Vertical light

I have my 400w light hanging verticly in my grow box with ventilation and CO2. Temps on a themometer read 83 when on. Would the addition of a reflector be nessacary. The inside of the box is flat white paint. Fore more info on my growroom go to my introduction in the greeting forum.

i dont think a reflector would hurt but watch out for the heat

.... you are saying that with a reflector the heat will go up correct? because the heat is going to skyrocket with a reflector, vertical is the only way to grow

MilkMan420 said:

.... you are saying that with a reflector the heat will go up correct?

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A reflector cannot make something hotter, it cannot increase the temperature put off by a light but it can somewhat trap heat and keep it more around your plants because it cannot just go up like heat wants to. It has to go around and it will go around but not as fast as if there is nothing to make it go around it so like I said it can somewhat trap heat but it cannot increase temperatures above the temperature your light puts out.

Also the reflector will get hot or at least warm, to what degree will depend on what material it is made of and if it is white inside or plain aluminum and even if it is flat instead of dimpled. That means for a while even after your light goes off the reflector can continue to transmit some heat. Now heat will always try to go up but some will always go down at least a little way.

But you direct so much more light towards your plants with a reflector that it is the way to go. Otherwise much of your light, from the upper portion of the bulb, will go up and not be reflected down towards your plant and that is wasted light. If you have good reflective material or a flat white paint that will reflect some of it back down if the ceiling has some reflective material but it will lose some of its intensity so again it is wasted light.

It is the same with vertical lighting unless your light is in between your plants so no matter which way it goes it is directly hitting plants but then when you look at the difference in growing in more northern regions as opposed to more southern regions, or maybe better said closer to the equator or farther from the equator, the closer to the equator you are the more direct light will hit the top surfaces of leaves and that is where the sunlight is taken in and does its thing so the less direct light that hits the upper flat surfaces of leaves, because of the angle the light hits the plants from the sun or from your light, you get less efficiency from the light source and it can and will affect time periods like flowering and make vegging time longer to get the height you want.

Horizontal is the way to go but there is nothing wrong with supplementing that with vertical if you have the bucks for more lights and can deal with the added heat.