I've been researching grow lights and have found that most people suggest Metal Halide for vegitative growth and HPS for budding. I don't want to buy two different lights so I 'm wondering if HPS is suitable for vegitative growth as well. Thanks for your input.
people do do it, but you can get an hps/mh conversion kit. then you have the best of both worlds. you dont even necessarily need mh to veg with you can go with floros.
Thanks NaughtyDread. Interestingly, I've already tried flouros; i had 3 fixtures that each accepted two 40 watt lamps, so that's six total. My five plants never grew, after about 30 days they were only about two inches tall. I'm pretty sure I was doing everything right. Am I not using enough wattage? What do you think the problem is?
I say HPS since it will work for both. Ive veg'd and am now flowering under a 150w HPS and 70w HPS. But.........I also have some floros on at the same time. 2x40w plant grow tubes and 2x25w warm bulbs. Seems to be working. Im leaving the floros on during my flowering now, any and all extra light is a good thing!! My plants veg'd great under the HPS too
Nice topic, so much controversy. Me myself I use a 1000 watt MH/HPS convertable ballast with great results, for $300.00, one of the best investments I ever made, and cheaper to run than the combination of High Output fleuros'(4x8"@80watts ea) and 2x250hps. My old setup worked great BTW, I just had to upgrade. If I had to choose 1 light to use for everything, my choice would be HPS
hey wassup Dtrain? so youre using well over 240 watts and you havent seen much growth in veg state? hmm strange. whats your light cycle? are you a full 24hrs? i currently have clones under the same regime and have noticed they are not growing as fast as when i had them 18/6. i also didnt mix any manure with my soil mix. i think the manure boosted growth because of all the nitro. so, when i replant into 2 gallons, i will be using it again. just to see. but hands down, hps for flowering, floros are fine, mh makes for little mistakes in tight internode growth in veg.
I was growing veg under 24 hours and my plants too didn't grow as quickly as they did under 18/6. Now granted they still looked healthy, and WOW super green under 24. But with the little break from the lights the plants would stretch a little like I wanted. Under the 24 hours they were just super bushy with little length growth. Makes sense too (ive read) that by going from 18/6 to your 12/12 the plants won't get lanky from stretching as much as the 24 hour to 12/12 switch. Actually not sure if a half hour matters but ive been flowering under 17.5/5.5 light cycle. Since I get a very VERY slight dim slow entering my grow room I thought maybe the little extra dark would do some good. And they are flowering great. Not sure if the 30 minutes extra is helping.....but oh well they are flowering like they should.
short and bushy are what they look like from the 24 hr light, they will be getting a break this week, will be switchin to 18-6 and they also need some food. sorry for jackin.