Tell Me What You Think The Best Reflector Is And Why.

[Croppled1]

When you use gpw are you talking 30 days or 60?

I am using 2, 1000w cool suns pumping the heat through 6" ducting into adjacent space. I am happy with them, but would not claim they are the best. I am fully organic and consistently get .4 to .5 gpw every 30 days, just wondering how I compare.

 

 

That would be just under 3 times the normal yeild in dirt from my reading . However genetics play a big roll also . That White Widow / Big Bud cross would seem to be a high yeilder with limited plants . What strain do you grow out or strain(s) .

Edited January 12, 2012 by Croppled1

[CaffeineForAll]

nah... it's a size/space issue primarily... if you have it available, go with 1k's. if you have limitations, go w the 6's. the overall lumen:watt benefit of 6's is negligable... the strain you grow, the technique employed, environment... will all make a much bigger difference in how your garden grows. otherwise it's a space restriction issue... 6's cover a 3'x3' (9sqft) and the 1k's cover a 4'x4' (16sqft) well. the most noticeable difference beyond this is depth of penetration... 1k's win all day long. peace.

 

I thought the same thing, until I ran 10 600's vs 6 1000's. The 1k setup yielded about 11 pounds give or take a qp for your personal preference on what is considered "hash buds". Roughly .8 GPW. Not terrible, but with using synthetics I was bummed. Room to improve! The 600watt setup yielded roughly 13 pounds, again give or take a qp for your personal hash bud size. Which is nearly 1GPW. Roughly a 10-20% increase in yield, without an increase in wattage.

 

Needless to say when the final tally's were made I had to eat a big piece of humble pie, as I was the one championing the 1k's

 

1k's and 1500watters have their place though. Particularly when attempting to grow a land race sativa indoors. The intensity can't be beat.

Edited January 13, 2012 by CaffeineForAll

[pergamum362]

varys with strain, the afghan varieties I have finish just under 8 weeks, ak47 pheno i have can take 10 weeks or more.the widow/big bud i mention is done in about 9 weeks...this being said, is why it is nessacary for me to run multiple lights(for any nosy uniforms reading this).If were getting into the light debate, Im trying this right now, the sunpulse splitter, 1000 watt ballast, 2 600 watt bulbs, one reflect(u could do two reflectors but where would the fun be in that)and a 2400k bulb and a 6400k bulb, full spectrum...one hood.Itll be under way in the next week, just waiting for the new clones to finish veging.

[pergamum362]

not bad tho...5gpw or so every 30 days..roughly a lb per light per month...the same as getting 1gpw every 8 weeks.

[pergamum362]

If any of you ever went to the green bee, u might have tried some of my wwxbb.Dont have that strain anymore..gotta seeds in the vault tho.

[donnachris]

wwxbb?? you named a strain that?? oh wait white widow x blueberry right??? LOL

[Croppled1]

I thought the same thing, until I ran 10 600's vs 6 1000's. The 1k setup yielded about 11 pounds give or take a qp for your personal preference on what is considered "hash buds". Roughly .8 GPW. Not terrible, but with using synthetics I was bummed. Room to improve! The 600watt setup yielded roughly 13 pounds, again give or take a qp for your personal hash bud size. Which is nearly 1GPW. Roughly a 10-20% increase in yield, without an increase in wattage.

 

Needless to say when the final tally's were made I had to eat a big piece of humble pie, as I was the one championing the 1k's

 

1k's and 1500watters have their place though. Particularly when attempting to grow a land race sativa indoors. The intensity can't be beat.

 

No wonder your all doing so well compared to this lowly patient growing in buckets with a old magnetic 400 watt lamp . I can't afford the utillity bills from two of them I can't imagine the pressure your under . Mine are up roughly 80 dollars a month I would think yours would be 10 times that I just use jacks soluable fertilizer similar to many co op grows in Ca and my own worm fertilizer . I will say my worms love cannabis roots and stems . Even growing low budget has expenses .

 

Outdoor grows are the way to go but with weight limits on storage and problems like Mr King faced it is difficult in some counties . You need to be able to store pounds of cured material for the winter . The early Canadian program addressed this but none in the States so far . I imagine due to the more rural nature of the majority of Canadian Citizens . Thank you to those putting up information so others homebound most the time can understand what is going on out there . I am going to make it to the farmers market one day to obtain a few medables , maybe a clone , and just see people whom dont' feel suspect , threatened or afraid of the ill and injured whom use cannabis .

Edited January 15, 2012 by Croppled1

[semicaregiver]

I thought the same thing, until I ran 10 600's vs 6 1000's. The 1k setup yielded about 11 pounds give or take a qp for your personal preference on what is considered "hash buds". Roughly .8 GPW. Not terrible, but with using synthetics I was bummed. Room to improve! The 600watt setup yielded roughly 13 pounds, again give or take a qp for your personal hash bud size. Which is nearly 1GPW. Roughly a 10-20% increase in yield, without an increase in wattage.

 

Needless to say when the final tally's were made I had to eat a big piece of humble pie, as I was the one championing the 1k's

 

1k's and 1500watters have their place though. Particularly when attempting to grow a land race sativa indoors. The intensity can't be beat.

 

I have been reading the various posts and I am not sure we are all talking about the same calculation when we quote "Grams/Watt".

 

I first saw this measurement in Cervantes book and liked the idea measuring how successfully we are using lighting. When he talks about this measurement, it is a "per month" measurement. I just went back and looked thru his book and he does not offer a formula and as such creates some confusion. As I read his book, the idea is to create a way to provide a way to measure how one is doing regardless of whether one has a 54 day strain or a 72+ day strain.

 

For example CafineForAll indicates he/she had a .8 gpw and a 1.0 grw output. Assuming a typical bloom cycle of around 60 days the correct number should be .4 and 0.5.

 

I am not picking on CafineForAll, but rather using their post to ask if we are all on the same page with how we are measuring and reporting our results. It seems it should really read, Grams per Watt per Month.

[CaffeineForAll]

Cervantes would have to explain why you only measure 30 days, I'd assume for a perpetual harvest.

[semicaregiver]

Cervantes would have to explain why you only measure 30 days, I'd assume for a perpetual harvest.

 

 

I have no insight as to why he chose 30 days instead of one day which would be the ideal unit. With one day it would be simple to just divide the grams/watt by the total number of days in bloom. In this way one could easily compare a 54 day and a 72 day bloom.

Using Grams/Watt/month you need to divide by the number of days of bloom and multiply by 30 to get his grams/watt/month

[noworries]

Anyone pulling 16+ oz off 600 hps in coco? I'd like to bug with some questions

[Lucas]

I run two sun system magnum xxxl 8 in air cooled with two 1000 digital lumatek ballasts and hortilux super blue hps/mh bulbs. My room is 8x10 they seem to do ok.

[Farmin_errl]

Hey guys I am always curious as to what others think, I've finall got my iPad working so I can post,.

 

My first question to everyone is, when using a 1000 watt bulb per four plants, which reflector do you feel would yield the most?

doesnt matter at all. personal preferance. bulb will produce same amount of lumens no matter what hood. but i agree bare bulb...forget an ac unit. trash the co2. all moo poo. just run as much fresh air thru ur room as possible and load up on the best bulbs out there. no MH. only recommend using high end HPS such as a Super HPS eye from hortilux. i use these for all stages of plant growth as change in spectrum is a MAJOR SHOCK as far as your plants are concerned. also take the glass out of the hoods if you do use them. proper ventilation and a thermostat. again co2 is useless. more bulbs = more herbs

 

hope this helps...

Edited April 1, 2014 by Farmin_errl

[AbominableDro-Man]

doesnt matter at all. personal preferance. bulb will produce same amount of lumens no matter what hood. but i agree bare bulb...forget an ac unit. trash the co2. all moo poo. just run as much fresh air thru ur room as possible and load up on the best bulbs out there. no MH. only recommend using high end HPS such as a Super HPS eye from hortilux. i use these for all stages of plant growth as change in spectrum is a MAJOR SHOCK as far as your plants are concerned. also take the glass out of the hoods if you do use them. proper ventilation and a thermostat. again co2 is useless. more bulbs = more herbs

 

hope this helps...

co2 is FAR from useless when measured and implemented correctly. Furthermore, The reason that switching from a mh to an hps from vegetative to flora growth causes the drooping leaves you've probably seen or are referring to as "shock" is merely because the plants haven't adapted to the high heat and spectrum of the HPS lamp from the switch. Simply put the lamp up higher, and lower it steadily down to the point you want it. In regards to how no hood will make a difference over any other, that is also wrong. Markably, various hoods perform better than others. 

 

I would suggest the Silverstar 4xl hood. That's what I use, and it has an incredible footprint. Personally, I feel the only better "hood" I could get at this point, would be to actually pull the hood off and leave it barebulb, but I don't really want to have to tote over my room temps all day. I'll give it to that not using a hood is actually a good thing, but taking out the glass in the bottom isn't going to do a thing, just run your ventilation through the hood like it's meant to be with cooled hoods and it'll be fine.

[Hydraulic Jack]

I just bought two of the same hoods...They are very well made and light weight....HJ

[phaquetoo]

This is a very good thread!  I am between grows, ( had to shut it down and scrub away and treat the bugs) I have been using a digibox electronic ballast, dp-eb 600/400, it can use mh and hps 400 or 600 watt bulbs, I have blown out two hps bulbs in 1 yr, Is there an hps bulb just for the digital ballast? or at least one I can get close to the full usage out of the bulb?

 

also I have been vegging with t-12's they work well, but when I move them to budd they most def shock, some ive actualy lost from the shock, I was using promix and gh for nutes, Im changing to the kiss method this time around, Im wonering if any one else has the ballast I have and has had any issues with their hps bulbs?

 

When I start back up, Im starting from seed, Im going to veg in my budd tent with 600w mh bulb and switch over to hps when time to budd, any info or personal experience would be a great help!

 

Thank you all in advance!

 

Peace

 

 

edit= I have not used 400w bulbs with it, only 600w mh and hps

Edited April 11, 2014 by phaquetoo

[AbominableDro-Man]

Consider the Hortilux HPS/MH bulbs, the 600's in particular have a thing about being on digital ballasts (something about how they tend to work and last much longer on digi ballasts than mags). Though I have no personal experience with the 600's, I hear that using 10 of the 600 watt bulbs compared next to a grow using 6 100 watt bulbs, that the 10 600's actually tend to do a little better. I use 1k's personally. As per the ballast you use, no experience whatsoever so I wont pretend to know.

 

If you're going to be buying two different bulbs for switching, possibly consider getting one of the Dual-Arc tubes unstead? Those are also Hortilux's. I know a place where you can get them considerably cheaper than many places so feel free to ask if you go that route! 

[motorcitymeds]

Vertical bulbs can produce more with certain strains. However, with no reflector, you lose 50% of your light to the ceiling. Not to mention the stressful effect from the side lighting photo-tropism (aka leaf twist or crinkle). You can run a "bare bulb" horizontally in a reflector either not air cooled, or with the lens removed. You may lose 5% of the intensity to the reflector, but without it you lose 90% to the ceiling.

 

Best of both worlds are 3ft parabolic's, but A/C is pretty much required to ensure proper room temps.

 

I have a real hard time believing any room bare bulb or not can be 85 degrees on the hottest summer day without cooling of some kind. The hottest summer days around here in michigan approach 100 degrees. If you run from outside air, you will get close to that temp even in a basement. Not to mention every watt of power used within the room generates roughly 4BTUS. Now if your drawing 70 degree house air, yea I can see that being done.

 

Happy Growing!

I concur with most of what you say.  Those running with NO AC are risking the problems of possible molds n mildews.  Yes Humidifiers work but dropping the temps and pulling the water out of the rooms remind the plants to think its outside in nature.  Fall cooler nights..

 

On the Hoods lights there is about as many opinions out there as seats for everyone to sit in...LOL...Product speaks volumes over what everyone uses.  Because who cares if your rig is poop or great if your not getting the High Grade well then your doing something wrong. 

 

The Hydrofarm Daystar AC and Sun system Sun Star 6 inchers both tested out with a higher PAR out put test from several grow tests online.  I believe growershouse.com was where I saw one...

 

Peace.

[GregS]

I have built my own using metal mailboxes and heatiing/cooling and electrical hardware. It can save you a ton of money and you will have precisely what you want.

 

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=54817

 

I use a high heat highly reflective white titanium oxide paint.

Edited June 3, 2014 by GregS