Hoods, bulbs & yeild

I've been growing for several years now. I've done dwc, aero, flood and drain, soil and Coco. I'm currently using Coco on drip irrigation. I use a burner and minisplit. Gh 3 part, Bennie's, open wings and plantmax bulbs. Now i do ok. I average 20oz per light. The more plants the better. But Ive never gotten over 24oz per light. Unless I shove 64 clones into a flood table lol.

Now my nugs are big, just never dense. Always fluffy n delicious. But not airy. So I ran two lights literally right next to each other and everything changed. What would be 4 oz in volume weighed a pound. About half a freezer bag. Wow right! So I figured it's my lights. I couldn't image getting 2+ a light. Which is my goal here. I've recently expanded my canopy and counts a bit from 9 in 4x4 to 16 in 5x5 which I'm hoping will help. Won't know for two months.

So I guess I'm asking for opinions if I should spend the money on new hoods or bulbs. Now I think that it will increase my output somewhat, but to what extent? is it really a game changer? If so, what do you use/recommend? gavitas? Raptors? Double end? Hortilux?

Thanks guys

Peace Love n Respect

Jay

Yip ...plants do grow

so does the growers knowledge

IMO go LED. Cob(DIY)

bleed baby

good luck

I've never been into led tbh.

N After doing more research I'm "told" that yes the hortilux bulbs put out more blue light than most others but fairly equals amount of red. I was told not to expect much change between hortilux and plantmax in terms of yeild with brand new bulbs. But It would probably be more feasible to replace plantmax bulbs every 2-3 cycles instead of annually.

Now hoods seem to be harder to find good info on..

Anyone use raptor xl hoods or parabolic reflectors?

Any opinions on hortilux vs plantmax?

some where on YT is a great comparison I prefer phillips Son-T/hps

but only use Ushio bulbs on my M/h due to cost, but is old school these days

as for hoods look for Cervantes vids, from memory he says the parabolic reflectors hold heat

good luck

jayjay777 said:

I've never been into led tbh.

N After doing more research I'm "told" that yes the hortilux bulbs put out more blue light than most others but fairly equals amount of red. I was told not to expect much change between hortilux and plantmax in terms of yeild with brand new bulbs. But It would probably be more feasible to replace plantmax bulbs every 2-3 cycles instead of annually.

Now hoods seem to be harder to find good info on..

Anyone use raptor xl hoods or parabolic reflectors?

Any opinions on hortilux vs plantmax?

Click to expand...

Growers house did a comparison and shows Hortilux as much as 15% higher par than the next competitor.

And greeners hydroponics showed a comparison between all major reflectors.

The radiant and the blockbuster put down the most light for the money. The Luxor is king.

I use blockbusters but they are a direct down reflector. My 600's give me 3.5 feet square. 1000 gives 4x4.

If you want more spread than intensity an xl type good is for that.

Hope this helps. I don't have time to search for the articles and graphs right now but are on the websites I mentioned.

Thanks for the info. I'll look into it... I'm considering running my own tests...

And I will say, I don't understand how people raise there lights so high and still allegedly get those types of numbers... I've always done best in the 12-18' range. I see people with there lights 36-48" above and I understand the concept. I guess I'm just scared to try it. Think it's time I do some r&d.

Point being of this post, I get the volume of buds but I lack the density. But I recently tried 2000 watts in a 4x4 area and the density was 4x greater so it has to be the lighting.

Time will tell...

I already upped my counts and perimeter, gonna get new bulbs and see.

Any more input is gratly appreciated guys.

I'll read those articles n get back to you.

Thx

jayjay777 said:

Thanks for the info. I'll look into it... I'm considering running my own tests...

And I will say, I don't understand how people raise there lights so high and still allegedly get those types of numbers... I've always done best in the 12-18' range. I see people with there lights 36-48" above and I understand the concept. I guess I'm just scared to try it. Think it's time I do some r&d.

Point being of this post, I get the volume of buds but I lack the density. But I recently tried 2000 watts in a 4x4 area and the density was 4x greater so it has to be the lighting.

Time will tell...

I already upped my counts and perimeter, gonna get new bulbs and see.

Any more input is gratly appreciated guys.

I'll read those articles n get back to you.

Thx

Click to expand...

I have found that raising the lights (I lower my plants I use stands and keep light fixed) during ripening can help with density.

I think as they get older they can't take the same intense light. Like heat stress causes loose buds.

Potency can be better too and definitely terpenes and flavonoids.

I've heard people say you can use too much light for the space but I disagree.

They said it'll result in photo... Something...

I did that research dive awhile ago into if expensive light bulbs are worth it or not and it's such a minor difference I personally don't see it being worth it. There are guys that swear on it and there are guys that swear on using the cheap ones instead. Plants can only take in so much light anyway, you eventually start to see light bleaching. I have so much light that I have to be careful not to bleach and thats only with a 600w in a 3x3 tent. I keep my light as close as I can but my plants usually tell me to go higher and higher. Having your light close risks heat stress which will indeed cause airy buds.

I use a radiant 6" closed hood and i love it, I have a light meter and can totally see that it does a hell of a job displacing light around the tent.

Ya I'm talking more of a commercial application.

But thanks for the post.

I'm going to run my own test:

1000w plantmax with open wing

Vs.

1000w hortilux with xl raptor Hood

Same clones, same veg, same nutes n schedule each in its own 4x4 tent.

With the open wing I average 22oz per light for past year.

Now I think hortilux may do a lil bit better (10% is what I've read) but it matters how much. Say 24oz.

Well then obviously its worth it to get hortilux bulbs n Spend an extra $30 to get back an extra $300 from the 2oz.

I'll post results in few months. But I'm also going to run the test 2-5 times to see if yields are constant and at what point do you begin to loose out.

For example grow 1 & 2 yielded 24oz, grow 3 yielded 23 oz grow 4 yielded 22. So replace bulbs every two cycles in my case.

I did quality control and R&D for over 7 years so I got this.

However I would like my results to become a sticky. Who do I message? System Admin?

Time will tell....

a popular chart maybe of use ..

good luck

Just ordered 16 plantmax bulbs. And 1kw Hortilux and xl raptor hood. In 3 months I'll have the first set of results.

Luckily I got the plantmaxs for $400. The hortilux was $57 n hood was almost $150.

The first test is just going to compare bulbs.

The second test is going to compare hoods.

The third test will be the hoods with and without glass

N the last test will analyze the bulb "degeneration of output"...

Anon Emaus said:

I did that research dive awhile ago into if expensive light bulbs are worth it or not and it's such a minor difference I personally don't see it being worth it. There are guys that swear on it and there are guys that swear on using the cheap ones instead. Plants can only take in so much light anyway, you eventually start to see light bleaching. I have so much light that I have to be careful not to bleach and thats only with a 600w in a 3x3 tent. I keep my light as close as I can but my plants usually tell me to go higher and higher. Having your light close risks heat stress which will indeed cause airy buds.

I use a radiant 6" closed hood and i love it, I have a light meter and can totally see that it does a hell of a job displacing light around the tent.

Click to expand...

I used to run 4x600 watt single ended hps in air cooled reflectors. In a 6.5x6.5x6.5 tent. And I always went with cheaper bulbs than Hortis and Ushios and I did just fine. Just changed them out after 2 runs instead of the 3 or 4 with the pricier brands. I always felt a new but cheap bulb was better than a horti or ushio on its third or fourth run anyways. Long as you get the cheap ones that have the 30% more blue and change it a run or 2 less..your good. I think Hortis and Ushio are the best but not double or triple the price best. The gasses for spectrum dont bleed out as quick is all. They stay in spectrum for more runs. But do stay away from the real 15 dollar cheapos from like Ipower and whatnot. Those are truly slapped together. I run a much bigger system now. Amd with double ended hps...par and lux meters dont change much after 6 or 7 crops. I like that. Ive had em for about 3 years now. 2.5 maybe. Anf ivw only changed de bulbs twice.