My First REAL grow - Ontario Canada - 4 Plants - Indoor - soil - COB LED

Hello this is my first real grow that I have planned and spent a little money on. Thank you for dropping by and if you have any advice please feel free to share it.
I will start by saying that I have grown before, but it has always been under less than ideal conditions and I have never had the opportunity to properly finish a grow, until now. I have a cold cellar in my basement that I am retrofitting as a grow closet.

Materials:
4 x Home Depot 5gal plastic bucket
4 x 6.4 KG Promix Potting soil
1 x 2 Kg Black top soil
40lbs River rocks
4 x Germinated Kryptonite seeds
1 x Holland Star 1500W COB LED

I started by drilling 4 holes in the bottom of each bucket to allow for drainage and to allow some air (oxygen) to get into the root structure down the line.
Next I filled the bottom of each bucket with river rocks to again allow for increased drainage and keep the holes from getting blocked by soil.
Finally I filled the buckets up the rest of the way with a mixture of potting soil and top soil, before planting the seeds and started plants.

Questions I am currently considering:

1. Should I be covering the walls with reflective sheeting to increase the light to the lower branches
2. Is this one light sufficient for the size of the room?
3. How far above the plants should i keep this light, i want to maximize my light but dont want to burn the little guys.
4. I started all one strain as i wanted to best chance of keeping the canopy consistent height. Is this a good plan? my hope is i can run 4 different strains in the future.

Ok, a lot to unpack here lol. Not trying to be super critical but if your looking for advice, here goes. First those pots are wayyyy to big to start seedings in. You should be starting in very small half gallon pots. Controlling the moisture content in those will be very difficult for a long time. Second no where near enough drainage in the bottom of those buckets. And I mean holes not the stones. Rocks or stones in the bottom arent needed, especially with regular nursery pots. Any reason you didn’t just pickup some nursery pots? Now were you trying to do like a organic type thing here? Because not many people cut promix with top soil as you will loose drainage and add compaction.
As for your questions, I wouldn’t even be worring about anything on the walls at this point. That light will be plenty for a long time. I would keep it at least 2 to 3 feet if not more from the seedlings.

Thanks for the reply. I am just being lazy, I didn't want to transplant. I picked bigger buckets because in the spring i will be starting indoors and moving outdoors, hoping to pull 2 harvests next summer. I had started the 2 in smaller pots with the top soil and just mixed it all together when i moved them into the bigger buckets.

Would you recommend more light come flowering?

“Just being lazy” is the best way to fail At this. The advice you got above was spot on. you will have an unhealthy root zone. Address that or you will fail

Dape Green said:

“Just being lazy” is the best way to fail At this. The advice you got above was spot on. you will have an unhealthy root zone. Address that or you will fail

Click to expand...

I'm sure he will get right on that lol, *check the date*

Given such detail in the first post i would have thought more consideration on lighting choice. It's a poor choice.

Also, when I read about rocks in the bottom of the pots it was like reinventing the wheel. Ive grown in soil decades and never had clogged pots and would never put rocks in the bottom of pots.

Thinking to hard is the issue here.