Best t5 48" light bulb?

[Rick Sanchez]

Hi!
I just got all my grow equipment from amazon, I got a 600w LED light and a t5 light fixture (with bulbs) and it came with 6500k bulbs which I read were good for vegetation, one of the bulbs arrived broken and amazon refunded me the price of the bulb (didn't have to ship anything back - I love amazon!) what's the best single bulb for vegetation in a t5 48" fixture? I heard 6700k is the best for flowering and again - im going to be running three 6500k's (not the processor lol) and I know one other bulb wont make much of a difference but I'm starting with teens anyways so it'd probably be better to have one best for blooming. I found one on amazon (see below) but it says its for aquariums and is made by "coral life" will this still work well?
Thanks again!!!

https://www.amazon.com/Coralife-05637-700K-Fluorescent-48-Inch/dp/B0017675GI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487122095&sr=8-1&keywords=t5+6700k+48+inch

[NA420]

That light should work as aquarium T5 lights are the same! I get my replacement bulbs from aquarium stores or the aquarium section. Hope this helps! Peace and positive vibes!

[Rick Sanchez]

But would you suggest that light for blooming? it's a 6700k light - is that the best type of light for blooming? I don't really know much about light spectrums accept that my LED one is full spectrum.

[Rick Sanchez]

Now i'm reading 3000k is good for flowering, I don't know what I'm doing - which light should I choose?

[Potted]

I've used fish tank grow lights in veg &bloom full spectrum work great found at a restore,top of tank got 3for10, two worked 1 DOA used for side lighting my.02cents

[Rick Sanchez]

Awesome, was a bit worried but this fixed it. Ordered the 3000ks.

[PuravidaC]

I grow with CFL's, 6700k for veg and switch to 3000k for flower. It is a good idea to blend both colors throughout grow but predominantly 6700/veg and 3000/flower.

[Rick Sanchez]

Do you think always running (for veg and flower) three 6400ks, one 3000k, and one 600w at blue spectrum for veg and blue and red spectrum for flower? the LED is a viparspectra 600w (276w actual draw) full spectrum LED with vegetation and flowering options (blue and red)

[ZigZag]

Use the T5 wth the tubes you have now to grow from the seedling to small plant size- maybe the first three weeks, at least until they have 3 sets of true nodes. There's not really much difference between a 6500 spectrum and a 6700. Use whichever you have. The T5 light should be about 4-6" from the tops of the plants. If they are nice and healthy looking by the end of week three then switch from the T5 to the LED. I'm not familiar with the brand you have but I'd start them a bit higher than the recommended height and then move them down about an inch a day_ watch for any signs of burn. Probably I'd start them at about 28-32" and use both the veg and flower modes throughout the rest of the grow.Using both the T5 and LED at the same time may not be worth the extra power draw. The T5 will be too far away from the plants since you will need to keep it at the same height as the LED_which will need to be at least 3-4X as far away. And you don't want the T5 blocking any of the light from the LED. You might get some benefit using the T5 with 3200 K tubes above or even with the LED, during the last 4-6 weeks of flowering, just to add a bit of warmer light. As far as the flower and veg spectrums for the LED_ use both of them once you go to 12/12 if your growing photoperiod plants. I have two LEDs with both veg and bloom modes. Last time I set them to use both modes for the entire 12 hours of light for most of the flowering but for the last two weeks I changed them so that the flowering light came on the first hour, then both spectrums for the next 10 hrs and then just the flower spectrum for the past hour. worked well. Don't use just the flower spectrum during flowering because it has less power than the veg spectrum and you need lots of light intensity during this period. have fun and good luck!

[Rick Sanchez]

I'm buying teens at 12-19" and doing seedlings my second time around, I need to cash out (sell bud) early as this was a big investment. The manufacturer said keep the LEDs (5 watt chips) 24 inches away. I just bought 4x 3000k tubes and the guy whose selling me my clones said that LED lights don't get the buds very dense (he also said to get a ton of nutrients, hardener and other shit but I'm just using the flora trio and calimag) and that I'd get much denser buds if I used cfls with my LEDs. Someone said to put a fan directly on the CFLs to keep it cool enough not to burn the buds, would it be more beneficial to keep the fan near the intake tubing to draw in fresh air or to keep it near the top of the plants to add some air flow? Thanks for your super long and detailed response!

[PuravidaC]

Sorry Rick, I forgot you were using LED too. I only use CFL (for now) so you will be better off listening to folks that have experience with LED. With that said, I have heard good things about the Viparspectra light.

[Rick Sanchez]

Well thanks anyways! The ballast I bought can hold 4 lights, do you think it would be more beneficial to have 2 6500ks and 2 3000ks throughout the whole grow or have all 6500ks for veg and all 3000ks for bloom?

[ZigZag]

I could be FOS but I think the best alternative might be to use one 3000K and three 6500 tubes for veg and three 3000K and one 6400 for the flowering. What I do know is that you want more blue light during veg and more warm light during flowering. But your plants do need a mixed spectrum and using 3/1 you should be able to achieve that and at the same time provide the most beneficial end of each spectrum for each period of development.

[Rick Sanchez]

That's exactly what I decided to do, thanks for the conformation!

[ZigZag]

Great, looking forward to hearing how your grow turns out! I use LED because my grow space is only 4' wide. the lights I'm using are VYPRx_ they are long and narrow (4"x48"). Two of them 12-16" apart provide perfect even light one the entire area. Between the two LEd's I have two small 90 watt bulbs and change them out for veg (6000K) and bloom (3200K). C