely or just wasted $170. Any help would not fall on def ears.

Thanks!

 

[uskiwi]

I think LED's are getting better, I'm looking into Magnetic Induction Flourescent Grow lights. Been doing some research and seem to be better than LED's. Especially for an indoor Sgrog application. Any comments welcome.

 

[StinkFinger]

Tons of guys doing LED grow comparisons on the site guys.

Do a search for threads with LED in the title.

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[Dacob]

Hehehehehe another LED war!

Nah, I'm going to go there, but seriously, your 90 watter should be great for veging new plants. For flowering, I'd stick to about 1 or 2 plants per 90 watter, which is not a lot for most people, but, that might be OK for you.

LEDs are great for clones and vegging plants, as clones do not need much light energy at all, and young plants seem to respond well to LED's tailored spectrums.

Now, for flowering cannabis needs as much as 4 times as much light as it needed in vegging, so you can see where the problem is with the smaller 90 watters -- they are not powerful enough to cover much more than a 2 foot by 2 foot area, and one plant can easily take up that amount of space if it is bushy.

So, did you waste money? No, your light is great for young plants, but do look into supplementing it with some CFLs or more LEDs if you want a garden of more than a few plants.

Also, check out my journal if you want to see the results I was able to achieve with just one 90 watter per 2 square feet, plus some good 42 watt CFLs for supplemental lighting.

My set up is not as cheap as a basic HPS lamp plus ballast, but I have no heat at all in my tents -- it's no more than 5 degrees above ambient, so I have no need for any large fans, ducting, AC, etc... which I love.

Bottom line -- I was able to achieve what I feel are respectible results with LEDs, and I specifically choose to work with non-name-brand, uber-cheap LEDs, as I wanted to see what was possible for someone that just does not have $2000, or even $1000, to spend on an LED panel.

Now, I knew what I was doing before hand, but regardless, I think my success illustrates my opinion, which is that LEDs are effective for growing excellent cannabis.

Most people will tell you, quite accurately, that you will be able to achieve higher yields with other lighting systems, but the truth is that you need to decide what is most important to you, and then balance and tailor your cabinet/grow system to match your goals.

 

[autoflowerzz]

Hi im a bit of a noob in light based areas so i figured you guys know so much could u help me out?
First of all i have a autoflowering strain which currently is growing outside but VERY slowly(dont actually know why, first time grow probably why). I was gnna start growing indoors and need to know which light aand ow much watts it is for about 3 plants they in veg growth,i dont care about how big they get. erm i also need it cheep cus im kinda low on cash here. I did research and found that lights speed up growth by nerly 2x than outside (now i like that).
If you could help me that would be gr8 thnx!!

 

[Sensibowl]

Hehehehehe another LED war!

Nah, I'm going to go there, but seriously, your 90 watter should be great for veging new plants. For flowering, I'd stick to about 1 or 2 plants per 90 watter, which is not a lot for most people, but, that might be OK for you.

LEDs are great for clones and vegging plants, as clones do not need much light energy at all, and young plants seem to respond well to LED's tailored spectrums.

Now, for flowering cannabis needs as much as 4 times as much light as it needed in vegging, so you can see where the problem is with the smaller 90 watters -- they are not powerful enough to cover much more than a 2 foot by 2 foot area, and one plant can easily take up that amount of space if it is bushy.

So, did you waste money? No, your light is great for young plants, but do look into supplementing it with some CFLs or more LEDs if you want a garden of more than a few plants.

Also, check out my journal if you want to see the results I was able to achieve with just one 90 watter per 2 square feet, plus some good 42 watt CFLs for supplemental lighting.

My set up is not as cheap as a basic HPS lamp plus ballast, but I have no heat at all in my tents -- it's no more than 5 degrees above ambient, so I have no need for any large fans, ducting, AC, etc... which I love.

Bottom line -- I was able to achieve what I feel are respectible results with LEDs, and I specifically choose to work with non-name-brand, uber-cheap LEDs, as I wanted to see what was possible for someone that just does not have $2000, or even $1000, to spend on an LED panel.

Now, I knew what I was doing before hand, but regardless, I think my success illustrates my opinion, which is that LEDs are effective for growing excellent cannabis.

Most people will tell you, quite accurately, that you will be able to achieve higher yields with other lighting systems, but the truth is that you need to decide what is most important to you, and then balance and tailor your cabinet/grow system to match your goals.

argh, an LED war...sounds painful. LOL

Yeah, I think LEDs work pretty well, but for me, I just like the old light bulbs and the use of HPS and those sorts of setups. Of course, LEDs can be pricey, so I think that's why a lot of people want to try those out. After all, they think something being expensive makes somethign good.

Not so.

It's not just about the light. It's about the types of light in the fixtures, the distance of the lights, the hours the lights are on....

Just putting in some fancy lights doesn't mean you're going to have an awesome grow. I wish.

Eh, fancy stuff aside, the only thing I spend my money on is AN nutes. Everything else can be less pricey, though I even buy my nutes from discounters too, so I'm doing pretty well overall.

To me, it just seems like LEDs are for other things besides growing. I try to give my plants as natural of options as possible and something about the LED setup seems off to me.

 

[smoke free]

will 1 T-5 fluorescent light 2ft 8 bulbs be good for everything not look n to sell just free smoke. Have a 3ft by 3ft. And it 7ft tall I have 1 T-5 10seeds not sure how many females but will that do the job for everything start to finish thanks for your reply

 

[stedfast82]

LED's have a long way to go i'm not a weed farmer but i do grow coral. Us in the coral farming biz have gone from fluorescent ,to MH,to t5's and now the LED's have hit the reefing biz but they are as of right now not what i would say worth the $$$$ they will have to come down in price i have stayed with my 14k MH and wont change that just my 2 cent's

 

[Thawk]

I am also new here and have been doing research on LEDS for a long time befor ei finally decided to make them my grow lights, and I have roughly a 6x5 closet with two 90 w ufos over top and three 45 w panels at an incline so it is focused more at the side of the plants. I will be starting a thread soon just for this grow but I was wondering if you guys thought that would be enough light for a good yield, I am also adding two flowering only led lights when I start the 12/12 hours. Also all the led's are from sunshine systems, so hopefully this will be a good setup just wanna see what you guys think.

 

[Thawk]

Haha well they definitely were not the cheapies, but I think I'm going to add a 240 watt led panel

 

[Vaporeyes]

will 1 T-5 fluorescent light 2ft 8 bulbs be good for everything not look n to sell just free smoke. Have a 3ft by 3ft. And it 7ft tall I have 1 T-5 10seeds not sure how many females but will that do the job for everything start to finish thanks for your reply

Yes you can use your t5 for veg and bloom , might wanna get yourself a mix of bulbs .... for veg on a 8 bulb i would add 2 or 3 flower bulbs and one or two veg with my flower bulbs when blooming. also i wouldnt veg them over a foot tall or you will have penetration issues...

gluck

 

[thinker]

i grew with 3 225 led panels for one plant. it says each is about 14 watt.

the plant was radom headiz seeds and i think autoflower. it was on 24/0 and started to flower at about 12" tall. it didnt grow much after that. the lights were as close as they could be and were even touching. for some reason after being on 12/12 for about 2 months the flowers wouldnt develop and further than they had when they autoflowered.

this may be due to your info about flowering plants needing 4 times the amount of light.

then this past year i grew 10 plants with 4 225 leds. after putting them on 12/12 6 were male the rest consisted of one was good size (14") and the other 3 were about 10". the same thing happened. the flowers developed and grew on top of eachother. but this time i waited 3 months on 12/12 and no buds appeared.

ill never use led again for marijuana. its best use would be giving light to outdoor plants that need to be brought in during the winter.

 

[thinker]

they worked great up until flower. ive never seen a plant that dark green.

 

[thinker]

ya agreed. i was a freshman in college trying it for the first time.

i still got to make browines out of the immature buds and they were decent.

 

[Envirotech]

they worked great up until flower. ive never seen a plant that dark green.

Don't give up on these cheap ufo's just yet..i'm working on how to improve them for flowering. I have some small supplimental led with a screw in base in 630 and 660 nM. First find out what your ufo has wether it is 630 or 660's suppliment the missing wavelenthe and add a few CFLs in 2700k and one 6400K.This will fill in the missing wavelengths your ufo are lacking and for the kicker add a small wattage ie 20 watt halogen. This will add needed infrared wavelength. you see all the latest and greatest panels are adding more and more wavelengths to their set ups. You can acheive the samething but be creative and cheap! Here's the break down of each supplimental. The 2700K cfl is rich in 612 nm, yellow and a little in the 630 range. The 6400K is rich in blue's and yellows and uv, 660nm or 630nM can be added via small e27 led lamps (about $20 ea) the nice thing about these is that they are 120 volt no driver or extra fans to worry about no heat sinks as they are built in just screw it in. the sole purpose of the halogen is strickly for infrared and very far red wavelengths ( they will also add alot in the yellow and green area)
There you have it a full spectrum set up about 220 watts total. We all use cfl's to suppliment led's but why not use cfl's as your main light and suppliment it with leds?

 

[Envirotech]

It's not actually a contradiction much as you'd hope. It's called knowing your audience. For all you know, I withheld mundane detail that people who've done 20 minutes worth of research would know anyway, and maybe only to see how long it takes those who don't, to rush out and market a product based on half information..

Far Red is usefull, aka near infra red, what many marketers refer to as infra red for their lack of knowing better. So for the sake of the point in context "infra red" sufficed. But to use a halogen as you say, you're very much talking about veritable infra red, which only serves in heat generation, and that may only help the plant breath.

Since in most operations it's already enough of a problem to exhaust the heat that's there, there will be a rare need to actually supplement it. Therefore, even while actual IR "might" be beneficial, it's still unwanted. Blind application of either far red or infra red is not going to lead to real benefits though. What's important is the red to far red ratio, and for near infra red, cycle times, which properly employed can have some interesting benefits toward reducing the required dark period by a few hours.

This the kind of thing that employs complex interractions and it's not the kind of thing you blindly supplement for, unless people want to experiment, rather than grow, but you're selling it to them as a solution that you "worked on", which is a cruel joke, at least as much as your recommendation to use E27 LED lights while considering it economical, using the cheapest and most poorly employed LEDs. But if you'd love to back that up, then I'd love to see your posted cost analysis.

"so your answer is to add more wavelengths of led's? whats more economical adding cfls and a small halogen or spend more on hard to get and expensive wavelengths of leds?"

Note how you offset quoted text to make it readable.. carriage returns are free.

I already said, I don't know how many times now, to use CFL to supplement novelty UFO's, which is widely known to work fine, as is a small HPS, also a proven marriage.
It is actually "your" recommendation to supplement with added, highly inefficient to the point of uselesslness, E27 LEDs.

You just might be confusing the context once again, between what the original design of a proper LED light might use, versus the supplementing of a novelty. Only a complete idiot, and quite a few marketers, would suggest anything at all like "replacing LEDs" on a novelty light, or even really adding any if you don't know what you're doing. If you were up to that task then you're up for making your own light from scratch, otherwise you'll just be wasting your money as the end result, if it worked at all, would be anything but economical.

The problem with your particular CFL is an interesting one. It's a lot like driving an LED at ever increasing powers, or trying to push a car faster and faster or a jet or a rocket or lightspeed or audio power. The more power you want out of it, exponentionally the more power it requires to produce it. That's to say it just gets less and less efficient the harder you work it.

So with that in mind, look at how your light tries to get more out of it, by tightly packing more tubes into it. You only very slightly increase the outter circumferance, while the inner circumferance is all facing the other tubes. Unlike a standard fluorescent, where the back side of the tube faces a reflector. Long story short, the more tubes that are packed in like that, the less efficient it becomes. Obviously, it would be far more "economical", to have more lights, with fewer tubes. But that's just common sense, and you're the guy with the enviro name.

Actually if you check spd chart on a halogen you will see they produce not just the IR but also farred light too. you can find SPD chart for them on GE website.

"The problem with your particular CFL is an interesting one. It's a lot like driving an LED at ever increasing powers, or trying to push a car faster and faster or a jet or a rocket or lightspeed or audio power. The more power you want out of it, exponentionally the more power it requires to produce it. That's to say it just gets less and less efficient the harder you work it."

Wrong!! maybe true for led's but larger U type CFL's are much more efficient than spiral type. The spirals only produce 60-65 lumens/watt at best. U type produce 70-75 lumens/watt. So yes i have ENVIRO in my name.

 

[sensistar]

Hi guys,

New indoor grower here
had great luck with outdoor to indoor this summer
Trying from clone seedling this time

My Setup is below

I have 14 Clones Sensi Stars in Multiple Storage bins
Bins have 4 inches of Gravel at the bottom of bin
I have two 10 Inch fans aimed in different directions to circulate air
Soil is mixed with Compost Mixture, 3In1 Soil
All started off in Cups with Clothwrap

Now clones are 5-6 inch in height ( just starting to sprout new leaves )
3X 4 Foot Dual Bulb CFL Shop Lights
T8 Sylvania 32W Daylight Bulbs (so 6 Bulbs 4 inches above clones)

Should I keep the lights at this distance for the entire grow cycle?
What should I be expecting in the near future?

thanks and great site

 

[G-Dog]

The only one that can judge best is the one using it. Best for me, best for you, etc.

 

[CharlieMopps]

^^Yes. For me, right now, cfl works best. I need something cheap that doesn't make much heat. If I had a closet, i'd say a 400 HPS would be best.