Starting my first Indoor Grow!

i need some advice. i was reading up on lighting and came across a few sites that said in order to harvest "good" marijuana you need to provide around 45,000 lumens. right now i am using only about 12,000 lumens. i'm aiming to get very dense buds. i was also debating about downgrading from a 400 hps system to 250 hps system to flower so there would not be such a drastic increase in temperature and electricity usage. right now my electricity bill is around $50 a month including the lighting of the plants (currently using about 200 watts for lighting right now). if i use the 400 watt hps system will i have to buy an air conditioning unit or is there any other way to reduce the temperature without purchasing an a/c. please give advice!!!:(

good ventilation and fans? right, an ac and a 400 might make a jump in the bill but i dont know how much. use the 400 if at all possible. what is the length/width of the closet? it might be better to get a 250 but what is the area that you have?

im currently growing in the closet but have a spare bedroom available to grow in. the dimension of the closets is about 10 feet high by 3 feet wide by 4 feet long. the dimensions of the spare room is about 12 feet by 15 feet.

first, if you are already using 200w for lighting a 250 wouldnt make a diff in the cost but would be alot better, and a 400w would be twice the cost to run the lights. my 150w and fan only made a difference of about 5$ a month. so if you figure the numbers out it would only make about 10$ difference than what you are paying. other people say around 50w per sq ft to grow plants but i have read that it can be as low as 30w per sq ft and still get good solid budding. i did mine right in the middle, 40w's, thats why i asked the size of your space. if your 400 does get too hot all i can say is good ventilation and air movement. your closet should hold your 4 plants and the 400 light easily enough. otherwise use your spare room, sorry im not being more help it just seems that you can do it in a closet of that size without to much trouble. especially if you are going to get a fan and carbon filter, exhaust it into your spare room instead of letting it run inside of the closet.

thanks alot for the help! i think ill try the 400 watt and see how it goes.

how much of a rise in temp. should i expect by running this thing 12/12 during the day?

anyone know what the rise in temp will be if i leave open the window in my grow room and open the top door that leads into the attic and use a large fan to circulate the air?

also very bummed out:( the large blueberry plant (shown in the indoor grow pics in the middle of the overshot) turned male. i still have 3 other plants but they are still much smaller than the male. i chopped em down today and started LST the others. will include pics within 24 hours:wtf:

i cant really say about the rise in temps with your 400w but two different posts here mentioned that they had an 8 deg rise in temps in their closet/boxes with the light. it depends, will opening the window let in hotter air than what you have in the room? it sounds like a good idea to open your attic door since heat rises. hope this helps. i cant really be specific about this because my light is smaller, most of this i just found out buy reading others posts and magazines. sorry about your BB. sometimes seeds are good.

thanks alot man. that really helps me out. i've been slacking off posting pics so i will have some up soon. The LST is going very well!