25-35 watts/sq ft? Is that enough? I thought 30 was bare minimum for indica and alot more for sativa. I’m sure I’m wrong here so please correct me . Is this as efficientas hps because of the closer distance you can place it to the top of the plant? Sorry, I’ve been out of the loop a long time as far as indoor goes. I was just going to get an eye blue metal halide bulb for my thousand watt light. What if I was looking for the old fashioned type of light that does produce heat. Metal halide or HPS for sativa? Whats the best bulb? Unless it ends up unbearably hot I’ll need to go this route for now because i already have it . For the winter time it will come in handy too, or I’ll need to use ( more) heat. I’m going to look into that light you just showed me, but it is eight hundred bucks, which I don’t currently have … So you think LEDs have finally become the best light available huh? .What’s the square footage it’ll light up? I was thinking of upgrading soon anyway…
That one I ‘splashed the specs on’ works out to 37 W/Ft2. and about 900 ppfd at 18" height. (that’s a lot). The latest parts are comparable to bulb - except cost wise but that has been improving. At least that’s what I keep telling myself 
You mean ceramic metal halide? or maybe a double ended. Blue eye is respectable too.
Cheers
G
But no degradation of light after a few hundred hours.
I got my marshydro TS1000 in early October 2019…its been running 12/12 everyday since then (roughly 3200 hours)…still works like it did out of the box.
Every once in a while I wonder about my Kind led blurple and inadvertently look up… nope, that’s the same… 
The age slope is good on these parts.
Cheers
G
Lol. I dont know. Its not digital. Its got a switch on it. You can use hps or metal halide bulbs. I think I read that I blue eye ( think thats right?) Or eye blue metal halide bulbs are the best? And I have no idea what that is as I’ve never looked it up. I read the quality of sativas under these bulbs is very good. Better than Hps. Agree? Disagree?
What is ppfd? What area gets covered by the light at 18 inches? Wondering how many I would need. They would replace a 1000 watt hps/ metal halide and 2 430 watt lights that are 400 watt hps and 30 watts metal halide. I don’t know how this is possible with one bulb, but that’s why I bought the light years ago. Close to 20 years ago now. It grew very good weed.
I use Hortilux+ CMH , got 10 brand new from a buddy that switched to push ins. Also been eyeing the LED’s but with a few years worth of bulbs it’s not as much of a rush. Plus my space is 6’x8’x9’ so I would need at least two I would think.
CMH means ceramic metal halide, yes? And you are happy with these? I have a similar sized space to light up as you do. My room is 8 and 1/2 ft by 8 and 1/2 ft. So I think realistically 6ft by 8ft will be my grow space. Will 1700 Watts light this up? Sufficiently for sativas I mean?
I run two 1250 boost with hoods and cooling tubes in flower and 1- at 50% for veg along with a few cheep LED for projects and sick bay.
As near as I can tell, Blue Eye is best in class, if you have the ballasts and are experienced with them I wouldn’t change unless I had a compelling reason.
PPFD is just a unit of measure of useful light (to the plant) per square meter.
Sunlight at noon ranges from 900 to 1600 PPFD. You are correct, the 18" is the light to plant spacing to get that level of intensity.
Cheers
G
If they are comprable to the noon-day sun, they certainly produce plenty of lumens! I wouldn’t say I’m familiar with the ballast I currently have. It’s been so long since I’ve actually used it. Maybe I should just tell you guys my plans and you can tell me if I’m crazy or not. I plan on flowering indoors during the summer time. Lights will be on when it’s cooler at night, and obviously off during the day. I don’t want to use air conditioning if it’s at all possible. Nights where I am are often in the 50s during the summer by morning time, meaning after midnight. An awful oppressive night at my place would be about 68 degrees ehen I wake up. Daytime highs max out in the low eighties typically, but the air I’ll be drawing into the room during my daytime dark cycle should be even cooler than that by 10 degrees. I was in a rush to get this done, but moving a small box of plants in and out each day right now is really not such a big deal. it’s so strange flowering tiny plants. But I just looked at a photo of my seedlings from March 24th, and I see how quickly they grow. Especially the Kullu. It won’t be long before the plants need a transplant and it will get more difficult to bring them in and out each day. I probably should have had this figured out a long time ago. Any help is greatly appreciated. About the only thing I won’t need help with is my soil mix. They are really enjoying that.
That makes a lot of sense, I was running my lights at night partially for the same reason, well that, and the rates are lower… 
Cheers
G
Do you plan on taking them outside to finish once the natural daylight hours coincide with your flowering hours? I’ve been saying I’m going to try that but I’m slow to the start. I have too many projects going.
I better figure out what, but I want to try that indoor to outdoor to see if I can get one to finish outside.
I’m about to do same thing on light schedule , it’s been 90 during days here all week, just gonna have to move the timers an hour a day over a week so not to stress them.
Put one of my Panama clones out back and didn’t even think I took her from 24/0 to 15/9, seems fine so far, loving light and rain water. Hope it don’t herm, what’s done is done. Have a black pearl Sativa fem and one of 2 70’s mix that look a little more to indica side of x. Hoping shorter one will be female, as the havnt shown yet, may push it in flower for a week to show then decide, hate to waste a male outside. Fathers that I’m holding now are
2- bangi haze / no fems
1- MTF so far
1- skunk #1 x Black Pearl
Fems are
2- AK x Black Pearl
2 - Skunk#1 x Black Pearl
2 - Purple Thai And Panama Red clones, branches dusted with bangi, Beldia and Skunk1x
That was originally the plan. The problem is the temperature here after mid-august really starts to dive. If I attempt to do that with anything it will have to be able to withstand cold temperatures. Or I would need to switch my light cycle later in the season so the plants could go indoors at night. For the heat of the summer, I will need to have lights on at night. I’ll have to think about this. It’s not so easy as I had imagined. More seeds germinated than I had planned, so I will have to keep the size small, and to do my best to keep them indoors as much as possible for safety sake. Males will indeed go outdoors and will be a good indicator of cold tolerance as the season progresses. All plants currently are enjoying the free lightbulb in the sky. If I can keep them on the small side, we’ll see what happens. I’m going to try all the tricks to keep them small, such as small container size through the flowering stretch. They will only be transplanted if they look unhappy. If I can keep them to 5 gallons of soil or less for the whole season, I may leave a couple outside and just set up a quick separate dark area for them at night with some heat. I should be able to use the exhaust from my room for that. You’ve got me thinking… sure would like to see them finish under the natural Sun
Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density. It’s a measure of how much light, in the spectrum needed for photosynthesis, is actually striking the surface of the leaf. This is a pretty interesting document, it covers more than lights, but it talks about PAR, PPF, and PPFD. I may have posted it before but I couldn’t find the post so…
Good score!
Sprung from Springer no less…
Cheers
G
I don’t know how it would work for me either. Somebody mentioned it and I thought I’d like to try. The other way is to bring them in to finish flower but then you may be bringing pests with you.
I grew my Colomb/Malawi in a 3 gallon pot I think. I was going to move it up to a 7 gallon but it honestly seemed like it loved it. It grew to about 5-6 feet and a perfect Christmas tree. So, maybe it will help keep them manageable. I always heard to give sativa lots of root space.
What did you think of the Black Pearl? Sounds interesting. I recently was gifted 5 of the OH that Todd McCormick is selling. He put in two extra packs for my buddy who had to wait a bit to get them. I want to try a couple or three of those and clone them all. Never had OH. It’s an open pollination of it so it may take a lot of seeds to find the money shot. I hope I get an idea of what all the fuss was.
The original batch of seeds I was gifted were the MTF, SK1, AK, Black Pearl and x’s with both. All the stock was Older Mr. Natural did the Black Pearl. I talked to a guy from NY and he said it was a local legend and showed me nearly black bud with colored hair creeping around the sugar leaf. First I’ve ever seen of it live or dead. I believe the big mystery plant is a BP, buds are perfect ping pong balls 3 weeks in . Showing like a wicked Sativa with thin dagger growth leafs.
Black buds ! I’d grow that for 20 lol
More I’m finding out about it the more I might work it. Can anyone translate? Has cup win in 2017.