HPS or MH?

Hey there fellow growers, It's been a while... Anyways, I have decided to move indoors for the first time and have been lucky enough to find 4 1000W HPS fixtures... At least I think they are and so did the person that sold them to me. The only thing is on the ballast it says that they are 1000w MH. I was wondering if someone here can tell the difference between a MH bulb and a HPS just by looking at a few pictures...

oh I have all of it. hood/shade. ballists things like that .... ugh now I have 4x1000W MH setups and only one 400W HPS, that kinda blows...

It's a Metal Halide.

besides lumens per watt and light spectrum ... what is really the difference??? i would read up on it in the book but .. it seems like MH isn't mentioned much anymore for other than vegging... IM A NOOB. so i don't know shit. just asking a question.

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on the subject but I think it mostly has to do with light spectrum. It is my understanding that plants benefit from blue light when in the vegetative stage and red light spectrum when flowering... Metal Halide lights are high in the blue spectrum making them ideal for veg and well high pressure sodium lights are good for red spectrum light... but don't quote me on this, I've never grown indoors.... this is why I love the sun...

Those are mh bulbs but i would buy switchable dig ballasts and u can run either hps mh, Try to sale ur ballasts and u might even have just enough money to buy new ballast and a new hood or 2 i can get yield master classicll hoods right now for $105 plus tax just need ballast and buld i use a 400 mh for veg 6 plants and hps 400 for flower 12/12 and u can get well over a pound if not 2 off 6 plants. I could grow 8 under that lite and still have room for plants to breath but i like to grow my plants big and more return per plant than growin little 2 footers. Anyhow i'm indyman if u have any ? about anything let me no!!!

Oh yeh how big is ur grow room and try to go 400 because the heat is night and day between 400 and 1000 i dont even have to cool my 400 at all just have fan move air around and think of the electric bill savings u can turn just as many plant under those 400s,GET BACK TO ME!

The metal halide are better for veg but you can definitely grow some nice nugs with them all the way,the buds won't be as big but they will be more frosty due to the mh emitting more uv than the hps....and they run cooler than hps aswell

BUD UNDER MH ARE LIGHT AND FLUFFY. Bad return for dollars spent. HPS GIVE YOU THICK HEAVY BUDS.where growin herb in 2010 not 1970. So just spend money on the right bulbs (EYE) MAKES GREAT BULBS.Always remember the best of the best grow with both and some of them have been growin herb longer than most of us have been alive and never take one mans word on it do ur research,study read mel frank's, ed's and jorge cervante's books are all filled with great knowledge.

MH is for veg and 2 weeks flower transition for me. HPS for main flowering phase. I look forward to using the MH again on the final two weeks. I remember an outdoor farmer from Ferndale suggested that to me for indoor grows more than 15 years ago.

I heard using both would be the best bet!! the HPS does produce better buds but something about the UV rays the halide produces helps alot!!!

Kdoe420 said:

I heard using both would be the best bet!! the HPS does produce better buds but something about the UV rays the halide produces helps alot!!!

Click to expand...

Yes this is in fact very true,Metal halides emit uv.......and when exposed to uv rays cannabis produces more resin as a defense mecanism...sort of a suncreen..when combined with an hps for flower you will have great results...depending on genetics and other variables of course

can you post a pic of the ballast assembly.

I believe the only difference between the hps and MH is a hps igniter but i dont know for sure.
also
the diff between hps and mh is in there color spectrum, plants have 2 different types of chlorophyll that operate under 2 different light spectrums and have 2 different functions(one for growing and one for producing flower fruits and sugars.)

you can also buy conversion bulbs
http://www.google.com/products?client=safari&rls=en&q=940+watt+conversion+bulb&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=OnFVS_jKKIyyswOk3JCOCA&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&ct=title&resnum=3&ved=0CB0QrQQwAg
as you can see they are damn expensive.

you can flower under them, you just wont get the optimum grow.

captain insaneo said:

can you post a pic of the ballast assembly.

I believe the only difference between the hps and MH is a hps igniter but i dont know for sure.
also
the diff between hps and mh is in there color spectrum, plants have 2 different types of chlorophyll that operate under 2 different light spectrums and have 2 different functions(one for growing and one for producing flower fruits and sugars.)

you can also buy conversion bulbs
http://www.google.com/products?client=safari&rls=en&q=940+watt+conversion+bulb&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=OnFVS_jKKIyyswOk3JCOCA&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&ct=title&resnum=3&ved=0CB0QrQQwAg
as you can see they are damn expensive.

you can flower under them, you just wont get the optimum grow.

Click to expand...

Yeah I was thinking that HPS conversion bulbs would be the solution to my little problem. I guess for now though my little 400W HPS will have to do, I'll throw some CFLs down and around until I get my hands on some conversion bulbs, or I might just sell a couple of the set ups to buy a few more 400w HPS'. I love you guys on riu... always there when I need yah <3

dude 4 1k mh are at least 6 times better than 1 400w hps
use it and reinvest the profits from the mh weed into conversion bulbs.
also it sounds like you are expanding your system use this as a time to learn how your system works then fine tune it and finally add the expensive bulbs or simply just replace the lighting units 1 by 1. If you were to take and alternate hps and mh your light spectrum would be awesome also if you set them up in pairs on light movers you would mostlikely get a better grow than hps alone.

those bulbs look used up,there MH,HPS bulbs, are tube shaped

They are used but still in good shape, I got 4 x 1000w MH ballast/shape/bulbs and 1x 400w HPS for 300$USD and the bulbs were used for a month but still have a decent amount of life left in them. Haha my SoG setup is going to look so random with MH,HPS and CFLs in the harvest room lol... Ill take some pics when I'm all done setting it up.

@$300 you got a good deal even if you have to slowly replace you parts