My MH and HPS are showing no lumens

[Marketplaza2]

I have a 400w metal halide light and a 1000 w hps light. I can use both with 1 ballast. When I put my light sensor under each one it shows that they are producing 0 lumens for my and 200 for the hps. When I place the tool under my cfl lights it goes to the max reading when im next to the light and shows it getting weaker the farther away i take it. Both lights light up good but don't seem as bright as a cfl. Could I have purchased a bad ballast or is this normal for my light sensing tool not being able to pick up the lumens from both lights? But I did try using the 400w mh on my seedlings and they died, the leaves cupped and they all died. Now I'm starting new and im not going to try using it till they are bigger and can handle the light, even though im not positive that's why they died, maybe because the mh isn't producing lumens like my tool says. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Antics]

I'm pretty sure that it's physically impossible for a light to produce light, and register 0 lumens.

A lumen is a measure of the total light emitted by a source, whether it's an incandescent bulb, LED, MH, HPS, CFL, or whatever other bulb is being discussed.

If there's light, there are lumens. I would question the meter you're using, it might not be entirely accurate. And if it's not working to properly measure lumens, if this is a combination light/moisture/PH meter, I would replace it immediately.

You can use MH bulbs without problems with seedlings, you just have to have the light at the correct distance, and cannot allow the bulb to overheat the plants. The use of a cooltube reflector is recommended.

Here's a great post from UltraDan to get your 400w MH set up correctly: How far sould my 400W MH be from seedlings?

 

[Marketplaza2]

What I don't get is I had the 400w metal halide about 3 feet above my seedlings and I put my hand on top of them to make sure there was no heat reaching them and it was nice and cool but after 3 days I went into the grow room and all of their leaves were cupped up and dis colored. Then the next day all of the seedlings except for a couple that were almost ready to flower that nothing happened to them, but all the seedlings were dead. I have since started new seedlings and I have them under 150w cfl's and there doing great. Im just worried that when they get bigger will they be able to handle the mh light without dying. And im also worried that maybe there getting no light caus of the lumen issue ( im going to get a new light measuring device). As when they get big enough I'd really like to use the mh and then hps for flowering. As I know you get way better results that way over cfl's. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

I'm pretty sure that it's physically impossible for a light to produce light, and register 0 lumens.

A lumen is a measure of the total light emitted by a source, whether it's an incandescent bulb, LED, MH, HPS, CFL, or whatever other bulb is being discussed.

If there's light, there are lumens. I would question the meter you're using, it might not be entirely accurate. And if it's not working to properly measure lumens, if this is a combination light/moisture/PH meter, I would replace it immediately.

You can use MH bulbs without problems with seedlings, you just have to have the light at the correct distance, and cannot allow the bulb to overheat the plants. The use of a cooltube reflector is recommended.

Here's a great post from UltraDan to get your 400w MH set up correctly: How far sould my 400W MH be from seedlings?

 

[Marketplaza2]

BTW your right, my light measuring device does light/moisture/ph level. im going to wal mart today to get one that measures light only if they make one.

 

[Antics]

Don't waste your money on a lumen meter You really don't need it.

Use that money to upgrade your existing PH meter to a nice digital unit. They can be found for $12-$20 online for decent models. Many of those models are similar to the Milwaukee PH600.

The issue of your plants may not have been related to the light at all. There are a ton of other things than could have killed them, my first guess would be too many nutes.

Spend some time reading this topic: How to Grow Marijuana Everything You Need to Know

It'll give you a good head start.

 

[Marketplaza2]

I'm growing them right now with a combo (50/50) of fox farms ocean forest and happy tree frog, before I was using miracle grow organic. I have the 3 fox farm nutes, big bloom, grow big and tiger bloom. But I haven't used any of them yet as I was told to rely on the soil for a month and then use big bloom and grow big, tiger is for flowering, but as of now there to small to handle any nutes so im goin to wait till there like 12 in and start my 1000w hps on them, just not sure how high to hang it. But I tested it out to see what it looks like and it's not as bright as my 150w cfl which are daylight kind. I just see the Orange line lit up in the middle of the light and it didn't seem to get to hot after 15 min but that's all i ran it as its not needed atm. But any advice is appreciated.

 

[lushgreen]

Cupping leaves is a sign of extreme light stress. Seedlings can't tolerate a 400W MH sitting right on them, needs to be at least 2' away from the tops. Once the plants are more established, the MH can be lowered.

 

[Antics]

I'm growing them right now with a combo (50/50) of fox farms ocean forest and happy tree frog, before I was using miracle grow organic. I have the 3 fox farm nutes, big bloom, grow big and tiger bloom. But I haven't used any of them yet as I was told to rely on the soil for a month and then use big bloom and grow big, tiger is for flowering, but as of now there to small to handle any nutes so im goin to wait till there like 12 in and start my 1000w hps on them, just not sure how high to hang it. But I tested it out to see what it looks like and it's not as bright as my 150w cfl which are daylight kind. I just see the Orange line lit up in the middle of the light and it didn't seem to get to hot after 15 min but that's all i ran it as its not needed atm. But any advice is appreciated.

Pictures of the light? And how long have you let it run for?

 

[Marketplaza2]

I just started using my 400w mh on a 8 in karamelo today. I took a pic so I could post it here and it came out green. Im unable to post pics here for some reason but it's now bushy and 6 in tall. So it should handle the mh just fine. I got it 4 feet from the top. Is that to far from it?and do pics come out with a green background when taken under a mh light? They are in my 4x4 closet and it's got a a/c vent in it..weird huh? But that's how my house came. As my pics look normal when I take pics of them under my cfl lights.

 

[Marketplaza2]

I really don't know what to say but I just read the sticker on the side of the charger box for the ballast and it says hps on only 1000 watt max. I was running a 400w mh from it. The guy who sold it to me said I could use mh lights no problem. Obviously he just wanted to sell it. But I have a 1000w hps light im now using for some regs I was flowering with cfl bulbs. The hps light on looks like all the pics I've seen online with the long light strip glowing soft white. But will running the mh light screw up the system?

 

[Antics]

Usually pictures taken under high powered HID or LED will have lines in the picture, I've never seen them all green though.

4' is way too for for MH. 5"-18"

Do some research on the light you have, maybe it can use MH? But you gotta search for the information.

I don't know if running MH will screw up the system, but I know there are MH and HPS only ballasts, and dual bulb ballasts for a reason. You don't want to risk a fire, so I'd suggest not using the light until you learn more about it.

 

[Marketplaza2]

Yea, now I'm just using it with the 1000w hps bulb. I got it 4 ft above the tops of them. I am just gonna stick with using cfl for vegging. I have sum real nice 150w with 2800 lumens 6500k bulbs im using. But the hps seems like it's doing what it's suppose to as it looks like all the pics I've seen. Do u think I can get a good yield doing it that way? Or will it be that much better using a 400w halide? I just want decent yeilds.

 

[Antics]

When you have the right ballast to run the MH, it will help improve your yield, BUT you can make up for that by vegging your CFL just a little longer.

I would save the HPS bulb, they have a definite life span, and you don't want it blowing out in the middle of flower. It's also producing spectrums that the plant really doesn't need right now.

Focus on just completing each grow with as few problems as possible, good yields will come.

 

[Marketplaza2]

Right now I transferred my deep cheese which is 9 in under my 1000w hps. This is my first time useing it as it's not digital. It's analog, but for like 4 days none of the plants under it were growing. They look good but no growth. I did a experiment with my deep cheese and put it under a 200 w soft white cfl. It was under it for a couple hours and grew 1 inch and looks to have spread out a lot as well. It looks to me that the soft white cfl is performing better then the hps, is this normal? Why would it grow so quick under the cfl but not the hps? Any help is appreciated.

 

[Marketplaza2]

I finally said enough is enough so I went out and bought a 1000w hps set up. Not the digital as the analog I got is brand new with a 5 year warranty. My old one everything is connected so I can't just change the ballast if I wanted to. Well I hooked everything up and when I started it, it's like the sun...so bright! My old one glowed a bright orange/red light and since it was my first I didn't know what the light is supposed to look like. But now I can see my plants growing nice and healthy but I gotta watch out for the heat since this one gets hot and my old one wasted energy and was warm. This one even has a switch for metal halide or hps. I also got a 1 year warranty on the 1000w bulb and 5 years on everything else. But I wanted to say thank you to Antics who has given me great advice.