Veg light help please

[Oporto]

Hi I'm thiking about setting up a separate veg tent and my predicament is should I lay out for a metal halide for the veg tent to then go under my 400 hps for flower or veg under the 400 hps and upgrade flower tent to 600 hps. I'm not considering the extra cost as I posted this on another forum and they all suggested cfls and T5s for veg mostly based on costs so I'm purely looking for best buds not cost please

[Weed Pharma]

Your flower light(s) should be twice the watts of your veg light-
Your flower tent should be twice the size of your veg tent.
Your flower plants will be twice the size of the veg plants.
How you do it, is personal preference and how quickly you want veg plants ready for flowering.

[OzBud]

Buy 400 or 600W MH & 600W HPS & then sell the 400W HPS
or
run the 400W HPS for veg & get a 600W for flower if you only want to buy one.

[William and Sue Ashley]

Don't you want to use all the light you have for veg and flower?....

[Weed Pharma]

In a single tent setup - most likely.
Lights without green plants under it- is wasted IMO

With autos most likely- although the veg lights can be less for a few weeks.

In a multi-tent crop rotation setting- It's all about timing from clones/seeds- to veg then flower and you don't want to be running any empty spaces.
In fact, I have used autos exclusively, to fill any spaces in both the veg and/or flower tents- any yield was extra!

I'll be trying an auto (only) crop rotation for a perpetual grow/harvest in the spring.

[William and Sue Ashley]

Interesting, I am a newbee, first grow Auto Fem....White Widow X......Green suggested to blast my lights 24/7 on the Autos.....That sounded very good to me....I am going 24/7 600mh for veg and hps for flower.....Sound right to you.....

[Nartak]

Exactly the same in Watts and bulbs only not using autos,i believe you are doing the right thing

[Weed Pharma]

Yes-very sound plan !

[William and Sue Ashley]

Thanks Nartak.....good to hear......This is really Cool.....LOL....

[Nartak]

HID lights are costly to start with and will cost you electricity more than a LED of the equivalent wattage but they are warmer,have greats yields and are easy to work with in terms of height/light/footprint!

Im using my 600w MH for veg @ 41cm distance right now and will switch to the 600w HPS for flower,as im topping and mainlining them i gain about half an inch of distance every 2-3 days!!Since i started my lights have lowered instead of heightened !! It does really depend on what you want to go and always remember a gram per watt is the topmax you can achieve regardless of how many you put in there..

Something no1 ever mentions is a DUAL LAMP REFLECTOR....So nice to have 800w of dual spectrum light in a nice aircool hood...I would do that if i had 2 400w bulbs (MH/HPS wouldn't do it with two of the same type)

Then if you don't want all this,just get a 600w HPS for flower and stick the 400w HPS for veg...Keep the MH for a cloner or backup...

[Nartak]

Ultimately if you don't care about cost just stick a Viparspectra 900w (250$ on amazon) and get going

Other than that,since cost is not a problem look up the Raptor Dual Lamp Reflector ,great reviews and comments everywhere

[growgreenjr]

Nartak, it sounds like my light setup is just about the same as yours. I'm currently using a 600W MH digital lamp in a large air-cooled reflector. I was planning to switch to a 600W HPS for flowering; I'm now considering a 1000W HPS instead for flowering. I got this idea from a comment in this thread...'flower lamp should be twice veg lamp'...Sounds pretty good to me. What do you think?

[Nartak]

1000w is not better than 2x600w Watt for Watt 600w bulbs are more efficient! Thats why i said about the Raptor,it is a Dual Lamp Reflector! You will only need a 2nd ballast in there and you will get MH+HPS in one Air Cooled Hood!All the Red+Blue you need for flower,1200w of wattage for efficiency in lighting and better spectrum...

[Oporto]

Hi sorry just getting back now Nartak/WeedP thanks for that it's helped a lot.
Slaintè

[wallnut]

if your into diy, you can get led kits with all the parts you need to build a kick ass led, thats what i did for my veg tent and i dont regret it

[Soilscience]

Are you using your smaller tent for the veg? You posted about a 2x2 on another thread, I don't have cameras in your ceiling, lol.
I recently held some plants over in a cardboard box 18 in x 18 and a single 23w CFL. I gave them 10 days in the flower tent to beef up before switching to 12s. I am not recommending it, but just tossing it out there. You flowering will be going for 7 to 12 weeks, so your veg tent can be pretty leisurely. A place to set up a nice manifold, develop healthy roots, etc. It's not ideal, but it works and is cheap.
I think my name on here should be Cheapskate. Here's a pic of those plants just starting flower. I just took a mountain of fans out, but it looks like more will be coming out tomorrow.

[Soilscience]

The missing picture.