Alright quick question. I'm going to have around 5 females flowering in a space about 16 sq ft. I have a 1000w light and a 600w light. Obviously the 1000w is HPS, but what bulb should I use in the 600w? An MH or HPS bulb?
Hi.. I would get a MH bulb for it and use it to veg with. You could also run them both, if your cooling is dialed in. 300+W per plant would be awesome! Good Luck!
[quote name='"WhobeBoo"']Hi.. I would get a MH bulb for it and use it to veg with. You could also run them both, if your cooling is dialed in. 300+W per plant would be awesome! Good Luck![/quote] Yep, my cooling is dialed in. Through one week of flowering I've had the 1000w hps running and the 600w metal halide going anyway since I've read in high times magazine that using a mh bulb through the first two weeks of flowering provides a few benefits. Both of them running and temperature is at 75 during the day and 62 at night. So running both throughout won't be a problem at all. I've read both chapters on lighting none seem to answer the question of either this or the dual arch bulbs. Oh, and both ballasts are hps ballasts.
I've used 1000 watts of HPS AND 500 watts (dual 250 watt) MH throughout my entire grow and plan to continue doing so until harvest. Only nine days into flower, but here is a link so you can see my plants. Using both lights has really done well thus far: http://forum.grasscity.com/indoor-marijuana-growing/930321-first-indoor-grow-pics-opinions.html
Those girls are looking very nice and I subscribed to your thread. You're about 6 days farther along then I am so it'll be nice to have something to compare it to. I think I'll stick with my current combo with my 1000w HPS and 600 MH. I've read it makes the buds stiffer, so we will see.
Here's my methodology, during early and late flower the plants don't need as much light. I have a 16sq/ft tent and for the first two weeks I run I cool blue 600 Metal Hallide, for the middle four weeks I switch over to the 1000 hps, and for the last 2 to 4 weeks I hit em with the MH Cool blue again, but this time removing the glass to allow uvb to bathe the girls for the final phase. I was very reluctant to do this at first afraid of losing weight but after many side by side experiments using this method experiences little to no weight lost at harvest and better trichome production. However I would not use this method on sativas or sativa heavy hybrids since most like lots of light.