Pt. 2! The Upgrades looking for all the guidance I can get!

Olde School Player said:

OK, a lot of people are probably going to throw a hissy fit after reading this, but I don't care, I have the experience to stand by my comments. There is no such thing as a magic light that is going to make all your growing problems disappear. And there is no such thing as a magic light that is going to make all your grows a roaring success.
You can grow great weed using "old fashioned" high intensity discharge lighting with metal halide and high pressure sodium bulbs.
You can grow great weed using "modern state of the art" LED lighting.
Various bandwidths of light have differing effects upon plant growth - proven fact.
The most beneficial light characteristic you will ever encounter in a grow light is wattage.

Don't misunderstand me - I'm not belittling the hard work & science that many respected companies have put into development of their products. There is valid science between the claims of various light spectrums' effect on plant growth. I respect that. There's also good science behind comparisons of HID to LED lighting.
There's also a LOT - HUGE AMOUNT - of bullshit behind LED lighting claims.
LED lights are absolutely more efficient at light vs heat output. HID lighting does a better job at dense canopy penetration than LED. CMH lighting, even better than old style HID.

My problem is, how does the layman sort through all the magical claims of lighting manufacturers today?
I bought an app for my phone that supposedly measures light performance parameters. It told me my 55 watt COB light is more powerful than my 300 watts-at-the-wall full spectrum LED. The light(s) are not at fault, low cost consumer grade testing is.
When LED lighting began to take over market domination, virtually everyone touted LED technology's ability to tailor light spectrum to the needs of the plant. They did that because "blurple" was what a new LED looked like. And guess what? A 325 watt blurple grew great weed in my 5 sq. ft. tent.
When technocrats (a compliment, not an insult) began touting full spectrum lighting, virtually every manufacturer started publishing full spectrum charts of how their lighting met all parameters of cannabis growth requirements. And white lights began to replace blurples. And guess what? My 300 watt full spectrum LED grew great weed. Enough so that I bought a second one for an expanded tent grow project.
Did I get rid of my blurples? Heck no. For that matter, did I get rid of my HID lighting? No. Except for one really good, balanced, 250watt balanced tent / light / fan system that I donated to a friend with serious medical needs.

What's my point? Two, actually. One, been away from AFN for a few years. Recovering from COVID now & need the mental stimulation of getting back to writing intelligent posts on a public forum. Thank you for letting me hijack your thread. Second point - LED lighting changes like I change underwear. I tried looking up your lighting systems to see what specs they have, most notably watt-at-wall. Anyone who tells you there are more important parameters, is partly correct. But not totally. ppfd is a great technical spec. There are others that tout proper spectrums. But regardless of what is claimed by marketing specialists (people who know how to tell a good story to get you to buy their product) if you do not have enough power in your lighting system, you will get inferior results.

Do you have an inferior system? I don't know. I tried to look up your systems & didn't readily find a good spec I could trust to gauge product performance. Giving good advice to new to moderately experienced growers is hard to do without that. I did try looking up your brand of lighting, but it seems your model #'s have changed, and this company is also fond of trying to make you think you have more light than you really have. Lots of time touting full spectrum coverage, absolutely no time spent wattage of their systems.

You've got a BIG tent. A Vivosun 4x8x6, simple math, has a 32 sq.ft. footprint that is going to need a LOT of light. You're smart to keep your plant footprint small. With less light, a smaller footprint results in less light per sq. ft. You've already picked up on that, just not sure how far you will be stretching your next grow area.

I'll be glad to help, just provide some more details on your grow. Number of plants, wattage of lights, you said nute same as last / what's that? Are you running a hygrometer that keeps track of min / max / current tent temps? What's your grow medium? You mentioned TDS, what about the killer, pH? Fill me in. Let's spank this baby.

Click to expand...