With a $20 light meter you can watch the output and only change as
needed.
Joe T
Baytown

OrchidKitty wrote:
Specialty Lights has a T5 fluorescent grow light with 8 bulbs, 4 feet
long. The fixture puts out 432 watts of light, which seems pretty good.
It costs $409, which is pretty much what I paid for my MH 400 watt
fixture. All things being equal, I think I'd rather have the T5s
because they generate less heat and are not as ugly as the big hood on
a HID fixture.

The bulbs are expensive, about $15 each to replace, BUT they say they
last for 20,000 hours. Hum. I wonder if this means that this is the
burn-out point, and the effective light drops like a rock after about a
year? I replace my other fluorescent bulbs ever year. Anybody have a
guess?




danny wrote:
I think we got our fixture for $200? It doesn't look quite as nice as the
$300 one (same shape but aluminum instead of a nice black painted finish),
but it came with bulbs so it was MUCH cheaper. None of my lights need to be
hard-wired, I currently have 3 400W metal halide fixtures and a bunch of
normal fluorescents. One nice thing about the T5 fixtures is they are a lot
shallower than the HID and they disperse the heat and light a little more
evenly, so you can put them under a shelf and have two layers of plants.