Combined LED and HPS Grow

aphrodisia said:

Good luck with your breeding project, its always been something I wanted to do myself but Im very limited in my grow space plus having to be a stealth grow doesn't leave me with much room. The BLZ Bud is a 3 way cross of trainwreck, silver haze and G13 and its the bomb. Cures to a lovely dark brown that kind of reminds me of a really good chocolate thai. You seem to like TGA strains, have you ever grown their agent orange ? Its one of the strains Im looking into although Ive already got more seeds than Im ever likely to grow out, being a bit of a seed collector.

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Thanks, not new to it, just been a long time. BLZ's on the list, sounds like a nice combo of strains there. This JTR was the first TGA strain I ran, my son was running AoS and happened to have a male so I "saved" it, he was going to chuck it Really just getting back into breeding, it's been a long time since I did any, my ex was not 420 friendly (one of many, many reasons she's my ex - lol) so I did guerrilla outdoor grows for many years. With outdoor I'd grow a mother or two that I wanted to grow then everything going into the ground was clones, it's just more productive and safer that way, throwing seeds in and hoping you don't get a male that pollinates your whole crop is a huge gamble. I'd run 2-3 sites and hope for the best, at least 1 always worked out, that's the beauty of growing a "weed". When I came indoor last year I ran clones first couple of test runs and just started collecting seeds in the fall. As you can see I don't f'around, if I get into something, I'm all-in or nothing, kind of like when I play poker

Time for another quick update. They are still doing their thing and coming along nicely. Beginning to look impressive. Im quite impressed with the NL#5 x Haze. Its growing exactly as described by sensi seeds and I think if you were to grow this with sufficient wattage and space given to it you could easily pull a half pound of buds off one plant.


day 38 of flowering and the buds are forming nicely.

Day 40 and buds are developing nicely. You can literally see the difference a couple of days makes


The NL#5 x Haze is very gooey and sticky with some big buds forming, followed by the sugarpunch. Will have a better idea in the next couple of weeks what the yield is going to be like.

I know I have been promising to put up pics of the plants without lights on and I am finally doing so. Sorry if they are slightly close up but it was dark in there and I couldn't see to position my camera correctly. Hope the brief exposure to light in their dark period wont throw them off too much.


day 42 of flower. Exactly 6 weeks old



I think this is definitely a case of the 250w HPS lamp supplementing the Vipar v300 LED. I have been growing with the 250w HPS on its own for the past 2 years and never in that time have I seen such explosive bud formation as I am seeing now using it with the LED. Normally with the 250w HPS you get loads of stretching with loads of bare stem in between nodes, and while it does the job the bud formation is mainly at the apex of the branches with scraggly bits lower down the branches. As you can see from the pics using a combination of LEDs and HPS to provide the radiant heat does wonders for bud formation.

Looking great, nice bushy/tight nodes and lots of bud, very nice, should be a nice haul

GroErr said:

Looking great, nice bushy/tight nodes and lots of bud, very nice, should be a nice haul

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Thanks GroErr. Just loving the way they are looking at the moment. The BLZ Bud is a week behind the others and is the tallest at the moment with the least amount of buds but I reckon by the time shes done she will have filled out.
More bud porn for your viewing pleasure.

Yeah, the combo seems to be working I'm just looking around, verifying some specs and will have some new lights for flowering going in the next 2-3 weeks. Just vegging out some Blueberry, PPP, and JTR while I settle on a new setup. If GEL confirms their Ceramatek ballast will run on 120v, my first choice will be their 375W Ceramatek CMH retrofit kit. That combo looks about the most efficient out there right now, on paper anyhow, not a lot of grows that I've seen, a bit of a chance but looks awesome. If that falls through I'll likely speed up a DIY LED project using the Cree CXA-3070 series as they seem to be the most efficient right now.

GroErr said:

Yeah, the combo seems to be working I'm just looking around, verifying some specs and will have some new lights for flowering going in the next 2-3 weeks. Just vegging out some Blueberry, PPP, and JTR while I settle on a new setup. If GEL confirms their Ceramatek ballast will run on 120v, my first choice will be their 375W Ceramatek CMH retrofit kit. That combo looks about the most efficient out there right now, on paper anyhow, not a lot of grows that I've seen, a bit of a chance but looks awesome. If that falls through I'll likely speed up a DIY LED project using the Cree CXA-3070 series as they seem to be the most efficient right now.

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There are some lights I came across by chance on the internet you may find interesting. They are called the Gavitas Pro I believe and come in 300w and 1000w formats supposed to be the bees knees. I think they might be plasma lights.

Thanks, have looked a them. They're supposedly good lights/top of the line, but these Ceramatek are even better apparently, expensive, but in the end if they work as claimed, they're almost like having all the benefits of LED (low operational costs, less heat than hps, extremely long bulb life) with the productivity of hps, they're colour/spectrum has an almost perfect chart for mj if they produce what they claim. They cost about $500 for a 375W actual output, cost of say an A51 150-190W panel. Supposedly output as much as a 1000W hps, although that's of course a manufacturer claim, but if they can equal the output of say a 600W hps, but pull only 395W including the ballast, maintain their long life, it's a steal for $500. It would cost me more to build a DIY LED to match it. The DIY LED is still in the works as I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket, plus it'll be easy to manage the heat with one CMH and 400W of LED, one of each will max out my flower room but keep it manageable year-round. I'm hoping they come back saying it'll run on 120v, even if not I'm considering running a 240v circuit as it's more efficient and I have the room in my panel to add a 240v/20A circuit, would rather avoid it but will probably do it if these only run on 240v. I've tried the low-end, now interested to see what the high-end can produce in comparison

GroErr said:

Yeah, the combo seems to be working I'm just looking around, verifying some specs and will have some new lights for flowering going in the next 2-3 weeks. Just vegging out some Blueberry, PPP, and JTR while I settle on a new setup. If GEL confirms their Ceramatek ballast will run on 120v, my first choice will be their 375W Ceramatek CMH retrofit kit. That combo looks about the most efficient out there right now, on paper anyhow, not a lot of grows that I've seen, a bit of a chance but looks awesome. If that falls through I'll likely speed up a DIY LED project using the Cree CXA-3070 series as they seem to be the most efficient right now.

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you'll be the first that I know of using that specific kit.............pretty excited to see it!...........also can you ask them who makes that 375w cmh bulb??

btw nice grow aphro

PSUAGRO. said:

you'll be the first that I know of using that specific kit.............pretty excited to see it!...........also can you ask them who makes that 375w cmh bulb??

btw nice grow aphro

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lol, pretty excited to get one going! Good question, been trying to determine that for replacement availability and pricing should one fail, better not but gotta have a backup Busy week so just got an email off to them this morning, will ask them for bulb details/info when they respond.

Subbed, can't wait to see the Vipar and HPS working together, I'm running the V300 as well but due to heat problems my "supplemental HPS" is a Vipar V240 instead lol!

Since I started this grow diary as a sort of online grow diary I figure I might as well post a few choice pics for now.

This looks great not really seen many people posting grow diaries where they are using both and i was going to try this by suplimenting a mates 600w hps with 4 of my 100w custom led panels as i thought both led and hps have there benefits and combined like you are showing will get some great results, keep up the good work

Looking really nice there! How tall is the grow area? I've only got 1.5m to play with so I've not been able to let mine grow upwards, scrog'd first two grows but trying vertical scrog this time to basically let it grow vertical all it wants but on my terms lol.
I'm changing the order with Vipar from the Cob C180 to the C400 to use it as the main overhead light.

My V240 is now the designated guinea pig unit to see if I can put my experience building/overclocking and cooling hi spec gaming PC's to some use with these lights. I've had a quick look inside and with a bit of adapting I'm pretty sure I can get an independently powered sealed system CPU liquid cooler attached to the unit to provide a good 20% + reduction in running temperatures. Just a guesstimate and I won't be turbocharging the actual LED's, the main aim would be to have more led units in the tent running cooler than before I'll be doing a thread on my experiment when I get started in the Autumn.

Anyway, not wishing to hijack the thread, here's a few pics of the set up atm and the plant 4 weeks from seed;


Centre pic is just there because it looks fricking cool and I'm a bit mashed on NL 3 month cured that I forgot I had!

pedrovski said:

This looks great not really seen many people posting grow diaries where they are using both and i was going to try this by suplimenting a mates 600w hps with 4 of my 100w custom led panels as i thought both led and hps have there benefits and combined like you are showing will get some great results, keep up the good work

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Thanks pedrovski and welcome to the thread. Yeah like you I couldn't find too many threads where both were used together so I decided to post one here that others may find useful and the results have been great so far. It might not please the purists out there who are solely for HPS or Led but I grow for results and results only and so far Im happy with how they are coming along.

bilbo182 said:

Looking really nice there! How tall is the grow area? I've only got 1.5m to play with so I've not been able to let mine grow upwards, scrog'd first two grows but trying vertical scrog this time to basically let it grow vertical all it wants but on my terms lol.
I'm changing the order with Vipar from the Cob C180 to the C400 to use it as the main overhead light.

My V240 is now the designated guinea pig unit to see if I can put my experience building/overclocking and cooling hi spec gaming PC's to some use with these lights. I've had a quick look inside and with a bit of adapting I'm pretty sure I can get an independently powered sealed system CPU liquid cooler attached to the unit to provide a good 20% + reduction in running temperatures. Just a guesstimate and I won't be turbocharging the actual LED's, the main aim would be to have more led units in the tent running cooler than before I'll be doing a thread on my experiment when I get started in the Autumn.

Anyway, not wishing to hijack the thread, here's a few pics of the set up atm and the plant 4 weeks from seed;
View attachment 3180217 View attachment 3180218 View attachment 3180219

Centre pic is just there because it looks fricking cool and I'm a bit mashed on NL 3 month cured that I forgot I had!

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Thanks for dropping in Bilbo. No I don't mind your pics (nice set up by the way) the more the merrier. Im using a persy grow box from the persy grow shop in Brighton. It comes with a 250w HPS and its over 5ft high so allowing for the lights it gives you a fair amount of head space as long as you don't veg too long. Regarding your set up is it ok to tilt the LEDs at an angle like you do ? I think someone posted somewhere that you shouldn't tilt them although I cant see any reason why not to.
Interesting experiment you are planning there and I was wondering why not try your hand at building your own lights while you are at it.

One of my timers has been playing up. I set the LEDs to come on at 6 in the evenings and I notice it always clicks on like 10 minutes or so early so now Ive swapped the timer for the one controlling the fan and hope that keeps better time. I just hope the slight variation hasn't messed up their growth.

aphrodisia said:

One of my timers has been playing up. I set the LEDs to come on at 6 in the evenings and I notice it always clicks on like 10 minutes or so early so now Ive swapped the timer for the one controlling the fan and hope that keeps better time. I just hope the slight variation hasn't messed up their growth.

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I grew auto's on my first grow, ordered them by accident but after the long period of boredom growing 12/12 non autos that throw a hissy fit if I go near them in the dark I'm back on autos on purpose. I'm going to try DWC so I can keep the lights on 20/4 permanently and have plants at different stages of growth in the same tent. Probably just use fem non autos for the last grow of each season, I've kind of split my year into two 5 month grow seasons to give me a month to mess about with setup/go on holiday/etc. at the end of each season. I can see why autos are disliked but as a matter of practicality they suit me fine