The little things add up. Boosting your yield beyond 1g/watt

A lot of these little things get underestimated when growing. If you ad them all up you can see, they actually make a big difference. A small change that effects your yield just 5% can mean $1000's of dollars depending on how many lights you are running. If you spend the money, you will make it back tenfold.

Get rid of the lens on your light and buy an air conditioner. The only application that I would use vented hoods was if my ceiling height was too low(below 7') or if there was absolutely now way I could integrate an air conditioner into the system, which is rare. The lens on the vented hoods take out 5% of the light, and that is if they are perfectly clean. What a pain in the ass to clean all those lenses! I have seen some people put filters on the intake, to keep them clean, but I am sure dust still settles on the lens within a week, and all of a sudden you are losing 10% of your light. You will need about 3000 btu's of cooling per 1000 watt, depending on your local climate. Not only will your plants enjoy the consistent temps, the humidity is reduced somewhat also.

Use CO2 and a CO2 controller. Obvious right? A lot of people do not believe the difference it makes. Once you get the air conditioner, you can keep your room a closed system and get the CO2 levels up to 1300-1500 ppm. BOOM!

If your water starts out above 100 ppm from the tap, get a reverse osmosis system with a large storage tank, with a float valve. The R.O. system gets the water down to almost 0 ppm. How much this makes a difference, I can't say for sure, but think about it. If you are limited to raising your fertilizer concentration to 1200-1400 ppm, and you are starting at say 200 ppm from your tap, that means you can only put in 200 ppm less fertilizer than you can with a R.O. setup. That is over 10% less, which theoretically is 10% less medicine. (10% less money for the financially motivated) You will need to add a calcium/magnesium supplement.

Get new bulbs every 2-3 cycles. Once again, spend the money and it will pay you back more in the end. I buy eye hortilux in bulk and get them for 70$ each.

In hydroponics, adjust your ph and tds in your res daily. My theory is, if your ph and tds are up and down too much, your little girls will be spending too much energy and time adjusting to the constantly changing levels, as apposed to no change. Smooth sailing!

I even blow this one off occasionally, but I am always punished. Prune all the lower "sucker" branches near the bottom. You can tell which ones should be cut off by feeling how stiff the stems are compared to the others around it. If it is really weak than it is sucky more than it is beneficial. Clearing all this stuff out, also gets ventilation underneath the plant, which has many advantages.

These all seem like little advantages. They all seem to appeal to our self-inherent laziness, so you blow it off. But like life it self, little advantages are what its all about.

good info, also go vertical for the best lighting efficiency, dial in your grow and have proper ventilation/temp/rh control. Utilize the bio bucket idea to let nature do the work for you in form of beneficial bacteria that keep your water clean and protect/help grow your plants.


have a good yielding straing and go aero or hydro, and try not to fuck it up lol that always helps


o yeah sog if your not worried about plant numbers

Really great read, thanks for sharing. Keep the dream alive.

Mostly good advice there, good post.

I diasagree about air cooling hoods, no offense.

With air-cooled hoods, yes you can lose some lumens, but due to much lower heat you can move your hood closer to the canopy to make up for it, and then some! Brighter light AND less heat, it's much cheaper to run a small fan to cool hoods than it is to power a large AC.

Lower your MH hoods a few inches lower than an HPS and you'll get as good or better yields than HPS lights too.

I doubt there is a direct correlation between lower fertilizer additions and yield loss, but for anecdotal evidence, I did a grow with and without a water filter and got better results without it (480ppm well water.) Still had mag deficiencies but at least it has plenty of calcium. Only had to add Epsom salts to bring up the mag.

Agreed on the frequency of bulb replacements, but Eye bulbs are only good for coil ballasts, never on digitals. Sylvania's are a cheap option for digi users.

I think yield is affected by everything in the room all at once, so as long as you are diligent about fixing the "weakest link" in your garden all the time until there are none, you'll continue to have better and better yields. Happy, fast-growing plants yield more bud than those that aren't.

Having extra plants is best for large yields too, it allows you the freedom to toss small and weak/slow growing plants and swap them for happy ones, keeps a more even canopy.

A lot of guys try to light large canopies without enough light, I'm having better yields and quality with 66wpsf than I did with 50wpsf too.

Lazyman said:

Mostly good advice there, good post.

I diasagree about air cooling hoods, no offense.

With air-cooled hoods, yes you can lose some lumens, but due to much lower heat you can move your hood closer to the canopy to make up for it, and then some! Brighter light AND less heat, it's much cheaper to run a small fan to cool hoods than it is to power a large AC.

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All well and good for a single setup but if you're running large rooms, keeping the lamps higher makes for a larger footprint. Also less complicated if you can ditch all the ducting for the lights.

Why no hortilux on digi's?

cygnus said:

Why no hortilux on digi's?

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Good question, I was wondering the same thing. I have been using hortilux on my 1000 w Lumateks(digital) and they work pretty good. I guess I have had 2 fry, out of 18, in the last 4-5 months, but I figured that was those particular bulbs.

1

cygnus said:

Why no hortilux on digi's?

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that

CORE AND COILS RUN AT 60HZ, DIGIS RUN IN THE 100,000S. USHIO BULBS ARE BUILT FOR DIGIS. THE EYE IS A GREAT BULB AND WHEN THE DIGI VERSION COMES OUT IT WILL BE AGAIN.
BEST,
30Y

I agree with all of that except the air cooling part, you won't get much agreement with that. Everything else is legit.

USHIO bulbs suck btw anyone that uses them haven't done enough research into the topic.

PS- I'm using 9 1,000 digis and have eye hortis for all of them.. no problems in over a year.

Eye hortilux has published that they don't recommend digitial ballasts, let alone the use of their bulbs in them. Headiez I'm glad you haven't had issues, but your bulbs seem to be the exception rather than the norm. Most of the time Eye bulbs burn out in a couple months, I had 5 go out in their first 4 months of use, both their HPS and MH bulbs. Many report similar failure rates with Eyes in digis.

Yeah Ushio is the bulb typically recommended for digital ballasts, orrrr I think Solarmax.

Nice tips... reminds me it's time to change bulbs.

my digitals work fine with the hortilux. Just as an FYI the two models of digitals I have used(lumatek/CAP)both had 60hz stickers displayed. I heard the 100.000hz stuff from a chap in a shop up in sonoma, but can't imagine anything running on that frequency in this country; he sold the story well, but the numbers told me something else. But, I know dick about electricity...

Another vote for Solarmax in digital ballasts. Hortilux bulbs burned out damn fast on me in digis. I have brand new Solarmax and USHIO 600w HPS bulbs going right now and they seem about the same so far. Solarmax is my bulb of choice.

Im creeping up on 1gpw. The original list is good, though I would debate the air cooled lighting too. I add that the right supplements DO matter. Strong, healthy roots makes strong plants. I won't grow without beneficial bacteria, myco fungi and Hygrozyme. Nothing matters more than root health.

Thanks everyone for the debate on air cooled lights. I have tried it myself only once, and found it to be a pain in the ass. I understand the concept that you can get the light closer, so more lumens on the buds, but like a previous poster said, you are making your light footprint smaller. So you are illuminating less square footage.

Has anyone tried an experiment, back to back? I would really like to know for sure what works better. Either way, I believe, getting an an air conditioner is crucial if you are running more than 4 - 1000 watts.

I have watched my friends struggle with heat problems, trying to integrate air cooled lights, plus an exhaust in the room that is always running to get rid of the heat. How do you keep your CO2 levels up if you are constantly exhausting? To me it seems like basic physics. Filter out 5% - 10% of the light, you get close to 5%-10% less results. I know you are using more electricity with an air conditioner, but I believe it pays for itself.

Maybe its hard to admit that, the sick air cooled venting system that you spent so much time putting together and spent so much money on, could have been easily replaced by an air conditioner, at half the cost and it doesn't look as cool?

If the debate is about which setup uses more electricity, AC of course. If the debate is about which one looks cooler, vented hoods! For me the debate is about yield per 1000 watt light. Keep in mind, the systems I am talking about are 6 - 1000 watts, or more. If you are just running 1-3 lights, the difference is irrelevant.

All i know is I haven't heard of anyone getting the yields i get, with vented hoods.(actually, vented or not) Maybe someone on ICMAG can beat my record? Is there a thread on maximum yields? I'll start one if not, I need some healthy competition. I am sure I'll find it here.

Keep the debate going!

So setting up vented lights cost more than a ac unit big for your room? My hoods weren't very much I bought the hydrofarm 8" radiant's then I bought a small stand alone ac and it cost more than all three hoods,ducting and inline fan I cool them with. Just wondering if you could put up on cheap place you bought your ac?

Texasdrodown said:

I bought a small stand alone ac

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A window or mini-split A/C is going to be more efficient and cheaper than the same rated stand alone unit. They also tend to work a LOT better, unless you spend extra on more ducting and fans for the intake/exhaust of the stand alone. That may have had something to do with the costs.

Well just for the record I think both are needed, just that a smaller AC is usually required for running air cooled hoods.

I don't have my hoods hooked up at the moment, as in my area it is usually pretty cool at night, so my ac's and exhaust rarely run. If I was running lights on in the daytime I'd definitely have to have ducted hoods and a HUGE ac.

I was wondering if you run an AC, wouldn't your fan air suck all that air out? If you were using a window AC wouldn't the smell come out of the end of the AC? Did some solve that problem?

I don't usually have a problem with window AC's and odor, but it IS recommended to have either air-cooling OR A/C, but both are not recommended (sucking out cold air.)

I do both because my building is a hot tin shed basically, and though the fans do a decent job sucking air out and keeping it at ambient temps, I like to blow cold air from the ac's over the girls on really hot days so they don't croak. Once I get my building insulated and sealed it'll be different.