Category Archives: T5 Lighting Pics

Some people who grow indoors don’t even realize that you can use fluorescent T5 grow lights during your grow to help save energy and still get great results. Fluorescent lights, as everyone knows, run on a very low amount of energy, especially compared to HID grow lights such as Metal Halide or High Pressure Sodium systems. These T5 fluorescent also operate much cooler than HID’s to help keep your growing climate at a favorable temperature for your flourishing plants.

Most growers that use T5 lighting systems, use them during the cloning and/or vegetative stage of growth. This is because the plant needs much less light energy during these phases of growth. A fluorescent T5 grow light system can offer the amount of light needed to these plants while using much lower energy. It is a little hard to compare a fluorescent light fixture to an HID because they are such different lighting systems, however it is easy to compare the output you get from using either one and the energy used to get there. Most 4′ T5 light bulbs are rated at 54 watts. The most popular T5 grow light system is the 4′, 4 light ballast. So using 4 lights, you are looking at using approximately 220 watts to give light to a 2′x4′ area. If you were to use an HID light for the same area, most growers would decide to use a 400W MH light. This system would obviously use at least 400 watts, if not more and will produce much more heat. This increased energy use adds up on the energy bill!

To help you understand why the vegetative or cloning phases are the best times to use a fluorescent light you should look at the different lux needed for the different phases. For example, when in the vegetative phase, your plants need around 27,000 lux. In the flowering phase the plant needs 107,500! You can see how the vegetative plants need much less intense light energy, so you can certainly get a way with using fluorescents!

You can see by the illustration that flowering plants need a drastically increased amount of light to flourish. The much lower amount of light needed for the vegetative phase can most of the time be met with a T5 grow light system. Start saving energy today and switch to T5 fluorescent lighting ASAP.

By Max R Jackson

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