How Much Light

[TheGoodFarmer]

Hey growers, How much light would you guys recommend for two indoor plants in a 2x4 tent. I am finishing up my second grow right now. Since starting I have done two plants at a time with 150w hps per plant both veg and flower in 5 gal pots with good potting soil. I have noticed from my own research that most people seem to talk about watts per square foot of canopy for HID lights. Any thoughts?

[Spidermite]

I run 424 watts in a 2x4 but 300 total watts from hps ahould be enough.

[gbauto]

Rule of thumb for HID/blurple leds is 50w/ sq ft of coverage. If you run good leds(QB, cobs, light strips) then 30w/ sq ft will give you comparable light levels.

[TheGoodFarmer]

Your talking about the sq ft of the canopy, not the whole tent right?

[BearsFan]

Lux meters takes all the guessing away. You get to know exactly what’s going on and at different spots.

[Spidermite]

They dont work with leds

[TheGoodFarmer]

I will look into that, What reading would you shoot for?

[Spidermite]

If you can find them read @Drphotons articles

[PhantomSulker]

I've done a lot of reading and am about to set back up my 2x4x4 tent again to veg in, I bought a 300 Watt Cobb light for the veg tent. That is more than enough for that space.

[Obi-Wan]

50w/ sq. ft. for HID’s is a good general reference but it’s deceiving. I have a buddy that runs a 600w in his 4x4 tent and he gets great results. It’s not surprising as it’s a fairly common setup. That 600w in the 16 sq. ft. tent has him at the same 37.5w per sq. ft. that you get in a 2x4 with 2-150w. The higher intensity 600w gives better penetration which leads to better results even though the watts per square foot are the same.

[TheGoodFarmer]

Yeah, I have had a feeling that I wasn't getting good canopy penetration with such small lights, Buds don't grow for shit on the bottom. also, I have also noticed that I lose a lot of the bottom canopy very quickly even before flower stretch is completely over. My best guess is its cause I am moving the light further up away from the bottom. Its funny cause when I bought these lights the shop owner insisted I use HPS cause of its ability to penetrate. Another thing I hate is having to keep the lights closer to the plants its causes heat issues at the top colas some days. So If I were to keep using them should I just learn how to train the plants to grow short or try pruning them

[Obi-Wan]

I’d try to train them to be smaller and wider. If they stretch a little more than you expect you’ll have a pretty good idea if you need to lollipop by week 3-4 of flower.