Need Help With Lighting Please

Gee, I wonder what state that could be...

Anyway, I'd suggest you look into a switchable digital ballast, so you can run mh and hps off of it, with an enclosed, air cooled hood. If you're seriously trying to pull weight, you might want multiple lights, rather than just a single high wattage one. But, I'd definitely recommend investing in quality products up front, so you're not always saving for that next upgrade (or maybe that's just the nature of it).

Cheers!

Go for 3 at a time, in big pots (I assume you're growing in soil? Edit: Just saw. You need to beef up your soil with 5-10% good quality raw worm casting, maybe a few other choice organic supplements. Using compost and worm casting tea gives great results) and grow them big! That's the way to maximise yield from 3 plants, especially if you do some careful trimming too. 3 big plants can easily fill 1.2m2 of space and give you 5Oz a plant or more under just a 600W HPS.

Takes longer to grow them a bit bigger, but if you have 3 in veg ready to go at harvest then you can crop every couple of months.

Go for what Jus suggests my friend.

My suggestion..
Find an old” toaster” ballast for cheap, like a 250watts, use that for veg.
This way you can invest some solid cash in a” flower room”

Keep in mind a 1000 w HPS is nor cheap to buy, but also not cheap to run.
Look into some CFLs.

Don't make the same mistake I did...
I bought all kind of expensive shit right off hand..there is hidden costs everywhere, and growing is great fun, but it's also a labor intensive job... Although a labor of love.

You sure you wanna grow?..go for it!
Edit: I'm sure you can find fantastic nugs in your legal state.

Veg = t5. Get one to suit your size requirement. They work great, they don't get too hot, and they are efficient.

Flower = 600w HPS. Most efficient of the HIDs and will not leave you underpowered. A dim able ballast is best.

Unless you plan to mass produce, this is more than enough light.

You can grow a pretty decent sized plant in a 5 gallon container. You can actually grow a good sized plant in a 3 gallon container. I wouldn't go over 5 for indoors personally...or at least I haven't felt the need in my indoor grow.

Fox Farm soil is good. Happy Frog for veg, FFOF for flower.

Hone your environment ... Or your plant's environment ... Get yourself a grow tent, at least for flower.

Okay, so what I am now thinking is getting a grow tent for vegging & flowering. I could use two separate rooms or make my own tent for each, but I want to make sure it's done right starting out so figured buying a tent would probably be the better solution, especially with my situation (Living in a relatively small condo that is on the market to be sold although there is never showings especially in the winter, so that's not really an issue). I'm not quite sure how big of a tent to get. Was thinking 8x8 for flowering & not quite sure how big for vegging? I plan to veg to get them as big as possible so probably at least two months long. Also, is 8x8 for flowering too big or not big enough? I've been reading stories of people having rooms as big as 12x12 for 4 plants flowering and as little as 3x3 for 4 plants flowering. So I was thinking 8x8 minimum, maybe even 9x9 since i've been reading plants grow to fill there space & i'm trying to get the most possible production since limited to 3 plants, any opinions on that? I'm also considering 5-8 gallon pots for them, leaning towards the 8 gallon side. Could this be too big? If I get a tent i'm going to get extensions with it to allow it to be up to 10' tall so height shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Jus Naturale: Thank you so much for your imput/advice!! As far as lighting goes I am now thinking one 600W MH for vegging & either two 400W HPS for flowering or two 600W HPS. Would this be too much? I'm assuming off your comment it would be better than one 1000W HPS for flowering? Money is not really an issue, just trying to get the most possible off my legal limit. Plus trying to get the best equipment I can that will be useable later on down the road when I expand my grow which is the reason I was thinking of the 1000W HPS.

Major Coco: Thank you for the advice!! It is much appreciated & I am making note of that for when I get my room set up. The only part that sucks is the closest grow store to me is 1.5 hours, so I have to stock up & buy through the internet what I can My poor little old two wheel drive car doesn't do so well in the winter around here unfortunately, but i'll make it work!

Sirdabsalot: Thank you for your imput/advice! Price is not really an issue for me, just trying to get the highest yield off the fewest plants possible. Although I do understand that heat could potentially be an issue. I want to grow for the experience/to get better at it & I think it will be a wonderful hobby. Yeah I sure can find some fantastic nugs here! Going to run up to the healing canna here before too long to get more pure kush. Yummmm! Lol, but thank you once again.

Jerry68: Thank you for your imput! I'm not quite sure if that would be best for me or not, as I use A LOT of medecine so getting the most possible out of what i'm legally able to grow is important to me. Even if it turns out lower quality I can always blast it to wax for an effective medecine What's your imput on how big the grow room should be for optimal growth on 3 plants flowering?

Whoa 8x8 for that few? i have 5 2-3 footers in a 3x3 right now plenty of room a 2x3 with 3 moms and 16-20 clones. Not that extra room is a bad thing but i think you may be bitin off a little much as you yourself said this is new to you.
If your intent is just to grow your own i promise you a 3x3 tent will be able to produce more then enough for you, even with a 400.You could jump up to a 6 in there. For veg as they said get you a 250 or just grab one of those t5'setups 4 bulb or 8 bulb lights off ebay 70-80 bucks cheap to run easy to cool and enough light for a veg all day. Only decision there would be tent size as you would need a 3x3 at least for the 8 tube but could get away with a 20in by 3ft tent.
Guess you could get a tent that has seperate chambers also for veg/bloom but they get a little pricey and i am not comfortable with having light so close to my bloom.

I agree..don't be aiming for 10ft plants! A 600W light doesn't have enough penetration for the bottom branches. A big indoor plant is 5-6ft, but if grown well it should also be quite bushy, with meaty colas on all stems. The law of diminishing returns applies to plant height though. The most efficient grows I've seen use lots of small plants which means (I guess) more main cola than side branches in your final harvest which means more Oz/m2. More of your yield is also likely to be at a good distance from the light source too, since the plants are shorter. You can't do that though..because you are limited to 3 plants.

If you want to maximise yield in the shortest time on 3 plants then grow them to 5ft (final flowering height) as quick as possible. I haven't tried it, but have heard that hydro is faster than soil, so you might want to consider that if set-up cost is no problem.

Or dont know what your interested in technique wise and i don't even grow this way but check out hygrohybrids channel on you tube and yes i have told someone else about him on another scrog thread not endorsing the man for any other reason then he has an issue with keeping lolw plant count so he shows you exactly down to res changes ml per gal everything and its done so well it would be easy to follow.
The guy pulls no less then 1.5lbs a plant and uses only a 600 for each, up to 2lbs and he gets 4-5 harvests a year that way.
If you smoke more than say 1lb a plant 3-6 plants well a zip a week should be plenty of quality nuggs for the heavy smoker and once you dial yours in like his you could double it.
All a matter of how much research your willing to do how much time and effort and unfourtunately a little bit o money to pull of stuff like that indoors, but in the end its pennies on the gram so whos counting

Sometimes odd stuff kicks an idea.. so I know this aint exactly what you are looking for, but I was an apt grower too..

Welcome to my disposable/mobile Veg room, goes wherever I aint for the night..





Don't laugh yet..


Under one of those, I can veg TWO of these, about this far..

Works in ANY wall socket and is 'perfect' for 3 gallon trained plants almost ready to flower..

Whatever that is worth, it might kick in some ideas of your own.