HID light distance

[luvndrt]

Hi everybody.
I am a new indoor grower and i had a couple questions i did not see the answer to on the site. one is with my forced air fan cooled 400 watt HPS/MH light i dont seem to have hardly any heat coming out to the plants., does that mean i can lower my light further than the general recommendations . No signs of light burn. I know i want the most intense light i can get for my flowering stage so can i go as low as possible as long as no burn or am i missing something . number two question is.With my indoor closet grow 3x3x10 i have a habit of rotating my plants often .I have never seen this recommended in any growing tutorials . it seems like a good thing .Should i be doing this ?
thank you for any help

[ChadWestport]

I have gone 12" from the canopy with an air-cooled hood on a 400w HPS. The lower you go, the less footprint the light has, so you don't want to get so close to the canopy that you are limiting light to the corners of your tent. Intensity is measure a variety of ways but the less expensive meters measure lumens or lux, which are important to us, but there are better measurements for plants. Regardless, you can still use those numbers to determine the proper ones. Flowering is more than double the intensity of veg.

Rotating the plants is a great practice. It gets light to different areas of the plant and should provide more even growth. If you aren't tied into a scrog net, definitely give you plants a few turns.

[growell]

put your hand on top of canopy if u can hold it there for 20 seconds move light closer that how do mine 600w hps most people turn there plants i do a quarter a night but as chadwestport said v lose light spread so happy medium mate

[Gluteous]

Agree with the lux meter. It will give you an idea as far as light intensity, which for air-cooled is more likely to cause problems than heat.