Alternating mh & hps semiweekly during flowering

eachnewhour

eachnewhour

Well-Known Member
Email... thats a very very sweet ballast (never thought I'd call a ballast 'sweet'), and the reflector is very nice!
 
email468

email468

Well-Known Member
thanks eachnewhour - i really like it and wow! the difference in my plant growth/yield has been phenomenal. Of course that was going from a 50w MH to what i have now so any change would have been awesome.
 
pandabear

pandabear

Well-Known Member
guys i actually read that it is recomended to keep the MH on the plants for up to the first 3 weeks of flower. it will actually reduce streching and make your nodes tighter, i run my MH on them up to the 2nd week of flowering right when they start getting hairy you pop on the HPS, but leave you MH in for at least the first 2 weeks, and also give them a mix of veg and flower nutes for those 2 weeks, then switch to HPS and full flowering nutes.


yeilded me 1lb off of a 400watt light when i did it this way
 
B

bozley2g

Well-Known Member
Ya man I read that somewhere too, I think you can use it at the last week also to make them alittle tighter and more trics too If i'm not mistaken:mrgreen:.
 
email468

email468

Well-Known Member
i use both (600w HPS and a 400w MH) throughout the whole grow cycle. my plants tend to be both tight and bushy.
 
david6767

david6767

Well-Known Member
the lights seems very expensive there in the states. bought a 400w HPS light last week off of e bay, brand new, inc postage, ballast , shield and bulb $140. the lights also run both sorts of bulbs automatically with no need to adjust the ballast.

Is there no way you can order from UK or Holland?
 
email468

email468

Well-Known Member
david6767 said:
the lights seems very expensive there in the states. bought a 400w HPS light last week off of e bay, brand new, inc postage, ballast , shield and bulb $140. the lights also run both sorts of bulbs automatically with no need to adjust the ballast.

Is there no way you can order from UK or Holland?
Click to expand...
not the same thing -- there are plenty of switchable ballasts that can run both HPS and MH. this runs both at the same time. It has dual fixtures and the ballast has both HPS and MH wiring.
 
david6767

david6767

Well-Known Member
got ya

Anyone checked out the Solarmax 1 dual arc bulb - has a 400w MH and a 600w HPS filament in the same bulb ?
 
storzbickel

storzbickel

Well-Known Member
panda, thanks for jumping on the thread. your info is very useful.

now when you give your mix of nutes, do you just go 1/2 strenght of whatever your normal dose is for each? or what sort of mix do you use in comparision to the normal quantities of veg and flower?
 
Strider9880

Strider9880

Active Member
I didn't read every post incase someone else already said it but... you ever heard of a conversion bulb? it's a MH or hps bulb you can use in the opposite ballast. I used a 400watt MH conversion bulb and put it in my hps ballast, worked great.
 
FilthyFletch

FilthyFletch

Mr I Can Do That For Half
use an enhanced spectrum bulb to get both colors.Conversion bulbs are a good last resort but you loose a ton of lumnes.Compare a regular hps bulb with a conversion you loose almost 35% of the lumnes
 
eachnewhour

eachnewhour

Well-Known Member
Yeah, thanks panda for joining us. I will be using some MH during flowering for sure, like you said, plus some more, maybe at the end of flowering too.

The MH bulb is Philips HPI-T 400w and the HPS is a Philips Son-T Pia 400w. Ballast runs both just fine, one at a time though (wish I had email's ballast hehe).
 
pandabear

pandabear

Well-Known Member
i just got the regular 3 part general hydroponics nutes, but yea i use half of whatever the directions say then monitor and increase as needed. but on the directions it actually had the amounts for the following different stages:

Veg Micro Flower
Seedlings & Clones: 1/4Tsp 1/4Tsp 1/4tsp
Vegitative growth Mild: 1Tsp 1Tsp 1Tsp
Vegitative growing stage: 3Tsp 2Tsp 1Tsp
Transition to Flowering stage: 2Tsp 2Tsp 2Tsp
Flowering stage: 1Tsp 2Tsp 3Tsp Per Gallon


So i kinda mess around acoording to thier catagories, prolly with use veg growing nutes for first week of flower, then switch to the transition to flowering nute setting, then after the 2 weeks, of flowering with the mh i will prolly switch to HPS and full flowering nutes.

anyone think this is an ok method?, I have to say I have only one harvest under my belt.
 
eachnewhour

eachnewhour

Well-Known Member
Well, megabump on this one.
I haven't started my grow up until now, so here I am, about to try this out.

I'm 4 days into flowering C99 and NYC Diesel; three female C99 and two NYCD's which havent showed their sex yet. I plan to keep the MH on them til week 2, then I'm going to alternate every other week between MH and HPS. I'm also going to try the nute schedule pandabear talked about above here, something like that.

I have one question though, will alternating between mh and hps stress the plants? Will they need time to adjust?
 

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cheetah2007

cheetah2007

Well-Known Member
haha megabump.....btw plants looks healthy and bushy.my suggestion is to stick with the hps all the way throught the 12/12 cycle. Peace!!! Cheers!!! CheetaH
 
eachnewhour

eachnewhour

Well-Known Member
I know, but it's my first grow and I don't quite know how much they will grow in 12/12. I was just wondering if they look to small for flowering. They were pretty slow in veg state which lasted 6 weeks.
 
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