the coated bulbs I am using are 8400lumens/per @ 4000k vs 5900k for the crappy clear mv bulbs, they made my tiny plants from the last grow flower BIG for their size, and the growth of these new plants is quite impressive vs my last grow with just floros for veg. as far as i know the mv works fine, it just isn't nearly as efficient as even floro, but these two 8400lumen lights replace quite a few cfls and floro tubes (I use the cfls in my house to offset the cost of power). Of course I still have 4 26w cfls and 2 2ft warm white sets for side and rear lighting, this area is cast with some 24,000 lumens over a 3x1.5 area, the bulbs are 10" from top of soil in reflector hoods and I now have some 5ft vertical to play in, my last grow I only had like 20" max vertical (tops were bent) so my plants were like lolipops, I learned a lot.
I certainly would like to upgrade to hps, but 150w hps setup costs $120 retail here, my mv setup cost $40 for two fixtures, and $26 for two coated bulbs, I will get an hps soon, but money is tight and I already had 1 mv in possesion, so for now, the mv works just fine.
4x5 Reviewed by 4x5 on . New log, six plants, first time vegging w/HID All my previous grows were done with cfls and floro tubes, However this time my seedlings are under my 2 175w coated MV lamps and cfls, I finished the remote ballasts and re-oriented the bulbs in their reflectors this week. I must say I am quite impressed, all six seedlings cracked the surface last week under 6 cfls at 18/6; after that week my new hid setup was ready, within 2 days under these lights, all six have a first set of internodes, this never happened to me on previous grows with Rating: 5