Alternating MH Bulb and HPS Bulb - Benefits?

Well regardless I have a 400w High Pressure Sodium ballast and a 400w Metal Halide ballast so there is no denying the fact that I will be using both during flower. However, should I alternate the spots of each reflector during flowering or just leave them alone? The plants are now past stretch and trained to their final positions where they should pretty much stay.

Maybe every watering switch the two positions or even every three days or so? Daily?

I've just left them in the same place, running a ratio of 2:1 HPS:MH but i'm not opposed to moving them around every week. You'll see that there will be a bit of difference with the plants closest to HPS or MH. Since the wattages are the same, could I assume that one side is lit with the bulb in the center and the other bulb in the center of that area.. If thats the case I would alternate the bulb.

I've changed to a MH bulb at the end of flowering, good results however the ripening process was slowed.

400w mh is like 36000 lumens and 400w hps is 40000 I will probably try alternating

best answer is to spend 20 bucks and get another hps bulb that mh 400 watt almost pointless running it .

How is adding 36000 lumens "pointless" you are also adding the missing color spectrum (i know it's not required) but people still flower with 6500k. I have two HPS bulbs you can't run a HPS in a MH Ballast.

GrowerGoneWild said:

I've just left them in the same place, running a ratio of 2:1 HPS:MH but i'm not opposed to moving them around every week. You'll see that there will be a bit of difference with the plants closest to HPS or MH. Since the wattages are the same, could I assume that one side is lit with the bulb in the center and the other bulb in the center of that area.. If thats the case I would alternate the bulb.

I've changed to a MH bulb at the end of flowering, good results however the ripening process was slowed.

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I did hear about trying to use a 2:1 ratio before. Unfortunately i cannot do that

About a pound.

I wanna be the RIU gueini pig... I am actually considering using....

Week 1-4 2200k HPS
Week 4-5 2200k HPS & 6500K MH
Week 5-10 2200k HPS - 6500k MH - 10000k MH

I only hear about 10000k for last two weeks it couldnt do any harm to add more light could it? Even the weird color spectrum

saiyaneye said:

400w mh is like 36000 lumens and 400w hps is 40000 I will probably try alternating

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Its not about the lumens, its the quality of the light, MH has a different effect on plants vs HPS.

saiyaneye said:

How is adding 36000 lumens "pointless" you are also adding the missing color spectrum (i know it's not required) but people still flower with 6500k. I have two HPS bulbs you can't run a HPS in a MH Ballast.

Click to expand...

Ive been mixing mh/hps for years.. worked well for me..

saiyaneye said:

I wanna be the RIU gueini pig... I am actually considering using....

Week 1-4 2200k HPS
Week 4-5 2200k HPS & 6500K MH
Week 5-10 2200k HPS - 6500k MH - 10000k MH

I only hear about 10000k for last two weeks it couldnt do any harm to add more light could it? Even the weird color spectrum

Click to expand...

Its not exactly wierd, the high kelvin lights have UV in them.. If anything you are literally pushing the light spectrum in reverse of nature, not saying its a bad thing but from my experience, full spectrum and ending blue light at the end like the solis tek finisher bulb 10K made flowering longer.

I wouldn't be bombing them with a 1KW 10k finisher bulb at the end either. Cook those terpenes right outta there.

It would be
400w HPS
400w MH
400w MH (10000k) Would it effect the terpenes?

saiyaneye said:

I wanna be the RIU gueini pig... I am actually considering using....

Week 1-4 2200k HPS
Week 4-5 2200k HPS & 6500K MH
Week 5-10 2200k HPS - 6500k MH - 10000k MH

I only hear about 10000k for last two weeks it couldnt do any harm to add more light could it? Even the weird color spectrum

Click to expand...

If you're going to use both(which I don't have a problem with) I would use mh only for the 1st 2 weeks of flower. The plant will be stretching and the mh will help to keep the nodes tighter. Then you can add the hps after the stretch to help encourage flower production.

I have 2 trays running side bye side 1 is lit with MH and the other is lit with HPS..The mh side the plants did not streach much and are in heavy flower while the hps side are twice as tall and in heavy flower...the MH side are very frosty in comparison