Quote Originally Posted by CaliJay
Stop what your doing and read this and remember. I messed around trying to get more production out of my 1000s. After reading some threads saying their 1000s were at 10 inches and 18 inches I lowered mine. Also pumped up nutes to 1400ppm from 1200....End result fan leaves burned as fuck!
Did some research...If you have a good reflector you light should never be closer that 3 ft. It is pointless you have all the lumens you plant can take. Raise your hood and get better diffusion from refracted light and a larger footprint. 1000s are rated for 6x6 area. I use 4x4 tubs and the plants end up at 5x5. I use PL lights that have incredible coverage and light distribution. under the center of the light reads the same foot candle readings as the corner of the grow area.
If you feel like burning your plants lower your lights.

Disclaimer..you could run more airflow & keep the room cooler & keep nutes lower than normal & shut off Co2....etc but why? Your plants want uniform lighting and that is achieved through distance and refraction. That is an argument for running "less effecient" 1000s instead of 600s.

Drawback...height restrictions...

Good luck friends.. -J
I 100% disagree with this statement. Every single ounce of my experience and everything I have been taught has shown me that you cannot go above 12" (16 if your having major heat issues that you just cannot solve right now). But 3 feet? Are you out of your mind?

2 identical rooms. One with lights 12" above the canopy. One with lights 36" above the canopy. Are you actually going to still say that the room with the lamps 36" above the canopy is going to produce the SAME amount of yield and JUST as big of nugs? No, your not...and if you do then your speaking from internet research and not personal experience.

In my opinion and from my own experience, you never want more then a 4x4 area on a 1000 watt. Me personally? I think you should never even go past 3x3 area. If your having trouble with burning your plants, then its not an issue of the lights being to close. Its an issue of you not providing proper ventillation, proper temperatures, proper circulation, and proper nutes. I let my plants get within 4" of my 600 digitals and they do not burn. If you want to go for a ton of smaller buds that will end up weighing less then by all means, lift the lamp way up to light more area. But you are drastically lowering lumens at an exponential rate and your losing watts/square foot and lumens/square foot.

In the 80s people lit 8x8 areas with a 1000 watt. This is the 21st century.

PS. Wanted to add that a lot of "ratings" are not for growing our specific plant of choice. When your growing peppers and tomatoes, its not nearly as much of an impact (but still an impact none the less) to have the light much farther away for a larger area. Also...if you get the light close and you dont like the light spread, then get a different hood that spreads it out more so you can utilize it better without losing lumens.