Hps only or a combo of Hps and fluoros?

As the title states...

I am currently using a 250w hps to flower 5 plants max in a small cupboard (width 0.7m x 0.5m depth)... Ive seen some other peoples results using a 250w AND cfls and his results were staggering - im sure he has plenty of experience as well though.

Im just wondering - how many of you flower exclusively with HPS and how many use a combination of the two?

Will it benefit me to get some fluoros in there as well... they are relatively inexpensive and if its going to give me better yields ill give it a go.

thx

whitewidow2 said:

As the title states...

I am currently using a 250w hps to flower 5 plants max in a small cupboard (width 0.7m x 0.5m depth)... Ive seen some other peoples results using a 250w AND cfls and his results were staggering - im sure he has plenty of experience as well though.

Im just wondering - how many of you flower exclusively with HPS and how many use a combination of the two?

Will it benefit me to get some fluoros in there as well... they are relatively inexpensive and if its going to give me better yields ill give it a go.

thx

Click to expand...

Im not sure what the 250w HPS usable light is but 5 plants for just one 250w seems a bit much. I used a 150w HPS for single plants both short and bushy, and even for a dbl stalked 6ft plant and all came out fine. BUT I was using 4x 4ft full spectrum flouresents with it. I guess it really depends on your set up. If you look at my albums you will see what my previous set up is capable of (which the set up was extremely basic). I would recommend going with more light but Im not a pro yet. Just think, more light means better productivity (photosynthesis) from your plants, and if your going with 5 plants you want to make sure all 5 are growing properly or whats the point. I hope I helped a little

anyone using a combination of the two...

I always use both WHEN FLOWERING. 1000W HPS above and three 125W Warm CFL's around the sides to fatten up the lower bud sites. You can always reduce the wattage if it's too much for your space. The CFL's are nice cuz they don't produce too much heat, you can get them up real close so the light penetrates to the budsites that are in towards the main stalk.

Yes, i use 600hps & 2 X 200w CFL's (red) on the sides. It really helps with the lower bud-sites. Makes my plants thirsty as hell tho.

i still have a 150w red cfl that i used to use for flowering... would it not be better to use cool white ones - ive seen a few grows that use hps and several cool whites hanging down.

Ive just chucked in my 150w red spectrum cfl and reflector - have it sitting ontop of some empty pots facing upwards so that the lower buds will receive more light... im into the last 3 weeks of flowering so i dont know if it will make much of a difference but ive added it anyway - hopefully it will give them a little boost - it definitely looks a lot brighter in there now

Also seems to be helping my humidity problem as well... the humidity was up at 60 to 70% now its down to 55% - still want it lower tho.

i would add some cool fluoros on in addition.
lots of people swear that running mh and hps lights in flowering gives them better results.
cool fluoros will throw off different rays, but the spectrum should be the same as a mh.

speeka said:

Yes, i use 600hps & 2 X 200w CFL's (red) on the sides. It really helps with the lower bud-sites. Makes my plants thirsty as hell tho.

Click to expand...

yes thirsty! +1

edit: sorry, I run a 400 HPS and a 400 MH with 2 100 cfl's as side ights. wide spectrums are a good thing but be careful you CAN give a plant to much light.. probably not with a single 250 watter and some cfl's..

good luck!

Dude you will find that if you reduce the ammount of plants that you are growing under a 250 then the yeild will improve no end.Get two plant after this grow has a experiment when the plants get to 1 1/2 ft flower them have them bang under the 250 with the light realy close well has close has you can with out burning the plants.Have a fan blowing on the hood of the light this will enable you to have the light about 6/8 ince of the tops.I rant on about how close you should have the light to everyone on this site because this means the differance between ounces and half ounce.You want the internodes to be realy close togeather this will give you a far better yeild.Less is sometimes more the two plants will recive alot more lumans thus giveing you far more bud sites.The other important thing is use a large tub on each plant this will enable the plant to get a realy good root sytem bigger roots bigger yeild.Also only water once a week this will not harm the plant this will force more roots to go out in search of water.Also flush at least 4 times during the flowering phase this will gurantee that the plant stays in good health till the very end.

If your room is too big and you feel not enough light is getting to the lower part of the plant then throw some cfls in there.

thanks for the replys... ive got the plants pretty damn close to the hps (bout 3 to 4 inches) and im definitely going to add some cfls.

Its a very small enclosed space (0.5m x 0.7m) and the walls are perfectly lined with mylar so its nice and reflective - i still have room to hang some cfls downwards from the top of the cupboard at either side of the hps for extra light tho and if its going to give me better results then im definitely doing it. Im just wondering what spectrum of cfls to use now as there are red spectrum ones and cool white flourescents - which ones should i use?

anyone....

ive been told to go with red spectrum 2700k's - going to get some hangers and hang them vertically in there alongside my 250w hps.

I've been told you can increase your yield up to 25% by adding the blue T5's with your hps. The person told me for every 600w of HPS light you use 100w of veg. T5's. I will be trying this on my next run with a 1000w HPS Hortilux eye bulb and 4 T5's vertical at every corner. It's a little more but I figure the plant wouldn't mind the full spectrum. I'm just worried about the power bill because right now as is I have the 400w HPS with 3 100w warm CFL's around the base of the plants, 8 T5's for my moms, 2 T8's for my new cuttings and a T5 for the rooted ones, 1 circular fan, 1 hydrofarm 3gal bucket system, and a 4" inline fan on. Last month's gardening cost was about $140 more!) I figure still worth it!
Flowered with 3 lower 100w warm CFL bulbs so the lower flowers weren't so small. I noticed on my Casey Jones plants the buds next the to CFL's were bigger and baseball shaped.
View attachment 1401520View attachment 1401519
You can see one of the CFL's in these pics, I put in a Headband 707 on the 9th and lower flowers get a good intensity of light. I was thinking of switching them to the cool white bulbs to give blue spectrum as well.

Big difference in flower size since 16th, the Casey Jones lower flowers grew to a decent size.

Good luck!

whitewidow2 said:

As the title states...

I am currently using a 250w hps to flower 5 plants max in a small cupboard (width 0.7m x 0.5m depth)... Ive seen some other peoples results using a 250w AND cfls and his results were staggering - im sure he has plenty of experience as well though.

Im just wondering - how many of you flower exclusively with HPS and how many use a combination of the two?

Will it benefit me to get some fluoros in there as well... they are relatively inexpensive and if its going to give me better yields ill give it a go.

thx

Click to expand...

i use both, sidelighting makes a huge difference imo. I use an hps bulb that has an added blue spectrum btw. cannabis has 2 kinds of chloroplast from what i understand, one that deals with red wavelength side of the spectrum and one that deals with the blue wavelength side of the spectrum, so only using 1 spectrum would be a waste of your plants maximum energy production capabilities.

+rep darkdestruction, I felt that the blue spectrum wouldn't hurt. Glad you could verify that for me! I feel much better about it!