Lights on Medium Setting Instead of High

Indoor Growing
1

My grow lights have three settings, Low, Med & Burn it Without a Match…

My last plants grew fine and had ok yields for a beginner, but the highest setting was hard on some of them and my electric bill was nuts.

I was just wondering what would happen if I left them at medium? The plants look great so far… would it just take longer to reach harvest date, or would there be other issues?

Thanks.

6 Likes
2

Led or hid? Led is fine to dim. Hid not so much as your changing spectrum.

1 Like
3

Please take pictures of your light and or list the exact model. Also how far you keep the light from the top of the canopy. Temp and humidity would help too.

Free light meter app:

2 Likes
4

Some plants never like high light levels, even when they are flowering!! Chem 91 and OG’s are notorious for that. I veg under low light levels. ~400-500PPFD and that is too high for some of my plants. Only during flowering do I give my plants full power light… I crank it up so that by week 3 of flower I am using full power… If I crank my light output from my LED’s too high during veg my plants start looking crappy like lots of new user posts you can find on this site :sweat_smile::raised_hands: Your mileage may vary-- some plants can take all the light you give them and look like they want more. Other plants, not so much. I would keep my levels low during veg, use medium for a couple weeks after flipping, then go full blast until 2 weeks before you chop and then dial the light levels back to medium to mimic the lower light levels of fall. Best of luck! :v:

3 Likes
5

Download the Photone app, and use it to dial in your lights, I like 300ish par for seedlings, 500ish veg, 800-1000 flower. Dimming leds is fine and actually extends their lifespan. Modern hid bulbs are fine to dim too(but really you should switch to led if your still using them it’ll cut down on electric like crazy not just because they’re more efficient but also because less watts= less heat= lower cooling costs)

4 Likes
6

@Gizmo

Pic:

image
image4032×3024 821 KB
image
image4032×3024 865 KB
image
image2016×1512 325 KB

2 Likes
8

LOL, and you have FOUR of those monsters?? dang!

You need a light meter ASAP. It’s the only way…
Now all of the ‘cool kids’ are into PAR meters but you can do just fine with a old Lux meter (not the ones with the stretchy cord). It’s ‘not cool’ but it’s significantly cheaper.

With that you can tune the height of the lights to light intensity and that’s what you need.

Cheers
G

5 Likes