Needing Ideas On How To Setup Vertical Lights.

[FearAndLoathingInGR]

I am a few days away from going to flower. I sure could use some wisdom in regards to how to set my lights up.

Heres what i have

 

400 watt HPS

400 watt HPS

400 watt MH

 

6 plants in 5 gallon buckets.

 

None of these lights have reflectors. My idea is as follows, i will setup the buckets in as tight a circle as i can without plants touching,

i will have both HPS's up high and the mh dropped in below the plants in the center.

All lights will be hanging vertically with the HPS's about a foot or so above the canopy while the MH is a foot below.

 

How is my plan?

Should i rotate my lights at all? (Daily?Weekly?)

Should i rotate/shift all my plants? (Daily? Weekly?)

Should i abandon all lights and go to harbor freight and buy 100 of those $2.99 LED flashlights and duct tape them together Red Green style?????

 

Thanks for the info folks....

[GregS]

Red Green is an effin genius. Go with him.

[Petyr]

Here is a thread from IC Mag with 6 plants in 5 gallon buckets around a 400w CMH and 600w HPS.

 

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=197502

 

Its not the exact same as you, but similar enough to draw some comparisons.  Go to post #104 to see the light setup at start of flower.

 

Anyways, here is what you want to do IMO.  Put the plants around the 400 mh, have the plants 12" from the light, and space them out accordingly.  Veg them to whatever size they need to be to end up at about 40" tall.  The bottom of the MH bulb should be equal to the top of the plants, unless you are trying to control stretch, then it can be a little lower.

 

Once you switch to flower add a 400w HPS above the MH.   Drop the MH so the top of the bulb is equal to the top of the plants, and have the HPS about 3 inches up.  Once the plants stretch above the first 400 HPS, add the second one about 3 inches above the first.  If needed keep raising the bulbs during stretch so the uppermost HPS is just above the top of the plants.  Once stretch is done, keep the top of the upper bulb equal to the top of the plants.

 

I like to put a cage around the bulb so the plants can lean into it and I can tie them up if needed.  Chicken wire or the 2"x4" welded wire both work good.  The cage should have a diameter of 24" or so for 400s.

 

Get a Honeywell muffin fan and put it on the floor blowing up at your stack of bulbs.  Keep it on low, you just want to slowly push the hot air up and away from the plants, any higher setting just causes turbulence and poor air flow.

 

Don't rotate your lights, not even sure what that means.

Don't rotate your plants, the energy they use reorienting to the light could have been used to build more buds.  Do strip the backside of the plants.

 

Beyond all that, you do not want any of your lights above the circle of plants.  U want those lights inside the circle so they can blast 360 degrees of light to your plants, not the surrounding walls.

 

[FearAndLoathingInGR]

Thanks a million for the info, the reason i thought to have the hps's above the plant is so the outside of the circle can get light, you say to put all lights just below and i will do what you say but i just wanna understand, if all lights are in the middle how do the outsides of the circle of plants get light? or is the light in middle enough?

 

By shift rotate i mean this, if the plants inside half of the circle is always getting light, wouldnt it make sense to rotate the bucket 180 degrees so the outside of the plant can get the same amount of light on a daily basis? Sorry if i am confusing i am just trying to understand. I will go read your link now.

[Petyr]

The backsides of the plants or outside doesn't get light, so you remove those branches.  If you go to that link, post #104 which is towards the bottom of page 7 has a decent picture of what I am saying about the light placement.  Also posts #129 and 130 on page 9 show some before and after of the backside trimming.

 

note: the page numbers may be different as they are based upon some options.  But the post numbers will be the same.  

[FearAndLoathingInGR]

Holy bunny muffin Petyr, you said go to #104 but i had to go to #1 and finish the #700. What a phenominal grow that guy had. If i went that route what bulb would i have mounted on the floor coming up the HPS or MH?

Awesome link man. Very inspirational.

[Petyr]

I would do the MH on the bottom, at least to start.  If you end up using all 3 bulbs, u could switch the MH to the middle spot to even out the spectrum after stretch.  If you just use 2 bulbs, which would be fine, I would stick with the MH on bottom and HPS on top.

[FearAndLoathingInGR]

Just an update to this thread, the vertical grow is going splendid. Temperatures at this point are great, room stays an even 70 for now, i use a box fan laying ontop of a bread rack on the floor pointing up.

The bad news: I have been battling heat issues on the leaves. this requires constant attention trying to find a good middle ground for leaf distance from the plant. Whats happening is in the morning things are fine. If i go the whole day without checking by the nightime check there could be some leaves gravitating to the bulbs and they go to far, this drains the leaf of all color making it almost white from the heat. So i got the plants about 18 inches from the center light and this seems to be good space. Today i am raising the light a foot. in only a matter of a few days the growth has swallowed the lights.

 

If i grow this way again i will consider not topping any of the plants. Vertical grow and topping to me doesnt seems to go so well due to the extreme growth that is not as uniform as it would have been if it wasnt topped. these will be things tested in the future more conclusively.