400w cmh grow

[NorCalFor20]

Here is my 2nd grow (first indoor)

I am using a 400w CMH and I have 6 seedlings they are mexican bagseed, and local "headies" seeds. I have some grape apes that I am about to germinate- the 2 pots at the end are just multiple bagseeds in each pot I am taking care of them for my friend for 2 weeks. I am using my own soil mix which has: 1.5 cu foot potting soil 1 cu foot perlite 1 cu foot peat. It works well for me. I am using fox farm Grow Big, Big Bloom, and Tiger Bloom for nutes. Let's see what happens.

 

[Pirate138]

Do you have a flower box made for when they are big enough?

 

[NorCalFor20]

its not a box its a closet. I am not using any venelation the closet stays around 80 with the light on 20/4. When they flower im guessing there will only be 3 females out of 6 plants, and when I need to I will raise the light. I'll let the light get about 4" away from the tops before I move it up from where it is because it being a 400w CMH it does not put out as much heat as an HPS of similar wattage. If anyone has a 150 HPS thats about how much heat its putting out.

 

[Pirate138]

A CMH does make as much heat as a HPS it just doesnt throw it as much. Make sure your closet is light proof when you flower.

 

[NorCalFor20]

oh it is its totally stealth from the outside, and there are no light leaks. The only way you would know its there is if you actually opened the door and went in there.

I rubbed one of the leaves of the plants between my thumb and finger, and even as small as they are they will make your thumb stink like a skunk - is this a good sign or do all plants do that?

 

[fatal1]

I'll be watching your grow NorCal. Keep us updated. Good luck & be safe.

 

[Disguised]

Good luck with your show brother

 

[Aaronponic]

How many grams per watt are CMH users pulling?

 

[Murphy]

You're off to a good start!

 

[greenisgold]

How many grams per watt are CMH users pulling?

Hard to say. The biggest bulb they make is a 400. I'm just finishing up a cmh grow under 650 watts. There are a lot of variables when one grows, but I'm really not satisfied with the outcome of this grow. Now is it the bulbs? Not sure, but I have been growing for a while. There is always a time in any plants life where it hits that blast off phase and really packs on the weight. This is what I experience during pretty much every hps grow I have done. But for this grow, it never happened. Sure the buds are nice and all, but they never just started gaining serious weight like when I grow with hps in flower.
Next grow I'm going back to cmh in veg and 2 or 3 weeks of flower, then I'm replacing with hps and finishing.
Peace.
P.S. This is not to say that I have not seen some pretty nice grows with cmh. I will say this though, there seems to be an amazing amount of resin on both strains with these bulbs that started very early in flower. But, the jury is still out for this grower.
Peace out
6.5 weeks

 

[NorCalFor20]

I might not go all the way through with the cmh, I am probably going to-as crazy as it sounds, in flower use the cmh the first 2 weeks then switch back and forth between hps and cmh after the first two weeks, probably every 2 days or so possibly- but I am not sure yet.

That's not to say the CMH isn't a good bulb, im pretty sure it beats the hell outta even the most expensive MH bulbs out there- as far as blue spectrum goes.

or possibly just supplement the 400w cmh with a 400w hps. I would like to see true rare earth pure red HO fluros put out but I don' think thats gonna happen between now and then.

 

[greenisgold]

I would not flip-flop like that. The plants will not respond like you think they might. Just go with the cmh in flower until small buds appear, then switch to hps. For the last 2 weeks of flower, switch back to cmh as it has been shown that mh bulbs this late in flower along with the little extra UV (jury still out on that one) will increase oils.
If you can have both hps and cmh then that might be the ticket. Or if ya have not done a full cmh grow, do it and report back as my results are just one growers and realy don't mean much.

 

[tjc1088]

Nice setup man, I think im going to get one of those CHM bulbs soon. you have no heat issues with your uncooled hood?

 

[NorCalFor20]

Update: Today I watered with 1 teaspoon Fox farm grow big and 2 teaspoons of Fox Farm Big Bloom (liquid EWC and Guano) Per Gallon the soil was bone dry so I know they were thirsty. They perked up about 30 minutes after I watered them we'll see if they burn or not by tomorrow hopefully. I know they are young for nutes but they had nutes their first watering and had no problems. My potting soil dosn't have any nutes in it so they will benifit from the boost hopefully- its they burn and die no big deal they are bagseeds.

tcj1088: I am not having much heat problems its around 85 in there. I added an oscilating fan to blow on the plants.

look how close the node spacing is on this plant.

 

[greenisgold]

Damn that's some strong nutes for such small plants, be carefull or you will fry them.
What soil are you using?

 

[Cannabean]

definately pullin up a seat for this one. nice cmh setup Norcalfor20the. you might want to think about some air circulation if possible, theyll love you for it.

for those wondering, common philips mastercolor 400cmh bulb has 34,800 initial lumens where as a hortilux super hps has 55,000 initial lumens. I realize these arn't average lumens but its an indicator of the what the difference in grams per watt compared to a similar hps grow.

my philips cmh and my hortilux hps put just about the same amout of heat, but like pirate said its not thrown as far. its just not as intense of a bulb as an hps.
--also you must use a magnetic ballast for cmh bulbs cannot fire on digital electronic ballats such as lumatek and the like so in that sense cmh's won't put out less heat.

i think cmhs are for some growers and not others. many grows starting from clones only need a short veg time which an hps can easily do but if seeds are being grown and/or you are veggin out some big bushtrees a cmh will certainly give you better results in veg time.

 

[NorCalFor20]

Plants can't tell lumens they go by par so lumens aren't important to me... I will probably do as suggested earlier and use the CMH first and last 2 weeks of flower I might just use the CMH all the way through if my money isn't good enough to get a nice increased red HPS. The plants took the heavy nutes fine and shot up over the past 24 hours. I figured they would I have a lot of exp. growing southeastern mexican genetics outdoors, they like heavy nutes, lots of light and lots of heat and lots of wind. One plant is mutated (from seed) it might get the axe today depending on what you guys think. I'll post a pic later... My 3 apes germinated today and they are going into half beer cups and placed on top of the other pots until I get back to walmart for some more pots. Someone said I should add a van for venelation in there, I added a very powerful oscilating fan for circulation. I have the fan blowing on the plants directly so they will have nice thick stems. The door is left open when I'm not having friends over.

 

[NorCalFor20]

Some new pics.



A different light setting. Notice the new oscillating fans. My friend is coming to pick up the two pots in the back on monday, so I can make room for my grape apes.

The one all the way to the right that looks empty is a grape ape about to pop up.

Looks like this one is reaching up towards the light, the tips are pointing up. A little nute burn from spilling nutes directly on the leaves... I should be gettting a temp/humidity gauge tomorow for exact readings...... stay tuned

 

[greenisgold]

Pre-flowers already-damn! So I guess they are female? How tall do you think they will be at the 5th node? CMH's produce tight nodes, which can mean the plant could be very short at 5 nodes with no side branching. Are you planning a seed sog? If you have another small room/cab just get some cfl's for the new seedlings so they can catch up.

 

[NorCalFor20]

i wouldn't say they are females for sure, its just they have reached sexual maturity. Im not looking for seeds, just gonna kill the males flower the females and re-veg the best smoke. Im just not sure yet about the grape apes. if i have to i guess i can tie the mexis down if they get too tall for the apes. anyway, thanks 4 checkin in.

this grape ape just broke the surface....


this one is having trouble kicking it's shell...