Ok well you've got me convinced to do a SOG grow - however, I'm thinking of having four 600w lamps in the veg room and 8 in the flowering room, (which would have 2 groups of plants at any given time, meaning a total of 32).
Wouldn't you agree? Besides even if I wanted to have T5s in the veg room, I have no idea how to install them, how much I would need and so on...
Thanks
Each 600w can have roughly 15-25 small plants under each one (it depends on how bushy a plant gets). We'll say you average that to 20....20 plantsX 8 lights shit thats 160 plants to manage. Thats like a full time job. You'll have your work cut out for you. If you're going to be growing in that kind of volume then yeah veg with MH. I was thinking you wanted a small grow op (2) 1000w or (4) 600wers in your fruiting room + 400w in a vegging room. If you got that kind of money to spend then I'd do 6 1000w in fruiting and air cool the shit out of them. 1000w setups are roughly the same price as 600w systems, they only have a small increase in price over 600wers. Both use the same type of hoods (both need larger models), the only difference are in the bulbs and ballasts which command a small premium over the 600w model. Why have 8 600w HPS for fruitng that will only get you 4800w, when (6) 1000w will get you 6000w giving you an extra 1200w and costing roughly the same as 8 600wers in terms of total sunk cost. Thats just how my logic works. I really don't care about moderate power efficiencies of 600w vs. 1000w for that to matter you really have take into considerate sunk costs V.S. the power savings. If you did an SOG style grow op you can fit 40-55 little plants under each 1000w. Like I said if you do an SOG style grow op you don't need to space out your plants much. Thus making the 600w's advantage of spacing out plants a moot point.
Plant wise you'd have 160 on average plants under a 8x600w SOG op. While you could have on average 200 plants=(6X40) under a (6)x1000w SOG op. Due to the larger foot print of a 1000w setup you can stuff some more plants making you more cash.
Also you should read up on SOG grow ops if your not familiar with them. Also with an SOG grow op you don't need too many lights in the vegging grow room. You fruit clones once they start rooting roughly 1-2 weeks after you cut them off their mother plant. You only need enough lighting for the clones to root (they then go straight to fruiting). You also only need enough lighting for the mother plants. If your running 4 strains you'll have 4 mothers. A 400w MH or T5 setup is enough for 4 full grown mother plants. You'd also need a T5 or MH set up for the clones. I will note some people veg their clones longer than others and wait to have larger root masses.
Another thing to consider for every 1000ws in Fruiting you have you only need about 300-400ws for vegging (so you need 30-40% of the light in your Fruiting room for vegging). Those figures are for full sized plants too with SOG plants you'll only need (15-25% of your fruiting rooms total lighting for vegging rooms total needs (moms included)). SOG plants are smaller and need less light than that even. Thats the whole point of an SOG op is that you maximize your light usage since your plants are tiny and light can deeply penetrate them. Thus you have a better usage of light (less light needed for more plants), Take that into consideration. Bottom line is I think you have way too many lights in your vegging room. I say use some of that cash and get a CO2 generator for fruiting, an AC unit (if you need one), a Dehumidifier (which you'll need in an SOG grow op), and a Sulfur burner (which you'll need too). Buds mold easily in a SOG setup. A dehumidifier and a sulfur burning will take care of that right quick.
P.S. Lumatek 1000w ballasts can run at 600w either using 1000w bulbs (which I wouldn't recommend) or using 600w bulbs (they run both wattages). Also a 1000w lumatek ballasts running in 600w mode using the same amount of power as it's 600w counter part. I think their is roughly a 30-50 dollar difference between most 1000w and 600w ballasts depending on brands.
