Hi guys,
I successfully grew tomatoes from seed this last January, but next time I want them budding before I get them in the ground (I only got tomatoes starting to fruit late august for all of the cultivers).
I have 1440 watts from 4 CFLs (105 watt = 400 watt each plus one 55 watt =240 watt) in a 6.5'x4.5' closet. Color is full spectrum daylight 6500 K. Initial Lumens is 18,600 all together.
I have read that people have used high pressure sodium lights (but I can only find marijuana references concerning light for flowering!). These have a color temp of 2100 K and a 1000 watt light gives 140,000 Lumens. But I don't want to use these because they would be so expensive to run! Unless they could be used for only 2-3 weeks to promote flowering, then I might use them.
Right now I'm paying $5.50 to $10 per month to run my CFLs. If I was to switch to the High Pressure Sodium it would be $17.50 to $31.7 per month. I might as well just buy the stupid plants!
Anyways, so my question is, can I use the same watts and use CFLs at 2700 K instead? (Warm white and 22,200 Lumens all together). Has anyone tried this?
This message was edited Oct 31, 2009 2:27 PM
Color Temperature and Watts for Tomato Flowering
I would look into T5 Lighting. Cheap to run and great.
You're right, the lumens are greater per watt. 87.5L/watt for the T5 and 59L/watt for the CFL. They also spread the light over the plants better, and the lumens stay strong where CFLs fade. The T5s also last more than 4 times as long
BUT, I look on www.1000bulbs.com (the cheapest I have found for lighting so far), and the ballasts are $49 each, and lights are $7 each (available only as a case of 40 though). Only 212 watts are required to achieve the same lumens as the 315 watts of CFLs I'm using (18,600 lumens). That would cost $149 for the t5 for the same amount of Lumens and $66 for the CFLs. Using the T5s would only save me $2 to $3 per month, meaning those tubes and ballasts would have to last me 5 years to save any money (well maybe 2 years, since the CFLs will likely need to be replaced by then).
But thanks for the advice, that's a good system to look into for the long term, since once you have the ballasts, you only have to pay for the lights from then on. That's cheaper than having to buy CFLs every time. They are a good investment, especially since they last so long. You just have to fork over a lot of money at the beginning!
Actually, now that I reason it out cost wise, I'm going to have to seriously look into this....
Thanks!
I'm lost! CFL, Color = full spectrum daylight, initial lumens, T5. What does all this mean? I am definitely in the dark here, no pun intended. Is there a book where I can learn some of this lingo?
Thanks,
Jerry M.
Jerry,
The T5 bulbs are the only flourescent bulbs that put out the complete spectrum of light for plant growing. You can go from seedling to flower to harvest with these. I'm a simple guy and that's all I really needd to know, because I wanted to grow some veggies indoors. But if you google T5 Lighting, I'm sure there is plenty on the internet about them
The t5 bulbs are available from 2700 K to 6500 K. So you have to make sure you know what your are getting. The lower range at 2700 K is necessary if you want flowering (but needs a much higher amount of lumens (brightness)). Full spectrum is 5000K to 6500K and mimics High Noon sunlight. This is needed for general growth, and does not need nearly as much Lumens
Here's a website that explains color temperatures:
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/optics/lightandcolor/images/colortempfigure2.jpg
The best online sources of info to explain this stuff is usually websites or forums for marijuana growing (oddly enough).
But like BocaBob said about the T5s is correct, CFLs are good also, but don't last as long (but are good for the short term of about 2 years). A good start for color temp is 6500K.
the Marijuana websites suggest about 40 watts per square foot of growing space. My closet is about 30 square feet, so needs a minimum of 1200 watts. It gets more complicated when it comes to flowering, since CFLs generally don't put out enough Lumens for this. The T5s are better for this.
You should read up on Watts versus Lumens. This is the only thing that gets REALLY confusing. The CFLs that I have only give out 20,000 lumens, which is good for growing, but for flowering I'd probably need 140,000 lumens.
T8 Ballasts-some T8's are for T5's too-ask
Home Depote sells reolacemant sockets.
I retrofitted 6 - $14.00 shop lites.
Cheep ballasts.(ask about T5 ballasts.)
http://usalight.com/lighting/ballast-kits.html
T5 lamps are slightly shorter than T8 lamps and therefore cannot be used as replacements for the larger lamps. Some luminaires, however, can be made to accept either T5 or T8 lamps by changing the sockets and ballasts. Table 1-1 compares lengths of T5 lamps with T8 and T12 lamps.
Info
http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/nlpip/lightingAnswers/lat5/abstract.asp
http://www.fullspectrumsolutions.com/full-spectrum-light-bulb-comparison.htm
I have been using Vtech T10 tubes
93f , 6700 K color , 3240 Lumins , 40 watts , 4800 hr.life
My peppers grow and flower under them.
you can buy cheap shoplights that run T8 fluorescent, which is what I do, and they put out plenty of light, 100lumen/watt, and the fixtures and tubes are very cheap, which is why i went that
route. if you want "blaster" type lighting, you can replace the 2 lamp shoplight ballast with
a 4 lamp ballast - this is called "overdriving" and you get T5 performance for a T8 price tag.
Everyone has their theories on light color temperature, but the tried and true cool white works
perfectly - it has an equal amount of blue and red, and studies conducted years ago show the 4100K lamp is fine. if you want to go "hotter" with a 5000K lamp, which can still be purchased for a cheap price, this will encourage the plants to stay short and stocky. All of my growing is with 5000K. I have a large fluorescent garden where I am growing roses and peppers, but the tomatoes have outgrown that garden, so I use the 575W Venture pulse start lamp. You can buy the ballast and lamp for around 160$, but that is without a case, and cord, etc., so you will have go be handy. I purchased the case separately. I used to grow cannabis, and the HPS works well for "flowering" meaning that it grows very large "buds", and the "fruit" that the cannabis grower is after is the resin on the outside of the flowers.
If you decide to "overdrive" the shoplight, 1 - this is perfectly safe, there is no overheating and no risk of fire at all 2 - you can buy cheap used 4 light ballasts on ebay for about 5$ per ballast, look for Advance, and Sylvania quicktronic, instant start ballast, they work well. you can google search "t8 overdriven fluorescent" which should bring you to the right article. Basically it doesn't matter what you do, as long as there is sufficient lumens (photons) and my tomatoes and peppers are flowering and fruiting perfectly on a 5000K lamp. Look up Venture metal halide lighting - this is a US company that has developed fantastic halides, that outperform fluorescent by far. Also, regarding "full spectrum" fluorescent, the real true full spectrum fluorescent actually have too few lumens, and the standard "triphosphor" works better - i have tried all lamps, and I actually own a PAR meter (which costs $300+) which measure plant photosynthetic active radiation, and so I can tell you for sure, that full spectrum gives less (far less) PAR than just a cheap triphosphor. Don't go any cheaper than that - count on spending 2.50 - $3.00 for a good triphosphor, and I own all of these things, I have tried them out, so this is not just some unproven theory.
The first 3 pictures are from my fluorescent garden, showing rosa rugosa Hansa, and flexum hybrid peppers. The last two are the HID garden with 575 Venture pulse start (extremely high PAR), showing developing tomato in the centre - heritage Black Krim tomato, on its way!
I have used T5 lights for several years and they work wonderful. Just go on Craiglist under Farm/Garden section and type in grow lights - there are always some used ones for sale from the cannabis growers gowing out of business or whatever. I have two 4foot 4 light set-ups and one 4 foot 8 light set up. I grew over 150 tomato plants to mostly gallon size last year.
Dr. Kenai
Thanks everyone,this is good to know.