1000watt MH... for flowering?

[DirtyDaub]

I'm currently in my third grow with a 400 watt mh for veg and hps for flowering. I have been given an offer for a free 1000watt MH that I could use for my next grow. My question is, what are the effects of flowering under a MH. I read under some other post that it can increase the complexity of the high, but it reduces the overall yield. Can anyone shed some more light on this subject?

I've also considered buying a conversion bulb for the 1k ballast but I ran into some problems with a previous conversion bulb. What happened was I bought one for my 400 MH but it had issues starting up when plugged into a timer. Id wake up in the morning and the bulb would be "on" and buzzing but no light was actually being produced. I think it had something to do with the igniter but I'm really not sure. Has anybody else had problems like this? Cause I don't want to buy a $200 bulb and then have it mess up my 12/12 period like last time.

 

[JJScorpio]

I veg with a HPS and notice very little difference. I would assume your only problem would be a very slight loss in yield. I wouldn't bother with the conversion bulb at that price.....

 

[danktown]

id say take it, it wouldnt hurt to right? but yeah a fellow grower friend of mine had some equipment issues during a run when their hps ballast went out on em so they used the mh light setup (in their veg garden) and put that in the other lite's place for a couple weeks until they got a new hps ballast...and they noticed no increase/decrease from their usual yield for that particular strain

 

[DirtyDaub]

interesting info guys.

what kind of increase in yield do you think the 1000w mh will have over the 400 hps?

 

[DirtyDaub]

yeah that makes sense. Id say everything is pretty much dialed in on this grow. The temps are kept around 78 and the plants all look really healthy. Right now I have 6 plants, 5 Juicy Fruits and one NL clone; they're all about 2 months old except for the clone which was started a month later. So far I've verified 3 females out of the 4 big ones. Then theres one runted Juicy Fruit and the female clone. My plan is to take out the runt and put it into my veg box and just flower the clone and see what happens.

heres a picture from 2 and a half weeks ago:




This is a more recent picture from last week:



Im going to be switching over to 12/12 in the next couple days, probably experimenting with the 1000 mh and seeing what happens.

What do you think?

 

[DirtyDaub]

In addition, what do you think about this bulb?

1000 MH SunMaster Warm Deluxe
http://www.bghydro.com/BGH/itemdesc.asp?ic=HLRBMH10WD&eq=&Tp=

They claim it puts out a more balanced spectrum, around 3000K. And it'll most likely work in the ballast without ignition problems like I was having before.

Any ideas?

DD

 

[DirtyDaub]

Thats a real nice set up you get there Pure!

I think whats gonna happen is me and my buddy are gonna try and add an igniter into the mh ballast to convert it into an hps.

Has anybody done this before or know where I can get some info on it?

keep rockin

DD

 

[1tytersx]

the difference between mh and hps is that there is more of a stretch (in the mh). well that is what i have noticed so far. im growing sog with blueberry x big blue cross. size so far seems to be about the same. but its only been 21 days of flowering so its just a little fluff balls.

 

[DirtyDaub]

the difference between mh and hps is that there is more of a stretch (in the mh).

thats weird, cause I've been trying to do as much research on this as possible and from what I gathered it seems that most people say the MH actually reduces stretching while used during 12/12

 

[Hank Hemp]

I've used MH for veg & flower for years. Dirtydaub, I use exactly the bulb you metioned, for both flower & veg. with no problems.

 

[1tytersx]

thats weird, cause I've been trying to do as much research on this as possible and from what I gathered it seems that most people say the MH actually reduces stretching while used during 12/12

that is just my observations...

 

[DirtyDaub]

haha 1tytersx, im not trying to be a douche or anything...

anyway, I just got the 1k Mh and put it into the grow room... holy shit the the temps went up 15 degrees! (91F) So now im in the process of trying to get the temps back down to a normal level. Im going to add a glass shield to my hydrofarm daystar hood along with a new stanley blower fanning into the hood, with the old blower extracting out.

By the way, I seriously don't recommend ever buying a hydrofarm daystar hood.
The thing just doesn't make sense. It comes with 3 places to hook up some sort of air extraction but all of them are severely limited by the metal reflector blocking all these vents inside the hood.

I had to cut out all of the interior reflecting material plus the exterior vents in order to get this thing working somewhat decently (hopefully).

Enough of the rant though.

Tomarrow I'll update and let you guys know how everything is running.

Plus, I think im going to use this thread as an experiment to show what a 1000 watt Mh can do as a flowering light.

Until the next update... peace and have a good grow.

The Dirty D