*Need help with mh/hps light systems* IM A NOOB re: this

I've been looking and looking at different size (watt) light systems as well as all the different varieties... like the coolstar...agrostar...growbright systems...digital greenhouse...lumatek etc from htg...

i need some help on deciding which would be best.

i have a room that is 10x8 (roughly) to work with. i will be sectioning off the room to the size i need for my grow.

i need to be able to veg (or flower) up to 12 plants at once... i plan on grouping them together pretty closely and having the hps/mh above them with supplemental cfl lighting on the sides and dark corners...with mylar on the walls surrounding of course...

what would you guys suggest? a 600 what or a 1000 what?

whats the benefits to using which brand or using a digital one etc.

any and all help please!

http://htgsupply.com/growlightsubcategories.asp?categoryID=1

link to htg's lighting systems^^

It depends on what kind of power you have to the room, is it all on one 15 amp breaker? 20 amp? more than one circuit to work with??

I have 2 20 amp circuits available to my grow area, so I divided my 16 x 8 area into a flower room and a veg/clone/work room. I put 4 400 watt hps into the flower room ( on one 20 amp circuit ) and two 400 watt mh into the grow room. This left enough power recources for me to run my fans etc off of the grow room cuircuit.

This is just an example of coarse.

If you have the power to run 1000 watt units and still be able to run your fans and other equiptment ( heating, cooling etc.) then go for it. DO NOT OVERLOAD YOUR AVAILABLE CIRCUITS!!!) I am constantly reading and hearing of ambitious indoor growers who plug multiple 1000 watt grow lights as well as everything else they can throw in, without regard to how the room(s) are wired, only to have it all catch fire.

I got my lamps from HTG supply, as well as my fans. I can highly recomend them for the grower like me that is on a budget.

From what you describe, two 600 watt hps for flower should be sufficiant ( how big do you plan on having them grow?) two 400 watt for the grow room works real good for me as I can grow 16 plants to 12 to 14 inches just fine. (and I only use a 3 by eight area for that) the rest of my grow room also has a cloning cabinet and a mother cabinet.

Randm said:

It depends on what kind of power you have to the room, is it all on one 15 amp breaker? 20 amp? more than one circuit to work with??

I have 2 20 amp circuits available to my grow area, so I divided my 16 x 8 area into a flower room and a veg/clone/work room. I put 4 400 watt hps into the flower room ( on one 20 amp circuit ) and two 400 watt mh into the grow room. This left enough power recources for me to run my fans etc off of the grow room cuircuit.

This is just an example of coarse.

If you have the power to run 1000 watt units and still be able to run your fans and other equiptment ( heating, cooling etc.) then go for it. DO NOT OVERLOAD YOUR AVAILABLE CIRCUITS!!!) I am constantly reading and hearing of ambitious indoor growers who plug multiple 1000 watt grow lights as well as everything else they can throw in, without regard to how the room(s) are wired, only to have it all catch fire.

I got my lamps from HTG supply, as well as my fans. I can highly recomend them for the grower like me that is on a budget.

From what you describe, two 600 watt hps for flower should be sufficiant ( how big do you plan on having them grow?) two 400 watt for the grow room works real good for me as I can grow 16 plants to 12 to 14 inches just fine. (and I only use a 3 by eight area for that) the rest of my grow room also has a cloning cabinet and a mother cabinet.

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i still am not too sure on the amps at the moment...will check tonight.

the room will be used for nothing else however im not interested (at this time at least) in growing in two different sectioned off portions of the room.

i will be using the same area to grow from seed to harvest. (obviously just sub out the lights as required for its growing stage).

i was thinking possibly 1000 would be a bit overkill after reading up on it. but i have no idea what i'd yield with a 600 for 12 plants.

the strain i will be starting with (under hps/mh) is big bang from greenhouse. (if that helps anyone).

im just not sure which type would be best (since htg has so many) and no one has been able to explain what the differences are...

are they all the same? what is a digital ballast hps and how is it different? i was hoping to find a kit that would allow me to put a MH in it also (for veg).

attached is a quick paint sketch i did to show what i was hoping to do with the room.

a digital ballast is nice as it will allow you to run both a mh and hps bulb on the same ballast,, atleast most of them are like that now... this is nice if you only want to run one lamp for veg and flower as you could than use the mh for veg and use the hps for flower, a very good choice..
i think the 600 would be a good choice for you too, i kinda agree that the 1k maybe a lil too much for what you need..

racerboy71 said:

a digital ballast is nice as it will allow you to run both a mh and hps bulb on the same ballast,, atleast most of them are like that now... this is nice if you only want to run one lamp for veg and flower as you could than use the mh for veg and use the hps for flower, a very good choice..
i think the 600 would be a good choice for you too, i kinda agree that the 1k maybe a lil too much for what you need..

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i was also planning on using the opposite spectrum (it 2700K in veg and 6500K in flower) in cfl's as supplemental lighting for the dark corners and in between the plants

which digital kit would you suggest?

the digital greenhouse 600watt system?
http://htgsupply.com/growlighttypes.asp?categoryID=1&subcategoryID=101

or

the lumatek digital
http://htgsupply.com/growlighttypes.asp?categoryID=1&subcategoryID=184

is digital safer? what are the other benefits? chances of fire compared to the other systems? etc.

are they hard to use install? or do they usually come with directions?

sm0keyrich510 said:

the room will be used for nothing else however im not interested (at this time at least) in growing in two different sectioned off portions of the room.

i was thinking possibly 1000 would be a bit overkill after reading up on it. but i have no idea what i'd yield with a 600 for 12 plants.

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why not two growing areas? you can have a crop every two weeks instead of waiting 4 - 5 months for a single grow.

1000 watts is not overkill for 12 plants. that gives you about 4,000 lumens per square ft which is actually on the low side for light.

desertrat said:

why not two growing areas? you can have a crop every two weeks instead of waiting 4 - 5 months for a single grow.

1000 watts is not overkill for 12 plants. that gives you about 4,000 lumens per square ft which is actually on the low side for light.

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i didnt want two growing areas for a few reasons...

A) the place its at is small enough to begin with.

B) how soon i get the crop will not matter as i can only have 12 plants at a time by law where i am. so it seemed best for me to just run a whole crop start to finish at a time.

so 1000 isnt overkill?

how big do i need the sectioned off piece of the room to be (where the window is btw) to have a 1000watt going without it getting too hot/buring/hurting the plants?

as of now im using cfl's for a grow so my experience isnt much beyond that other than hearsay for the most part.

i like lumantek personaly... some other benefits of digi over magnetic is they run cooler and are usually quiter.. they even make digi' now that you can dim, which is pretty awesome as it allows you to cut the power to what the plants need.. say you can give them 50% power as seedlings, bump it up to 75% as they get bigger, and then give them the full 100% when they get big enough.. it really gives you alot of options with one lamp and only one ballast.. i think that some digis even give a lil more power than magnetics do.. magnetics are fine, but for the extra money, a digi will always give you way more options if you go with a convertible, meaning it will run mh or hps, and if you got a dimeable one, even more so..
also some magnetics tend to have a slight humm to them, which can get a lil annoying, and they also tend to run a lil hotter overall than the newer digital ballaasts do..

sm0keyrich510 said:

i didnt want two growing areas for a few reasons...

A) the place its at is small enough to begin with.

B)how big do i need the sectioned off piece of the room to be (where the window is btw) to have a 1000watt going without it getting too hot/buring/hurting the plants?

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my rule of thumb is 3 sq ft per plant so a 6ft x 6 ft area would be perfect. whichever light you chose you are going to need to ventilate it, preferably with a air cooled hood or cooltube.

thanks for the tips guys.

hey desertrat... how far does the reflector need to be above the light? (as i plan on hanging the light from the ceiling on a light mover (up and down)?

thanks guys i really appreciate the help. im looking into a few systems as we speak.

for a small 12 plant grow i would say go with 2 400w reg ballest at htg they r 120 each then get some ceramic mh blubs as these wont run in a dig ballest the cmh is good for the whole grow the 40 watters arent bad for heat. the more u spend for higher watt lights the more u will also have to put out for cooling setups

Smokey,

I'm also limited to a certain number of plants by law, but that actually makes running a two area grow a better idea. What you do is work out a rotation so that 1 or 2 plants are ready to harvest every couple of weeks. The math varies with strain, but lets assume you are running a 12 week grow (4 weeks veg, 8 flower). If you start two plants today, then another two plants two weeks from today and so on, by the time the plants you started today are ready to harvest you will have a total of 12 plants growing, 4 in veg, 8 in flowering. Every two week you will start a new set vegging, and you will harvest the oldest flowering plants. Now, this does vary a bit because you can't dictate that any plant will be ready to harvest in exactly 12 weeks, but by starting a new set every time you harvest an old set you guarantee that you will have a steady supply of dried herb ready every few weeks.

On a side note, with a two area grow you can change your lighting needs a bit. A single 600w with a large hood should be able to handle 8 plants in flowering (might need a bit of supplementary light on the side) while a single 400w can easily handle 4 vegging. I personally have both a 400w and a 600w from HTG supply-the 400w is one of there in house models, and the 600w is the digital greenhouse model. The digital ballast is quieter, and has turned out be be more energy efficient, but thats about the only major difference I've noticed.

sm0keyrich510 said:

thanks for the tips guys.

hey desertrat... how far does the reflector need to be above the light?

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the reflector on most hid systems is attached to the socket so the distance from reflector to light is fixed.

desertrat said:

the reflector on most hid systems is attached to the socket so the distance from reflector to light is fixed.

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i see. thanks. some i came across were not and when i read up on mh/hps ballast kits i was told that the reflector needed to be so far (forget exactly) from the bulb...basically they said if the reflector is hot to the touch it was too close and need to be moved so i didnt know.

thanks.

the fixed reflectors are about 5 inches above the bulb