MH For Flowering?

[Tony Aroma]

I started with my old aquarium lights and didn't want to spend any more money on bulbs or a ballast, so I've been using the same 250 w 10,000 K MH bulbs (blue spectrum, white appearance) for veg and flowering. But it's getting time to replace my bulbs and thought I might try to improve things. Since I'm limited in what I can run with my ballast, I was wondering if a different MH bulb might be better for flowering. In particular, I thought the Iwasaki 6500 K bulb might be good. It has a broad-spectrum output that favors the red end of the spectrum. Visually, it has a slightly yellowish appearance. Anybody have any experience with these bulbs or any comments? Any other MH bulbs that would be good for flowering?

 

[DIGITALHIPPY]

looks like its PAR wattage is better accross the board... complete spectral coverage...
do post a grow so i can see results, it looks good.
its made by EYE so i know that means its good.

 

[greenisgold]

I have an eye 400 and it is a great bulb, but if you happen to have an hps ballast then get a cmh bulb. It is a better all around bulb.

 

[Tony Aroma]

I have an eye 400 and it is a great bulb, but if you happen to have an hps ballast then get a cmh bulb. It is a better all around bulb.

I've been reading a lot about CMH bulbs, and they sound great for several reasons. But am not sure if my ballast will work with any of them. Here's my ballast, the AQ2-250MH-120V. I've written to the company to ask if I can use CMH bulbs with that ballast, but they don't respond. I definitely don't want to buy another ballast at this time, so that's why I think I'm fairly limited in my choice of bulbs.

 

[greenisgold]

CMH's only work on hps ballast so you are out of luck, but the eye blue is still awesome.

 

[Daemon]

How does flowering with the MH bulb work out for you? I currently have 4 girls about 6 weeks old vegging under an HPS(my T5 broke). They seem fairly healthy.


Also, does anyone know a good source for CMH bulbs for a 250w magnetic ballast(from HTG)? I've been looking but the lowest I could find was 400w.

 

[Tony Aroma]

How does flowering with the MH bulb work out for you?

I've only ever used the blue MH bulbs, and before that fluorescents, so I have no basis for comparison. Plus I use mostly bag seed, so each crop is different. However, I typically get about 1 oz or a little more per plant after vegging 6-8 weeks from seed. I have no scientific basis for it, but I've always believed that light intensity is the most important thing -- brighter is better. I think having just the perfect spectrum is icing on the cake.

Coincidentally, one of my aquarium bulbs burnt out today, so since I had to order a bulb anyway I went ahead and ordered 2 of the Iwasaki bulbs. I'm just two weeks into flowering, and since I only ended up with 2 pretty small plants I'll take any extra benefits that the new bulbs might give me. I'll check back in 6 weeks or so and let you know.

 

[icough2getoff]

I recently finish a grow with a 400 hortilux MH through flower and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I don't know anything about those other bulbs though

 

[vindiesel]

How does flowering with the MH bulb work out for you? I currently have 4 girls about 6 weeks old vegging under an HPS(my T5 broke). They seem fairly healthy.


Also, does anyone know a good source for CMH bulbs for a 250w magnetic ballast(from HTG)? I've been looking but the lowest I could find was 400w.

bulbs here: http://advancedtechlighting.com/cdmed18.htm
i use a phillips 250CMH, along w/ many others on IC, on an HTG HPS ballast. CMH work on almost all HPS mag ballasts.

 

[Tony Aroma]

I just found out the Iwasaki bulbs are backordered, so I probably won't receive them for at least another week. That would put the girls at 4 weeks into flowering. I hope it won't be too late to see some benefits of the new bulbs.

 

[Tony Aroma]

FINALLY! After almost two weeks I canceled my original order and got them from another place in 3 days. I'm going to put them in tonight, just shy of 5 weeks into flower. Hope it's not too late to help.

 

[Tony Aroma]

Just an update: Here's a pict taken at 38 days into flowering, with the new bulbs in for 5 days.

The one on the right is the main cola from the bigger of my two plants. It's filling in quite nicely, but I can't say for sure if the different bulbs are helping or not. The other plant is doing well, but filling in much more slowly.

BTW, with the new yellower bulbs my photos now look quite blue. I guess my camera is trying to adjust and overcompensating. I fiddled with the picts in Photoshop and they look better, but still not quite right.

 

[Daemon]

Looks very nice!!

 

[FreezerBoy]

bulbs here: http://advancedtechlighting.com/cdmed18.htm
i use a phillips 250CMH, along w/ many others on IC, on an HTG HPS ballast. CMH work on almost all HPS mag ballasts.

250w and 400w work with magnetic coil and core HPS ballasts. 39w-150w
use MH ballasts.

 

[1love1earth]

You could always just buy a new HPS ballast/CMH bulb, shouldn't run you more than $100 or so, maybe $120 after shipping.

Just a thought, not sure where your finances are.

 

[Tony Aroma]

You could always just buy a new HPS ballast/CMH bulb, shouldn't run you more than $100 or so, maybe $120 after shipping.

That sounds surprisingly inexpensive. The 8-year-old ballast I have (2 x 250 w MH) sells for over $200 now. And MH bulbs cost anwhere from about $50 to over $100 per bulb. Where could I get an equivalent CMH setup including bulbs (500 w total) for $100?

 

[1love1earth]

Well, the ballast kit for a 400 watt CMH runs about $50-$60 (HPS ballast ANSI S51), and the bulb is another $50 or so for a 400 watt CMH bulb. Mind you I'm talking about a ballast kit, +bulb, and you're going to have to do a tiny bit of wiring, but not much, it's easy to set one up. You'll also need a mogul base, which can be had for $5 or so at a place that sells the ballast kit. http://advancedtechlighting.com/cdmed18.htm is where I grabbed the bulb, and the ballast is a venture model, not sure on the link to those guys, but they also sold the mogul base. As you can see, the cost of a 400 watt vs. 250 watt setup is almost the same.

There are links early on in this thread: http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=72215

Now as far as 500 watts, that means 2x250s, which is going to be alot more than just 1 400 watt setup, and currently larger CMH has yet to hit the market. Might not be a bad time to look at either A. buying 2x400 watt CMH setups, B. buying 1x400 watt CMH and using your older stuff to supplement, but I'd just drop an extra $120 on a 2nd setup instead, 800 watts of CMH should really do very very nicely.

Be sure to check out the graphs in the thread I linked if you haven't already seen them.

 

[Tony Aroma]

There are links early on in this thread: http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=72215

Thanks, that's useful information.

Interesting, the spectrum of the CMH bulb shown in that thread looks a lot like the spectrum of the EYE bulbs I just got. It's not a very good graph, but you can see the blue line representing the 6500 k Iwasaki bulb. It's much more like the CMH than either the 10,000 k bulbs I had been using (also shown in that graph) or the HPS bulbs shown in the thread. I'm wondering if the difference between the CMH and the EYE bulbs is really very significant at all.

 

[1love1earth]

not sure on that one, the choice was easy for me, as I didn't have a ballast or bulb already.

They certainly aren't commercial yet, but I'm going to guess in the next 12-18 months we'll see 600 watt and 1000 watt versions come out.

For me, I'm planning on running mine in a cooltube, though I'll likely need to pick up a second light and ballast for flowering, 1 of them is only 25 watts per sq ft in my room, and 50 watts seems to be the "optimal" suggested potency.

With the cooltube setup, I should be able to keep the bulbs much closer to the plants, which will be an obvious boon. I've also read that the CMH bulbs run a tad bit cooler as well.

Certainly if you're looking to increase yields and efficiency, larger bulbs/ballasts would be the next logical step up, even if it's just one of them to supplement your current array, I think you'll see nice results.

How many watts per sq ft are you running currently?

Mind you my grow isn't commercial by any means, but if I'm going to take the risks, and invest the time and money, I figure I might as well drop another $250 for a 2nd CMH bulb/ballast/cool tube unit, and increase my yields by a solid amount.

 

[simba]

the 600-1.5kw CMH's will be over kill for us.. (600's right on the verge)
multi 400's or even multi 250's will do the job just as good as a high watt cmh
i was for them till i saw and heard the results.. to much power from one source to provide a nice uniform throw at short mounting heights....

ya you can add lights and grow the setup larger and larger..

its not so much cmh runs cooler they dont. they run hotter But dont Throw that like MH or HPS>. (CMH burns same temps as MH but the arc tube jacket captures that heat and lets ir rise up)

adv tech cmh bulb and ballast for 113ish shipped