Growzilla?

I have a 600w mh running right now but want to go for more. I saw this hood

http://www.hydroasis.com/hy/productdetail.aspx?id=1001&product=growzilla-dual-bulb-reflector-by-hydrofarm

Any one worked with this hood? If so what have your experiences been? I figure I could just add another 600w hps and have both running. I know two separate reflectors would probably be ideal, but my tent doesnt really have the width and my tray is only 2x4

thanks for your input

anyone have any ideas?

I don't have any experience with it but if you don't have any more room for another hood than this looks like you only choice. As long as you are capable of keeping it cool than go for it. If I were in your shoes I would look into a glass cover for the lights as well. I also read that more than 4000 lumen per sq ft is unnecessary.

those work best on a light mover, if you leave it stationary all your light will be in one spot,so a 2x4 tray ? i would look in to a reflector that puts down a wide footprint instead of adding a light, the hydrofarm daystar is pretty good at that

dynamitejack said:

I don't have any experience with it but if you don't have any more room for another hood than this looks like you only choice. As long as you are capable of keeping it cool than go for it. If I were in your shoes I would look into a glass cover for the lights as well. I also read that more than 4000 lumen per sq ft is unnecessary.

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False. The sun produces more than that for normal plants, and outside plants THRIVE with all the extra lumens.

i think two 600's for a 2'x4' tray is overkill.

The lamp looks nice and it uses 2 lumitek digital ballasts however i think its nothing more than either a space saver or usefull with a mover or you could do multi spectrum with it easy enough by just replacing one of the hps bulbs with a mh. The only thing is that it seems steep on the price you could buy 2 600w aircooled fixtures for that kind of money no prob.

My comments about the amount of lumens per sq ft..
I have played with this alot and have been set as low as 1500 lumen per sq ft and as high as 7,000 per sq ft and yeah for me anyways the extra lumen benifit sorta toped out arround 4,000 per sq ft. I just didn't see any super noticable gains when I had almost double that 4k lumen. Yes of course the sun is more than 4,000 lumen per sq ft however its not just the amount of lumen that counts there are so many other variables and when you add all those up the plants are going to "take in" only the lumens that these other variables allow the plant to take in.

In other words if you allready have 4,000 lumen per sq ft and went to 8,000 lumen per sq ft your not going to have anywhere near double the yield. If you go buy enough light to double that 4k lumen then yield wise you would way way way better off to double the amount of plants and room space instead and this could then potentially double the yield.

how much of a benefit will running both hps and mh be for my plants and should I keep running both in flower or switch to to hps bulbs?

nexcare said:

False. The sun produces more than that for normal plants, and outside plants THRIVE with all the extra lumens.

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That doesn't mean that plants take in all of that light. Just because the Earth has an enormous amount of breathable air doesn't mean I need all of it to thrive. I can only use so much.

afm said:

how much of a benefit will running both hps and mh be for my plants and should I keep running both in flower or switch to to hps bulbs?

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I have just started experminting with a combo of HPS and MH in the bloom room. I have 5 HPS lamps and 1 MH in my bloom room for something new to try. After 3 weeks I could easily tell what plants were getting hit with the MH because they are bigger plant, thicker bud and the more time goes by the more those plants out do the ones getting only a little of the MH lamp. My grow is going better than ever however I am not sure how much differance the MH made because I added 1200w of light for this grow and that has to be the big reason for my improved results. I will continue to mess with this and thinking about trying it with 50% of each lamp instead of primarly hps and see what if any differances there are. The MH added with the HPS lamp just seems to give you a beter light spectrum for the plants.

Ok now for your situtation. Your tray is 2x4 a total of 8 sq ft and you should have 2,000 to 3,000 lumen per sq ft. I like to shoot for 4,000 lumen per sqft and going over that really hasnt given me much noticable benifit. You wouldnt need to have any more than 32,000 lumen for that area. 1 single 400w in this space would still be a little overkill but would be a good choice. You could fit that same area with 1 250w HPS and 1 250w MH if you wanted to try that out.

150w hps= 16,000 lumens,
250w hps= 25,600 lumens,
400w hps=50,000 lumens
600w hps = 90,000 lumens,
1000w hps = 140,000 lumens.

Thanks for all your input, I love this site

So heres my last question. Since the price of ballasts and bulbs are only a few bucks apart I figure I just got for the duel 600w setup so that later on if I have the opportunity to move to a bigger space I can have both lights in separate hoods. I get that for now the setup in one hood will be overkill, but will it be detrimental for my plants? I have really good ventilation and the temps consistently stay in the low 70s with the lights on so heat wont be an issue

If the the temp does not get too hot you would be fine. The sun is more lumens per sq ft than that overkill lamp would be, It wont be detrimintal to have an excess amount of light as long as an excess of heat doesnt come with it.

As for ballasts I love the digital ones, they run nice and cool compared to the old ballasts i have that you could fry an egg on. With you size room a 400w would be just fine. If you can keep a 600w lamp cool enough in there they are the more efficient lamps to burn with the most lumen per watt. If your going to buy 2 600w balasts now cause you found a deal on them go for it but I am not sure how easy it would be to keep it cool enough with 1200w in 8 sq ft. However its always nice to have extra fixtures bulbs and ballasts arround incase you need them.

dynamitejack said:

That doesn't mean that plants take in all of that light. Just because the Earth has an enormous amount of breathable air doesn't mean I need all of it to thrive. I can only use so much.

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Maybe not the top leaves, but the bottom nodes and such benefit greatly from an increase in lumen penetration.