Hi Guys
I’m just starting out and have set up an 8 x 4 x 6.5 grow tent.
My strains are ILGM Bergmans Gold and Trainwreck Feminised.
Medium will be Coco Noir fllod to waste in 5 gallon GeoPots
Will use Canna nutes
I have a hyperfan set up with an 8” extraction with carbon filter and 6” intake.
I have 2 x Bestva Elite 1200w lights (so far) and 10 x 5 gallon Geopots
I also have an Inkbird humidity sensor and a oscillating fan.
Daytime temps outside approx 20-25 celcius night 18-20.
On order is a dehumidifier.
My questions are:
What is the best training method for either strain and recommended plant max in this space (32 square ft) for the best yield?
Does the true wattage apply to these lights in regards to yield and how many more lights do I need for a great yield? (More than 30 true watts per square ft?)
With the correct combination of light, nutes, climate and training, what would be a reasonable expectation of yield for this space?
My lights say to be 40” off the plants! Is this correct? I’ll run out of space? (6.5ft ceiling)
If the previous distance is correct, can I add more lights and is Co2 recommended so I can bring the lights closer?
I’ve researched quite a bit but there’s lots of different perspectives out there and greatly varied.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank in advance from this newbie.
Welcome to ILGM, @James007. Rather than how many plants, you should be asking how much area will these lights cover? The reason being, you could grow one plant to fill an 8 x 4 scrog, if you’ve got the time to veg that long. Or, you could grow a sea of green, with many, smaller plants filling the same area. There are benefits and hassles to both. If I’m being frank, your lights will only give you a 3.8 x 4.3’ footprint at 24" high, according to the manufacturer, and they tend to inflate those numbers. You’d likely only get about 4 x 4 coverage, using both lights, to grow decent cannabis with dense buds. You might do better to split your tent in two, veg/flower, and use those lights to veg, then buy/build a better light to flower under. As far as your yield, there are far too many variables to put a guess on that, but it’ll be more than a gram, less than a pound, most likely at first. You could pull pounds out of that tent with the right lighting.
You’ll probably be disappointed if trying to flower a 4x4 per fixture with those lights. Most people are anyways. When you see people say stuff like 30-50 watts per square foot it really means that some lights are able to hit recommended light density levels while consuming about 30 watts per square foot and others take 50 or even more. Not that you can just grab any ol’ light and as long as it fits in there you’ll be good. The really good led fixtures have almost twice the efficacy and still require closer to 500 watts for a 4x4 space to reach recommended daily light integral.
Also, I like to look at the yield potential of setup from size of canopy rather than plant count. Like elheffe said, you can scrog a really big plant or run a bunch of smaller plants. The total productivity of the area will usually only have slight differences if done properly. It’s more or less a matter of substituting plant count for veg time. Ideal here varies a lot from grower to grower. Some people don’t want to have more than couple of plants for legality reasons. Others refuse to spend months vegging plants.
Thanks for your reply @dbrn32.
You wrote 4x4, did u mean 8x4?
I’m getting 2 more 1200w (257w real draw) lights so in total there’ll be 4 lights and I’ll have 1028w from the wall.
Is that enough for this sized room?
I think he means 4x4…
The problem with the Bestva is coverage.
It uses all of those 257w to concentrate light in a small point under the light…
Im pretty sure that high number in the center at 24" will burn a plant, but by 2 ft there’s not much power for flowering…
Notice how by 1.5 ft away from the center the light intensity drops to 1/3rd of the center intensity…
So each light barely has a coverage of maybe 2x3 ft
I am using an older Bestva 1000w to flower a 4x4, with help of another 2 cheap chinese lights…
Dbrn32 is the man for lights around here, and he’s right… There’s much better ways to spend almost 400 usd…
An HLG 260w kit would blow 2 of those bestvas out of the water for a little less money, and the results will be better using less electricity and emitting way less heat…
@dbrn32 may I ask what light you’d recommend adding to the 2 x 1200w Bestva’s to provide the right light for a solid flowering?
Something reasonably priced and able to be used in Australia? (240v)
Thanks
Priced reasonably part can vary a lot. A decent 600 watt hps light will have as much or more total flux than two of the bestva 1200 fixtures. That would be your cheapest route, they just barely make minimum recommended DLI in a 4x4. To get a good led light designed for 4x4 they start at about $700 here. Not really sure what it would be with conversion/shipping there.
You don’t exactly have same options there as we do here, and I would imagine ordering here would kill you in shipping and duties. Cutter electronics is in Australia, may be worth dropping them a call.
Those in addition to the Bestvas should do great man!
I think the XL version (hlg 260XL kit) has the better coverage of the 260s
Are you getting the Rspec version?
That’s apparently the best spectrum from them
