Watered the four airpots yesterday. Using the High-Brix, Liqui-Dirt, and Roots Excelurator Gold every watering. Using the BioBloom once per week whenever it falls on a feed so I have to log which plants are getting what and when. I actually take them all out and water each plant accordingly.
Tied them down a little bit more as well. Due to limited space letting them finish stretching up instead of out is about all I can do now. Removed some inward facing fan leaves blocking lower bud sites. Maybe removed 20 leaves in total so far.
There is some challenge growing eight different genetics in the same environment. Air flow at the bottom is restricted without much room between pots. Using four lights helps with differing heights being able to adjust each independently of one another. The plants not directly under a fixture benefit being lower due to the approximate 20 degree angle of light spread, so I optimized that with my lux meter.
Keep in mind these plant were stripped of the first five nodes while they were young. Wanted mature plants that didn't take up much space with eight plants in a 4x4. I planted them low 4" below the rim and filled the pot up the rest of the way once the first three nodes were removed. Not sure yet if I would recommend doing this.
The Marionberry Kush and Green Crack are catching 50,000 lux at 12" each under the two Samsung lm301h 3000k boards powered by Mean Well 240watt driver. Been using these lights for four years now! One board is a little brighter than the other by a few thousand lux but this is normal since they are wired in parallel.
Holy Snow is at 50,000 lux 16" under the qb96 elite v2 on a 185watt Mean Well driver and have been using this light for four years as well. Could be more light than that considering the far reds that a lux sensor might not pick up as well. In the past I settled on 36" for seedlings, 24" for veg, and 18" for flower with this light. Let's see how Holy Snow does at 16".
AK 47 is under the 150watt Vivosun smart light that has a fan blowing downward in the middle. Even at 8" it's only 30,000 lux. I assume my lux meter isn't picking up the far reds or the uv this light provides in flower mode. We'll see how she does.
From what I researched I'm understanding that without 280nm uv spectrum the benefits of uv are negligible and this light only goes down into the 320 spectrum. The smart controller is really nice though. The sunrise feature takes seven minutes to go from 25% power to 100%. I don't feel I could recommend this light. Four of them in a 4x4 tent wouldn't be enough light or coverage imo but we shall see.
If I had to recommend the absolute best light setup in a 4x4 it would be eight Samsung lm301h 288 boards at 3000k with four 240 watt Mean Well drivers. You would then be able to turn the drivers down keeping an even light spread at a closer distance while still having individual height adjustment. That's only $800 U.S.. Might even be able to get away with no heat sinks at that point lowering the cost.
Lots of growers like to use different light spectrums for differing portions of the grow but I've had the best results using 3000k all the way through. A few things I noticed in my years of experimentation are that with 3000k all the way through the grow produces tight node spacing and healthy foliage turning over to large dense frosty nugs with great color. And to be honest the qb96 grows even tighter node spacing with even frostier nugs, but the heat is greater and having such a focused beam of larger led chips means height adjustments require caution.
I have a Horticulture Lighting Group HLG 65 V2 4000k on a 60watt MW driver I tried vegging with but it seems to suck the green right out of the plants. Spindly looking branches with further node spacing.
