Great to see your grow progress Rydub. How big is your bloom room? Is there a reason you don't use reflectors for your lights, just curious. In the last pictures, do you prune after your colas are defined? Really learning a lot from your grow, mine is kinda similar, veg closet, 4- 4't-5's. Bloom room 4x4x6 w/1- 600w hps. eight clones in five gal pots. Subscribed for sure! I'm a newb, so any help is for sure appreciated. Good luck to you, looking great!
Thanks for posting. My bloom room is 5ftx10ftx8ft. The reason i dont use refectors is for several reasons. the first reason is that i can drop the bulbs down in to the canopy and get light into the side of the plants, this can increase your yeilds up to 20% or so.by increasing the amount of light getting to the buds that would usually be smaller.
the second reason is that i dont run reflectors is that i can cool the room just fine without running air cool lighting. every time i used reflectors i ended up getting hot spots. from all the heat being focused down on the plants. I also found that heat and light dispersion is better without a reflector.
I also am able to evenly light the plants without having to cram them under the optimal light footprint of a reflector. i can drop a bulb down in the middle of 4 plants and by turning them 1/4 or 1/2 a turn each day or so and get even lighting.
As far as prunning goes i like to get rid of the folage on the bottom 1/3 of the plant. after 1 week at 12/12. Trying to ditribute the plant energy to the buds that have the best chance for weight. when i did that the plants grew alot they shot many more new leaves. i had to trim them up again after 2 weeks. and ill probaly do it once more in week 3. Do not trim to much from the canopy just enough to get good light penetration.
In your bloom room it would be hard to go without a reflector with 8 plants in 5 gallon pots. I put fans on the floor pointing straight up at the bulb it works very well. but with 8 plants you would not have room to do that so a reflector would be the way to go. hope i could help a little thanks for posting.