HPS or Floros

I have noticed that alot of people start their seedlings with floros. Can i give my seeds 250 watt hps straight from the beginning? And if so, it is better to give them 24/0 or 18/6.


Any information would be greatly appreciated.

 

Certain HPS bulbs have extra blue spectrum that would work okay to veg, but fluros would work too. Metal Halide bulbs are the best for veg.

 

Thanks chaz. I am waiting on my seeds to arrive in the mail. After seeing a few grows on here, i was questioning if i had to go out and buy some floros. But i will start them with the 250 hps. Should i start them out on 24/0 or something less intense like 18/6?

 

If you are starting seedlings with a hps make sure the light is quite a distance from the plants. I'd start about 3 feet away. Hps will happily fry your seedlings!


I'd veg 18/6 anything more is a waste of electric.

 

Thanks for the info Skuzzi and Nippie. I cant wait to start my first indoor grow.

 

Good lucky buddy, and listen to these guy's advice, it's always on point.

 

Oh, now that is rich coming from you. lmao.

 

Now be nice....


He finally listened to a thing or two.


I'm jealous of his grow log. I want mine to be over 2500 views! 30 pages of golden comments from yall! Yeehaw!

 

Most of them include these smileys though...


:danger:


:BangHead:


And back on point, seedlings can't use the extra light from HIDs. CFLs for the first week or two is all they need.

 

Who doesnt stop to look at a train wreck?

 

But I has a Trainwreck x BB in my garden... lmao!


I have a pretty Trainwreck to stare at! :jj:

 

Oh snap.

 

HPS is a waste


You can run HPS from start to finish but it's just a waste of energy both in light and heat.


Go get a cheap CFL or even a shop light for seedlings. Eventually you will want to have these going for clones while you have other more mature plants under the HPS anyway.

 

Ideally, you'd have a Metal Halide for the second phase of veg, because it is blue spectrum.


HPS is best for flower, because it's mostly red spectrum.


Blue spectrum CFLs or Daylight Spectrum will work for veg as well. I've been using them for my whole veg, There is only a red spectrum bulb in mine, because I'm a "Jew"


and want to wait for it to burn out, before pumping more money into a 125+W CFL.

 

Ideally I'd go with LED for veg, followed by MH, but HPS with an enhanced bulb works great. Actually, that is in order of what gives the best veg but I haven't really seen a correlation to increased flower weight just more leaf. It seems like at some point you have 'enough' vegetative growth and more doesn't make an obvious difference.