So heres where I stand as of late.. THC Bomb seeds, 2 150 watt hps and a 250 watt mh in the mail. And I'm wondering - how should I use the lighting? Should I only use the mh during the early seedling stages, or should i keep them full blast the entire time? any opinions? oh yeah, and I'll be growing in Jiffy Fiber Cups with a 50/50 mix of grow gel and some sort of high nutrient potting soil inside of large cabinet until the plants are at least halfway through veg., at which point I'll have to kill the males and spread the females out over a larger area. perhaps the living room.
If you only have one room for veg and bud, hang all your lights and turn on the ones you want to use and leave the others off. Seedlings are delicate and 550 watts of light may be too much depending on your grow space. Plus, 250 watts of MH should be plenty for seedlings. I used to use a 400 MH from seed till 12/12. Worked well enough. If you have two rooms, one for veg and another for bud, just set up the MH's in the Veg room and the HPS in the bud room and don't worry so much about squeezing every last lumen you can out of your equipment. Spreading the light around can expedite the entire process, so let your equipment work for you. As for the 50/50 mix of grow gel and high nutrient potting soil. I don't know about that. Do you mean rooting/cloning gel? You should only need to use that when cloning, and only once. I've heard you can dilute rooting compounds with water and use it to water in the early stages or growth to promote root growth, but you'd want at the most 200 ppm i'd think for something like that. I've never tried it myself, never had a problem. Also, i'd stick with potting soil that doesn't have a high N-P-K value, if any. Some potting soil has nutes already present and can be too hot (chemically) for young seedlings. Look for soil with no added fertilizer, you can always add your own. Hope that helps.
The gel I Was referring to is here : http://www.seedman.com/plantge.htm thanks for your input, i'm still debating on several factors, should i use some sort of co2 generation? will it pay off in the end? (thinking of a slow yeast reaction bubbling through the water reserve, and using mist irrigation to keep the whole plant active with co2, any input there as well?
Sure, use as many lamps as you can. Judging by his choice in lights though, his space is likely limited. My point was speaking more to using the MH in one space and the two HPS's in another space in order to maximize production. It's just a quicker way to see results in all aspects of a grow. Plus, if you ever plan on keeping a mother for cuttings you'll need a dedicated veg space.