Need Lighting Issue Help

Good Day and thanks for stopping by ... I am proud to say that I am a Newbie when it comes to growing the wonderful herb, and that is why I am asking the first on many questions.

Lighting in my veg closet ... The closet is 20 inches wide and hight and length are both at 5 feet. I am planning on using a hydroponic grow system using (2) rubbermaid totes, each having (6) 3 1/2 diameter air pots, for a total of 12 plants. I have in hand a 150 watt SunSystem unit, with various bulbs... (1) 400 watt HPS 55,000 Lumens ...(1) AgroMax HPS 400 - Hort ... and the (2) others that are currently placed inside the units are unmarked (but appear to be the same type) ... Question (1) ... I do not believe even if I placed the SunSystem Unit in the centre of my veg table, it would not spread the light evenly ... Do I use a clamp light with cfl's to gain more light pattern to the entire grow area ... If so, what cfl's would work best in this veg station closet ... All areas will be wrapped in mylar, with panda film on the floor.

Again, Thanks in advance for the knowledge ... It will not go to waste !

are you using the entire closet for veg? a 150 watt hps or mh will be ok for 24x24 area to start but will not be enough once the plants get much over a foot high.

i use x3 23w.6500k cfl bulbs per plant when growing with fluoros

hope this helps

mrmadcow said:

are you using the entire closet for veg? a 150 watt hps or mh will be ok for 24x24 area to start but will not be enough once the plants get much over a foot high.

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Yes, ... I am planning on using the entire area as a veg station, and then building a 5' L X 4' W X 6' H seperate station for a flowering unit. After much thought and pondering, we have decided to go with just (6) seedlings / plants in the veg station to see how it works ... I really want to use cfl's in addition to the 150 watt HPS unit and using some 6500k lumens lighting (clamps) to fill in the voids ... Am I on the correct path of thinking? And thanks for replying as always ..

onelove408 said:

i use x3 23w.6500k cfl bulbs per plant when growing with fluoros

hope this helps

Click to expand...

Yes it does help a lot OneLove and thanks ... Question tho ... are you using a clamp type unit or something already manufactured ? Thanks again for the reply

I had seen on You Tube that someone hooked up a lot of CFL's on a 1/4 or 3/8 sheet of plywood and designed it so that it covered his veg/grow area .... I would estimate that there were at least 10 or 12 CFL's on this board that appeared to hover via chain over his area that was growing 6 very beautiful plants. It really looked terrific from what was shown, however, it failed to mention at what Unit or Lumens it was producing, or the area of grow. I am assuming that the grow area was in the neighborhood of 4 feet by 4 feet, and that the output of lumens would be in the general area of 2700K to 3000K .... Has anyone come across a more detailed video or experience?

600 Watt Cooltube would be really good for 12 plants. Get sum ventilation and a Digital Ballast and you'll be good.