4x4 flower room 1 600w or 2 400w?

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herbtoker420

Member
I'm going to be setting up my grow room within the next two weeks. it will consist of a 3x4 veg/clone room and a 4x4 flower room. i could buy a 600 watt hps, but i found 400 watters for 150 apiece for bulb hood ballast on craigslist. what do you think? 600 or 2 400s:bigjoint:
 
DubRules

DubRules

Well-Known Member
shit man.
go for two fours.
you can get better light coverage because you can move them separately.
 
Moldy

Moldy

Well-Known Member
I think you will have better light penetration with a 600W. Maybe you'll have less heat too. Also, power bill may be less with 600W. I use a 600W for my 4x4 area and it works good with a large air cooled reflector. I use to have one 400W but the lower branches suffered big time.
 
draglow

draglow

Active Member
go with the two 400hps with that you will have a total of 800w off the bat... and you can keep the lights closer to your canopy increasing your lumes/sqft
 
H

herbtoker420

Member
draglow said:
go with the two 400hps with that you will have a total of 800w off the bat... and you can keep the lights closer to your canopy increasing your lumes/sqft
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yes this is exactly what i was thinking because the 400's produce less heat than the 600's. do you think there will be a great deal of difference in heat as far as 600 or 2 400s goes?
 
H

herbtoker420

Member
also, is it a good idea to veg the plants to about 3 feet maybe 4 ft before forcing to flower? i have 8 ft ceiling and want to grow them as big as possible!
 
draglow

draglow

Active Member
herbtoker420 said:
yes this is exactly what i was thinking because the 400's produce less heat than the 600's. do you think there will be a great deal of difference in heat as far as 600 or 2 400s goes?
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theres many variables. for instance what kind of ballat you are going to use, what kind of hood, the kind of air venting that can fit your situation.

i personally would get 2 400w lumatek ballst with cooltubes as your hoods. and with that you can do a total inline duct work with one fan to push all the hot air out of both tubes as long as there hooked up in a series. thus making your lighting more efficient..

just my .02:mrgreen:
 
J

john84

Active Member
herbtoker420 said:
also, is it a good idea to veg the plants to about 3 feet maybe 4 ft before forcing to flower? i have 8 ft ceiling and want to grow them as big as possible!
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No way, if you veg to three or four feet they'll probably top out at around 6-7, possibly more, meaning little to no light penetration for the bottom 3 feet of your plant. I'd say veg them to 18 inches or so and then flower.
 
R

Redeflect

Well-Known Member
No matter what bulbs you pick, you're only going to get decent light penetration 3 feet down... 2ft if they are very bushy and cramped indicas. So I'd say aim for 4ft tall plants maximum. If they are mostly sativas flower at 18 inches, if they are mostly indica flower at 24 inches. Taking into account pots and room between the canopy and lights, you shouldn't need any more than 7ft of space. Also, I'd suggest the 2 400watts. At the very least, it means if your ballast or bulb fuck up, you can grow with 1 light for a while until a replacement comes in and not worry about all your plants dieing. I'd rather pay for the extra wattage (and possibly have more/bigger buds anyway) and not run the risk of losing a harvest 5 weeks in because my lights shit the bed.

Also keep in mind when considering the height of the plants, keep in mind that the longer you wait to bud, the more room their roots take up and the closer to maxing out their size they are. I've had lots of plants that didn't grow buds nearly as large as they should've because I let them get too close to maxing out in size and root room before I flowered them. Make sure those things get lots of root room (if you intend to be growing 16 plants every square foot which is probably smartest if you want them to be 4ft, make sure they are in 3 or 5 gallon buckets... 5 gallons would be best).
 
H

herbtoker420

Member
not all too sure if i wanna fork out the extra cash for double of everything. it just would cost way too much and i might as well go with a dimmable 1000 watt for alot alot cheaper than 2 400s.........
 
Tyrannabudz

Tyrannabudz

Well-Known Member
600w w/ adjust a wing reflector. Trust me. I have a 400 super sun reflector runs hot as hell the 600 nice and cool and super bright.:joint::mrgreen:
 
draglow

draglow

Active Member
Redeflect said:
No matter what bulbs you pick, you're only going to get decent light penetration 3 feet down... 2ft if they are very bushy and cramped indicas. So I'd say aim for 4ft tall plants maximum. If they are mostly sativas flower at 18 inches, if they are mostly indica flower at 24 inches. Taking into account pots and room between the canopy and lights, you shouldn't need any more than 7ft of space. Also, I'd suggest the 2 400watts. At the very least, it means if your ballast or bulb fuck up, you can grow with 1 light for a while until a replacement comes in and not worry about all your plants dieing. I'd rather pay for the extra wattage (and possibly have more/bigger buds anyway) and not run the risk of losing a harvest 5 weeks in because my lights shit the bed.

Also keep in mind when considering the height of the plants, keep in mind that the longer you wait to bud, the more room their roots take up and the closer to maxing out their size they are. I've had lots of plants that didn't grow buds nearly as large as they should've because I let them get too close to maxing out in size and root room before I flowered them. Make sure those things get lots of root room (if you intend to be growing 16 plants every square foot which is probably smartest if you want them to be 4ft, make sure they are in 3 or 5 gallon buckets... 5 gallons would be best).
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very good points that you made. just take those into consideration. just remember its' all personal opinion and what you think that you can handle, it's all based upon your limitations.

double to stuff just again means backup to fall upon.
 
spagettiheady420

spagettiheady420

Well-Known Member
I use two 600w's in my 4' x 4' grow area-yeailding me two pounds per 60 day period!=1200w of HPS but dont take my advice, listen to the lil 400w guys-theyll help you screw shit up really fast!
 

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Moldy

Moldy

Well-Known Member
I use two 600w's in my 4' x 4' grow area-yeailding me two pounds per 60 day period!=1200w of HPS but dont take my advice, listen to the lil 400w guys-theyll help you screw shit up really fast!
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Wow! That's some pretty heavy lighting for a 4x4 area but you can't argue with your yields. I see you have a couple of Sun reflectors. I've got the larger one and it covers the 4x4 area really good but then again I'm limited to three plants flowering, state medical limit.:-|
 
laserbrn

laserbrn

Well-Known Member
I have a 4x4 grow tent. I have 2x 400w lights and 1 600w light.

Guess which setup I use in my tent these days? I've grown with both. Using 800w to generate ~100,000 lumens or using 1x 600w light to generate ~100,000 lumens?

You do the math.

Get an appropriate reflector and the single 600 is much better. Much easier to cool on reflector, easier to deal with altogether. I hated running the dual 400w's. Once winter gets here my 4x4 is going to get a 1000w though. I never really considered 2x 600w in a 4x4, but I'm pretty much down for anything. Might give that a try when it gets cold.

I was originally planning to get a second tent and put another 600w in there.
 
H

herbtoker420

Member
spagettiheady420 said:
I use two 600w's in my 4' x 4' grow area-yeailding me two pounds per 60 day period!=1200w of HPS but dont take my advice, listen to the lil 400w guys-theyll help you screw shit up really fast!
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how many plants do you have growing under your 2 600w's?

Moldy said:
Wow! That's some pretty heavy lighting for a 4x4 area but you can't argue with your yields. I see you have a couple of Sun reflectors. I've got the larger one and it covers the 4x4 area really good but then again I'm limited to three plants flowering, state medical limit.:-|
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yes that is why im keeping it at six flowering six vegging. state law you can only have 6 mature plants
 
C

coworker23

Member
herbtoker420 said:
I'm going to be setting up my grow room within the next two weeks. it will consist of a 3x4 veg/clone room and a 4x4 flower room. i could buy a 600 watt hps, but i found 400 watters for 150 apiece for bulb hood ballast on craigslist. what do you think? 600 or 2 400s:bigjoint:
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Dude, look at the box of the 400 watt bulb and the 600 watt bulb. Look at the Lumens

400 HPS approx 45,000
600 HPS approx 95,000

Not sure why nobody else has suggested this science but it speaks for itself.

Why use 800 watts of electricity when you can use 600 and save money + get the same amount of light?

This is why people use 3 x 600 watts instead of 2 x 1000 in a 8x4 area. Less Heat, less money, same output.

600 watts are the most efficient bulbs to grow with Lumens per watt.

400 watts suck ass.

Don't go with 2 x 400, that's inefficient.
 
C

coworker23

Member
spagettiheady420 said:
I use two 600w's in my 4' x 4' grow area-yeailding me two pounds per 60 day period!=1200w of HPS but dont take my advice, listen to the lil 400w guys-theyll help you screw shit up really fast!
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What are you running as media?
Are you running co2?
and last, is that from Above average producers, or your basic average over "decent" strains.

i.e. Big Bud vs Purple Earkle you are looking at a huge difference in yield.

The reason I said is I am running a 1,000 watt in a 4x4, but if you are saying 2 x 600 watts will yield an extra .1/2P then I will invest.
 
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