Hey, I want to get a light setup and start growing, but I have a few questions. Can I grow dank effectively using only metal halide OR high pressure sodium? I don't really want to have to buy two separate ballasts for MH and HPS, and I imagine powering two ballasts would use a considerable amount of power. I'm only trying to grow 2-3 plants. What should I do?
Get a switchable ballast that powers both MH and HPS, or a digital ballast that does the same. Lastly, you could get an HPS ballast, and an MH conversion bulb that will fire in the hps ballast. You now have some options........good luck.
Which option would you recommend? Thanks for the ideas, they make using both kinds of lights a lot more feasible
The most economical way would be to get an HPS ballast, with a conversion bulb. If you get a switchable ballast, you can use regular HPS and MH (not conversion) lamps. These systems are more expensive, but give you more choices for your MH lamp. Finally, the digital ballasts, which are most expensive, will fire both the HPS and MH lamps. These ballasts are supposed to be more efficient and quieter. There have been some people that have had issues with their digital ballasts causing RF (radio frequency) anomalies. One guy here reported that his digital ballast shut down his whole neighborhoods internet.......causing the cable company to come knocking at his door. I think this was a freak occurrence, but still something to consider. If you do go digital, you can't beat a LUMATEK. I have a switchable ballast that I have been very happy with, but I think that you could go either way, switchable or HPS with a conversion bulb and get a nice, efficient system without breaking the bank. Look at whats available at HTG SUPPLY: High Tech Garden Supply They've got some pretty good stuff and the prices are right. Have fun!
How big of a deal is having both bulbs? My first two grows were DWC's that used HPS from veg to flower the whole way. I was very happy with speed and yield... if I were to veg with an MH Conversion what sort of benefits would I be reaping?
I'm not sure what you mean by "how big of a deal" it is. It's not a big deal at all -- you run the MH in veg while keeping the HPS tucked away somewhere, then when you flip to 12/12 you change out the bulb. That might be a big deal to some people, not to me. The MH will veg it out faster and denser, how much is hard to say because too many other factors in play.
I'm $1000 into my grow right now, its hard not to justify an extra $40 for an MH conversion bulb but I happen to be temporarily broke (Feb Bills + tax season = Brizoke). Should I suck it up and get the bulb at this point, or is the difference minor enough to not worry about it and just stick with my HPX the whole time?
when the seedling is very young, the blue spectrum from the MH or 6400k CFL keeps the plants nodes closer together (helps from plant stretching). you can use either lamp for growing from seedling to harvest. but you want as much from your plant as possible. there are 2 main spectrums for growing plants, blue and orangy red, the colour spectrum is where the sun is possitioned in the sky and hitting our atmosphere, in winter/spring the spectrum is in the blue area and in summer/autumn it's in the redish area.
MH = blue HPS = orangy red .... so what sort of results will I see from not using an MH during veg... am I talking double digit % loss in yield?
I dont know % in yield loss, but I can explain the red and blue. Blue - Veg light. Notice in the spring how the sky seems to be bluer than it did these last few months. And notice how as the summer wears on into the Fall, the color of the light coming from the sun goes from a blue, to bright yellow, to and orange-red color toward Indian Summer. red - Flower light. The red spectrum is the same as the one outdoors in the fall, and this helps the plants to flower because of how close to their natural environment this light actually is.
yo check out my dna kushberry pics it was grown start to finish with a 250 mh the quality was amazing yeild was kinda weak.
It is the angle of the earth to the sun that causes the color shift -- more specifically, how that angle causes the light to pass through the atmosphere. In Summer, when the sun is more straight overhead (in the northern hemisphere), the light has a pretty straight path through the atmosphere down to the ground. In Winter the sun is lower on the horizon because the earth (northern hemisphere) is tilting away from the plane of the sun, so the light comes through the atmosphere at an angle. The light therefore passes through a greater distance within the atmosphere, and the atmosphere acts like a giant prism, altering the wavelengths of the light. This is the same reason that, even in Summer, at sunrises and sunsets the sun is more orange, because it is coming through the atmosphere at an angle. As we move away from Summer towards Autumn, and the earth tilts away from the sun, that same angle effect happens to an extent all day long.
If you're cheap like me, get a bunch of CFL coolwhite and combine them with your HPS. I wonder why people cant just buy a MH and add a colored glass filter to make it warmer for the flowering phase. I'm not saying it works, im wondering why i never heard of a trick like that.