spliff you were bashing people using aquarium bulbs to grow pot. the folks doing this are experimenting with floral recipes and getting some fairly impressive results doing so. amen to people thinking outside the box. i am happy you are in love with your inda grow. i agree its a quality product but not a 1000 watt replacement even if going watt for watt. you are correct the lights i used where the pro 400 models so i cant comment on how the 420s perform. i consistently run 4 plants under a 1000 watt hps thats an average of 250 watts per plant. i yield 6 to 8 oz per plant with a 3 to 4 week vedge time. all this while using 5 bucks worth of nutes and 25 bucks worth of soil and perlite... i average .7 to .8 grams per watt. yes its harder to cool the room and yes i replace the hps bulbs every 7 months but the expense in higher yield more then compensates for the increased yields. by your calculations your grow is at about .53 grams per watt. believe me i want nothing more then throwing away the 1000 watt dinosaur but it hasnt happened yet. i have tons invested in leds and they yield 1/3 less then my hps watt for watt. i also have a 400 watt cmh grow at the moment and look forward to the results.
lastly, i am getting a rechargeable maglite just to piss you off with its monster yields
that part about the rechargable maglite... i lol'd. -=o)
in regards to my last grow, that was (get ready for it) my first personal grow in over a decade; i took on legal status as my own grower in Feb of this year. in that decade of off time from hands-on, i helped others in their own gardens, and took botany, horticulture, crop soil science, propagation, organic gardening, etc classes.
on the point of the plants in the last harvest, the PDP was the only one to be properly scrogged, into a 18 inch by 24 inch grid. she put up 8 ounces on her own, being under the 420PAR that was on a light mover and covering 3 other plants. (so whats that, 105 watts?)
the other plants were about 1.5 to 2 ounces apiece, which i attribute to the fact that i was unable to get enough of the scrog grids in time for them; i had to use crappy tomato hoops on them - and i wasn't prepared for proper vertical growing.
so now, i have 2 420PARs for bloom. the plants all have their own scrogs on them, and they are in 7 gallon pots as opposed to 3s and 5s. i am anticipating 8-10 ounces a piece from 6 plants. from 840 watts.
don't let my choice of these lights fool you; i'm not made of money. the choice to get these lights was a family decision that took serious financial effort and discipline. aside from that, everything else in the garden is a work in progress.
and about the alleged "bashing" you are mentioning... are you referring to when i typed this:
you want a side-by-side putting a 420PAR vs your aquarium lights...? sorry. i use my hard earned funds to invest in quality lighting. you want to test the worthiness of fish lights for cannabis? please, get right on that.
i really don't read that to be bashing. someone said they wanted to see a side by side... well, thats fine. my response was more in the line of "do what ever you want" more so than "sure, i'll do that for you", or even "you're stupid for wanting that". i was just answering directly to him in that manner because the way i read his post (as it was directed at me) he was coming up and telling me what i needed to do. to me, he was all "i want this from them, i want this from you, i want this from someone else, then i can do blah blah blah and know what i want to know as a result of the effort of other people..." shit, lets be real. back at the beginning of this year, i was wanting to see side-by-sides of these PAR lamps vs HPS, and had the same issues as everyone else; there were no complete journaled grows that illustrated exactly what i wanted to understand. at some point i had to make up my mind was i gonna just sit there with a hand out and want want want, or was i going to actually do something about it that would lend itself to my own increase in knowledge. with no risk, comes no reward.
i know fish and reef lights aren't cheap, and i'm already stretched at this point. i just have very little interest in traditionally designed fluro tubes (t5, t8, t12, pll) that have inefficient electrode/end cap design that leads to short lifespans, and as such i have a very low interest as to if they are even worth using as supplementary lighting. go check out that Phoebus Cartel link - that's real shit, bro. maybe then you can come to see a bit of why i'm so anti-traditional lighting.
it's fine with me that people out there want to use aquarium lighting for whatever they want. i have noticed, however, that no production nursery i have ever seen uses aquarium lights. they are all about the same ole same ole MH and such... that being said, if he actually did the side by side... and found out something worthwhile, that would be great!
