It's time to add light,.. is it time to go air cooled Parabolic?

At the moment, over my flowering ladies, i have;.. a 400W HPS,.. a 400W MH,.. and 250W of LEDs. I'm planning on moving the LEDs to the veg room, and I'm thinking of adding a 600W HPS over my nug makers, and using the two 400's for side lighting. The flowering area is aprox 6x8', and always consists of 6 big ladies, trying to max out the area with nugs of course. Was looking at this 39" Parabolic Reflector Hood, and this 600w HPS MH Grow Light Reflector Digital Ballast. Along with an MH & HPS bulb, total will be $243.95. Was also looking at this kit too. It'd same be $44, but ultimately i want to have whatever hood i get air cooled. So, i'm going to need a big sheet of plexi, or glass, and i'll cut an intake and exhaust vent into two of the curved panels on the Parabolic, or at least that was my plan. I'm a stickler for efficiency, cant stand the idea of paying for a bigger AC just to cool my lights,.. yet anyway, not that i don't know that purchase is coming in time too. Well ultimately i was thinking the 39 incher being deeper, will better allow for the bulb to be mounted vertically, and not hit the glass i install to the hood. Not sure of the depth on that one in the kit, all be it a massive 48" wide...

I guess somewhere along the way i got under the impression that parabolic hoods with a vertically mounted bulb were better at getting the light where we all want it. Either that, or i just like to make things hard for myself, haha.. It would be easier to just buy some other shaped hood with intake/exhaust vents and glass already in place.

Be damned if i can find an air cooled parabolic hood anywhere...

Who out there thinks they know what i should do?.. Thoughts?..

Seriously though,.. does anyone know why no one makes air cooled parabolic hoods? They make them in every other shape. Am i missing something?

too much glass to much room for warpage and breakage. obverall not stable but they do make air cooled hods that are similar.

honestly unless you got plans for a nice minisplit or a large window AC or your house AC ducted to only that room i would go aircooled.

Air cooled is a must i agree.

I been looking over this test,.. http://www.greners.com/reflector-test.html ...seems the Sun System Luxor 8" Reflector ($250) is the most efficient hood out there, but i read they got the right to make that style hood from growlite, who makes the OG Vertical Reflector, sold here for $215. Lot to pay for a hood, but seems very nicely built, and if it really does reflect more light onto the plants, bonus

its true but a lot of that is misconception since no glass or metal is made equal. i use cool tube for the simple fact im using 400w lights. now if i was using a 600w or a 1000w i would definitly get a reflecter but there are a lot of veriables that go into lighting. just remember this, lighting is based on your room, your rooms internals are based on your lighting. so what dop remember to work in that order.

example: my room is a 2x4x5 i want co2 enrichment.

so my options where air cooled 600w 6 or 8 bulbs t5 x2 400w or 400w and sime type of supplemental lighting.

based on either if these 3 options is going to impact the rest of the rooms options so pick the light that follows the options you want. i picked x2 400 SOG with cooltubes down in close over 30+small plants.

or i could have went 600w hood with less but larger plants.

or i could have gone t5 with a scrog or SOG but it would affect ventlation (bot aircoolable) so i would have to compensate by exhausting occasionally.

All good points... and i too am getting moderate co2 enrichment, (check sig)

I'm not braking the law, so im going to stick with trying to make the 6 im allowed so big i need to find more room. At the moment my 6 are taking up about 4x5', im feeling there squished a bit, if i had more light i could spread them all out to about 7x6'. I try to keep them as natural as possible, not a fan of scorg'ing and tending to them every few days. I run a perpetual grow. Rotating one plant to the flowering area and harvesting one from it every two weeks is about all i want to have to do.

Vertically mounted bulbs make more sense to me, just seems in the right hood like they would project more downward, and more evenly too.

sounds like maximum yield for what you feel comfortable/allowed growing DIYer. i just do what i do i smoke alot
and if you had more space im sure you could squeeze more yeild out of them but ther is a limit to time vs. yield its been proven many times over that lots of small plants produce more than few big plants, in a shorter amt of time too. but this takes into consideration a lot of things, its a lot easier to keep 6 plants perfect than 30 plants. with 30 you got little margin for error.

yeah ive seen that co2 set up its pretty smart if you dont have the money for a real set up. but honestly id want to replace that with a real setup ASAP. its just safer to use a tank and regulator.

you can find a 20lb tank on CL CHEAP 40$ probably maybe a little less or more just depends.

a regulator will with solinoid and flow gauge should cost 100 brand new no avoiding that one.

refill is 20$ and i just got this monitor off fleabay its the same price here and it works great
http://www.hydroponics.net/i/137969

20 bucks for a digital timer w/ 20 progammable times and your good to go

280 isnt bad for all that stuff hell you even hold off on the monitor i never used one till now had some extra and bought it.

hmmm,.. i'd think total light would dictate yield levels, regardless of number of plants.
assuming you attempt to fill out the area your light does cover with branches from the big girls, at least thats what i do