36 plant SOG in a 4x4 tent on a 3x3 flood tray, one 600w or two 600w?

I feel like 36 plants will be too many for one lone 600w, I will be lollipoping them

What do you think?

and I thought my 9 plants in a 3x3 flood and drain tray would be tight!

Not sure what lollipoping means but 1 600w should do the trick... Although another one definitely wouldnt hurt lol. I use a 600w and a 400w in a 4x4 tent as long as you can keep temps down its great!

The temps I got running right now are like 60 at night and 70-75 during the day and its only getting colder outside. I actually shut my vent off and the rooms 80-85 with no ventilation.

Lollipopping is trimming the bottom branches that wouldn't get much light anyways and only produce popcorn buds. The idea being the plant will put all its bud building resources into the top cola. Im still new to the term and practice.

The reason for me wanting 2 600s is because I bought a 600w MH and HPS for soil growing and want to switch to having a mother and clone area and a flowering area. I want to buy another 600w ballast to use the MH for mother/clone/veg area so I don't just waste the 600w MH(month old and after this grow it'll be 2 months, very young still) because ideally i'd want a 250w for moms and fluoros for clones/veg box. So i'm thinking of using the 600w as a veg/mom light until it dies or after a year of use and retire it as a backup and then buy a HPS and add another 600w to the flower area and get a 250w MH and ballast for veg/mother.

So before I bought a 600w ballast I wanted to make sure I wasn't overkilling.

The 600w is fine for the 50w/sq.ft. rule but since i'll be SOGing I will only end up with a meager 17w per plant. I was thinking 2 600w would light up that whole canopy real nice.

My other option is to say hell with it and retire it early and get the 250w for the mother area and fluoros for clones and keep using a single 600w in the flower area. The other option sounds like a silly way to save myself from retiring a 2 month old MH

If you turn off your vents make sure your supplementing C02 because your plants will eat it up and then stop growing if they run out. Other than that if you put clones straight into flower right after they root there shouldnt be too much branching but its still a good idea to trim certain spots. Also you can save money by using 4foot t5 lights for keeping mothers.
Since its SOG you dont really need to veg so the flouros will do just fine to keep mothers and start clones a 600w might be overkill for just that. Then you can use the 600w hps and MH for flowering, ive heard that mixed spectrums give tastier buds and that what im doing on my next grow.
And dont think of it as getting 17w per plant you should measure it as light per sq.ft. The 600w will do you good but having 2 will make your buds huge

I will be looking into CO2 in the future. Right now I got a lot on my plate.

That sounds like a good idea with the MH and HPS. I'll give it a try until it dies then get another hps to try that out and compare.

Per wattage the t5's have less lumens ive seen on spec sheets. But they come already in a case(no need for reflector), run cooler, and with a ballast. A new 400w system would cost 340. I might get a comparable 400w setup.

I do want HUGE colas. Don't we all? Haha.

Also the extra 600w ballast will come in handy if I ever decide to get another table.

Yeah i just meant that if your in a room or a tent that has no airflow the plants will run out of C02 so you should leave your vents running even if temps are okay or just make C02 with sugar and yeast on the cheap. And initially a full t5 setup or 400w will cost the same but electricity-wise a t5 will be a lot cheaper to run, also bulbs cost less and temps wont be an issue, but thats all up to you.

Id recommend looking on amazon for any kind of lights or tents or fans, i think i bought my 600w for something like 300 dollars and it came with a cooltube a HPS/MH switchable ballast and a HPS and MH bulb, hangers and a timer. All that at a hydro store would have cost over 600 easy. I also got a 6" carbon filter and inline fan for 100 dollars. You dont need to pay double to get name brands like lumatek or w/e its honestly a waste of money.

2 600's, a 1000 watt does a 4x4 up to 5x5, I believe a 600 only does 3x3 or you could push it up to 4x4

A 600W will give good penetration at 3x3, spread at 4x4. A 1000w will penetrate down in a 4x4 and spread good at 5x5. If it is enclosed, I'd be fine with a 5x5 and a 1000w light.

So what would you leave a bucket in the room with yeast and sugar in it? Never heard of that before, but makes sense the yeast would leave that as a byproduct of digesting the sugar. If thats how its done, id imagine, right?

I got all my gear from the amazon, wicked good deals compared to hydro shops i agree. Though i did get my table from the hydro shop as their price was cheaper than online for comparable products.

A 600w was recommended on my tents brochure. I will be getting another 600w ballast to see how big nugs get with them. If it's overkill i always have the space for another table.

Thanks everyone

Theres a thread somewhere here about it but basically you fill a big container(milk jug size) with room temp water add like a packet of yeast and a cup of sugar(not sure of exact measurements but you can play around with it) and in about an hour it will start making C02. It should work for like a week or so just give it a shake after a few days to get it going again. When it stops working just add more sugar and it will start up again. They also sell something on amazon called Exhale and its just a bag you hang in your room that makes C02 and its like 30 bucks, I havent tried it myself yet but it looks promising.
Another good way to make C02 is by making wine or beer they sell fermentation buckets on amazon for like 70 and it will basically make tons of C02 as a byproduct of making wine, Thats what im gonna start soon cause hey why not make some wine and help my plants in one go right?
The only thing when you have C02 in your grow is to make sure that the bottle/bag/whatever is releasing above your plants because C02 is heavier than oxygen so it will float down. Keeping it above your plants canopy and on the opposite side of your exhaust is the best place so it will flow across all your plants evenly.

on the contrary it goes up u need fans to push it down if you have an exhaust you have to turn it off i used a fish bubbler to keep mixing my yeast and sugar worked ok but theres not that much of a difference then just opening your door for a few mins every morning(when the lights go on) since the only beneficial time is for the first two hours (talk to your plants) the rest of the day theres no effect i used a 400 in a 4x4x10 cupboard that i made and got under 10 ozs this time i have 400 again for the first 2 or 3 weeks then moving in the 1000w i am a bit worried about temps but if theres a will theres a way , and one suggestion for you less watering but more often.

I ended up purchasing a 6tube 4ft t5 from hydrofarm for 165 shipped on amazon. It should be in mid next week then I can start my moms. Siked. Only going to be pulling clones offevery 2 months so t5 works fine. I hear HID lights produce wider stems which produce roots quicer than thinner ones(thanks al b fuct for photo evidence). I just didn't wanna spend 350 for another light setup. The HID would be a good heat addition to the room which I need now in winter. I reach lows of 65 in my room and highs of 78. I wish for a steady 75 to 78. Hopefully the t5 gives me some warmth...not worried about getting too warm as I'm not even running my HID light exhaust at the moment due to the cold. Now my humidity is at45% to 50% with the res filled and flooding and draining. I was loving the 30-40% before though. Still going to tweak the room a bit to see if I can get the room warmer. 65 is too cold...better than too hot but still not good.

*edit** I wish my hygrometer would record the time of day the lows and highs were. Got the day off Friday going to hangout at the growspot and monitor the temps and humidity all day so I can have a better idea on what times I need to ramp up or down the exhaust. This is proving to be the biggest pain of this grow mainly because its such a guessing game due to whacky weather around here. I could pinpoint it with psychrometrics and some hvac knowledge if only the outside temps were stable. One day its 60. The next day its 30 and snowing.