10" from my HPS?

I've read that I should keep my flowering mom 14-18" from the HPS bulb(not the hood) and that when in doubt to use the first test. make a fist above the highest part of the plant and leave it there 10 minutes. If it becomes painful then it's too close and I should move the lamp.

So I started the plant at 18" and everything was fine. Then it grew up 4" and everything was still fine. It's now grown another 4" and is 10" from the bulb. But I can still do the fist test without pain. I'm not running a fan other than 2 minutes each hour. I was going to put in a carbon scrubber and exhaust fan soon.

So anyhow, the question is...is 10" too close to the plant? So far the leaves aren't browning or curling or anything. Fairly recent pics can be found in my grow log found in the signature. New camera should be here in a few days I can then take better pics.

how many watts is your bulb

430 watts is the size of the bulb.

12 " to be safe unless you can cool the air between

as long as you are not seeing no appearent tissue damage to the plant you can leave it that close. you have to be very carefull though, you will burn your trees if left unchecked. the first sign of any damage, move your light up.

I've got a 250 and it is not hot anywhere past 3" . Does anyone else have a 250? I got that so I wouldn't have heat issues, and now I'm wondering if there's something wrong with it.

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Well, here are some pictures of the lady in question. I moved the lamp up a bit but it's still 11.5" close to the bulb. I did hang some warm FLs that I will move the big plant next to pretty soon, then I'll be putting some more appropriately sized plants(12") under the HPS. Just in the meanwhile I wanted to get the most I could out of the HPS.





Pictures of the new FLs with Plant bulbs in them: