New Grower Needs Help!

I just decided to start growing. I bought a 400w MH/HPS light on ebay. I am going to build a wood box in my closet. I was thinking of making it 4' x 4' x 2' but i am not really sure. I could go up to 5 x 5 x 2 but the 4 x 4 box would be easier to build. What i need help with is making an ideal setup with these parameters. Do i have to much light for that space? I know those lights get pretty hot and need to be a certain height above the plant but don't really know how much. Do i fix the lamp up top and raise the plants as they get bigger? Should i try and find plants that dont grow to high? Any help would me most appreciated. Thanks

i would definitely make the box taller. go as big as you can, because if youre serious about it, the extra room is always great to have.

3 by 3 is your best bet. Make it 4-4.5 feet tall and have the light sitting on top, it keeps box cooler. Cut a hole on the top the size of your hood. Keep your light 18-24 inches from plant tops. If you have a cool tube you can get a little closer.

Yes try to find plants that dont glow much in the floweing stage. LA confidential only adds a foot in flowering. Flower at 1 foot there done at 2. 1 foot of pot 2 feet of plant 1.5 space from light to plant = 4.5 feet.

You can gain several inches with wider pots, cool tube or having few large plants bushed out over a wide area. Plants would be 2-3 feet tall but they are layed out. Don't forget to top ur plants, your going to need it.

hey, hey - hey, hey - smoke weed every day.

If your building a huge box dont forget Ventilation! an inline fan works great, but if you can drill a small 4'x4 'hole in ur wall ur set! Squirrel cage fans are noisy, but if you place some rubber padding underneath it, it wont make nearly any noise. ANd also check out getting some Mylar, i got 50 ft. for 14 bucks off HTG supply.com and it makes a hell of a difference. This place also has some cheap inline fans under ventilation, you should check it out and it will help provide you with some ideas. You should spend just as much money on ventilation as u did you light.....ok maybe a little less. but check it out. Goodluck

I would say the 4' x 4' x 2' is possible. From the top of my cooltube (400w hps) to the bottom of my pots (15L) is 41", but I used LST and Scrog to control the height of the plants. You could also look into super cropping, topping, fimming, all kinds of methods to keep your plants short and even higher yields.

My temps are also a little higher than optimal, but still within range... You really need a good fan, and by good I mean it should be able to handle enough heat from the light in the cooltube so you can pull the air out with the fan, instead of pushing it through the cooltube. Then you can hook up your carbon filter to the other side of the cooltube. The second link in my sig goes through all the ways I've been trying to get things to run smoothly, and I finally got it how I want it.