1000w question

[chisel]

my room is roughly 5.5 x 11 ft. i have it fully mylared and vented with intake vent and outtake. i also have a 6.5 light mover, right now m veg'n with a 400w mh. my question is, im thinking of getting a switchable 1000w lamp that i could veg and then switch to hps to flower with. would this be overkill or even worse harmful to veg with? any insight would be helpful

chisel Reviewed by chisel on 12-01-2008. 1000w question my room is roughly 5.5 x 11 ft. i have it fully mylared and vented with intake vent and outtake. i also have a 6.5 light mover, right now m veg'n with a 400w mh. my question is, im thinking of getting a switchable 1000w lamp that i could veg and then switch to hps to flower with. would this be overkill or even worse harmful to veg with? any insight would be helpful Rating: 5

[stinkyattic]

No, it would be great for the plants to have blue light in veg.
However, I would turn the mover OFF during the veg period and cluster the plants in their smaller pots under the MH until they are as big as you want, then flip to flower for the first couple weeks with them still under the MH, and then re-pot them into the right size pots to finish, spread them out, and turn on that light mover with the HPS in it.
This will save you $$$ in electricity by using it the most efficiently, and reduce your veg time by clustering more plants under more intense light.
Read the continuous canopy sticky in basic for pics!

If you have space to build a second room though, don't bother getting a switchable K MH- just build a room that is about half the size of your flower room and keep that MH 400 in there permanently. A good ratio of HID veg watts : HID flower watts is about 1:3 so if you veg under 400w you should flower under ~1200w, but 1000 is just fine, especially on a mover! You know... in that space, with that mover, you could run a PAIR of 1000s... there are hoods that accept 2 bulbs, or you could run 2k side my side. But then you get hot spots back again.
Just rambling... lol...

[chisel]

thanks for the reply im very green at all of this. right now im veg'n under the most basic of mh bulbs, i guess im try'n to give a boost to my veg time. is specific bulb i shoud be using to get the most out of my LAMP, im currently working on a smaller area for veg (5x8).

[stinkyattic]

IF you can get your hands on Hortilux bulbs, they are AWESOME in terms of useable lumens per watt for each life stage. The MH is VERY VERY blue and I was running my 400w MH with a horti blue bulb over a freaking 4x4 footprint- that's too big, according to the common practice of 400w-3x3, 600w-4x4, 1000w-5x5- but my moms did very well.
Upgrading your bulb is a very good investment and will give you more bang for the buck than adding another lamp, even, if you were using crappy bulbs!