Out With The New, In With The Old School!
What's good fellow Weed Nerds!? Fells like forever since my last post. A lot has happened since then. Last week I added a top dressing of my home made compost, and then topped off the pots with more soil. It really seemed that really did the trick! The plants finally look happy, which in turn makes me happy. But that is not the only change that has happened in the last week. I also have switched to a 12/12 light cycle to induce flowering, and for the first time ever, I am using a 400 Watt HPS.
Previous setup
This round of VEG I used two of my LED, 1 150 Watt Mars Hydro, and 1 240 Watt Quantum Board. Then the worlds most expensive rack to hang them from. Which now that I know my HPS is good to go, I will be selling, which is why I did not use it this round. Since I will be taking a break from growing for when my new baby boy is born, I for sure will not be needing it. Even when I start back up I will use a small tent like the one @futuremind was using before he got his new one. When that happens, I think the Mars, or the QB should fill my light needs since I will be doing 1 plant at a time.
Setting the hood was a breeze, compared to the bar style LED. Although the light spread on the LED is wicked awesome! So this is nowhere near a comparison of lights. As you see I had to break out the trusty ol leveler, something I actually keep with my grow tent tools. Having an uneven light can present some problems, especially when you are dealing with one with high wattage.
This is an old shelf that I repurposed to set my 600 Watt driver for the LED on top of. Those things get hot, and it is best to not have in your grow tent. Same thing for the HPS ballast.
After setting the HPS ballast on top of the tent, it was no problem at all to run the light socket into the tent.
It is very important to note, that these HID bulbs are no joke. They get very hot! It is crucial you do not get anything on the bulb, including your greasy ass hands.
So you all know I always take the opportunity to clean the tent when I take the plants out. I also took out an extra Humidifier I had, and then installed a fan that my mother gave me. I was pretty stoked. It is so perfect, don't you think? Having this extra fan allowed me to adjust the other fan in-between the light, and the canopy. This will help lower the temp.
Ok, here it goes. Let's fire this baby up!
Wow! This thing is Fing bright! Even more bright to my eyes when I had the LED powered to 600 Watts. But on the LED at least you could dim it, so it would not damage your eyes. Which I would say that is a benefit of a LED compared to a HPS. There is no way I could go on working with this light on, so I had to order some protective glasses.
So after 5 days with my HPS what are my thoughts? Well I was thinking it would be way hotter then what it is. So I am very pleased with that. I am also very surprised on how much brighter it seems then my previous light. But it is more about the spectrum, which for flower HPS has been the king ever since some guy said, "Hey, lets use a stadium light to grow a cannabis plant!"
The plants seem to be loving it as well! I am so happy they are not so sad looking like they where last week. I will be lowering it a little over the next few days to get it dialed in. Being a 400 Watter, I have more room, compared to someone with 1000 Watts. Those need to be hanged around 5 feet over the canopy from what I hear. Sit back, and buckle your seat belts fellow Weedcashers, this is going to be one fun ride! Let's just hope I can ride it out ;)
That thing looks super bright and powerful bro, and the installation and distance from the plants looks perfect. I think you're going to produce some massive buds with this set up, very nice job! The plants are definitely perking up and look fantastic with strong stalks.
I'm back to using that smaller tent for a small vegetation tent with high humidity and will have the big one 12/12 in about a month.
Thanks bro! And dude I was looking at your post now and was blown away on how big it was. For some reason I thought it was a 4x4 lol
But yeah I always wanted to use a hps, but always backed off the idea because I thought it would be to hot. I can’t wait to see what the buds will look like:)
In summertime when outside temp cross 30 Celsius my ventilation system works almost on maximum to maintain 27 Celsius inside my box.
Do you have hot summers also?
If yes cut holes and direct airflow and you have no worries :)
For this summer I upgraded my with importing air from room cooled by AC.
Before I had computer fan and conduct pipe filled with dry ice for cold air supply
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Those hoods are so nice!
How much dry ice did you use per day?
I was buying weekly one or two kg and next week on refill sometimes it would be some traces of ice and sometimes would be totally dry. I think that was connected with humidity inside box.
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HPS rules!!! I remember when you said that you have plans on using 400w HPS and now they are realized.
I just have need to say again that you should think of upgrade to 600W.
I started with 250W then 400W and when I bought 600W for first time I had full potential of plants.
Your box looks great and you have such a caring mother that she give you extra vent.
Also using cooltube and cyclic vent set to extract air through tube out of tent and cooling down a bulb gives you a posibility to regulate temp inside with decimal precision.
I never started using LED becouse HPS light was so much natural and never go inside without glasses and hat is also good thing to have.
I never got idea to put gloves for bulb operations, I would just wipe bulb after with cotton sheet.
I am so excited and cant wait to hear about diferences compared to LED.
One more tip, you can always use son-t pia+ bulbs for vegetation also.
Looking forward to next post :)))
Thanks! And yeah 600 watt hps are way more efficient as well. One day I just may. I actually found this light and ballast, which is why I went ahead and gave it a try. So glad I did, because honestly I never would of bought one. But for sure will now , depending on the bud quality, but I am sure it will be fire! Thanks again for your kind words:)
Cool that you find it. I am always for recycling abandoned things.Ballasts can work for many many years but thing with bulbs is that you need to change them after every periodic grow. They lose specter after predicted working hours. But they are not so expensive here so in states they should be more cheaper.
I forgot to ask before why level is important? I never cared for that and I have some memories where they used bells for reflection and bulb positioned vertical.
And yeah I bought a new bulb and the one that came with it is for backup. I hear having it unlevel can create a heat spots, I could be wrong though. Figured better be safe then sorry
I never cared about that but also I measured temp on three spots only so maybe I missed critical ones...In any case when leveled it looks more profesional ;)
Also I always used glass tubes and hoods seems much more practical. Tubes demand dust wipes almost every week.
Smart one to have one bulb in backup, just in case although only one bulb on ignition burned, and I changed a lot of them. And of course that she burned on Saturday night and I wasn't smart enough to have spare one. So consequence was that I for first time had hermaphrodites with lover buds full of seeds and upper ones normal without seeds :D
Oh shit! Yeah that would of sucked. When I first started growing I was using a cfl, then it burned out, and had to wait a couple days for a new one, granted it was only half the light burned, but I made sure to always have a spare after that, even for my leds.
That is super bright. Now I know why some of the pics being posted are "yellowish" in color.
Given the high wattage consumption of your HPS, I cannot help myself but think how efficient that is.
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Correct me if I am wrong but I think that LED for achieving HPS strength also consumpt high wattage only he is not producing so much heat like HPS.
I am using HPS 600W and with fans my monthly eletricity bills are 15$ higher.
That additional $15 a month is far lower than what I thought.
I don't know your eletricity prices, my Kw costs 0.18 $
Hell yeah it is. Hps is higher in the red spectrum of light, which creates an orange glow, it is actually kind of soothing, as long as the bulb is being blocked.
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Kickin' it old school.... I remember my father had them huge MH bulbs1 when I was a kid
hehe in beginigs we used MH for vegetation and we stealed them from street light pillars. Luckily nobody was killed by electricity. Now when I think about it we are very lucky for being alive.
Would love to try those out for veg one of these days!
Nice that is awesome that you got it installed, This will help a lot I am sure but dam that bulb is really small compared to what I have seen in the past
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Thanks bro! And pretty crazy on how powerful these bulbs are right ? That’s another reason to hang them high, to get better light spread, besides the heat ofcourse
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Gracious!
Old stuff might suck some time haha! Beautiful lights and the canopy.
Good wishes for @jonyoudyer , the future lucky dad 😊💚
Thanks man! And I don’t know, the guys before us really had some me special things going on. Like the real oh kush, and sour diesel fro. The early and mid 2000’s. I have yet to find anything that compares to those strains. Such a shame a lot of those cuts are being hoarded.
Yea @jonyoudyer , I too had some exotic stuffs and the best in the past but now just crawling for the ultimate one.
How long have you been growing?
It has been almost seven years or maybe more I believe.
Lol, I have the same poc with the view tru the glasses. GMTA!
LOL! I fell so cool in them, and especially since they fit right over my prescription glasses. Ill be rocking these on, and off the court ;)