This is my first grow and I was wondering if someone can tell me if I have too many plants in my 5 x 5 tent. I have 8 indica plants in it. I'm not worried about the height as I'm pretty sure I'm good with that. I am getting ready to switch to flower. Thanks for any advice.
Yes, too many. Not because of tent size, but the lights inability to adequately cover 5x5. Pick and a second or even third one for flower, or I'd go with a 1000w hid, or 630w cmh. Trust me, you will run into issues trying to flower that as is. Good luck and let us know what you end up doing.
Thank you very much for reaching out with advice. I am running a 1200W LED light. So you say 3 is probably the max that I can flower with it?
What is the actual power draw and who manufactures the light? It looks like a China light so I'd bet you'd want no more than 4 plants, and I would still rotate them half a turn each day.
Thanks again for helping me. I appreciate it. It is Chinese. The information on the light is as follows: MEIZHI reflector series LED grow light, adopts 120 degrees reflector panel, with full spectrum for veg and flower, dual growth/bloom switch, 450-475nm, 620-630nm, 650-66-nm, 730nm and 5500-6500K. Upgraded with infrared rays, 1200 watt uses Epistar 5 watt high intensity single chips and have 60 LEDs which can replace 1200w HPS/HID/MH traditional lights while only consume 568W. This model dimension is 24.7"x15"x2.8", perfect for 5ftx4ft growing area. This is the info that I have on the light. I hope this helps with your assessment and advice. Thanks again.
This light will not replace a 1000w hps. It's under powered. Just because a light says it has 1200w worth of chips means nothing because the driver behind it distributes the power to those chips. If it's only giving 1/10 of the power the chips can produce then your light is only 1/10th as bright as the manufacturer is leading you to believe. But regardless a LED light that claims 1200w and goes for 150$ will never fill a 5x5 tent. I would probably recommend trying to flower a 2x2 or 3x3 with it but I think you'll have to buy stronger lights eventually to get what you want to be receiving from your harvests. Quality led is expensive though. I just shelled out 500$ on a p4-xml2 by platinum. https://forum.grasscity.com/threads/perpetual-closet-grow.1434897/
When it comes to led quality of the light becomes more important than amount of wattage in chips. https://forum.grasscity.com/threads/perpetual-closet-grow.1434897/
Very true. The bigger operation guys using led are investing thousands per light. If the cheap lights could come close we would see a much more tight pricing structure. Not to necessarily knock the China lights, I have a few Mars lights laying around. Hell I still use some in the greenhouse for tomatoes. OP the manufacturer of your light claims to cover a 5x4, but the simple truth is those light can not do what they claim, at 500plus watts power draw isn't so bad, but it cannot spread the light evenly or effectively over that space.
Lol. Platinum. Its junk also. It uses the same cheap parts as the op light. If it is the cree one it uses low bin cree and only 8 cree diodes are cree the rest is bridglux. Get another light just like it or get a couple t5 to hang one on each side of it. Look into cree cob lights. 500 bucks will buy a nice diy cree cob light.
It uses 2 cree diodes per each cluster. The rest are cheap Chinese like the op is using. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Read the second dot.
500$ will not buy a nice DIY Cree cob light. Not enough to do a full size tent. I priced them I was looking at around 800$ to get the coverage I need. Cree is expensive. Very https://forum.grasscity.com/threads/perpetual-closet-grow.1434897/
dudes growing under t5s and telling us about how under powered our lights are lol On the flip side. Your t5 grow looks nice. I did one last year as a big scrog. 6 plants 5x3 scrog with 3 (4 bulb) 230watt fixtures. For 690 watts total. I got a little more than 12 ounces. 2 a piece but each had a 2.5-3 month veg time from seed. Then ran hps. Now I just switched to led. I know the Cree "clusters" on the p4 are only 2 diodes and intended as "boost" This doesn't bother me. They can use the cheap diodes if they want too. What's appealing with platinum is the 5 year warranty no questions asked. Show me any light with that type of warranty and I'm all ears. Cheers mate https://forum.grasscity.com/threads/perpetual-closet-grow.1434897/
Thank you. No. What I am saying is you paid out the ass for for a light that is running the same cheap diodes as the op light. Never said anything about the power of the light. That platinum light only has 8 cree diodes. The rest are bridgelux diodes, no different than the light you are knocking. I hit 11 ounces in a scrog with 432 watts of t5. It also had problems. Don't blame it on the light. New smart ballast t5 efficiency is on par with single end hid.
Diy gen 7 vero29 400 watt kit with meanwell driver. $519. Can get cheaper than that with discount and it will blow any single diode panel out of the water. 400 Watt Vero29 V7 (4) COB Grow Light Kit I use t5 for a reason. For the mixed spectrum and uv. the t5 uv is way better than led uv. Led has some nice uv stuff but at outrageous prices. the current uv offerings are not very good.
Thank you to everybody replying and giving me advice. I appreciate it very much. I need all the advice I can get being new to this. Thanks again.
T5 is efficient but led blows it out of the water. No questions asked. So does hps. I've done all 3. https://forum.grasscity.com/threads/perpetual-closet-grow.1434897/
And did you read the part about a 5 year warranty on platinum. No other light offers that. Hence the cost difference. It's of higher quality. And the driver is better. Apples to oranges really. Diodes mean little in the entire scope of the light. Anyway Doc I'll be around to see how your making out buddy https://forum.grasscity.com/threads/perpetual-closet-grow.1434897/