Plants Taking forever to finish

This might not be the best place to post this, but here goes.

I have two plants, Dinafem Blue Hash, 8 week estimated flowering time. Im growing in bubble hydro system. They have been flowering for like 18 weeks. Way too long, something has to be up. I havent done anything to really stress the plants this grow. Its been fairly smooth sailing.

Im using 2 90W LED UFO's. While they worked fairly well for veg they dont produce the girth that they should when flipping to 12/12. And it takes forever before they pop pistils. Prob 3 weeks or so to show pistils. Im wondering if it is safe to assume my problem is with the lighting? Im considering switching to 250W MH/HPS, this would give me like 55w per sq ft, and lumens vary based on bulb.

Would making the switch help, or am I just an idiot?

pics? what are trichomes looking like?

Yeah make the switch! Despite producers claims you should only match up LED to MH/HPS watt to watt to see similar growth. A 250mh/hps would be much better as LED's don't do well for budding.

Trichs are just starting to get milky, couple amber here and there. Pistils are red, but the trichs are just not where you would want them to be.

To be honest, I might just pull them this week. Im at the point where Ive run out of my budgeted amount of flower supplements, and Ive really just had enough. We are talking about a 18 week bloom here. They were showing sex before I flipped to 12/12 so it wasnt that they were immature. I just dont think the LED's trigger the flowering hormones. I got sucked into the marketing scheme.

I dont think LED can match up watt for watt juicebox, not for flowering anyway. The buds are real fluffy under LED and take forever. I dont like it one bit.

What I meant was producers claim the 90w UFO LED is equal to a 400w HPS. Not the case as you can see. It is more equal to 90w HPS (If they made such a thing) so a 250w HPS would equal roughly 250w LED's. But they still don't do as good as HPS in flowering. So definitely switch to the 250 hps.

Sorry, must have misread the previous post, but ya I completely agree with you. Its a marketing scheme, and it got me. Just too good to be true.

Thanks for the advice, Im going to make the switch after I pull these girls. Do you think 250w is enough for a small cab. Obviously, Im going to have to get an air cooled hood, but is 250w hps enough. Im working with a small space, 4.5 square feet. So thats like 55w per sq foot, and MH would be 4600 lumens per sq foot, HPS would be 7300 lumens per sq foot. Probably not perfect, but its got to be better than the UFO's.

Here is a lumen chart. Yeah the 250 should be great as long as you keep it cool.

View attachment 1123373

Thanks again!! Ya looks like I should be good. Excited about making the switch for the Lemon Haze. Know anyone who wants some UFO's at a discount? I plan on getting an air cooled hood and ducting the heat out of the cab, we'll see how that affects the temp. The UFO's put off more heat than they claim. Also, the fans on the back of the UFO's are not ducted out but rather just blow warm air in with the grow ventilation, which im thinking creates a higher temp in the room.

That chart is going to be useful. I generally SCROG my cab, so distance to the bulb is fixed. Atleast for flowering. As for veg, Im not too concerned as a young plant doesnt always need full lumens to get decent growth.

PM me for the UFO prices