Things to Know About Lighting

gloombird

gloombird

Member
I noticed how LED lighting was left off of the general overview of lightin systems. They should be between flourescent and incandescent, as they are mostly useless. I've had some success, but mostly light starved plants. They seem ok in the late stages of reproductive growth. They might be the future, but the future is not now. Stick with HPS etc...
:wall:
 
Kasper8124

Kasper8124

Member
Im using 2 250 HPS lights as of now. one light is starting to get a black ring around the base of the light. how long do these bulbs last usually ?
 
Grim187

Grim187

Member
Kasper8124 said:
Im using 2 250 HPS lights as of now. one light is starting to get a black ring around the base of the light. how long do these bulbs last usually ?
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iirc you should replace them every 6 months.



i dident see any mention of leds in the first post so i thought i would show you guys my flowering light.

its a 50watt 100 led board, its produces 121 lumen's per watt @ a 40° angle.

i still haven't hung it in my flowering room yet (waiting on vegetative growth), i have 2 x 25watt 50 led boards in my vegetative room (both rooms are 4' x 4').

the ones i built do require a ac to dc power supply but you can make them to run off of just ac power like this one.

not to mention most leds have a 150,000 hr life!

so for me atleast this was the perfect lighting setup for me.

overall budget for the lights i build was around $120 + about 3 days of work.
 

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Budlong

Budlong

Active Member
I have not been on rollitup since '07, but I am doing so now to inform anyone reading this. Do not waste your money on an LED system. I just finished a first grow with a 120 Watt tri-band, state of the art, LED grow light, purchased from a reputable company. It really is well made and I'm sure will last forever, but don't bother. I spent $300 on it, and changed out my 400W HPS in the middle of veg. At first everything looked great. The leaves were beutiful green during the end of veg. When I went to flower, the buds started OK and looked great, but then nothing. No Yeild. Zippo, Nada... Maybe 1 oz compared to 5 or 6oz with HPS in my particluar set-up Please take my advise. I am now changing back to my 400W HPS. I really wanted to believe in this technology for the reasons well advertized, i.e., less power, cooler, no identifiable radiation signature... Based on what I learned I would use only for veg, but I'm not convinced it would be any better than cfls.
 
afrawfraw

afrawfraw

Well-Known Member
TreeOfLiberty said:
This is what irritates me a lot, you always see people talking about the color of light as in KELVINS, as if its what determines the outcome of getting HUGE BUDS, it doesn't !

It's the LUMENS !!! increase the LUMENS and the buds will come when you start 12/12 cycle.

I learned this was THE MOST IMPORTANT thing as a newbie grower when I started growing in 2007. Whether its with an HPS, MH , or Fluoros , add up the LUMENS and the buds will come. I see too many people focus on KELVINS on just about every freakin grow site on the web.

And I have vegged with both 6400 Kelvin and 3400 Kelvin T 12 (40 watt ) tube fluorescent lights, plants always grew faster and bigger with MORE lights ,which resulted in MORE LUMENS.

Kelvin is just a color spectrum of the light, the higher the Kelvin number is supposed to be better for green growth and the lower the Kelvin number is supposed to be better for flowering, but the short and simple answer that matters the most is LUMENS. More LUMENS equals more bud.

A lot of newbies are mislead thinking Kelvins is what matters the most, it bothers me to see them mislead.
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YES! And to take it a step further, all light sources have lumen bleed at different rates. (Also reffered to as "Penetration".)

A 432w new wave T5 4-8 produces about 40,000 lumen's.
Now let's suppose we put a MH lamp at the same elevation putting out 40,000 lumens.

At 24" away from the bulbs surface (After all, the lumen's rating is from the bulb surface) the MH will have more lumens than the T5. But the MH will run hotter. This is what people need to understand.
 
afrawfraw

afrawfraw

Well-Known Member
tabsman said:
so i use 1x 1000 watt for flowering and 1x 1000 watt for veg now how many plants are able to grow under each
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It's up to you. Personally I would Veg 4 plants under the MH for 2 months, then put 2 plants at a time under the HPS for flowering. Or, you could veg 8 plants for a month, then 4 at a time for flowering because they're smaller. Make sense?
 
T

tabsman

Member
i have a 6 ft wx6 ft lx7 FT h flower room and have 18 in there and the same for veg and usually get 2pnds but only the tops get big and was just wondering why i cant get bigger plants so i guess i have too many in there?
 
afrawfraw

afrawfraw

Well-Known Member
tabsman said:
i have a 6 ft wx6 ft lx7 FT h flower room and have 18 in there and the same for veg and usually get 2pnds but only the tops get big and was just wondering why i cant get bigger plants so i guess i have too many in there?
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Check out my journal to see proper spacing. And even these guys are crowded, but I don't have a lot of room.
 
Meethrip

Meethrip

Member
Hey, ummm, hoping someone could give me some advice here.

Going to be using a 4ft high, 2ft wide and 2ft long grow box, one plant.

Was thinking of using a 50 watt High pressure sodium lamp, you think that 50 watt hps will be enough for one plant in that size room?

Taking any suggestions.

Thanks,

Meeth
 
afrawfraw

afrawfraw

Well-Known Member
18" to 24" until they are 5-10 cm. But a MH or T5 whites would be better. Orange lights are good for flowering, not veg...
 
afrawfraw

afrawfraw

Well-Known Member
afrawfraw said:
18" to 24" until they are 5-10 cm. But a MH or T5 whites would be better. Orange lights are good for flowering, not veg...
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grow man said:
will the hps work good?
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I take it you don't have a source of white light. HPS will grow vegging weeds, but white is more productive...

Maybe a couple 65w CFL's off to the side?

Make sure they are 6500K...

And when you get cash, invest in a T5 light. They work great! (See signature)
 
J

jimmyjack88

Member
I am 50years old got my card and have had such fun growing. I am in flowering stage the first 3 days. My plants look like text school short but wide. I am using now T5 badboy 4X4 vertical, One HPS 250 watts up high like 2 feet,
and one UFO 90 watt LED (blue and red ) My plants look like mint leaves and are all togather in 3 large ceramic pots. Again I am stupid about growing but bought Nirvana seeds AK 38, El Dorado, and a couple more.I over watered but got over it. I started my plants with an aerogrower(like on TV!) my plants are just getting into the flowering stage. They look so healthy but got mystery seeds from Nirvana. I planted them. They grew. When can I tell if I have only females? I see no balls?
 
Brick Top

Brick Top

New Member
jimmyjack88 said:
I am 50years old got my card and have had such fun growing. I am in flowering stage the first 3 days. My plants look like text school short but wide. I am using now T5 badboy 4X4 vertical, One HPS 250 watts up high like 2 feet,
and one UFO 90 watt LED (blue and red ) My plants look like mint leaves and are all togather in 3 large ceramic pots. Again I am stupid about growing but bought Nirvana seeds AK 38, El Dorado, and a couple more.I over watered but got over it. I started my plants with an aerogrower(like on TV!) my plants are just getting into the flowering stage. They look so healthy but got mystery seeds from Nirvana. I planted them. They grew. When can I tell if I have only females? I see no balls?
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The T-5 and UFO must be working wonders because a 250-watt HID light only gives you about 18 inches of decent quality light and below that the rays are weak and anything living in them is living in a low light situation. If it works for you, stick with it, but if it were me … I would get that 250-watter much closer to the plant tops and keep is as close as I could at all times.


You asked; “Again I am stupid about growing but bought Nirvana seeds….” and went on to mention strain names and slight over watering so I was unsure to what you were asking if you were possibly stupid for something or another. If by chance you were asking about the wisdom about purchasing from Nirvana, I will only say that there are numerous far better options to choose from and doing so next time would not be an injudicious thing for you to do.

You also asked; “When can I tell if I have only females? I see no balls?” How eloquent of you. (JOKE)

Depending on your setup and how you are growing like some you might possibly leave your plants in the vegetative growth phase long enough for them to develop sexual preflowers prior to a light cycle change. If so you then look at the sexual preflowers.

If you do not veg that long after you change from a vegetative growth light cycle to a flowering light cycle it will stimulate a hormone in plants and they will then begin to flower, naturally first showing sexual preflowers. It can take a full two weeks of a flowering light cycle before a plants flowering hormones will fully kick in and of course to some degree genetic differences and conditional differences can slightly alter time for the exact same strain when grown in one setup or another … but normally you should not have to wait longer than two weeks, if that, after changing to a flowering light cycle to see sexual preflowers forming and telling you if you have males, females or some combination of each.
 
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