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500w LED too strong?

Discussion in 'Grow Room Design/Setup' started by Spicyricey, Jul 5, 2018.

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  1. #1 Spicyricey, Jul 5, 2018
    Hey everyone,
    I am starting my first indoor grow this summer and I'm a little un sure of a couple things, hopefully somebody can give me some input on this. I recently bought a (24"x24"x48") grow tent to contain my northern lights autoflower. I also bought a 500w LED grow light to go inside without researching the distances needed for LEDs. I'm starting to believe that 500w is a little too much for the grow tent I'll be using. What I read online is that you must have atleast 30" between the light and the canopy of your plant, which seems like too much since my tent is only 48" tall. I was thinking of just training my plant to keep it lower but I think it might be worth it to just get another wattage. I guess what I'm asking is: can I get away with a 500w LED growlight In my (24x24x48) grow tent or will my plant suffer from the amount of light. Also what wattage would work best in this scenario?
     

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  2. #2 growNepal, Jul 5, 2018
    I think you should be fine. What kind of led are you using? Is the actual watteage 500 Watts? Even if it is, just keep atleast a foot between the plant canopy and the light once the plant gets taller. Right now I think your light is too far from the plants. You can lower the light a little bit. Overall you should be fine.
     
  3. #3 Spicyricey, Jul 5, 2018
    This is the light I am using, I just posted another photo. I was just worried the box might be too small as far as width or something, I'm glad to hear that a foot might work aswell, I am very limited in growing space vertically. Thanks for the input!
     

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  4. #4 growNepal, Jul 5, 2018
    This light is actually 150 Watts. But should be good enough for your grow space. You should do great during veg. But it might not enough during flower. Just keep an eye out.
     
  5. #5 Spicyricey, Jul 5, 2018
    Ohh lol how come it says 500watts then? I'm new to LEDs clearly. that's good to know atleast I won't burn my plants, would you suggest just getting another light? If it's going to affect my yield I'd prefer to swap them.
     
  6. #6 growNepal, Jul 5, 2018
    If you can swap it with 200-250W actual wattage, you should be fine. But if you can’t, this should work as well.
     
  7. #7 ManInDirt, Jul 5, 2018
    I run a 1000w HPS in a 5x5 tent. 6 plants, air cooled and vented out. No problems, you'll need the air movement anyways. So vent that tent with an inline fan. Looks like that distance is fine I have a 900w LED in my veg tent and I drop that shit to 24" and it's great.
     
  8. #8 Tbone Shuffle, Jul 5, 2018
    I would advise you get a different tent for flowering and use that short one for veg. I don't get the popularity of that tent size because it makes it extremely hard to grow any good size plants with good light distance when you only have 5 feet to work with.

    3x3 tents commonly come in 6' tall size. I would look for taller then that if you can. My tent is 80" tall and I can't imagine growing in a 5ft tall tent. By the time you add in pot size on the floor, light distance, spacing the light down off the ceiling, ect you have a capacity for about a maximum of an 18" tall plant.

    If you went up to 3x3 and had more room to manage light distance you might find that your light isn't too powerful. 3x3 is only 1 more square feet of grow space so it's nothing crazy larger then 2x4.

    If you're smart you'll just use the 2x4x5 to start plants and flower in the 3x3. You can start plants with CFL lights if you don't have a second grow light yet. Running a separate veg and flower area allows you to double production because you can always be flowering plants. As soon as their done move new ones in from the veg area.
     
  9. #9 toolzor, Jul 5, 2018
    It's a marketting technique. I have a "2000W" LED, nothing about it is relevant to 2000 watts in any way, just a nice big number to get you thinking the light is badass. It actually draws around 400w with both veg and bloom switches on.
    The light you have there draws 136 watts according to their post on Amazon. As far as distancing goes, most of the time you really need to play with that to figure it out for yourself. I have some really stretchy plants due to mistakes that I've made, I'll bend over branches and tie things down at the beginning of their day, and when I look at them again right before their night night time, a different branch will be back up right on the light. I've only noticed they actually get damaged when they start actually touching the lights, I've made that mistake twice. Once with CFLs, and once with a Quantum Board. Seems that you can let them get really close until they start damaging the plants, but with that being said, you don't have a whole heck of a lot of room to play with to begin with. Even with an 8 foot tall tent, it's astonishing how quickly they can fill it up in flower.

    I have two Northern Lights AF plants growing in my veg tent with my clones and such. There was very little planning that went into those, so they just sit in my veg tent. I have been able to keep them low by basically bending it over at a right angle, tying it down, and letting it branch out that way. I'm sure if I actually took the time to give them the love they deserve they would have been a lot bigger, but the bottom line there is, I have been able to keep them pretty short, the yield is probably going to be trash though, but that's 100% my fault.
     
  10. #10 steamedgyoza, Jul 5, 2018
    According to your measurements and the amazon post, you should be fine.

    Because of this discussion I decided to look into getting an LED; because I’m still using 5+ yr old HIDs. Even the LED “1000w” version uses less wattage than my cheapest-costing 250w HID... and that kinda blows my mind. Idk what kind of currency CDN is, but it’s $89 here and that’s lovely imo.


    Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
     

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