how much light is TOO much?

diowk

Active Member
I have 8 seedlings sitting under a 150watt hps (16000 lumens) They didnt have it in MH. Its about 2-3 feet above my humidity dome. There are also 4 13watt 6400K cfls (1100 lumens each) They are placed around the plants and about 1 foot away from the top of my little babies. Is this a good lighting setup for 6-8 plants throughout the veg stage only ( I have a 400watt hps I plan to flower with but Im having electrical problems with it and cant use it right now) I only plan on vegging for about 3-5 weeks. Is this enough light? Is it too much? Should I get more powerful cfl's?
 

diowk

Active Member
BTW, I was told using both HPS and MH at the same time is better than just the MH alone since it gets the full spectrum. This is kind of what Im trying to replicate with the HPS/6400k cfl setup. What do you think?
 

Rusty Crutch

Well-Known Member
If your lights are more powerful than the sun you are doing great. If not, there is always room for more light.
 

diowk

Active Member
also, I was thinking of swapping the 13watt cfls for 50-60 watt cfls (also 6400K) Then that would be 240watts+150watts for a total of 390 watts. Would this be comparable to a single 400 watt MH? What about a single 250watt MH? Would this setup be even better?
 

Cru3l

Well-Known Member
There is never too much light. The concern you should worry about "HEAT" and its dissipation.
 

diowk

Active Member
There is never too much light. The concern you should worry about "HEAT" and its dissipation.

I dont know much but I do know that is wrong. Its not just heat that burns the plants but also the intensity of the ligts can burn them. This information was given to me by a hydroponic store owner.
 

OldManPot

New Member
I dont know much but I do know that is wrong. Its not just heat that burns the plants but also the intensity of the ligts can burn them. This information was given to me by a hydroponic store owner.

well then hes an idiot. owning a store doesnt mean the guy knows shit. there are hundreds of dispensary owners in california that were nothing more than burned out potheads before prop 420 and 215.all they know is how to light a joint or fire up a bong, and they dont know shit about shit when it comes to growing , processing,curing weed, nor do they know a damn thing about customer service.

just like rusty crutch said, unless your lighting is putting out more than the sun, then your OK. there isnt a light bulb on the PLANET in a visible spectrum sold for human lighting thats going to put out such high intensity light thats its going to kill your plants unless you get it so close it burns the plants leaves. you could have 1000 1000 watt bulbs in a room and it wouldnt be the LIGHT INTENSITY that would kill your plants, it would be the heat from the lights baking your shit to a literal crisp. i have a friend who grows in a 40ftx40ft shop and he has 10 1000w metal halide bulbs circling the room and they havent killed his shit yet. he DOES have fans that run and vent the room constantly, and if your in there too long, you have to put on sunscreen or you will get a sunburn, BUT it doesnt bother the plants much, it does turn my transitions lenses in my glassess dark as fuck though soon as i walk in the room
 

diowk

Active Member
well then hes an idiot. owning a store doesnt mean the guy knows shit. there are hundreds of dispensary owners in california that were nothing more than burned out potheads before prop 420 and 215.all they know is how to light a joint or fire up a bong, and they dont know shit about shit when it comes to growing , processing,curing weed, nor do they know a damn thing about customer service.

just like rusty crutch said, unless your lighting is putting out more than the sun, then your OK. there isnt a light bulb on the PLANET in a visible spectrum sold for human lighting thats going to put out such high intensity light thats its going to kill your plants unless you get it so close it burns the plants leaves. you could have 1000 1000 watt bulbs in a room and it wouldnt be the LIGHT INTENSITY that would kill your plants, it would be the heat from the lights baking your shit to a literal crisp. i have a friend who grows in a 40ftx40ft shop and he has 10 1000w metal halide bulbs circling the room and they havent killed his shit yet. he DOES have fans that run and vent the room constantly, and if your in there too long, you have to put on sunscreen or you will get a sunburn, BUT it doesnt bother the plants much, it does turn my transitions lenses in my glassess dark as fuck though soon as i walk in the room

foot ------> mouth
I guess I was misinformed. Im confused where he would get that idea though... and if light intensity isnt an issue, only heat. Then why do they sell light intensity meters to determine how far away to put your lights? Why not just a thermometer?
 

Halman9000

Well-Known Member
Try using high powered laser beams to grow a plant and the plant will disappear into a pile of ashes . Or better yet , set off a continuos sequence of hydrogen bombs . I know , I know , now you are going to tell me that i am ignoring heat . Oh, i see , there is a limit to light intensity without creating electromagnetic radiation above or below the visible band . I think that it is impossible to generate more than a certain intensity of light without generating microwave and gamma radiation . Although that is just my humble gentle opinion . ( I am laughing quietly inside my little brain nugget . )

This does raise a legitimate point . If you take enough 2000 watt hid lights, you can only get so close without creating radiation outside the visible range . Now we could air condition the room with air conditioners powered by nuclear reactors which would get to the subject of entropy . I mean it also seems that really intense light could bleach the chloryphil . It is a question that would be debated in the television comedy , " The Big Bang Theory " , and that would be quite funny episode .

At some point the second law of thermodynamincs , entropy , would be funny to consider . At some point you would run the universe out of energy instantly if you used an infinite intensity of light .

Halman9000

P.S. Not trying to piss anyone off , but there is a limit of infinite intensity of light , which would use up all of the energy of light and would cause the universe to run out of energy faster than neccesary to keep everyone high or stoned per year. I just watched a video about how lettuce dies fairly easily with to much light intensity . Think about growing weed on Mercury , It would get hot and radioactive outside , You can't create any amount of light without generating electromagnetic radiation outside the visible range . The only way you create a large amount of light while minimizing electromagnetic radiation outside the visisble range , would be to invent Cold Fusion . Inventing cold fusion would require violating the 2nd law of thermodynamics , would be to argue that one can create free energy . I just hope they don't create a black hole in that collider in Europe . One of these days we are going to get too curious and I only hope they create parallel universes so that we can run dangerous experiments on a parallel earth . Time travel would be required so that we can go back in time and undestroy the earth like in the movie " 12 Monkeys " with Brad Pitt ,

Lettuce dies due to too much light intensity very easily ,

what the what .jpeg
 
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OkSureWhyNot

Active Member
I feel like I saw a documentary or classroom experience on light and cannabis
I think the takeaway was that cannabis can endure a lot
 

ZeeeDoc

Well-Known Member
Plants can receive too much light, I’ve had ladies in a tent in garage winter time and temps were low which meant I could get ladies closer to the light and within days buds started to bleach . Moved the lights a bit higher and it resolved the prob
 

Muzzle2

Well-Known Member
Might also depend on the strain. For example, I'm having an issue right now and I think it's from Light Intensity.

Week 3 105% - 1050 watts and by week 5 my Gelato's are giving me seeds/pods. Very immature, but it's everywhere. They only thing I've changed from my previous runs is higher light intensity.
 
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