My questions...
Posted: Fri May 24, 2013 9:00 am
Folks: Been following the threads looking for answers to my "as of yet" unasked questions, but did not see answer, so here I go. have several years of outdoors experience under my belt. this year, had to move to indoor set up, with little space to do so. Set up a 20x36" tent (basically call it 1.5x3' or 4.5 Sq Ft.). Bought a CLW 200W Solar Flare full spectrum and Botanicare Ebb and Flow system.
Through veg stage was VERY impressed with the SF on 2 plants that are designed to stay under 60-80 cm. But, am now converting to Flower stage (10-12 days ago in a 8-9 wk start to finish variety, currently in week 6), and found that the plants began to want to stretch to the light. Was told by local hydro shop that sells the SF and has experience with it to lower light to 2-4" from tops to stop upward growth. Plants seem to handle that fine, so far. The obvious problem is that when you lower the light to top of canopy, there is little light spread for the branches below, hence those flowers are small and I question whether they will ever develop. MY QUESTION IS...what can I, or should I, do, light-wise to achieve optimal results? Did not go HPS or HID due to too much heat to vent (am in hot, humid TX location to start with). Was told by CLW that the SS400 would gen out a lot more heat than the SF200's. When I posed the above question to CLW, they said I should have bought the 200w Veg and 200w Flower SF's, but that would not have fixed the light dispersion issue and THEN ALSO, could have just bought a SS400 for about the same $. Would adding a 125W red spectrum CFL to tent help? Anyhow, any thoughts or advice is welcome. Thank you.
Through veg stage was VERY impressed with the SF on 2 plants that are designed to stay under 60-80 cm. But, am now converting to Flower stage (10-12 days ago in a 8-9 wk start to finish variety, currently in week 6), and found that the plants began to want to stretch to the light. Was told by local hydro shop that sells the SF and has experience with it to lower light to 2-4" from tops to stop upward growth. Plants seem to handle that fine, so far. The obvious problem is that when you lower the light to top of canopy, there is little light spread for the branches below, hence those flowers are small and I question whether they will ever develop. MY QUESTION IS...what can I, or should I, do, light-wise to achieve optimal results? Did not go HPS or HID due to too much heat to vent (am in hot, humid TX location to start with). Was told by CLW that the SS400 would gen out a lot more heat than the SF200's. When I posed the above question to CLW, they said I should have bought the 200w Veg and 200w Flower SF's, but that would not have fixed the light dispersion issue and THEN ALSO, could have just bought a SS400 for about the same $. Would adding a 125W red spectrum CFL to tent help? Anyhow, any thoughts or advice is welcome. Thank you.