So i've heard that plants in DWC grow up to 20% faster. So it seems reasonable to assume they need more lights too to produce the sugars they need to grow. So i'd like to know your opinions on if more light is needed for DWC over a soil setup. And what lights are people running, heights and par readings. Thanks Here is my setup: I'm running two Mars Hydro 300s each side. And a Mars Hydro Pro II 320 Epistar in the middle. All in a 2ft by 4ft space. I don't have a par meter unfortunately but it incredibly bright. I am running about 20 inches above my plants right now I used my phone (I know not very accurate) and was reading about 30k lux above each plant. As it is with the 3 lights on, the middle one set to grow its pulling about 570 watts from the wall. But if I flip the bloom switch on the middle one it pulls over 900 watts from the wall. I'm not currently using the side ones, I just turned them on for the picture. I plan to use them in flowering. With just the middle on set to grow i'm pulling about 330 watts from the wall.
Are you sure those white buckets aren't letting light in your res? It's quite typical to use black food grade buckets or to cover the outside of the bucket to prevent light leaks. If they're standard white buckets the light will slice right through them. You can add more and more light but at a certain point you'll reduce the efficiency of your grow. Most people like to judge a grow's efficiency in grams per watt of light power. I've experimented with running more bloom power in my 4x4 flower area. I once ran up to 800 watts of platinum led. I never got over .85 or so g/watt. When I reduced my light power to about 550 watts and switched lighting brand to HLG my g/watt figure went up to 1.2-1.5g/watt and I had larger harvests overall in the same area. Also lower temps and cheaper electric bills. The best g/watt total I've ever seen is about 1.9g/watt. Growmau5 did it on youtube with as low as 28 watts per square foot in his grow room. That's growing efficiency. Putting 900 watts of led in a 2x4 is just overkill. You don't have the space to make the most out of those watts if you can even keep it cool enough once the plants get big. 40-45 watts per square foot with mars is fine. You have 8 square feet. You're running over 100 watts per square foot. That's higher then I've ever seen even with HPS.
My buckets were painted black, then painted white again. The black blocks the light, the white reflects heat And thanks for the input. I'll just remove the side lights then, I really only put them in there because I had them and I thought it would help with flowering. I'll start another project with them. The middle light on max power (grow and bloom switches on) consumes just over 600w so still a little overkill but what the hell. Spoiler: Here are the par readings for my light if you want to see: Thanks again for the input. Its interesting to see what your gram/watt figures are, i'll keep it in mind.