Flowering Spectrum Lights

[taipanboi]

Hey stonnies

Was speaking to a guy at the local Hydro shop and he was talking about swapping the globe for a flower spectrum when im ready to flower, im just wondering if its worth another $80 or if he is just trying to milk me? so has anyone used on of these and did it work wonders for you?

ps im growing SCROG

[bufo marinus]

Hydro dude is not pulling your leg there is a difference between standard hps and horticultural hps, someone had a nice chart up in one of the posts recently showing the different spectrums.

Basically the blue end of the spectrum is for vegging and the red end for flowering, standard hps has a very narrow section in the red whilst the horticultural ones have a broader mix

Another benefit of the newer lamps for instance the GE Luca Grow is that it maintains 90% of it's output over the life of the lamp which is great! No more worry over lamp life.

$80? must be a 400? I think I paid $110 for a 600 Luca Grow at the hydro shop but just did a quick search and found these on e-bay. At $45/400w & $65/600w plus $12 postage these are a bargain.

Good price on cool tubes too

 

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/400W-GE-Lucagrow-Hi...re-Sodium-Grow-

 

Edit; bugger that link isn't working. If you want to read up google search ge luca grow

Edited December 18, 2006 by bufo marinus

[taipanboi]

cheers for the quick reply!

thanx for the info, I have one of those Lucagrow 400W globes for Veg grow how do I know that its on the red spectrum. in other words how do i identify the difference when buying on ebay??

oww and does it matter that I have a 400W vegg light then a 600W Flower light?

Ive also seen these power saving lights that dont require any ballast and are alot cooler than other lights anyone got opinions?

Edited December 18, 2006 by taipanboi

[bufo marinus]

Well as far as I'm aware there is only one Luca Grow and it will be fine for the entire grow

Not sure what hydro dude was trying to sell you??

 

No it won't matter if you veg under a 400 and then swap to a 600 as long as you have the correct ballast for each.

Not sure if your talking about compact fluoros with the power saving lamps? People seem to do ok with them for vegging clones etc

[loylty gets u nothing]

i user the lucagrow 600 w hps

i payed 75$ for it

im waiting on me son t 600 thats 80$ 600w

its said to be an all round bulb for grow and bloom

with a bit more blue in it than standard hps

 

 

but if u got a lucagrow bulb i think u will be right for bllom

its up to u if ya get another bulb but id only get it if me pressent bulb was old

all the best

bpa

[Gazza2001au]

he was probably trying to sell you the "old" style HPS globe back in the days there were no alrounder bulbs to get the best plants/buds u had to use MV/MH and HPS these days the MH globes have added red for flowering and HPS globes have added blue for veg so both bulbs are great for start to finish but u can still buy the globes just suitable for each part of the growing cycle

[stonedstump]

Is there a noticeable difference between grow and flower MH globes?

[Gazza2001au]

Is there a noticeable difference between grow and flower MH globes?

compairing the lamps next to each other u do see a huge difference between the standard MH and sunmasters warm delux i only ever vegged with the lamp so cant comment on flowering

[Taipan]

With regards to the ole HPS vs std MH vs warm MH the differences are very minimal. There is a lot of hype about the red colours and blue colours etc, but if you actually look at the spectrums the difference is minimal and as far as the plants are concerned there won't be much difference in end results. When I bought my first 1000W MH in 1976 the HPS wasn't considered a good light for plant growth. MH were the only ones tried, and they work very well. The MH lamp whether cool or warm version will grow very good buds. Same as the HPS is also very good in veg growth. The stem length will be a touch longer, but not enough to worry about. I personally recommend the HPS due to their efficiency. The extra intensity you get will make a difference. Plants want as much light as you can give them. Plus the HPS lamps have a much longer life. If the MH lamp was as intense and lasted as long, then I would probably recommend it rather than the HPS. Have a look at how they grow in South Aus ... almost everyone grows under 1000W MH lights.

 

You will probably all disagree with me here, but I bought and sold these lamps since before the Lucagrow and Son T Agro were developed. The Lucagrow is just a high output HPS lamp .. no colour improvements. When they changed from Lucalox to Lucagrow lamps they changed the packaging and the shape of the outer glass jacket. The rest of the lamp is the same as it always was. The only lamp with extra blue in the spectrum is the Son T Agro, which is only available in the 400W version. (actually this is not a totally true statement, there are some cheap imports coming in from china that are copies and they are also colour adjusted, but are cheap crap and i'd avoid them). A lot of people talk about the Son T Agro lamp having 10% blue, but this is a misleading statement. They have 10% more blue than a standard HPS. Standard HPS lamps have stuff all blue to begin with so 10% more of stuff all is stuff all. The 600W Son T Plus is just another standard high output HPS lamp that was repackaged for the horticultural industry. The only 600W lamp that did have extra blue in the spectrum was the Osram Planta T but it was taken off the market due to the high failure rate. The gas mixture used to add the blue colour to the Son T Agro does not work in the 600W versions. I could rave on for hours, most of the supposed horticultural lamps are just standard lamps repackaged. The Sunmaster MH lamps are an exception. But after saying all of this, it doesn't mean these lamps are no good, they all work brilliantly.

 

As far as the compact fluoro, there is a newer 130W version that some shops will tell you are great for grow and flower, this is not the case. They are just not intense enough. As a pre-grow light they are OK.

Edited December 20, 2006 by Taipan