What is your biggest question about growing cannabis?

[Rootsruler]

Since your an electrotech any way for you to rearrange the panels more like a bar light? You'll get better light spread if you can.

[Rootsruler]

Free is always good.

[FurnaceBoi]

Rootsruler there you go. Friend quit growing. All free. 300w old school light. 4 inch fan with humidity controller unit. Timers etc lol. Problem solved. Thanks Cory. 😊

[FurnaceBoi]

FYI. My friend just gave me this old school 300w. I'm an electronic technician. I'll ditch the box. Rearrange the panels, add a dimmer etc. Better cooling. That'll work.

[FurnaceBoi]

FYI. my friend just gave me this old style 300w. I'm an electronic technician so I'll disassemble it to 6 panels and ditch the box. Add a dimmer and better cooling. That'll work. And I like the free price.

[FurnaceBoi]

I get it on the brand name vs value lights. My phlizon lights have worked fine. Thanks for the calculation. That's helpful.

[Rootsruler]

I would start with figuring out what wattage would be appropriate to take my plants to harvest. The general rule is between 35 - 55 watts per square foot. You have a 2 x 4 so you have 8 sq/ft. 8 x 35 = 280w minimum/ 8 x 55 = 440w maximum.

Any light within those parameters should fulfill your power needs. Most grow lights fall within acceptable light spectrums so I wouldn't be too picky about what brand and focus on build quality and reliability.

Personally, I've used Bestva lights through most of my indoor growing having tried out most of the popular brands like Mars, Spider Farmer, HLG, etc. and not seeing any bump in dry weight production from using those lights. I've also experienced a high rate of reliability with Bestva lights. I still have one of their original Blurple lights from around 10 years ago. All diodes and exhaust fans are working. Build quality is also acceptable but I have seen others with better like from Gavita but certainly acceptable for the home grower.

My opinion would be to go with BAT-W400 from Bestva. 400w bar light. If you're in the continental US you can get it for $289.90. That comes out to .73 per watt. I haven't found another grow light that is that economical and perform the way it does. It's not the fanciest but it gets the job done without a hiccup.

[FurnaceBoi]

BTW, I am a fire alarm and low volt tech. I could assemble my own parts but I wouldn't know what to use. Plus labor etc

[FurnaceBoi]

Always watch the sales. Clone machine $100. Clonex, last bottle $37 lol

[FurnaceBoi]

Right on Bluey I am looking at reasonable bar lights. And ya if you track the prices you can score. I don't mind having overhead on the drivers to keep heat down.

[Bluey]

I too am using a 200w quantum board in a 4x2 space, but it's only for veg.

If I wanted to use it for flower I'd be using a bar light minimum wattage of 240w and shaped like the space.

So Mars Hydro FC4000 320w or Spider Farmer SE4500/G4500

Both a bit of overkill and there are other solutions but those are probably easiest, and when on sale quite cheap.

Wait for the sales if you can

[FurnaceBoi]

Simple question. I have collected a nice bunch of gear to make my small 2x4 grow be very productive.
Well, now I would like to upgrade my lighting in my flower tent.
I'm using a 200w quantum board now. Very interested in any suggestions that would give the full 2x4 coverage.

I am on disability so I don't have an unlimited budget. I do know you get what you pay for too, so not afraid of the investment.

I would love to move the quantum board to my new 2x4 propagation room so I can set up a 2 week sog.

[Rootsruler]

Coco tends to pH on the acidic side. I would stick with soil if you're looking for media buffers.

[Slyvie]

Anyone try amended coco? I read PH is less maintenance with soil and dry amendments - would the PH be similar if using coco with dry amendments?

[Rootsruler]

@midwestweednerd

I would agree with most of what you are saying other than the flushing part and living soil. Flushing will most definitely remove both nutrient and microbe from the soil. Will it remove all? No but it will remove enough to curtail any real meaningful effect the microbes have in delivering nutrient ions to the plant.

AFAIU, most people flush their media to remove nutrient from the media so that the roots don't have access to it to be able to replenish whatever they are using up in the phloem of the plant. This will trigger the plant to start using whatever sugars it has already produced during the photosynthetic process that it has stored in the leaves and branches. The reasoning behind this is that cutting off nutrients to the plant will get them to use up whatever they have in the plant itself hence having a cleaner flower at harvest. This is usually done a few weeks prior to the anticipated harvest window.

While this may in fact be what is occurring one of the negatives I see in doing this is you aren't providing the same levels of food the plant has been using missing out on the last few weeks where your flowers can fatten up along with the curtailing the full production of cannabanoids, terpenes and other VOC's that help with the entourage effect.

In other words I see it as starving your plants along with heavily stressing them when the volume of water used to flush gets run through the soil media.

One of the goals I always try and achieve when I'm growing is to provide as stress free an environment as I can for the plants to be able to max out their performance. Any time used to recover, or worse stunt, is wasted time and energy and decreases the performance the plant is capable of.

BTW, the way I understand it, flushing came about from soil growers using salt based fertilizers over fertilizing their media toxing the plant.