Help! Will a 100% HPS grow with a "super" HPS bulb be okay?

Yes veg plants with "super" HPS, optimized red and blue spectrum, or "NO VEG UNDER THAT!"?

  • Yes, Veg under the "super" HPS bulb

    Votes: 6 85.7%
  • No, don't Veg under that you stupid f***

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Veg under "super" HPS bulb AND some CFLs (blue spectrum, daylight, cool white)

    Votes: 1 14.3%
  • Get your broke ass a blue spectrum metal halide bulb or gtfo

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    7

Honey Oil Riot Squad

Well-Known Member
Hello all,

My seedlings are about 2 weeks old now from seed. They are just poking their 4th pair of leaves up now, stems seem to be thickening and so far very healthy. I've got GSC, NYCD, and Misty growing (1 plant of each, all fem except misty which unfortunately I got 2 bad seeds from out of 3 ...*cough cough*... it's all in the name -_-... lettin me downnn that was my high yielder!)

Right now they are and have been under CFL's (I know this is generally better for starting plants), but I recently got a hell of a craigslist deal for a HPS light and ballast. 80 bucks for 400W galaxy digital ballast + hardly used "super" hps light. I'm gonna pick up an econowing reflector very soon (probably tomorrow, black friday) and my original plan was to either buy a metal halide to put in (expensive, i'm poor) or just go CFL until flowering (which are a pain in the ass trying to adjust all the time to different levels on every plant). However, the hps bulb (note: "super") he gave me says it has an optimized red and BLUE spectrum and that it can be used through 100% of the plant's life.

Does this hold true for cannabis? I mean, i'm sure it would grow veg under 18/6, but will it grow well in comparison to having a full blue spectrum from metal halide or CFLs? (The CFLs I have are blue spectrum btw). Is it worth it to set it up and start putting them under this "super" hps light rather then the CFLs?

Or another thought... what if I put the hps in, in addition to having some CFLs on the side (but not quite as many)? to get just a bit more of a blue spectrum? Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks!
 

hotrodharley

Well-Known Member
What chuck says. HPS alone takes about 2 weeks longer to run a strain IN MY EXPERIENCE and HPS is how I started growing indoors.
 

TheFuture

Well-Known Member
I have been proven wrong in a commercial setting about the effectiveness of T5 when applied correctly. However in a residential setting I recommend to just use a brand sparkling new HPS bulb for every 9 months of use.

First: ease of maintenance. You dont need to switch out any bulbs or have a bunch of fixtures hanging in your way. Less risk of fire and shock and broken bulbs.
Second: for 7 out of 10 gardeners, the difference between yields using a MH/HPS combo and HPS/HPS (Veg and flower, respectively) is negligible. A plant has the potential to yield X regardless of the height of Y. Flower weight Z is determined by plant branch density multiplied by height. If I cared about math I would try to get further into that... In lieu I am going to use anectodal evidence:

If you are using the MH just to keep the plant from growing too tall, I urge you to use HPS instead and then when the plant reaches the height you desire in veg, top it.

Keeping in mind that the plant will stretch an additional 8-12" after transition, set your plant height via pruning methods and send the auxins to the tertiary colas to bulk your plant up and keep it short. In production of more than 100 thousand plants, I have found that if a plant was able to produce 10 ounces and you did not prune it at all you would have that 10 ounces spread mostly evenly across the plant with a lot of scraggly buds in the shade and bigger dominant colas poking out of the top. If that plant was able to produce 10 ounces and you took off everything on the entire bottom half of the plant before transition into flower, that the 10 ounces would be distributed to many large dominant colas on the upper half exposed to the light.

Besides the obvious benefits of supercropping and pruning methods, there are drawbacks: If you prune too much foliage your plant will go into shock or die. If you make your colas too dense and have inadequate air circulation, all that work is for naught when a big bloom of Botrytis sets in and funks it all up. Remember for every Yin there is a Yang.
 

TheFuture

Well-Known Member
Also, whether MH or HP, there is a very remarkable loss in both Lumens and Photoactive Radiation after 9 months of use. I wish I had gotten a picture but when we installed 16'x20' rooms with 24 1000w HPS in Raptor XL hoods, we changed 12 of the bulbs out with brand new bulbs and turned everything on to compare the difference since bossman was sceptical about spending that kind of money every 9 months.

Well, the difference was like looking at half of the room on 1000w full blast, eye hurting, neck scorching glory compared with some 600w light that your grandma uses in the corner while reading Moby Dick in her favorite chair. Best thing I can think of to eke out potential gains is to not use used bulbs You're only saving like... $20-30 bucks max. The amount of gain you get from a fresh bulb is worth far more than a bag of weed.
 

Honey Oil Riot Squad

Well-Known Member
I have been proven wrong in a commercial setting about the effectiveness of T5 when applied correctly. However in a residential setting I recommend to just use a brand sparkling new HPS bulb for every 9 months of use.

First: ease of maintenance. You dont need to switch out any bulbs or have a bunch of fixtures hanging in your way. Less risk of fire and shock and broken bulbs.
Second: for 7 out of 10 gardeners, the difference between yields using a MH/HPS combo and HPS/HPS (Veg and flower, respectively) is negligible. A plant has the potential to yield X regardless of the height of Y. Flower weight Z is determined by plant branch density multiplied by height. If I cared about math I would try to get further into that... In lieu I am going to use anectodal evidence:

If you are using the MH just to keep the plant from growing too tall, I urge you to use HPS instead and then when the plant reaches the height you desire in veg, top it.

Keeping in mind that the plant will stretch an additional 8-12" after transition, set your plant height via pruning methods and send the auxins to the tertiary colas to bulk your plant up and keep it short. In production of more than 100 thousand plants, I have found that if a plant was able to produce 10 ounces and you did not prune it at all you would have that 10 ounces spread mostly evenly across the plant with a lot of scraggly buds in the shade and bigger dominant colas poking out of the top. If that plant was able to produce 10 ounces and you took off everything on the entire bottom half of the plant before transition into flower, that the 10 ounces would be distributed to many large dominant colas on the upper half exposed to the light.

Besides the obvious benefits of supercropping and pruning methods, there are drawbacks: If you prune too much foliage your plant will go into shock or die. If you make your colas too dense and have inadequate air circulation, all that work is for naught when a big bloom of Botrytis sets in and funks it all up. Remember for every Yin there is a Yang.
Thank you and to everyone else as well! I'm going to set up the HPS today. A new start. Also, he told me he has only used the bulb for like 80 hours of run time, so it's fairly new still. Whether that was true... lol idk, he could just be making that up. Regardless, here goes nothin! Thanks again!
 

bryangtho

Well-Known Member
I use HPS from the start I have used MH but did not see any benefit to using them. If u have any dout with the bulb I would use it just for the veg and replace when u go to flowing with a new HPS
 

dopeleader

Well-Known Member
My first grow at the moment and my local hydro shop said a HPS bulb will be fine for my first grow (even after me saying ill buy a MH one)
Obviously MH globes will veg a plant faster but yes a HPS bulb will be just fine aswell, infact ive done really well with just a HPS bulb.
I didn't get the rapid growth rates that MH globes will give, but next grow ill do it that way.
 
Top