Wardrobe for Seedlings/Mothers/Clones/Vegging

Rookie looking for help with first grow. After consulting with co-habitants, previous plans were far too extensive. Iâ??m now working on plans for a one cabinet/one closet grow setup. Iâ??ve found a wardrobe I think I might like to use but Iâ??m not entirely sure what to put where. Itâ??s huge, which I like.

It has two sections in it. The left side is 32" Wide, 20" Deep, and 72" tall. The right side is 24" Wide, 20" Deep, and 57" tall. There are two 8â?� tall drawers underneath the right hand side.

I'd like to divide it up into three sections. One small section for clones/seedlings; one section for a mother (with room to expand to maybe house 2 or 3 mothers later on); and one section for vegging. I am planning to have a separate closet-sized flowering area of 3-4' wide, 2.5' deep, and 6-8' tall.

I need help figuring out which part of the grow to put where. Should I devote more space (left side) to mothers or to vegging? The vegging should be near the top because of the heat, I know.

I'd like to use regular 24" T-8 fluoros for mother and clones/seedlings to start, to keep costs down. I'm thinking 2 or 4 such bulbs over the young 'uns. For the mother, four above and maybe two on each of three sides. I know itâ??s not optimal but if it doesnâ??t hurt too much, Iâ??d like to save some money somewhere.

For vegging, I'm thinking of a 250 W MH light. It would provide 6,600 or 4,900 Lumens/square foot depending on which side was used for vegging. A 400 W MH light would provide 11,000 or 8000 lumens/square foot.

Using CaliGrowerâ??s fantastic charts (thanks, CG), penetration for the 250 W light would be 13â?� using the 5,000 foot-candles method or 8â?� using the 100% PAR method. The 400 W light would pump that up to 18â?� or 11â?�.

Would the 400W light make vegging better or just faster?

Iâ??m assuming that any HID light in such a cabinet would require inline cooling.

Any thoughts or advice for a rookie?

Thanks!

Peace, Baby.

I think it sounds like a great cabinet with a lot of potential. It's nearly twice the size of the one I'm using for mother/cloning. I'm using a 24" 4 bulb T5 over the mother and will use T8's on the sides when the 6500 K bulbs get here. I just started it so I can't say much except that it's working well so far.

You'll want to be sure to have plenty of ventilation for all the sections but especially the veg area with the MH - a cooltube would be excellent.

Do you have a manufacturer name model # or a link to the cabinet? I'd like to check it out.

There are 100's of grow logs in these forums by people who have done exactly what you are wanting to do - all the info is here at your fingertips.

Good luck and happy growing!

Hiya doco, thanks for the tips. I just finished reading two grow logs by a cab grower and got a ton of great information from them. I guess I hadn't realized how much good stuff was in the grow logs. D'oh.

The cabinet is described at http://tinyurl.com/yeb5je. I was looking for something large when I found it.

Thanks again.