How powerful should the light be set for early veg?

I’ve got a cheap three in one light/soil/ph garbage meter that I use to gauge light strength.

I was using a cheap Chinese led that was registering about 500 on the meter but I switched to viparspectra XS2000 and I’m not sure how much to dim it.

The plants had been reacting badly to the cheap light when it was about 15” above them and so I raised it until they were ok which was reading the 500.

I’ve slowly been turning up the xs2000 each day and today it’s registering 1100 and the plants seem ok.

Full strength maxes the meter out easily.


I’m assuming I should continue daily increases until I see stress?

How are things going? Did you get your new light dialed in?

I have an OG#18, 8 weeks into flower that can't take the full power of the xs2000. Dropped it to 75%.

Wow that's kinda crazy. 8 weeks into flower and can't take 240 watts?

bam0813 said:

Wow that's kinda crazy. 8 weeks into flower and can't take 240 watts?

Click to expand...

Yep, started bleaching the top fan leaves, never had an issue with any other strain under that light. I have a growers choice roi-e680 in a 4x4 now for flowering now, so the xs2000 will move to the veg tent, now.

Everything’s looking good, I’ve settled at about 35%. Anything higher and they show stress. I’ve got the light a little low but at 35% it’s registering what looks like 1000-1300 on the little light meter.

I’ve read that you should try to keep the light as low as possible while at a decent brightness because it penetrates deeper and it’s lore intense. Idk if that’s true or not but seems to make sense.

I’m surprised how powerful the light is though, I can feel it on my arms and it feels like it would definitely sunburn me lol.


I’ve got a journal going too https://www.rollitup.org/t/first-grow-viparspectra-xs2000-soil-and-coir.1051103/

I’m finally getting to some fun parts now that I’m past watching seedlings sit around.