Ok, I have been muling this over for sometime, and im ready to run a side by side test of three lighting systems. I have a few questions that i would like some input on. First here is my plan to run a test on HPS vs T-5 vs CLFs. I think i have determined the best plant out of the three females i got from my Thai x Skunk seeds. I want to set up a CLF system for flowering 4 plants. My CLF question is how many bulbs do you think i will need to cover a 2'x4' area? And what kind of geometry should i arrange the bulbs in? Actually that's my only real questions. I will also flower 3 plants under a 400W HPS and 4 under my T-5. I will put all the clones into flower at the same time, in the same type of bubble buckets and use the same nutrient loading for each. What do you think?
I'll be very interested in the results of this (pulls up a chair) nice one for giving it a go dewd +rep
Not exactly a controlled experiment, but should be very interesting. It'd be great if you could do a watt-for-watt comparison. For an area of 2x4, you will need... a lot of CFLs. Pretty much covering the whole ceiling is needed, since the plants have to be very close to the bulbs. Also, I think you'll find your nute and watering schedules will be significantly different from the HPS to the fluoros.
I am sure that the plants under the HPS will move a lot more water but thats ok its all part of the test. Im not in a lab im in a grow room so close is good enough. It will be a month or so before i can start it up( i have 3 plants in the middle of flower under the T-5 so i have to wait for them to Finnish). but im going to build the CLF light and a cool tube for my HPS in the mean time. I was thinking between 12 and 16 would do. my clfs that i have now are 26w. so 26x16= 416W of CLF thats a close Watt for Watt test. 416W of CLF vs 400W HPS vs 8 54W (432W total) Bulb T-5 fixture.
well my 2 cents, is that you cant really determine the difference in yield, the different lights create different things you need to overcome for example exhaust should be the same, however you need more for the HPS than you do the cfls. also the HPS will run significantly higher than the cfls if the exhaust and intake are the same. because the HPS is hotter more water will evaporate from the soil and the plant will use more. meaning the plants under the HPS will need more water and in turn use more nutes. its virtually impossible to determine yield based on same growing conditions. i love the idea, but id love to have it done by someone like direwolf, or someone who can create 100% ideal conditions for each type of light. Meaning that each would get different amounts of water, nutes, exhaust, ect to make sure growing under the conditions is ideal. Not saying that you cant, but im sure dire would love the challange of testing this out.
I think this'll be a good indicator of light effectiveness. Provided the temps/growing medium/genetics/methods are the same, it seems like a good experiment. It looks to me like the main idea is to see what the differences in results (read: yield and potency) are using equivalent wattages from different light sources. And I think our fine friend Gator here can do a great job of it.
I got my HPS system up and running. I added a DIY cool tube and it works very well. I started it up a few days before I put my plants in. The cool tube works so well that i did not notice much temperature change. You can check out the setup in my Max LST thread. Its going to be a little while until i get the CLF system up and running so i went ahead and threw a couple clones into the HPS system. Im going to grow these two traditionally with a little topping to see how big this strain gets in its free growing form.