Am I starving my Veg plants of light?

This is my wife's grow at her house, 12/12 plants they go in 6 at a time so every 5 weeks get a chop. Quick run down of Flower is 13x11 room (12' ceilings), 6 1000w DE Gavitas and 4 Gavita 270e's, each group of 6 plants goes under 3 1000e's and 2 270e's. Running 1000's at 73% power (Yes I should of went with the 750e's)

Anyway so my Veg setup was horrible it was in a 6x6 tent with 2 2x4 T5HO 432w fixtures, this was fitting 6 plants in 10 gallon coco pots, also our solo cup and root riot things. Ran this for just about a year and seemed to work well but just no space and always bending over to do things, everything cramped.
I said time for an upgrade so I made about a 10x10 room, with a 4x8 flood table for bigger girls getting ready for flower and a 3x6 table for the little girls. Both tables are only there to act as a drain - they are plumbed into drain so never have standing water in bottom any more. 24" off the ground makes it perfect height for giving the plants love. I put 1 T5HO over the 3x6 for the little girls. I then put 3 Phantom CMH fixtures above the 4x8. I love it, works great! BUT then I get really thinking about it, is this enough watts to properly prep them for flower? I have plenty of stretch room but I just want to make sure I am not shorting ourselves, I do get slight shading on the outside of the plants when on the table (Spin them daily so they do get light everywhere). I hate to add more lights as I am close to my limit on my electric service and A/C sizing.
So basically more veg light will speed up growth and reduce stretch when flipped but will I see any other advantages if I add say another 3 CMH fixtures above my Veg 4x8? I am normally finishing around 1lb per plant right now, usually a hair more. Slightest increase will obviously pay itself off very quickly (about 1300 for 3 more lights and about $100 extra per month in electric IF my A/C's can keep up)

What do you guys think?

BudManRI420 said:

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Dude, more light equals bigger plants and more bud. Hell yes pour the light on and see thicker stems and plants with better node spacing for one thing. Can you lower that T5 to within a foot or less on the table?

And with that much space I strongly suggest LST. SCROG is great but only if you can access all sides of the grow. Topping and LST at the least.

The T5 is normally closer to the plants. I took this picture the day I built this room and took them out of the tent, was excited the way it came out - Now have the space to be able to give the plants much more attention.

Flower room right now they just grow as big tree's. I am thinking about doing 3x6 flood tables, 3 plants on each table (2) 3x6 under each set of 3 1000e / 2 270e and doing a trellis 5x13' over the top on each side of the room so a total of 4 3x6 tables with 2 5x13' trellis in the room, same light. I mostly would like to do this just to make the draining much easier then shop vac'in the saucers every time.

I cant believe you have plants that large in solo cups, they should be in 3g p I ts at b that size imo.

are u concerned about # of plants?if not I would load that place up step down to 3-5 gal pots u could cut every2-3 weeks once u get her rolling.

I would like to keep it 12 in flower and 12 in veg, obviously sometimes we may accidently have a few more, but really want to keep those out of flower if possible. Yeah those plants were WAY to big to be in solo cups, I pulled them all out and brought them to my place as I needed some, wife usually kinda jumps the gun on clones and always has too many . Pretty much over there we go right from solo cup to 10g pot.
I ran 24 plants before and didn't really notice a difference in overall yield, just veg them a bit bigger. Technically I do 24 plants now but just do it between mine and her house to keep within the laws.

I here ya smart thing to do nice set up by the way very nice!

No they don't need more light, 100 watts per plant is a good rule of thumb. There is something called the point of light saturation, meaning plants can no longer process, or photosynthesize the light and that electricity is wasted. I agree with intenseneal, those plants are way too large for solo cups. No reason to restrict root growth.

100w per plant is minimum.

Well that puts me at 157.5 W per plant in Veg and 590 W per plant in flower. That is a pretty big gap, Almost 4X the amount of power in Flower, I mean this is better then I had by far but is it ideal?

Actually since I run the 1000e's at 73% that puts me at 455W per plant in flower, About 3X Veg power.

Should be fine but you can always add more t5 strips, some cheap led panels or if you really want to push them in veg add a 250w mh to your t5s. I dont think the t5 fixture you have will work very well with the 3rd option though. Move that t5 down, a lot. Keep it about 6 inches from the tops of the plants you will get better growth, tighter nodes and thicker less stretch stems.

You think the T5 part is the issue? That part is really only for the clones and little girls. The big table with CMH's are what I would I might be starving them for?

I cant find pictures of Flower Room but here are the lights in my flower room.... Like I said I think I want to try 2 sets of 3x6 tables on each side.

Looks like a nice, clean setup, OP.