Flouro Tube questions

[Poe_Ettic]

I am thinking about using flouro tubes to veg and for moms but I am not sure what to pick. I know veging plants need 6500k light temp but the tubes I see on 1000bulbs.com have really low lumens compared to the soft white one. My question is does the light temp matter more then the amount of lumens for veg? And what watt bulbs are good to use? Or am i better off doin the CFL's

thanx

 

[thecarguy]

Anything around 5000k will work very well for veg purposes. You are better using tubes than CFLs as they're more efficient and cheaper in the long run since you don't replace the ballast every time you replace the bulb.

 

[Phillthy]

i use the 6500k t5's to veg my moms under.

 

[magiccannabus]

"Tubes" tells us nothing. What kind of tubes are you talking about? There's literally tens of thousands of different types of fluorescent "tubes" out there....

 

[Poe_Ettic]

bump...I wanna use t8's...bump

 

[andy12]

I'm using philips T8 6500K, i wonder why a lot of people using cfl? maybe space issue? i admit that 4 foot is a big space

 

[geminibud]

I use the T8's with 2 bulbs and buy 2 so I have about 12 plants-24 plants covered for the first 2 weeks,easy as hell.get cool daylight bulbs that are 6500k color btw

 

[magiccannabus]

Check out my links in my sig. My grow uses T8 for flowering, and I'm switching to all CFL for vegging. I believe that using dominantly blue tubes will give you denser buds, though it may slow your finishing time a tiny bit(a week maybe at most). When using a lower intensity light like the T8, you really need to think more about your light per cubic foot. If you just use them top-down, you will only get light from one direction, and the low intensity will limit it's effects lower in the canopy. The best plan is to surround plants with light. Look up the "High Pod" in the micro forum to see what I am talking about. His first try at that produced incredible results that anyone would be happy with. He wasn't using T8s, but it still displays how useful it is to use lights that surround the plant. T8s are great for this because they don't burn the buds up if they grow against it.

I will be putting my plants into flower within a week or so here, so I can hopefully demonstrate this concept even more.

 

[Poe_Ettic]

Do I need a special ballast for a T8 Fluorescent U-Bend?

I want to use two of this bulb:

http://www.1000bulbs.com/T8-U-Bend-1-5-in-Spacing/7563/

and want to know if I can use this ballast:

http://www.1000bulbs.com/2-Lamp-T8-Ballast/28515/



and also for the regular linear bulbs is it possible to run a 39watt and 17watt bulb on the same ballast?

 

[magiccannabus]

Man that's tough to say. Whatever foolish person made that page for the bulbs didn't bother to put anywhere what the wattage is.....

As for your last question, probably, but likely only with a Fullham Workhorse ballast of some kind since those are designed to be universal enough to run almost any fluorescent tube within a certain wattage range.