I have a grow room that is about 5ft long 4ft high and a foot and a half deep. For lighting I have a 400 watt metal halide for vegatative and a 400wt hps for blooming. My friend says that this is not enough light and that I nee a 1000wt bulb. So if anyone has ever grown with a 400wt bulb I would like to know how the results were.
IMO, a 1000w light would be to much for your space. My space is relatively the same, and a 400w was more than enough, not to mention the fact that the area got hot as shit under just 400w. If you need to boost light, you can put reflective material (tin foil) on the wall of grow area.
My room is 4ft. by 4ft. and 6 feet tall. I have chosen to go with the 430 sun agro. I wondered if that was gonna be enough to do the job myself until I looked at some of the pics on this site. There are some beautiful plants that have been grown with florescents. I think that a 1000 watt light would definately provide you with more light, however, it would provide a lot more heat. Plus as small as your room is, the 1000 watt is a pretty big overkill. If you position your 400 watt correctly and use some deflectors to make sure you have light getting to the bottom of the plant as well as the top, You should be OK. You might try getting a couple of flour. bulbs and put them around the bottom. I just started a few months ago, but I have already run into a whole bunch of problems. None of them have anything to do with not having enough light. If anything, the plroblems were based on the fact that I wasn't using the light I had properly. Just focus on the details like PH, temperature, feeding cycles and having fun with it. Later when you get everything rollin' You can upgrade to a bigger light if you think you need it. I hope that I have been a help. Good luck.
thanks for your in put. i bought a space blanket (those foil looking emergency blanket at camping stores) to use for reflection. I just put it in so I have yet to see if it helps. I to have only grown for a few months, my last harvest was a wreck.
From what I have been told, and just from what I remember from my education, you really can't get a better light deflector that a piece of white posterboard. Ya see, the mylar sheets, or whatever shiny substance you use, deflects the light to focused points, or however you say it. Like a mirror and a flashlight. It reflects the beam of light on a specific angle. Where as a piece of white posterboard would reflect the light on several angles. The more angles you project the light from, to your plant, the better. But it can't hurt to use both. good luck.
As they said...use the light you have wisely..white your space,.you do not need a 1000w. You have two fixtures.800w MH/HPS,,,sweet..heat properly vented...use both...in that 5ft....bending,,,pruning,,,your in.. Keep us posted..
Flat white paint has the best reflection hands down. Mirrors actually absorb more light than reflect it. If you decide to use aluminum foil then use the dull side to avoid 'hot spots' on the leaves. IMO use both the HPS and MH for flowering. I'm sure you can afford it since you're already considering using a 1000W. You'll have the best of both spectrums of light and a bigger yield. Good Luck!
actually i only have one ballast (metal halide) and a mh bulb and a hps bulb that can adapt to the mh ballast. so I only have a total of 400 watts at a time. I use the mh for veg. and the hps for blooming. I canned the Idea of using mylar or foil, a white surface does seem to be the most logical solution. I have my light about 18 inches from my plant. do you think that is to close?
if its too hot to hold the back of your hand there for a couple of minutes, its too hot for the plants
I don't have the same light set up that you have, but 18 inches seems like a long way up there. Keep the lght as close to the plants as you can. Of course you don't want to bar-b-que the tops, but you don't want your plants to string out trying to get more light. So I would recommend a good ventilation system. Something to help you cool it down in there. Just play with it a little while and watch your plants real close. If you see any signs of it being too hot, then you can raise the light back up. What I would do is get ya one of those old style glass thermometers and just set it on top of your plant for about ten minutes and see what it says. Then you will know how hot it really is. Good luck.
chosen1 I think you're referring to fluoros. IMO 18 inches is fine. As long if you've got a good circulation of air and a fan blowing towards the reflector. My 430W is about a foot from the tops and the temp in the growing room rarely goes above 75F. Follow Big Poppa's advice...if your hands not comfortable then the plants aren't comfortable.
I will say that the only lights I've ever dealt with were HPS. I like the 430 SunAgros. I keep mine about an inch and a half above the top of my plants. Of course the light puts off almost no heat at all. The transformer box however does. So what I do is leave the box outside of the room and temperature is never a problem even with the light so close. I know the Metal Halide lights put off a lot more heat. So I can see where you're coming from there. I am by no means an expert, but I have been told to keep the lights as close as I could. What I would like to know is the magic nutrient combination. I am using the Gen. Hydro solutions, mixing one tsp of each of the three to one gallon of water. Should I go a little stronger? Is there a better brand? My plants look good, but they could always be better. I don't want to leave the possible "killer dank" on the table when I harvest. Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanx.
Are you growing in soil or hydro? If hydro, that's a pretty strong concentration. If soil growing, that's some pretty expensive fertilizer your spending on the plants, Miracle gro or the better Schultz brand will give you a cheaper altenative to ferts.
I am going the hydro route. The way I came up with that formula is from a book I bought from my local headshop. It seems to be working just fine. I bought a gallon of each of the three parts. So I do have about a hundred and thirty bucks invested in just the nutrients. But just mixing one tsp. of each to one gallon of water, I think its gonna last a while. I don't care as long as the final product is worth it. I just wanna make sure that it's gonna be worth it. The book I have told me to stay with that formula throughout the entire process, regardless of the cycle. I don't have any friends or aquaintances with any experience growing hydro. So I don't have anyone to give me feedback on the book I am using for my guide. The only reason I am skeptical, is that everything the book reccomends just happens to be for sale at the headshop I bought the book from. So I just wanna hear someone tell me that I'm on the right track or I am way off. The plants are looking better all the time, but as I said before, they could be a lot better. Or could they? Let me know. Thanx.
You don't keep the same formula throughout the life of the plant. You need different concentrations of each at different times in the life cycle of the plants. And a gallon of each nute?????? That's going to last you a while,... a long while. Let me look up a better formula recipe and do me a favor. Throw away the teaspoon and get a syringe that measure in milliliters. Its more accurate and more efficient.
I'm still trying to get over this. I've got a Hortilux bulb in my 430W Hps. It puts out more lumens than a SonAgro. If I had the bulb 1 1/2 inches from the tops...my plants would be scorched for sure.
Print this out!: Using the General Hydro 3 part for Bubbler's Formulations are in the order of Micro, Gro, and then Bloom (the order you are supposed to mix them inbtw) VEG Weeks 1 and 2 use MGB at a ratio of 4, 6, 2 milliters per gallon of water Supplements: Protekt root protector at 4 ml/gal and 1/4 tsp of epsom salts per gallon of water (also you can dip you finger in the water and then stick it in the epsom salt up to just past the fingernail, that's good enough epsom salt per gallon) FLOWERING Weeks 3 and 4 of the cycle add MGB at a ratio of 3,3, and 6 ml/gal Supplements: Protekt at 3 ml/gal and epsom salts 1/4 teaspoon per gallon Weeks 5,6, 7 and 8 of the cycle increase GH Bloom and decrease Gro. Use MGB at 4, 2, 6 per gallon Supplements: the same If you need more time to feed go to MGB at 2,2,6 for the remainder Weeks 9+ Straight plain water to flush, pH balanced Keep your pH around 5.6 to 5.8, fertilize as the EC meter drops (i.e. every 3 days or so) and alternate plain water with nuted up water (i.e. if the water level drops between feedings top off with plain water)
I don't know anything about any lights except for the ones I have. The 430 Sun Agro bulb I'm using won't even burn your hand if you grab it. Now I know you are using a different bulb so of course I can't even begin to make a better analysis than you can being since it's your light. I will say however that if your light is putting off a whole lot of heat and you don't think its supposed to, then you are suffering from low voltage. If you have too much drain coming off the circuit you're plugged in to, your light will get hotter since you are drawing so many amps. That would be the case with me since my bulbs don't even get hot. Now since you are using a different bulb, I can't say what you should do. Hell you probably know better than I do anyway. I know that MH lights get hotter than hell low voltage or not. That's why I don't use them. I can't afford to use them since I have such a small space. Anyway, you know what's best for your situation. Good luck.