Best hps brand

I am going to start my first grow soon and I have most of the details figured out, but lighting seems to be disputed over so, In your opinion, which brand of hps have you seen the best growth with and is one 250W hps enough for one 55-65cm plant?

I wouldn't be familiar with the best brands but I do know that you should use a bulb designed for digital ballasts if that is what you are going to use. The operate at a much higher frequency so spending alot of money on a bulb that isn't compatible is quite dangerous. Using a bulb designed for a magnetic ballast in a digital ballast leads to premature bulb failure, decreased lumiens, and risk of catastrophic failure (release of gases over your garden).

n4alpaca said:

I am going to start my first grow soon and I have most of the details figured out, but lighting seems to be disputed over so, In your opinion, which brand of hps have you seen the best growth with and is one 250W hps enough for one 55-65cm plant?

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I don't think that it is so much the brand of the fixture but the bulb. There are bulbs that gets the job done, and then there are better and much better bulbs. Check out the different types of bulbs (light spectrums etc.) to find the best one for your budget and fixture. Hope that helps a little.

digilux or good imo

My advice is to get a 400W digi with either a hortilux, SON T plus or Grolux bulb. You may only want to grow a single plant now but invariably everyone who gets into it goes bigger over time, this way you are set up from the start. And pound for pound you are gonna get much better results from the 400.

Unless I am mistaken, you don't get a digital specific bulb!?

Sunmaster or power plant

Hortilux ALL the way.

Dual band: blue and red. You can run them from seedling to chop time. No stretch, just long, thick donkey dick colas. At least in my experience.

SuperBlues

I'll never go with another bulb.

Don't know it they make them that small though.

I've been wondering about this, too. I plan to run a 600W HPS and I've been looking for affordable high-quality lamps. The best prices I've found so far are on www.hidhut.com and their house brand "full spectrum" HPS lamps (supposedly manufactured specially for HID Hut) are $35 each. Reviews on the site state that they are "as good" or "brighter" than Hortilux EYE (which seems to be high praise). What I'm wondering is 1) if anyone reading this has used the HID Hut lamps and 2) what has their experience been with the lamps. The price is definitely right...

Quantum ballest are the best ballest on the market.Ive ran lumitecks with no problems for two years now.If your asking about bulbs I use only Hortilux

these have been really helpful, but the thing is i'm trying to create a box (ventilated and painted for reflection) in which to scog grow (decided to scrog instead of single plant) and the dimensions will be 2x2x4, so 400w may be too much in terms of heat. As for ballasts, I thought you could just buy one of the work light housings (the one that look like half a sphere) meant for the wattage of the bulb and it would be fine. What would buying a ballast add?

250 watt HPS would prolly work fine,, but depending on where you live it might cost you more to get a 250HPS,,,,,, i know where i live its cheaper to buy a 600HPS then it is to buy a 250HPS simply cuz the store i go to doesnt get a lot of them in and the companys they deal with dont make a lot of them.

Hortilux is King, hands down...

Hortilux bulbs aren't compatible with digital ballast. A 250w is all u want for a tiny 2x2x4 ft area, and I imagine heat is still going to be an issue. I'd recommend getting the 250 HPS security light like you mentioned and take it apart, remove the ballast and mount it to a piece of wood and place it outside your box. Put your box over an AC vent… thats what I'd do.

thanks for the responses, I was going to build my own ballast and buy a hortilux bulb and ignitor, and wire it to a socket, either that or I find stuff on craigs list, either way this is a poorman's project. I'm not going to spend more than $120 ($7 for box 50 for bulb $20 for nutrients and growth medium). Anyone know where I can get a ballast for cheap? also, is a ballast for a halogen lamp the same as a ballast for an hps light?

no different ballast, you can find them on craigs list pretty cheap...in most hydro-shops they have a used section,you can haggle these as there's not set always at a firm price.....good luck good grow

going to a hydro shop tomorrow, How many plants would fit in a 2x2 space growing scrog. Does 5 sound about right?

pdillo said:

Hortilux bulbs aren't compatible with digital ballast. A 250w is all u want for a tiny 2x2x4 ft area, and I imagine heat is still going to be an issue. I'd recommend getting the 250 HPS security light like you mentioned and take it apart, remove the ballast and mount it to a piece of wood and place it outside your box. Put your box over an AC vent… thats what I'd do.

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I run a Hortilux in my digital lumatek ballast, and it works great !!!

pdillo said:

Hortilux bulbs aren't compatible with digital ballast. <snip>

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That's not what the report said at all. What they did say is that "early" electronic/digital ballasts operated at such high frequencies that they created acoustic resonance within the arc (which literally shook the bulb apart and caused premature bulb failure). EYE/Hortilux has a vested interest in saying that stuff; they manufacture and sell "traditional" ballasts and overpriced bulbs. What the casual user should take away from the article can be found in bold on the last page of the report; "...our tests showed that the current electronic ballasts seem to operate lamps about the same as traditional magnetic ballasts. Energy efficiencies and light output are basically equal between the types with only the expected variation you would find in any group of samples..." I'm not sure how old that article is (there's no date listed) but I'm fairly certain (judging by the design) that it's at least three years old.

Also of note is the fact that it's only pretending to be an objective study of the different products. There's basically three pages of doom and horror (making the consumer think the competition's electronic ballasts will burn out their bulbs or, worse, destroy their garden/home with fire) and a single paragraph on the last page which retracts the previous statements (and basically goes on to say that no electronic ballast that's currently on the market would do any of that bad stuff they were talking about earlier). What a joke! It's four pages of propaganda/advertisement for the overpriced products of EYE/Hortilux...

I like sunlight supply mag ballasts and solarmax bulbs in the 1000 watt range.