1000watts = 4x250watts

im wondering if 1 could replace my 1x1000watt HPS with 4x250watt HPS lights. or is 1 HPS ballast able to run more than 1 light if the lightbulbs total watts are equal to the output of the ballast?

Whats the Lumen output on the 250 you are planning to buy? Compare that with the 1k *roughly 120k lumens*. Take into consideration heat and how much of a hassle it would be to move 4 lights instead of one, also you would have to keep the 250s closer to the plants *like 4 inches or so*

4 250w hps are not the way to go if you are trying to replace you 1000w. Why do you want to change your light anyways? The 1000 is a great light that if properly coolded will produce buds the size of your forarms. If heat is an issue look into 600w digital system. They are great and with a good bulb can produce within 5% usable light as with a 1000w magnetic ballast. I just bought one and it puts of little heat as in compaired to the 1000w magnetic ballast. Hope this helps~
peace

im thinking about trying something i saw on this site called BOG. ill link at the end of post. he is pulling alil more than .5 grams per watt. doing it his way. i have an extra 1000watt ballast so i was wanting to replace that 1, 1ooo watt bulb with 4, 250 watt bulbs. so i could get 4 grows going in a BOG style.
i dont know what the luman output is on a 250 watt HPS light is, but ive been useing 150,000 luman hortilux eye bulbs so far.
the ballast i want to use for this is my magnetic ballast. i have a digital ballast that i use for the crop thats going now. the magnetic ballast is just a backup if my digital poops out on me.
https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/5535-new-system-growing-indoors.html

Yeah I still am not to sure of this Barrel of Green stuff. Having more than one plant per pot goes agianst everything I have researched, read, and grow by. Good luck with that. And plus I have seen more efficent ways of growing and more grams per watt. Yeah .5 per watts isnt bad...but its not the holy grail...... i sure as hell wouldnt buy a bunch of 250w hps lights to max out at .5 per watt!!! just some food for thought.

by his math i should be able to get alil more than a pound from my 1000watt ballast. and be able to do that with 16 plants. right now ive got 24 growing under a 1000watt hps and might get 10ozs. im not saying .5 grams per watt is the end all be all of growing but its a hell of a jump from what ive got now.
i too have read all about not haveing more than 1 plant per container, but i really dont see how it could be that bad to do it,,,, if you start with good female clones and grow them very small.
im just a bottom line kinda guy and pulling 10ozs from 1000watts vs pulling alil more than a pound has my eyebrow raised alil bit. i know 10ozs from a 1000watt light is kinda sad but it was my first hydro grow, and i picked a bad strain for indoors.
i want to try the BOG idea but with a few changes like no soil. seems easily tweaked into a hydro setup. that would do away with all the worries of more than 1 plant per pot, and injected CO2. seems perfect for both.

Wow instead of changing lights I would just try to improve on your mistakes. A pound with a 1000w light should be a task that is done with ease. Not knocking you or anything, just so you dont think I am. I grew 6 NL and got over a pound from a 1000w HPS. Have you ever tried soil?? Little more forgiving.

I think you have been baffled.

Unless you are restricted by height requirements or have an odly shaped grow room I would stick with 1000W. As for putting 4 250s on a 1000 ballast thats a good question, with floresents you can run multiple bulbs off of one ballast so I would lean towards the; It probably wouldnt blow up side.

So with that out of the way, your low yeilds are probably from going Hydro with little experiance. Hydro is very touchy and takes alot of trial and error before you will see the yeilds it can produce. As well the strain you use will make a big diffrence in yoour end results. Some plants have better yeild with less potency and vice vers.

To the point. If you dont have many grows under your belt dont start switchin shit up on your self now. Stick with what youve done so far and figure out where your weak points are. There are 3 main factors Light, CO2, and Nutriants and you have to Experiment, Experiance, and Learn to ballance them for the high yeilds.

Happy Growing

were you saying to wire 4 250 w bulbs to a 1k ballast? if so you will be out some bulbs and probably hurt that ballast. the bulbs will burn out in a few seconds with the pulse from a 1 k ballast. and a ballast is not designed to run more than 1 bulb period

Oh man I thought he wanted to go a buy 4 400w ballasts. Yeah that shit aint gonna happen using only one ballast. Dude the more I think about that BOG the more I begin to think about its flaws...its not worht it unless you are trying to grow very little amounts. Plus with a 250hps your buds are not gonna be that great...comapired to a 600 or 1000. I mean better due to the density differences. Stick with the 1000w and maybe try at soil; something a little more forgiving. Good luck man!!!

also as a 1k farmer i burn 2 hps 1k ligts in 5x10x7 with 26 4 foot plants i would harvest over 69 ounces dry

with the same light and clones doing 16 5 foot plants i harvested 61 ounces

more space you give a plant the better it will build bud sets

69x 350 oz = cha ching

lights for 65 days flower and 33 veg 385.00
food and soil 425.00 for both phases

i have never used the sea of green nore do i think it produces the bud sets that a mature plant can develope. however the taller ladies i grow dont produce lower bud sets very well wen crammed in.

i have a batch of these same clones that were topped in veg room @ 1.5 foot. i can assure you with the yeild will be closer to 100 ounces off 26 plants. most of these have 4 16 inch colas @ 3.5 weeks of flower. there is about 18 premium bud sets on these. in my market people pay huge premiums for tops.

if you want more insight on 1k farming pm me. think you can cut and prune yourself to the yeild you want rather than making 200 tiny plants. or what ever the number.

oook first off thanx for all the replys.
i know my yeild is sucking so far, but the 10ozs is just a ballpark guess. the plants are in week 5 of flowering and just dont seem to be filling out like i would like. the strain is pure power plant from nirvana. they are just to lanky to get a decent yeild from a 3' tall plant. dont get me wrong these plants look happy and are starting to fill out some, but not as much or as fast as i expected with hydro. and i tried a few things that didnt work out at all,, like topping and super croping. all that i got for doing that stuff was shocked slow growing plants.
im not a noob grower by any means. ive grown outside for almost 13 years. but this is my first full on hydro grow from start to finish. ive made up a ton-o-clones useing hydro to start my plants but always planted outside. maybe im just expecting to much to soon from hydro. we'll see i guess.
also my grow room is a funky shape its 8' at the tallest point and gets down to 4' within 4' on a 45 degree angle.
/\ __
/ | \ |
/ | \ |
/ | \ 8'
| V | F | __ |
| E | L | | |
| G | O | | | <<<<<<mad computer skills at work lol
| | W | 4' |
|____ |_ER_| _|_ _|_

|----8'-----|
but back to the question at at hand,"could replace my 1x1000watt HPS with 4x250watt HPS lights?" i bought a multitap ballast that i had to wire up. it came with instuctions and in that lil book it shows how to wire up 2 500watt bulbs inplace of 1 1000watt. more to the point of what i shouldve asked is, has any1 tried to run 4 250watt bulbs from 1 1000watt ballast?
if nothing else if i am able to run 4 bulbs from that 1 ballast it would make for some great side lights.

^^^^^^^^ well that didnt come out right at all lmao looks like a bomb went off in my grow room

th3bigbad said:

^^^^^^^^ well that didnt come out right at all lmao looks like a bomb went off in my grow room

Click to expand...

LMAO!! Good luck with whatever you try and work out man.

Dude stick to the 1k...u wont regret it..

ok maybe yall can help me out with figureing exactly what im doing wrong then. ill tell ya what im working with and how i have done things so far. cuz i think by now my plants should be much bigger than they are.
ive got 1 large room 6'x8' "sealed" room. ive split it into 2 smaller rooms the flower room is 3'x6', and 5'x6' for the veg/clones. i store all the nutes and other crap with on the veg side so i only really use about 4'x2' for the plants.
the flowering room has 2, 50 gallon bubbler totes with 12 plants in each. 1, 1000watt HPS hortilux bulb in a cool tube for the main light and 4, 4' florosfor side lighting. these totes have 4 air pumps and 4, 24" air curtains. the plants are in 5" net pots with hydroton covering the 2" rockwool. im useing general hydroponic 3 part@ 1350 PPM and keep the ph from 5.6 to 6.0 at its highest. i add extra CO2 with the sugar water mix. the only additives im useing are diamond nector and carboload (just started those this week).
for veg room i have 1, 15 gallon "underbed" tote (the 1 in my avitar) for new clones. it holds 12 plants, and has 4, 4' floros for lighting. then under that i have 2, 25 gallon totes with 6 plants in each, and 6, 4' floros. all totes have atleast 2 air pumps and 2, 24" air curtains. i have no probs cloneing at all, and none to speak or in veg aswell. i keep the ph the same as my flowering plants and the PPMs i add as needed to keep them a nice bright green. all my temps are controled with the water temp staying around 66 +/-3, and the room temp holds at 80.
my prob is flowering. the room is completely 100% light tight. the plants show sex fast, but never really grew like they should. they might get 2" or 3" taller each week. they didnt have that reach for the sky effect when the started to flower.all the roots are white as can be and the plants dont seem to be lacking in any nutes. this strain doesnt seem to take high nutes well at all. the highest i could get without burning in veg was 650 and that was on 6 week old 18" plants.
all i have done to the plants was i veg 18/6 untill they got to 18ish". i topped about 4" off and had my clones. i let them veg for about 2 more weeks to get over the shock. then i put them under my HPS at 12/12 with the light about 3' over the plants. i lowered it every other day untill it was about 1' over the plants and it has stayed at 1' over since then.i started my flowering nutes at 1000PPMs and upped it untill the leaves turned a dark shade of green @1450PPMs, then back it down to 1350PPMs.
thats it,,, thats all ive done. ill toss some pics up on here and maybe yall can see something im not.
thanx for all the help

VVVVVV these start at the topping and end at 1 week into flowering,,,3 weeks of growth

VVVV these are weeks 1 and 2 of flowering.

VVV from 2 weeks until now at 5 weeks into flowering.

O if they could all explain their setup this well

First off props on your setup. Seems to me you just picked the wrong strain. They look great just a little streched if anything. Also it looks like you could fit 5 more in the flower lid , more plants = more yeild

What strain are they?