Am I Using Enough Light?

I have 11 plants, I'm using a 4 foot fluorescent, a Sun Systems, Sun Blaze 44. lamps are T5 HO 6500k blue lamps (4 total bulbs). Basically what I have done is draped tin foil around the perimeter of the light, sort of forms a tent. Bulbs are each 54 watts if that helps, and the output says it is 20,000 Lumens. They seem to be doing ok but I want to maximize potential. I attached a pic of my "grow tent" plants in the foreground are called "Poke nu nu" which I can not find ANY information on so anyone who knows anything about this strain, please let me know. The rest of the plants are power kush, master kush, and a couple white widows, a buddy brought me the clones, I had no hand in the selection, all are about a month old.

is an hps out of the question? They look good and fairly large but also somewhat stretched. Your t5 setups light can only go so far and your plants are gonna get about 3 times bigger than they were when they started the stretch phase of flower. You might want to do some tying and/or topping on them if you dont have alot of vertical space. if hps is not possible you should get yourself some side lighting.

scrog/lst/sog and or hps (yes sidelighting if not, though if you do scrog or lst its most ly pointless, but if you grow them as they are,straight up, you are definetly going to want sidelighting)

you need more light and more room....you need some fans in there too blowing the plants around to prevent mold and create a strong healthy plant so it can support its buds and focus more on budding while flowering vs holding its shit together...

high pressure sodiums are in the future, this is a first grow so I expect some learning curve here. I have another T5 light I can use for side lighting as well as an LED (300watter, close to 300 lights in it, 4 or 5 spectrum) height is not an issue, I can grow them out as big as I want but I do intend on making some clones so topping, will probably happen.


spent most of the night researching/pricing HPS lighting and devising a new plan for a grow closet. Found a complete HPS set up for about 225 bucks (1000 watts) from what the specs say it should be enough for what I am planning. Not too happy with the venting required for it but from my research I believe that HPS lights seem to be the best option. Is there any need for side lighting with an HPS set up? Room will be 4 x 8 x 8 and contain 12 plants, I'm thinking this should give them plenty of room. I'm aware that I need intake and exhaust already so I have that covered. Being a plumber doesn't hurt in that department. And I know they use a lot of power so I have to ask, 24/0 cycle, or does anyone use an 18/6, for these type of lights? What are the advantages. draw backs of each besides using more juice and a bigger bill =) Thanks for the input, I got snookered into doing this before I was ready so I know this won't turn out like it should but I need to make the best of it and prepare for the next grow.

18/6 gives the plant less light to perform photosynthesis which ive seen in cannabis culture and in other articles by some well known growers that claim it increases growth around 33% to do 24/0 over 18/6. If you do 18/6 though you can have the lights off for the hottest hours of the day to control temps and save some money on the electric bill. I would do 24/0 as long as possible till the weather got warmer here and it gets hot and ive got no choice but to run 18/6. Thats w/pretty much any setup i use.if i keep them on it the summer 24/0 it easily hits 110-120f in the grow area.

24/0 makes sense, I think I might give both methods a try and see what happens. They've been on 24/0 for about a week and a half now, gonna temper them back to 22/2 for a couple days until I get it down to 18/6. Summer time may definitely be 18/6 full time if heat becomes an issue, so far my highest temp has been about 85 but a little extra venting fixed that.

Thanks for the input, much appreciated.

No problem. Glad to help. My cut off point is anything over 95f personally b/c at that point is when i start to have heat related problems I've got very good air circulation myself w/plenty of fresh air coming in. it sounds like you do too but make sure to watch the plants for any sign of heat stress if your over 90f at first. w/ your plants and setup it may be too hot for them and cause problems. Or it could be perfectly fine for your plants/setup.