Light and plants

Graytail;3097132 said:

That's a lot of space. It will depend on plant size and how you intend to use the space, and if you have space outside the tents. For instance, a lot of hobby growers use a 4x4 tent, and yours is 4 times larger. In those 4x4s we generally run 4-8 plants. You can get 8 small ones or 4 big ones. So, in theory, you could run 4 times that many. But ... you can reach all the way into a 4x4 ... not an 8x8. So, you'll have to leave yourself an aisle - some space in the middle where you can get to all the plants.

Lighting is something that's easy to get sidetracked by. Once you're in the 40 watt per square foot range, it's more useful to upgrade your humidity and temperature controls. 50 watts/sqft is about as much as you should think about. Efficiency varies according to the source, and as a rule, go figure, the most efficient are the most expensive. In a space that large, two 1000W double-ended HPS would be the best value. They're VERY efficient for a hps, and they're cheap. LED panels would be a bit more expensive but not much more efficient, and can be bought as a bunch of smaller panels to spread the light better than the 2 bright hps. Or you could go really spendy and rig an array of super efficient COB LEDs by Cree and Bridgelux and Citizen, etc. There would be very little heat from the COBs. The DE hps can be vented in hoods, but LED panels just blow their heat into the air.

Let us know if you need more info.

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