Noob to hydro, first attempt at NFT system

[brandonbelew]

Too many animals and pests around for my liking. My wife put up fencing around her garden plot, but I doubt it'll even be enough to keep the pesky neighborhood cats, dogs out, as well as the occasional deer.

I figured 600W would be enough on the light. It's dimmable, so I can turn it down if necessary. I doubt i'll need to expand out any further than my 4x4 area now. We don't have a ton of space and as soon as we have another kid my current space will go away. I'll have to find somewhere else in the house to put it, and hope the cat doesn't decide to eat it.

[GpsFrontier]

Have you ever thought about planting some catnip in the neighbors yard to keep the cats away???

Since I already went to the trouble of creating the drawings, may as well post them. I attached a couple of drawings of to help visualize what I mean by better coverage using multiple light fixtures with lower wattage, compared to a single fixture with a higher wattage.

[brandonbelew]

I've been thinking about making some reflective panels to go around the outside of my grow box, to keep the light in. Heat would become an issue then I fear. The hps might put off too much heat as is. I'm going to have to get creative on the cooling in that room if it does. There is only one floor vent in there.

[brandonbelew]

My new light came in today

It came with a MH and hps, I figured starting with the MH would be the best course of action to promote the plants vegetative growth, then switch over to the HPS when they get bigger.

I also put a fan in the room, as I assume this thing will increase the temperature a bit.

Also started monitoring humidify, it's been sitting at 50-60% in the room.

Do you think I should have my light higher or lower? It's a 600W light, 67,000 lumens on the MH.

Thanks!

[GpsFrontier]

3-4 feet from the plants should be fine as long as it's not to hot for the plants. A 600 watt bulb puts out more heat than a standard 400 watt bulb. You want the air temp at the plants foliage to be between 80 and 90 (preferably 80-85). Well at least for most varieties of strawberry's. There are cool weather (northern) varieties that don't tolerate heat well and would prefer temps closer to 75-80, and varieties that do tolerate heat that will do fine up to 100 degrees. It depends on what varieties you have.

[brandonbelew]

Thanks! I moved the lights down as close as possible. It's an air cooled hood, so I was able to move it a bit closer ( it's about 3' give or take a few inches ). The issue i'm running into now is the light is heating up my nutrient tank, it was sitting at 80 yesterday when I checked.

I picked up a sheet of insulation and put it between the tank and light to see if that would make a difference.

I'm also going to have to change the angle of my light I think. I have the lamp facing the same direction as the plants now but the reflector doesn't seem to be putting out the same amount of light on the edges as the middle and i'm overshooting the tubes in the opposite direction. So i'm thinking about rotating the light.

The plants seem to be loving the new light though. They are starting to bush up a bit more than they were previously with the T5's. The plants on the ends are leaning towards the light which is why I want to rotate it.

[GpsFrontier]

Now you see why I would have opted for using multiple lights points for a more even coverage, rather than a single light source. But still a 600 watt light should be plenty for the small 4x4 foot space your trying to cover. If raising the light up to cover the area better works, you shouldn't have any problem with light intensity (lumen drop) with that 600 watt bulb as long as you don't go beyond 4 feet. But if you can rotate it for better coverage and get it at 3 feet, that would be even better.

Direct heat from the lamp to the reservoir can be a problem in itself like you mentioned, but the reservoir temps will usually be close to the ambient air temperature even if you block heat from the lamp. In other words if the light is raising the ambient air temperature in the room, it can indirectly raise the reservoir temperature through the air temperature as well.