Things to Know About Lighting

Thanks for the + rep danny i'm always happy when i can help a fellow grower in some way

I have looked into these Nlite bulbs and I have to say that they sound pretty damn good

Hey there, new to growing and i have one plant under 2 4' 32-watt fluorescents, my question is if I could technically grow on one bulb instead of two since it is a single plant.

Plants do not recognize lumens. What they do recognize is par.

you guys are all screwed up. REMEMBER reverse square law a 1000w light is a 1000w at one foot away so a 400w light 6" away its double that and if its spinning you can get it 2" away without burning. You guys can do the math.....

jberry said:

if it were me i would run 2 1000w super hps in a 3x6... but if it were me i wouldnt try to grow 8' plants indoors either.

anyhow, i dont see how you could do more than 2 1000 watt air cooled lights in such a small area (i dont think you have room for 4 reflectors and ducting in a 3x6), so i would go for 2 and 1 nice fan to cool them. and if needed, maybe some low watt/low heat side lighting as you mentioned.

i would concider the chart above as a very bare minimum... a 1000w hps for every 4x4 is usually a pretty good method for maximum results.... you can use slightly more light then that, but at some point you will run into heat issues, hot spots, leaf bleaching, ect... You can also get away with less light, it is possible to grow and flower a 10x10 canopy with one single 1000w light but quality and density will drop quite a bit and i have found that most people that have tried several lighting methods (including myself) use the 1000w per 4x4 method and in my opinion is kinda the standard set up.

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Thanks for the help. +rep

Heat is the one thing that I'm not sure of. The plants don't take up the whole closet. There's a portable A/C, a big standing fan, a small floor fan, and some shelving in there. Plus a small unused corner. The closet itself is 7' x 4' 8". And I was thinking of trying to set it up in the bedroom because I'm getting tired of pulling them out every time I want to clean or water them.

The plan for the heat if the flower room stayed in the closet was to make cool tubes out of hurricane glass. There's a thread on home made cool tubes. Put the 4 lights in two rows of two and link the lights in the rows together with a little flex duct and use a 500 cfm fan at the beginning of each row. After the 2nd light I'd use one of those Y fittings to bring the 2 lines together and out the door. I'm not sure how much heat those lights will still put off, but I have the portable A/C that can help. Without it, just two 400w lights with no cool tubes would have the temp in the 90s or low 100s without the A/C. So it can drop the temp 20 to 30 degrees in that little room.

If I set it up in the bedroom I'll also have a wall unit a/c to help with the heat, but I wouldn't have the portable A/C because it would have to stay in the closet so I can use it as a veg room. Basically the same plan as with the closet, but again I don't know how much heat the lights will put off with the cool tubes or how much using stronger fans might help. (I've seen them as strong as 1,000 cfm).

So if you had 7 sizeable plants and were starting to worry that you might have to use light LST to keep some of them from hitting the 8' ceiling or getting too close to the lights by the time you harvest, and you were going to use two 1,000w HPSs to do your flowering, how much would you expect to yeild (just ball park)?

Marijuato said:

Hey there, new to growing and i have one plant under 2 4' 32-watt fluorescents, my question is if I could technically grow on one bulb instead of two since it is a single plant.

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what i would do personally is find a way to put one up high and put one down low unless your going to lollipop it then i would go with both right over the top of the plant as close as you could get them

just keep it right off the top of the plants and they get nice amounts of light with decent penatration



and as for the growing 8 plants indoors .. count em



i always start clones in my closet before i transplant them for the final push but due to a new way of doing things was tought to me i will now be ...after this grow .. no longer vegging my babies .. they will all go strait to SOG

Any info regarding LEDS?

quackdaddy said:

Any info regarding LEDS?

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i personally think LED's are a waste of money
my cfl's work a hell of alot better then the UFO i bought so chalk one up for trying the gimmick

soo. i decided to look into my grow dresser just to check the temp and humidity and saw that my cfls are blinking lol. kinda like one of those electicity things where you touch them and the static or whatever goes to ur finger cuz my my ionic filter is blowing directly on them. weird...

oh yea... i didnt mention that the lights are off lol

My question is for HPS bulbs. Is a 150w hps "grow" bulb any different than a 150w hps bulb you buy at Home Depot? Will it produce the same results? What exactly is the difference between the two if any?

hi dudes, i have 11 northern lights just had them in water for 48 hrs then planted them in all mix soil. I have a grow tent, have them sitting on heat mat, and pots are wrapped with clear film for moisture, they are under a 30watt flourecent, is this light okay rite trough vegging period, and is everything else done rite so far????

i have a 1000 watt mh light system that i bought off of my buddy for about 150 bucks with an extra bulb. its a Sunmaster Warm Deluxe 1000 watt mh bulb. it says its meant for fowering light spectrum is 3200 kelvins. do you think this would be sufficient for flowering?

smokedog1 said:

hi dudes, i have 11 northern lights just had them in water for 48 hrs then planted them in all mix soil. I have a grow tent, have them sitting on heat mat, and pots are wrapped with clear film for moisture, they are under a 30watt flourecent, is this light okay rite trough vegging period, and is everything else done rite so far????

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11 plants ...one 30 watt bulb for all of them ... and your gonna try to veg them all on it ?? .... that would be ok for seedlings or even a batch of clones but to veg 11 plants on that one little bulb...in a nutshell ... Not a Chance ... your gonna want to get ALOT more cfl's last one 26 watt(100 watt) over top super close to the leaves on each plant and one underneath.. the one underneath can be small tho ..maybe a 13 watt(60 watt) on the bottom then you will get killer penetration on your plants

thanks for rply.. well i wasnt sure wat to do next, how many more lights will i need and wat colurs if it is important. yes they are only seedling at the minute. and wat do you mean by a light underneath?? when do i start vegging?? when true leaves apear?? i also have 400watt hps but i am not going to use this untill flowering.. is everything else sound ok??

smokedog1 said:

thanks for rply.. well i wasnt sure wat to do next, how many more lights will i need and wat colurs if it is important. yes they are only seedling at the minute. and wat do you mean by a light underneath?? when do i start vegging?? when true leaves apear?? i also have 400watt hps but i am not going to use this untill flowering.. is everything else sound ok??

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since you have 11 plants i would go with shop lights instead of individual cfl's get 3 or 4... 4 foot shop lights and hang them over them then have them right down on top of the plants like 2 inches above them

if you go with the banks of lights you wont have to do any under-lighting ... i sugest doing a search and read everything on cfl growing you can get off this site

if you dont want to keep replacing so much money on cfls bro shop lights with aquarium or reptile lights from a pet store there worth it in the long run bro trust me

boseke420 said:

if you dont want to keep replacing so much money on cfls bro shop lights with aquarium or reptile lights from a pet store there worth it in the long run bro trust me

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glad to see another one getting with the program .. shop lights are awesome then i have a single 100 watt equivalent cfl mounted in the center of each to boost the lumen rating and penetration ...makes em grow like *weeds*