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250w HPS users....

minds_I

Active member
Veteran
Hello all,

Had some questions for those who are using the 250w CMH bulb.

I have used it for about 4 harvests now and I don't know if its just me or what but it seems my yields are down.

Not that they were ever steller but enough for me.

Anyway, I am going to change the bulb back tonight to a HPS. I like the reduced heat of the CMH and will use it in the summer but for now I think I will see if there is a difference, at least for me.

minds_I
 

Deft

Get two birds stoned at once
Veteran
My roots

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My plant

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Anyone want to guess at yield and win a prize? :bigeye:

Its just slowing stretch and has 9 tops.
 
Hello all,

Had some questions for those who are using the 250w CMH bulb.

I have used it for about 4 harvests now and I don't know if its just me or what but it seems my yields are down.

Not that they were ever steller but enough for me.

Anyway, I am going to change the bulb back tonight to a HPS. I like the reduced heat of the CMH and will use it in the summer but for now I think I will see if there is a difference, at least for me.

minds_I

Hey Minds I. I'm using a 250w CMH for the first time in my comeback grow and have been trying to decide if and when to switch to HPS myself.

Just so everybody knows a lot of folks have been flowering with the cmh because it is supposed to be even stronger in the red part of the light spectrum than HPS. I have heard that buds tend to be leafier with CMH, but not so much that yields would be lower.

I am @ day 17 flower now and am considering switching over to HPS @ around 4 wks. It a bummer too as I would love to get that orange light out of my life but it doesn't seem like that will happen. :dueling:

Anybody else used a cmh all the way through?

-dTv
 
Oh yeah, here's what the garden looks like.

6 plants (CH9 mixed fems), in a 19" x 33" space, 250w CMH, from yesterday (day16, 12/12):

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minds_I

Active member
Veteran
Hello all,

de Toke, yeah, I was thinking there would have been better yields.
I am not saying its the bulb as it could just well be grower error/environmental also.

It was a change to go in and open the cab and have that orange light hit you...with was much better for looking at with the CMH and you get kinda spoiled. But its not me that needs the light so.

Anyway, I should have a harvest coming up in 3 or so weeks with strains I am familiar with. Though the next strain is only partially grown under the CMH, I did start a a round of the same strain at the time of the bulb change. In 60 days will give an indication (albeit anecdotal). I also have a harvest 40 days out but of a different strain. However this will have had 3 weeks of CMH prior to bulb change so that may prove useful also.


Also, I have a some buds drying that where completely grown under the CMH, all is good but the yields are down.

Again, these are strains that I have been growing for a couple of years including SDOG (year and a half) which is not shabby yielder in my past experience.

de Toke, How long did you veg those girls and under what light...the cmh? The look great.

minds_I
 
Hello all,

de Toke, yeah, I was thinking there would have been better yields.
I am not saying its the bulb as it could just well be grower error/environmental also.

It was a change to go in and open the cab and have that orange light hit you...with was much better for looking at with the CMH and you get kinda spoiled. But its not me that needs the light so.

Anyway, I should have a harvest coming up in 3 or so weeks with strains I am familiar with. Though the next strain is only partially grown under the CMH, I did start a a round of the same strain at the time of the bulb change. In 60 days will give an indication (albeit anecdotal). I also have a harvest 40 days out but of a different strain. However this will have had 3 weeks of CMH prior to bulb change so that may prove useful also.


Also, I have a some buds drying that where completely grown under the CMH, all is good but the yields are down.

Again, these are strains that I have been growing for a couple of years including SDOG (year and a half) which is not shabby yielder in my past experience.

de Toke, How long did you veg those girls and under what light...the cmh? The look great.

minds_I


Thamks for the ups, mI. Four of these got 10-11 wks of veg but they almost died in the beginning and had to have been almost three weeks delayed in the recovery. Two of them were started 4-wks after so, had 6-7 wks but only look like they were a wk to 10 days behind. They were veged under about 140watts of 5500k and 6500k cfls until about mid december when I finally set up my cab and they were under the CMH. they went to flower jan. 11.

Yeah, I'd be real interested in the comparison of the plant that went to HPS 3wks into flower to one done completely under the CMH--'cause that's similar to what I'm thinking about doing--even though I'll have to decide before you're done, lol.

Would you say yields were down like 10%, 20%?

It's funny, all the specs of the cmh make it look like the champ on paper but then you hear a lot of stories about it same or under performing HPS. Theory vs. actual experience I suppose.

keep us posted.

-dTv
 

Deft

Get two birds stoned at once
Veteran
Chitown, it shouldn't take 12 weeks, its supposed to be a 60 day strain (holy grail by verite).

I just vegged it fairly long, its only on like 17 days flower and is starting to slow down and suck up P more and more and is getting the lighter shade apical buds which to me says flower production is right around the corner.
 
Bump

Bump

Time to bump up the 250 thread

Note: i did switch up to the HPS at day 18 but I'm still switching in the CMH for a day about once a week.

6 CH9 mixed fems Day 30 12/12:
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-dTv
 

AP KUSH

Member
Wow, this thread is awesome and the pics ive seen throughout are very inspiring... i think im gonna have to go with a 250 watter instead of a 150 when i get started again in march.

Im subscribing to this thread :D

-Keep growing
AP KUSH
 

Dirtfinger

Member
what is average yield one can pull from a 250w?

yes i know yields can vary a lot. just looking for a very rough ball park figure, thanks.

I love this thread :)

I think 5oz of dry carefully manicured bud is the minimum you should be getting if you have it in the right sized space and you're using it with reasonable efficiency. Up to and maybe even over 8oz being obtainable with a good producer and very efficient use of space.

That's based on a cab measuring 30"x18" with about 4 feet of vertical space to work with between the light and floor of the cab and a 250w HPS.

I do organic in dirt and grow one at a time. I guess you could call what I do HST, high stress training. The plants are mature when I put them in and have spent 2-3 months lifting weights and being bent and twisted. They look all gnarly and contorted, not much like a MJ plant normally looks at all.

Once in flowering I just keep on it poking the tops that spring up the most back down until it evens out and completely fills my space corner to corner. I use chicken wire to make her behave. A lot of times I use one stem to control another, pushing the stronger ones under the weaker ones until they even out.

With only a single plant it's more like a pet and you can give it that kind of love and attention, the main reason I like doing it the way I do.

The worst I've ever done is like 6, the most (not the best, it got too big) was just over 8 with a qp of high quality popcorn that I qwiso'd for a nice bonus prize. That one got way too big, I kept it under control but just barely. The knot in the stem where I FIM'd it was almost 2" in diameter at harvest, outdoors it would have been an 8ft plant.

IMO a well designed cab and 250 is the way to go for overall satisfaction on a personal grow level.
 

Geezus

New member
Time to bump up the 250 thread

Note: i did switch up to the HPS at day 18 but I'm still switching in the CMH for a day about once a week.
-dTv

Definitely keep us updated on comparative yield. I'm designing a long sog cab, and a mix of cmh and hps might make my idea slightly cheaper than my original plan.
 

three of some

New member
Hey guys, it is my first topic (the introduction doesn't count).
I have HPS 250w in a cabinet that is 3.5f tall, 2.5f (that are the sizes of the flowering part) wide and 2f depth. the cabinet has a light of 250 Hps (Phillips Son T Pia, the best I you are able to find in uruguay)
I have a stucko adjust a wing (is the cheap version of the real adjust a wing but It helps to take temp down a little and is better than the ordinary reflectors)
I am not doing things right because I am getting very poor crops, I am going to post some pics so you can see...

P1140003.JPG


P1140001.JPG


to be honest, I haven't been able yet of reading the 47 pages of this topic, so I'll try to read it before asking silly questions...

P.S: sorry about my english (spanish is my native language)
 

limey

Member
Winter 2008 harvst with - fnally - photos

Winter 2008 harvst with - fnally - photos

Dear 250w club

apologies if you have seen this before but I promised photos ages ago and, well, it took me a while to get round to pulling them off my camera, so rather than editing my original post from January, I thought I just repost with the photos. So: Here's my grow report on my Autumn-Winter 2008 Homegrown fantaseeds' Caramella grow, as promised here and elsewhere.

The long and short of it:

Plants were cloned from a "caramella" plant grown outdoors in a friend's garden.

As the clones were taken in early flowering, they took an age (3 weeks) to root.

Five rooted clones were put (very young and very small) into veg under a 125w CFL (24hours on) on 2 September. They were planted in a GH aquafarm, set up as per instructions and supplied bits and bobs. I intended to do a SOG grow, flowering very small, say 4 inches or so.

I then went on holiday, leaving them in the care of a friend for 10 days

When I got back, only one of the plants was in good shape, two had barely survived and two were looking ok but very stunted.

the problem, easily diagnosed, was that the air pump in the aquafarm was not delivering the nute solution evenly among the plants. the result was that only one plant was actually getting a proper dose of water,the others were getting only a little.

I rebuilt the aquafarm, replacing the air pump with a small submersible water pump, 15 mins on, 15 mins off (during daylight hours). It worked MUCH better.

Why GH persist with an airpump I do not know. It's a rubbish design and there are so many more bits involved. A water pump suits their top-feed set up much better.

So, I ditched the 2 smallest of the starting 5 and rearranged the others a little, with a view now to growing 3 medium sized plants, with a veg period extended to 23 days

These are those plants after a few days under the new hydro regime. The largest plant has been trained near horizontally, to even out the canopy and encourage the other two to catch up a bit.







Towards the end of September, I put them into flowering, the first week or so still under the 125w CFL.

At this stage, the plants were about 8 inches tall.

I then switched to my 250w HPS and the flowering nutes.

From this point on, the grow progressed pretty much as expected. The plant that had thrived during my holiday continued to do so, and ended up dominating the cab. The training led it to behave very much like a plant that had been topped, with about 8 main growth points. The other two plants never really caught up. One did quite well, with two main colas and a few other branches. The smallest never really amounted to much.

A couple of weeks in to the flowering, I trimmed off the smaller branches from the lower part of the plants, to promote growth higher up. This was a very successful tactic.

Here are the plants in late flowering





A few panics in the grow with some minor deficiencies in the nutes but all went well.

I harvested on 29th November (middle sized plant) and 5th December (the big one and the runt).

total harvest: 176 grams (6.25 oz) of very, very nice bud. yay!









Stats:

(...that's 0.7 grams per watt ; 700 grams per sq metre in 13.5 weeks start to finish.)

Facts:

Cab design - a closet grow, in a closet 2ftx2ft (60cmx60cm). Alot of headroom in the cabinet so no pressure to grow small. Cab lined with black and white plastic and the plant space extra lined with mylar. So we are talking a quarter of a sqaure metre, for you metricals. cheap, standard horizontal reflector. 4inch clip fan for air circulation. Aquafarm hydro rig with 20litres of hydroton. i.e. nothing fancy, a commercial but still low budget set up.

What STRAIN are you growing? Homegrown fantaseeds' Caramella

What was the establishing technique? (Were the seed or clone?) Clone, from an outdoor plant which was grown from seed

Dates - 2 September to 5 December, start of veg til harvest. Dried over about 10 days in a wardrobe.

What Technique are you using? Standard, with some training, hydro.

What substrate/medium are you using? Hydroton

What is the Nutrient temperature? Unknown, no additional heating

What Nutrient's are you using? Vita Link Gro and bloom, some rhizotonic in veg, some vitalink buddy in flowering

What is the TDS/EC/PPM you are using? Tapwater is 0.3 and I ran the nutes at between 1.8 and 2.1, depending on the stage of the grow. Flushed for last 10 days - 2 weeks

What is the pH of the "Tank"? Averaged at pH6

Pattern of watering? 15mins on, 15 mins off during (and just before) "daylight" hours - no night-time hydro.

What size bulb are you using? 125w CFL in veg and 1st week of flower, 250w HPS for flowering

What is the distance to the canopy? Sometimes too close! usually 6-8 inches

What is the canopy temperature? About 28 degrees centigrade daytime, 16-18 degrees nighttime

Air Flow? (cfm etc.) - small fan blowing over lamp and circulating air in the cab, no extraction (left the cab door open a bit during daylight hours)

Is the fan blowing directly at plants? Just over them

Is your water HARD or SOFT? Hard, initial cf 0.3

Was plant pruned, cloned off of or pinched? the big 'un was trained heavily

Have any pest chemicals been used? None

Were plant's infected with pest's? No.
 

AP KUSH

Member
0.7 grams per watt is impressive, especially for 250w setup. Congrats on your harvest limey, the buds look delicious indeed.

keep growing
-AP KUSH
 

three of some

New member
that quite a bit 0.7gr per watt!!! I hope to improve my crop cauze I am only getting 40 -50gr per plant (wet) it is not enough for me.
For doing a scrog, how long do I have to vegetate the plants? 2-3 weeks under W250hps?
Do you know where I can find more info on how to build a scrog?
 
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