I was just wondering if any of you guys have a recommendation as far as a good T5 HO setup to clone under. I have been using a 250w halide, and that has been a piece in a very successful cloning puzzle, but my clone/veg room keeps getting overgrown, so I want to drop my overall wattage.
I want to move my 250w halide over my veg tubs, get my 400w 6.4k sun pulse out of there, (already downgraded from a 600w 6.4k, still too much growth) and go with a T5 over the clones.

So, any recommendations? I'm looking at the hydrofarm one right now.. http://www.vminnovations.com/Product_9476/FLT24-HYDROFARM-HO-Commercial-T5-2FT-4-Tube-Fixture.html

I'd recommend getting a T5 from Sunblaze. The quality and manufacturing is a lot better. I run a hydroponics store, and I've seen many more hydrofarm T5's come back than the personal preference of SunBlaze.

http://www.sunlightsupply.com/p-11376-sun-blaze-t5-ho-fluorescent-light-fixtures.aspx

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll look into that. Just out of curiosity, what failed on the hydrofarm fixtures that came back? Does hydrofarm make their own ballasts in these?

Harvey, great idea for a slow down. I did the same in my veg room awhile back, hid just causes em to outgrow the room. Hydrofarm does make T-5's, I have one in my veg room that I bought on ebay.

harvey i just use a generic one that has some good refectors on it got it for $110 cnd used and it is a 4' 6 bulb setup. my plants are loving the change from my 250w MH. plus i am getting a much better node count (closer together). i think the key is to have good refectors as long as the are t5ho ballests and bulbs. but my self have never seen t5's that are not HO ones.

Home depot and lowe's sell non HO t5 bulbs.

Well, I bought the sun blaze one with the grow bulbs for a little over $100 last night, hopefully it works how I want!

Then I want to replace my current 250w sylvania or philips bulb, whatever it is, with a 250w sun pulse 6.4k bulb. I've had a hard time finding the sun pulses in the lower wattages for any type of good price though.

but anyway, this should also be pretty cool because I'll now have a spare 600w dimmable ballast, and a spare 400w 6.4k sun pulse bulb. I'll continue to use my dimmable 400w ballast to run the 250, and if I ever want to turn it up, all I have to do is swap the bulb out with the 400.

Thanks for all the replies!

So I plugged that new T5 HO sun blaze into my kill a watt ez meter, and surprisingly enough, it started out pulling 84 watts, and then dropped down to only 76. The bulbs are rated at 24w each, for a total of 96 watts. I figured it was going to pull 105, 110 watts, something like that, not 76! My lumateks all pull a little more than the rated bulb wattage.

I just took some more clones yesterday, so I guess I'll see how this new thing works soon enough..

I had also taken this rought and just want to chime in that I'm useing a 4' 4 bulb T-5 grow light hung horizontaly over my grow area with flower bulbs in a duplicate fixture hung vertically at the side with the white side of panda plastic on the other walls. Seeems like it creats more compact growth than the 400 watt HID they replaced.