out of curiosity how many lumens are you folks running in your veg and flower rooms. my veg cab is 2feetx1.5 feet x 2 feet tall. 10 cfls 6500k total=16500 lumens. that's 5500 lumens per square foot of floor space. (vigorous growth, zero stretch)
in flower im 2.5 feet x 3.5 feet x 5 feet tall. i run a 400 hps in here with cfl sidelighting total lumens=66000. that's about 7500 lumens per square foot of floor space.

I read elsewhere on this forum that 50 lumens per square foot is a general rule of thumb. So, WOW! You're running a lot. I'm curious as to how much your yield is under such mega-lumination.

well-- our grow is an "L" shape-- about 4.5 feet deep x 10 on one side..3ft deep x 6 on the other-- so aprox 63 square feet...

we are running 3- 400w hortilux at 55000 lumens each plus a 1000w hortilux at 145,000 for a grand total of 310,000 lumens---

(tick tock tick tock-- doing the math)

So We're running aprox. 4,920 lumens per square foot.

BUT: We get some loss-- due to it being in a larger room-- so the front of the grow has nothing to reflect the light back-- so we are considering hanging a panda screen next grow to reduce the loss!

hey lz near 5000 lumens per square foot over that much space is awesome! bud city
the per square foot question is kind of relative since the number of foot candles that hit our plants is determined by distance from the bulb(i'm sure reflectors cause this number to go up or down.) so over your 5000 per sq. ft. you got some major sweet spots where they're getting way more than that.
my last grow i ended up with 4 ft. tall plants(under a 400 hps). my tops were spectacular but the density was lacking on the lower branches even with good side lighting. i have now vowed not to grow a plant taller than my light will penetrate. so 400... i will now finish at 2 to 2.5 feet at most and i'm adding some nice 30w 6500k 2000 lumen cfls to the mix

the extra panda reflector will only get you more bud. sounds great to me

everything is spaced so that the edges of the lights "effective range" cross-- so the "sweet spot is kind-of extended....
the 1000w is on a 3 foot light rail-- so again--extends the sweet spot considerably...

Because we had been growing mostly from seed (due to breeding and trying different genetics to see what we want to keep as moms etc..) haven't been able to maximize the light-use... too many different plant-heights, spacing etc....

We hope to have it down to a "clone-only" grow next go around-- as we do have some Mom's in the side-lines.

i here ya on the mainly clone only gig. i've been a seed grower too. i just split my main box into veg/flower. i have the

overall height worked out. max plant height in veg is 1 foot. max plant height in flower is about 2.5 feet.....so on come the

clones!!! will be playing with some f1's. my blueberry mexican sativa cross and ice 2000's stoned rhino white skunk cross. im

tryin to start a thread on that tonight. never tried a light mover, but then again i only got a square meter to work with.

how far can u stretch the space with one light on a rail?

smknallday wrote:

LadyLovesCannabis wrote:I read elsewhere on this forum that 50 lumens per square foot is a general rule of thumb.

llc, i beleive its 50w per square foot, not lumens

Oops.

We have the 1000w on a 6 foot rail ... used to have it set up so it only went about 4.5 feet-- so (with all my retard-math-skills) it was covering about a 10 foot by 4.5 space--- and we were not that happy with it...
so we shortend the stops on the rail so it only travels 3 feet.. so now covers about 7x 4.5 feet-- and are much happier with the results!
each 400 w is placed about 18 inches apart so does an entire 12 foot wall x 4 ft deep quite nicely.

i run a 400 hps over a 40 foot by 40foot room too. just kiddin i do that alllll the time