250hps grow

More is always better(The Golden Rule). While that is true, what if you just don't want to grow a crazy number of plants (I know it's fun and all).

If your intention is to grow maybe 2-4 but no more than 4 plants, is 250hps suitable? Surely there are people who don't grow more than 4 plants right?!?

I'd say three plants at most. It only covers a 2sq.ft area.

250w should be fine

But, you'd probably want to consider a switchable ballast and do an MH bulb for vegetation and HPS bulb for flowering, or maybe a full spectrum bulb.

I'm doing my first grow with 6 plants under a 250w Full spectrum MH with 6-10w Red Grow LED clusters, although i've got a couple of the plants without direct red from the LED's cuz i'm using about 3 for my biggest girl (and my favorite)

Some pics from Nov 3rd (the seedlings are gonna get trashed or stressed to death by expirementing, i was just messin around with bagseed for fun, my others are all from clones)

4 plants is fine. you just can't let them grow very tall or you'll lose out on canopy penetration and lumens. utilize LST and topping techniques for best results.

good luck.

4 would fully flowering plants would putting a 250w pretty much to it's effective limit, but it would work. it's fun. it's addictive and unless you have some horrible experience the firstime, you're gonna want to expand

6 plants is what I do with a 400w. They aren't getting sufficient light with just a 250.

Oh yes, I agree, growing is really a blast! At the same time, I want to enjoy the challenge of seeing what a 250 can do. I am definitely going to try LST.

I was following https://www.rollitup.org/advanced-marijuana-cultivation/28925-root-development-vs-plant-growth.html

And thought it would be interesting to come up with some mini versions of the DIY systems using smaller equipment.

LST is the only way to get dank harvest from a 250w. the lamp needs to be close to the plants.

closet.cult said:

LST is the only way to get dank harvest from a 250w. the lamp needs to be close to the plants.

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I've been doing LST to mine and they seem ok. I think at least the plant with 3 LED's on it is doing as well as if it was under 400w(but then again I don't know much,this is my first SUCCESFUL grow (so far) ). the others are definately more stretched. check out my 16days 12/12 thread let me know if they're lookin okay!

For 2-4 plants yes a 250w would work okay, but a 400w would be better.

400 would make you proud to smoke those buds in public,a 250 might make you a closet smoker.

Come on Trapper, with your line of thinking maybe 1000hps would be just great for 2-4 plants...

Tanuvan said:

Come on Trapper, with your line of thinking maybe 1000hps would be just great for 2-4 plants...

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i'm sure 2-4 plants would kick ass under 1000w

bottom line is (IMH(newb)O), if you're just looking for something thats not an energy hog and just growing a few plants for yourself, 250w is fine, if you can afford to go for 400w and get it properly ventilated and have no problems paying your energy bill then you might as well, it will perform better.

Myself, I am trying to somewhat limit energy consumption between the light, the CFM for ventilation, a fan on the plant, and i've been doing my 6 plants with a 250w and I'm not dissapointed, although i did invest in some LED's to support the 250w since their energy consumption is so low and to expirement.

anyone got harvest pics from a 250w HPS?

ive got a 250w HPS in the mail, should arrive any day now.
my plants are 6wks old, about 6" tall, been topped twice and are ready to go.
a 400w would be too hot for us, the 250w might be too but we'll sort it out.
going to be doing 4 plants, putting 2 in every 4-5 weeks and taking 2 out at the same time.

Tanuvan said:

Come on Trapper, with your line of thinking maybe 1000hps would be just great for 2-4 plants...

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it was a joke,im sure every one is proud to smoke what ever they have grown under whatever kind of light.

I'd like to see some 250W hps plants myself, but doesn't seem like anyone uses them. Even if you only grow 2 plants...someone will comment on how you really need a 400w hps. I am not disagreeing, as it is common knowledge that more light is better, and if I could fit the sun in my closet and vent the heat, I would use that.

It isn't that I can't afford a 400w hps. The price difference is only $10-20. This is about efficiency for a smallish personal grow. Additional heat detracts from that efficiency.

The real question was for those growers who aren't interested in growing/flowering more than 4 plants at any one time. If 250hps can do 2-4 plants just fine, why then would I want to have to deal with getting rid of the additional heat of a 400w hps?

If you are saying that a 400w hps will double a plant size when grow a few plants...then ok.

I'd rather read posts on what people can/have done with 250hps, or techniques to maximize that amount of light, rather than comments on how much larger the light needs to be. After all, that isn't the topic of the thread.

We have enough threads on 400/600/1K hps lights.

Trapper my bad...I thought you were being serious

paddy510 said:

anyone got harvest pics from a 250w HPS?

ive got a 250w HPS in the mail, should arrive any day now.
my plants are 6wks old, about 6" tall, been topped twice and are ready to go.
a 400w would be too hot for us, the 250w might be too but we'll sort it out.
going to be doing 4 plants, putting 2 in every 4-5 weeks and taking 2 out at the same time.

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I'm kind of confused by your setup explanation.

do you have 2 seperate spots? one for vegging and one for flower?

just the way you say putting 2 in and taking 2 out at the same time sounds like from the same grow room, not sure how you can do this, just constant flowering with very tiny harvests?

I'm not at harvesting yet, and im not HPS lol, but i am 250w! WOOT, you could check my profile threads started by to see pics of my stuff, up til 16 days flower, I didn't top, i chose to do LST instead of topping.

4 plants in flower at any one time, 2 will be a month older than the other 2.
every month ill harvest 2 plants and replace them with another 2 plants.
seperate veg and bud rooms, veg under 125w cfl then bud under the HPS.
mothers are growing outdoors.

paddy510 said:

4 plants in flower at any one time, 2 will be a month older than the other 2.
every month ill harvest 2 plants and replace them with another 2 plants.

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still confusing.

You make it sound like you're vegetating and flowering under one single light, whatever, good luck.