Hi. I am doing perpetual autos and was planning on having them in 3 sets of 3 3 weeks apart. i was wondering if 250w ups is enough as there would be 4 plants under it at 1 time 2 would be in the last 3-4 weeks and the other 2 around 6 week before harvest and the youngest 2 under good quality led and would allso recieve a bit of light from the hps would you say 250w is enough? 32000 lumen or should i go with 400w? I have on hand 250w digital ballast 250w magnetic ballast 70w magnetic ballast 2x hydro grow 21x pro x2 lense led If I go with 400w I will be picking up a digital ballast for it. The 250w is no problem at all the 400w would be fine for now but I would expect heat problems as summer comes. but would still have the 250 digital to use if needed. Cost isnt much of an issue but the ventilation I have cant be upgraded as it would make 2 much noise and would cause a lot of other problems. Also if mixing led and hps should I go hps or dual spec? Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks for quick reply. I thought the same but the 250w just makes it much easy as far as temps go and I can get it closer than the 400w This is a auto grow and lights will be on 20/4
If you are sustaining average grow temps with the set up you have, then I would say just keep what you have using the 250w and just grow upto 4 plants at a time. But if you are doing 3 plants at 3 weeks a part on a total of 3 sets, then that's 3 x 3 = 9? If I read that correctly, then no, you won't be able to have 9 plants on 250w or 400w; as 3 gal pots would be the smallest I would go per plant imo and the light won't be able to effectively cover the surface area. 9 plants, 250w + 400w together would be perfect however.
Yea 9 you need more light if you have 2 250w ballasts and can fit 2 put 2 250w or if it was me I would probably just put a 400w and vent better. I have a 400w now and it's about a foot and a half above the plants. I have a 3ft wide 4 foot long 4 foot tall grow tent I built. All I use is a 6in fan that blows air around the space between light and plants and on the plants and that keeps it cool enough.
Thanks for the replays there will be 6 plants in 3gallon pots and 2 in a separate room from seed to seedling.
Yes well i was thinking cos its perpetual there would be 2 flowering heavily 2 others starting to flower and the other 2 would be in veg stage so shouldnt need that much light so there would be 4 evenly under hps then the 2 in veg stage would still get some light from the 250 but they will also have one of these Photon Pro 21 65w - Photon Pro Photon Pro 21 65w : GrowlightUK above them 2 would that be ok with the 250w and led or still go 400w?