MH all the way

TheChemist77

Well-Known Member
I think mixing spectrums can be beneficial but I don't believe its something everyone will automatically benefit from. It all comes down to how capable the grower is.. Believe me when I tell you someone is pulling better stronger bud then you using only hps.. Someone's pulling better higher yielding crops then me using only mh.. But its not all because of the light, its the skill...
i agree that the mix of spectrums is far superior to one or the other,, ive done complete grows with mh, hps and both. in my tests using 2 600 watt hps and 1 600 watt mh pulled better yields,closer nodes, and more potent buds than either hps or mh alone..i am now testing the ceramic discharge lamps using less watts, 2 315 watt cdl's to cover the same area as 2 600 watt hps ,or 1 mh ,1 hps..over the next 3 or 4 runs i plan to compare, 1 grow with 2 315 watt cdl im doing this one now, 1 grow with a 1k hps, 1 grow with 2 315 watt cdl plus 1 400 watt hps, and 1 with 3 315 watt cdl's..all will be covering the same area a 4x6ft table,same nutrients, same number of plants, and the same cutings..
 

lilzuko

Well-Known Member
I just ordered 2 of these. I had been a big fan of the Hortilux Blue but in my current grow it could not really cover the space I needed so I ended up using HPS nearly the whole time. I ordered these next day so they will be here tomorrow which is day 58 flowering for me. Expecting to go to 65 days so that will give me the last 7 days under these. How did your girls finish for you with this bulb?
The end product is curing as we speak, tastes like a orange haze at the moment, very and I mean very couch lock high.
 

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Hot Diggity Sog

Well-Known Member
i agree that the mix of spectrums is far superior to one or the other,, ive done complete grows with mh, hps and both. in my tests using 2 600 watt hps and 1 600 watt mh pulled better yields,closer nodes, and more potent buds than either hps or mh alone..i am now testing the ceramic discharge lamps using less watts, 2 315 watt cdl's to cover the same area as 2 600 watt hps ,or 1 mh ,1 hps..over the next 3 or 4 runs i plan to compare, 1 grow with 2 315 watt cdl im doing this one now, 1 grow with a 1k hps, 1 grow with 2 315 watt cdl plus 1 400 watt hps, and 1 with 3 315 watt cdl's..all will be covering the same area a 4x6ft table,same nutrients, same number of plants, and the same cutings..
Love the experiment!
 

GOLDBERG71

Well-Known Member
I started with the standard MH VEG & HPS FLOWER (as soon as I flipped). Then I started sticking with MH until actual flowers started to develop (just past the stretch). This was an improvement for the final product. I just picked up new bulbs. Now I'm trying SUNMASTER FULL NOVA. I'm on my phone and it gives me trouble up loading pictures. But I suggest everyone look in to it. It has a wider blue spectrum than MH and wider yellow red spectrum of HPS in the same bulb! There's also more UV than both of them. I'm expecting great results. There's a graph of the spectrum the bulb puts out as well as what a plant uses. I posted pictures of them on my thread for mr nice strains if you'd rather not use google for the bulbs.
 

Hot Diggity Sog

Well-Known Member
I started with the standard MH VEG & HPS FLOWER (as soon as I flipped). Then I started sticking with MH until actual flowers started to develop (just past the stretch). This was an improvement for the final product. I just picked up new bulbs. Now I'm trying SUNMASTER FULL NOVA. I'm on my phone and it gives me trouble up loading pictures. But I suggest everyone look in to it. It has a wider blue spectrum than MH and wider yellow red spectrum of HPS in the same bulb! There's also more UV than both of them. I'm expecting great results. There's a graph of the spectrum the bulb puts out as well as what a plant uses. I posted pictures of them on my thread for mr nice strains if you'd rather not use google for the bulbs.
I'll definitely check them out!
 

GOLDBERG71

Well-Known Member
I'm getting ready to flower a batch of SSH and the follow up La Niña has already been started under MH. What ever is next on my list to pop is getting the FULL NOVA. Start to finish. I bought 4 to test drive but I'm planning on buying more of these REALLY soon and I'll be running these bulbs ONLY. That will make it much easier to keep track of when each bulb needs to be replaced. Until now I've had a MH and HPS for each hood. I had to number each bulb and write down dates on the boxes of 2 bulbs per hood each grow. This should make it easier.

I basically had to treat bulbs like they were different strains lol.
 
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UncleBuck

Well-Known Member
you obviously don't know your way around an old school non remote ballast do ya?
and you obviously haven't done a grow all with JUST a metal halide either, have you?
For your information, I had a professional electrician wire it to a 115v, and I inquired as to whether it could be made remote, he said it wasn't.
I was a teenager, and not exactly comfortable re-wiring something of that amperage for a house that I was renting.
You gonna try and provoke me further? I got an itchy ignore finger...
I've seen you try to do that many times with others... I almost wish you could see how it portrays yourself...
pointless with me though man.. just sayin you can rile up some younger folk, but not me.
nothing but smiles from me man.
like this one.
:mrgreen:
--edit---
meh, ignored ya anyways.
adios
guess i riled ya.
 

TheChemist77

Well-Known Member
please help recomend a HPS bulb to use in my testing.. i just ordered a plantmax 1k hps. could not find a enhanced blue spectrum hps bulb on amazon.. i want a good full spectrum 1k hps to use in my comparisons because its being tested against the cdl's wich are a more balanced spectrum 3,100kelvin phillips cdl..so please recomend a good reasonably priced 1.000 watt hps bulb..
in a 4x6ft table what do you guys think will yield better? 1, 1,00 watts hps, 945 watts 3 315 watt ceramic discharge or 1,030 watts (2 315 watt cdl + 400 watt HPS...
this run i only used 2 315 watt cdl's over the 4x6ft table so 630 watts total..i realized short after starting that plants under cdl lamp need a little extra veg time as the tallest are only 2ft tall.. very little stretch but good crystal production, happy leaves tilting to the light,close nodes, yield will be decent but i dont think it will be what i got under 2 600 watt hps, but plants wer twice as tall under the hps's,, and its a good white light for taking pictures.. over the next 3 runs i plan to run the same strain or strains, and ill give all clones 2 weeks of veg.. all 3 runs will use the same nutrients,same amount of plants, the ONLY diference is the lighting!!any thoughts? comments? recomendations?
 

GOLDBERG71

Well-Known Member
please help recomend a HPS bulb to use in my testing.. i just ordered a plantmax 1k hps. could not find a enhanced blue spectrum hps bulb on amazon.. i want a good full spectrum 1k hps to use in my comparisons because its being tested against the cdl's wich are a more balanced spectrum 3,100kelvin phillips cdl..so please recomend a good reasonably priced 1.000 watt hps bulb..
in a 4x6ft table what do you guys think will yield better? 1, 1,00 watts hps, 945 watts 3 315 watt ceramic discharge or 1,030 watts (2 315 watt cdl + 400 watt HPS...
this run i only used 2 315 watt cdl's over the 4x6ft table so 630 watts total..i realized short after starting that plants under cdl lamp need a little extra veg time as the tallest are only 2ft tall.. very little stretch but good crystal production, happy leaves tilting to the light,close nodes, yield will be decent but i dont think it will be what i got under 2 600 watt hps, but plants wer twice as tall under the hps's,, and its a good white light for taking pictures.. over the next 3 runs i plan to run the same strain or strains, and ill give all clones 2 weeks of veg.. all 3 runs will use the same nutrients,same amount of plants, the ONLY diference is the lighting!!any thoughts? comments? recomendations?
Don't take this as gospel ---> I can't remember why at this point because it was 4+ years ago. But I remember looking at plantmax bulb when I was forced to pick one up at the closest store. That I NEVER used and is out of business now. My bulb blew so I needed something better than an standard light bulb. So I picked it up and installed it. Then I googled it and ordered something better. I only used it for 3-4 days until the other arrived in the mail. And what ever I found wasn't good. I didn't even save it for emergencies! I wish I could remember why. But I suggest really looking at their specs before using it.
 

TheChemist77

Well-Known Member
Don't take this as gospel ---> I can't remember why at this point because it was 4+ years ago. But I remember looking at plantmax bulb when I was forced to pick one up at the closest store. That I NEVER used and is out of business now. My bulb blew so I needed something better than an standard light bulb. So I picked it up and installed it. Then I googled it and ordered something better. I only used it for 3-4 days until the other arrived in the mail. And what ever I found wasn't good. I didn't even save it for emergencies! I wish I could remember why. But I suggest really looking at their specs before using it.
ive used plantmax bulbs before and the big grow op up here, thats all they use.. but just for the compare test id like somthing better,, a more blue spec bulb.. in the past id always recomend plantmax bulbs, cheap but efective, and plantmax also had some kick ass conversion bulbs that worked very well too. i had done a couple tests comparing bulbs and put plant max against phillips, ultra sun, and hortilux back in the day,, yields wer within a few grams so no real results wer found..
 

bravedave

Well-Known Member
Don't take this as gospel ---> I can't remember why at this point because it was 4+ years ago. But I remember looking at plantmax bulb when I was forced to pick one up at the closest store. That I NEVER used and is out of business now. My bulb blew so I needed something better than an standard light bulb. So I picked it up and installed it. Then I googled it and ordered something better. I only used it for 3-4 days until the other arrived in the mail. And what ever I found wasn't good. I didn't even save it for emergencies! I wish I could remember why. But I suggest really looking at their specs before using it.
I've pushed a Plantmax 600w MH for over a year and it is still producing.
 

TheChemist77

Well-Known Member
I've pushed a Plantmax 600w MH for over a year and it is still producing.
a year?? damn, i replace bulbs every 6 months or 8 months tops... the only bulbs i keep for a year are hortilux or expensive bulbs,,but ive found replacing cheap bulbs every 6-8 months is still cheaper and yields are the same..so i havnt used the more expensive bulbs in a wile..i spoke to the guys at the big grow ops up here and they have switched over from hortilux to plantmax,ge,and other cheap bulbs a year or so ago and say yeilds are better than ever and saving money in the process...thats good enough for me..
 

GrowerGoneWild

Well-Known Member
Just a guess here but the move away from hortilux is the new DE tech, like the new fixtures for large scale cultivation are DE style Gavita's, Epap.. Mogul socket bulbs are old school now.
 

GOLDBERG71

Well-Known Member
I'm back with info on the FULL NOVA bulbs. It's a long story and I'm going to trim it down. I really liked the bulbs until they started failing and some as quick as 2-3 weeks. At first I thought it was the bulbs. But I've really only run Sunmaster bulbs and never had issues. On the rare occasion I used another brand they all failed fast.

My 600 watt lumatek ballast that were 1/2 the problem is the purple colored model. I bought them back in 2011/12. I believe that's around the same time this model was introduced. So I can't say if this would happen with a newer ballast. But this model is digital ect.

What I found was there seems to be a COMPATABILITY problem with the 600 watt bulbs and my lumatek ballasts. Because the 1000 watt bulbs worked fine with phantom ballast. I contacted the sales rep and they've made me happy. I've now got some 10000K finish bulbs to try. :bigjoint:

I dont think I'd run them start to finish only because the tradeoff for full spectrum is lower PAR watts. But I do think they'd be perfect for the first 2 weeks of flower. They limit the stretch as well as start adding the Reds and oranges. So for the record even though I had problems I'd recommend them to anyone I'd just warn them to test them with their ballast before buying 10 of them like I did.
 

Hessam

Well-Known Member
I'm currently using 600w HPS on top and a 400w MH vertical bulb as side lighting. Buds are maturing pretty fast and I'm getting heavier smell. :weed: MH bulbs also play a big role in controlling the stretch in early bloom.
 
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