Staying with CFL/LED or switching to HPS at FLower

keysareme

Well-Known Member
I acquired this ballast [http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/488347825/3_Phase_Dimmable_400W_HPS_MH.html & http://www.thelashop.com/digital-di...m-400w.html?gclid=CMjpj86d8rsCFVFgfgodrj4A4Q]

No, I did not order it. :wall:

I picked up a tent from a friend, and included were ballast, bulbs, socket(s)/reflector, fan, motor regulator, ducting, and cat liter smell.

Upon cleaning the equipment, just an organic spray that smells vinegar based, wiped it all down to extract and cleanse away that funky fresh breeze overwhelming my entire existence at this point, I decided it might be nice to see what the tent looks like.
Awesome, now I had this 7 ft cat box in the corner. :-( Just basking the environment in nose wrenching :dunce: and head aching :?: aroma. Quick, spray it down. Nice, its gone, only to re emerge showing its true potency.Airs out eventually, right.

Ok, on with it.

My ladies have been in the presence of cfl light, and a micro amount of led.

Total of 570w

I know that a 400w hps will emit around 50,000 lumens

With the 570w of cfl/led we have around 45-51000 lumens

One of the bulbs, 250w 2700k cfl, I am unsure the actual lumen amount, it was another that I acquired from a friend, which is the reason we have the range of 45-51000 for lumen output from cfl/led.

125w (one bulb) of those 570w are still 6500k, which I feel is a healthy blend of spectrum.

Total running lights, 3 cfl's and the 90w led

I have two more 105w 2700k that would add 15,000 lumens.

We have a stable environment, temps, humidity, it has been calibrated, and re-calibrated. I have the fan at its most minimal setting, we have room to add more "light" but not much room to add more "watts". I know this cause for one month we had 1100w of cfl/led running, and while the total lumen output was phenomenal and ladies loved me even more for it, our "bill" jumped an increase of 80. That's more than doubling. Just not worth the "cost" to run the 1100w of cfl for around 80,000 lumens, just does not stand with a hps that runs 400w for 50,000, or 600w for 90,000 or 1000w for 150,000 lumens.

All that said, I know my big girls are going to outgrow the 5ft in height the have right now, I mean they have stretched this much during week 1 of going 12/12 and we have at least 7 more to go. I do have this 3x3x7 tent, which would seemingly home my big girl and her taller sister, or at least just the big girl, for the duration of flowering, and I do have the appropriate equipment to run the hps, it would just require some calibrating and re-calibrating.

Running two tents means needing two tents with lights running, which means unless I want to break the watts up among the two, the overall watt consumption will increase, and from what I have seen keeping it around 500w would be best, at least for where I am living right now, and big girl is so big, and able to absorb so much light that I feel she would either need the entire 400w hps to her self in the tall tent, or just to keep them all together in the smaller tent allowing for all the light to densify and better saturate the space.

Another part of it is, the actual quality of this ballast and bulb. Mainly I'd like some input what you might do.
 
What was your question again? ;)

Plants in flower only stretch during the first 21-24 days of flowering, to 2-3 times their original height before flip to 12/12.

This all comes down to one thing... can you afford to run two tents with separate lights, or can't you.

Your answer is right there.

-spek
 
Thanks for reading (or looking) through all of that bro.

Yes, I can afford to run both, I'm not sure it would be best to do so though, mainly out of respect for whom else is in the environment here.

I think the question is somewhere between, did keys forget to medicate before posting, and did keys forget to medicate before posting.

:bigjoint:
 
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