Recent content by Hawk

The day after I started 12/12 lighting I wished my two plants' 3 gallon pots were bigger. 1 bagseed, 1 Kush. I should have just repotted them before 12/12 but I didn't have room till right before switching. I was trying to be sure on id'ing the males (2 of 5 = female). So after 4 or 5...

Don't listen to those people. There ain't a damn thing wrong with vegging with a 4000K 400w MH lamp. There are plenty of people who veg under a 2100K HPS for goodness sakes (or flower with MH). With fluorescent lights I'd conciede the color spec of the bulb would/could be significantly...

Since your already using a heat lamp (wtf!) just get a 250w to 1000w hid light.

Agreed on 400w with good ventilation. A source of cool(ish) intake air helps too. My space is almost the same at 20.5" x 39". I started with 250w w/ air cooled hood and have upgraded to 2 x 250w in the same SuperSun II hood. I'm using a 440cfm 6" EcoPlus, carbon scrubber, and an unusually...

I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all answer to that. Different soil compositions can/will react at different rates. One soil might readily have its alkalinity/acidity changed while another will be harder to change. Just depends on what's in the soil. In any case, I thought soils' ph...

Like I said, I just pay attention to the ph of what's going in. I try to use a high quality organic soil and let the soil do whatever it does after I've supplied it with ph adjusted water or nute solution. I use soil and know little about soiless mixes (although I think I've read they prefer...

I'd get some ph test drops or some other method of ph testing. The nutes I use definitely change the ph of my water.

As far as I understand, you must ph test a soil sample from the root zone to know soil ph. The runoff ph doesn't really correspond to the soil's ph since the runoff doesn't benefit from buffering components in the soil. I only concern myself with the ph that goes in, not what comes out. $0.02

looks great what light do you use?

LPS lamps have an extremely narrow color spectrum. 590nm is pretty much the only color they put out. They're basically monochromatic. Not suitable for plants, IMO. Although very efficient, they're not available in the high wattage common in horticulture. 180w and 32,000 lumens is the...

Shouldn't use both at the same time? What harm will come with running a MH and HPS simultaneously? Seems like more of a best of both worlds situation rather than a potentially negative one. Plenty of folks use one or the other all the way through a grow.

The 150 does have a ballast. It's inside the hood the lamp is mounted in. It's an integrated hood/ballast. Remote ballasts have the advantage of allowing you to keeping the hot ballast away from the plants. FWIW, I've got a Lumatek 250w (digital) and a C.A.P. 250w (magnetic). The digi is...

Good choice I think. I'm in 5.5 sq/ft. First grow was with a 250w Lumatek and I finished with 5.75oz with three plants (.65g per watt). I've since upgraded to a dual 250w (two lamps in one air-cooled hood) setup in the same space.

Great thread. The whole way through I'm thinking--I'd like to see what he can do with HID lighting. Love the cab! Looks like great craftsmanship and design. Did you ditch the mirrors on the inside?

I've used. I'll use it again. I don't specifically know what it did or didn't do for the plants. But it was included in my Technaflora "starter-kit", I followed Technaflora's general directions, and I had good results.