New grow, Too much light?

In the process of starting my first grow. My flowering room is 6 * 3= 18 sq. ft. I was considering going with two 600w hps. This would be around 10,000 lumens per square foot. Is this overkill? The sticky on this forum says 5000 for a sucessful grow but is there such a thing as too much light? I'm not overly concerned with eletricy costs or anything, and want to maximize yield as much as possible.

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Originally Posted by gbf4ever

In the process of starting my first grow. My flowering room is 6 * 3= 18 sq. ft. I was considering going with two 600w hps. This would be around 10,000 lumens per square foot. Is this overkill? The sticky on this forum says 5000 for a sucessful grow but is there such a thing as too much light? I'm not overly concerned with eletricy costs or anything, and want to maximize yield as much as possible.

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Well if you want to get a good yeild, don't care about the electric cost and you are ready get good exhaust / AC unit to cold down the heat these two light will produce, I'll tell you to go for it... This should help to get you more buds if you treat them well.

Was planning on getting the air cooled units and some 465 cfm inline exhaust fans. Would this help keep the area at a decent temp, or would an ac unit really be required?

Would using two 600's increase yield significantly in this small area over just one? Or would a 1000w be better. I only have so much to spend on lights at the moment so here are my options.

1 600w hps, 1 400w mh(using cfls to veg atm)
1 1000w hps, 1 400w mh
2 600w hps and continue using cfls for veg


I'm almost leaning towards the first myself. I could use the mh for my mothers and rooted clones, and keep the cfls for added light/new cuttings. Would give me the option of adding on another 600w later on.

Get two switchable HID lights that you can use both MH and HPS in. You can use one with mh for veg and then use the two with a hps bulb for flowering. Next grow invest in a 400 watt mh for vegging and keep the two hps for flowering.

Thanks for the responses. Just ordered two 600w hps/mh, and a conversion mh bulb. Plan to still use cfls for the beginning stages of growth, when is it safe to switch over to the mh? And at what distance is usually reasonable for a 600w air cooled unit? First seed sprouted today so starting up a grow log.

If it's too much light, just raise the light a little....it'll cover a bigger area (more plants) and your lumens/sq ft will be in a safer zone.