New Grow Room Advice

[ddcolorado]

This is sure confussing. I found this growing area guide on another site. It doesnt mesh with what I read on this site

HID Light Output
Primary Growing Area -Supplemental Growing Area

250 watts 3' x 3' - 5' x 5'
400 watts 5' x 5' - 8' x 8'
600 watts 6' x 6' -10' x 10'
1000 watts 8' x 8' - 12' x 12'


According to this guide I would only need ONE 600watt in my (proposed) 7X5 flower chamber, and you would go for 3 of them????? I need to go to bed LOL

Thank you very much for your imput as I muddle thru this plan of mine:stoned:

Cheers
Darren

[ddcolorado]

OK I switched things around abit. The flower chamber will be 6x8 (48sq ft)

Would this be a good choice in a light for this area?

http://vi.ebaydesc.com/ws/eBayISAPI....=msie&caz.html


They suggest a area size of 36sq ft to 100sq ft. Gonna grow atleast 9 plants.



Thanks

[disrupt86]

400 watt 3x3 600 4x4 1000 5x5, most of it depends on the size of your plants,u could grow a ton of little plants with one lamp but as soon as they get bigger,they start blocking the others from receiveing light so you would want to move them further apart. thats y bigger lights are better aside from the lumen out put.lighting is all about personal preference, i woulnd never by anything again that couldnt be air cooled,u mentioned earlier your in colorado and your going to be growing this winter but what when the summer time roles around?look around on Hydro Wholesale - Hydroponics and Grow Lights or Discount Hydroponics discount has great lighting packages that are cheap and u build your self.

[DreadedHermie]

I found this growing area guide on another site. It doesnt mesh with what I read on this site.

Disrupt86 is correct about the approximate coverage areas of those lights, IMO. :thumbsup:

ddcolorado, at this stage of your research you should feel free to change your mind frequently about how to set up your grow. You have many, many variables to consider, and at this stage of the game totally changing your mind doesn't cost a cent.

There are lotsa "sticky" threads at the top of various topics. Read all the ones by Stinkyattic and Rhizome.

I'm just gonna throw some things out there for you to consider as you're studying up. You may wanna start a little smaller in case you want to make design changes. Once you get your production maxed out, changes may be difficult to implement.

1. That "5x5" area that a 1K light's supposed to cover is more a reference number (25 sq. ft.) than a fact of life. The shape and style of your reflector is what'll give you the actual footprint of your light. Might be 6' x 4'. Maybe 3.5' x 7'. And so on. Match the shape of your room to your lamp/reflector combinations. The possibilities are endless.

2. Flowering or fruiting plants requires a lot more light than just vegging them, whether we're talking about cannabis or cucumbers. You can veg some pretty hefty plants using inexpensive, cool running fluoros. Lowly shoplights from HoPo will work pretty well. But you gotta "put the wood to 'em" in the flower room, though. And you've only got 12 hours a day to do it. Setting up a 1000 watt veg room to supply a 1000 watt flower room is a poor allocation of resources, IMO. I've heard of an efficient little operation using ~150 watts veg / ~500 watts flower, for example.

3. Cloning is easy and super fun, and just about zero cost. Read Stinky's sticky, follow the instructions carefully. It's just taking cuttings, no hocus pocus involved. Start with your store-bought nine clones, and take your own subsequent cuttings from them when they're bigger. You will never have to buy seeds or clones again! I heard of a guy who popped one single seed and grew for over a year from its cuts. He was glad he got a female, lemme tell ya...

4. Lighting's easy because the need is so obvious. The part people screw up is adequate ventilation. By the time you realize you're having problems, it may not be a cheap or easy fix. Go with overkill the first time around and save yourself some grief.

5. Disrupt makes a good point about heat problems in summer. And you DO NOT want to be pulling air from a crawl space under your house into your grow. MAYBE you can get away with it in the winter, IDK. In the summer, you're gonna get mold spores, insect eggs, bugs, demons, vagrants, etc., etc.

Just some things to think about. In general, mj is comparitively easy to grow and quite forgiving. HTH. Hermie.

P.S. Take your time and look at other folks' setups on this site. You should be able to find something close to what you're planning, and fine tune it to your situation, No sense reinventing the wheel. :thumbsup:

[ddcolorado]

Thank you Hermie!!!!

I visited 2 more Despenceries in my town today (Colorado Springs) And they all agreed that a 1000w system would be good for my app.(9 plants, 48 sq ft) They told me I want 100w per plant. Just watch the heat.

I am leaning towards a 1000w digital switchable system because at first I wont need the hps. When its time to flower, I just change the bulb and get another light to veg. (less start up $$$)

I am now trying to figure out the ventilation. The back wall of the flower chamber is an outside wall. I own the house so I was thinking I could just cut a hole in the top of wall and put a 500-600cfm (flower room area is 380 cu ft,Veg room 320 cu ft) exhaust fan direct blowing outside(no ducting required). Depending on how my temps are, I will draw the fresh air in passively thru a window or a hole in the floor to the crawl space. I will also put a air filter in the floor hole to keep undisirables out from under the house.

I also need to think ODOR control. What I am doing is legal, but I dont want to advertise. Does anyone make a good scrubber that with work with the wall exhuast fan set up I invision?


Thanks:thumbsup:

[DreadedHermie]

Well, most folks'll tell ya they like ~5,000 lumens/sq ft for best results with HPS. A 1000W. covering 48 sq ft gives about 3,000, which will certainly work. You could start there and add to it if necessary, as long as your electrical supply and ventilation allow for such expansion.

The switchable ballast idea makes sense. Filtering incoming air has worked well for some folks on this board. You might check with the local Cooperative Extension Service and see what's in the local air that you would need to filter out.

Scrubbers? Can Fans are great. An 8" fan driving a Can 66 filter might cut it. May wanna go bigger; but those filters are conservatively rated and last way longer than the year I hear folks talking about.

[attachment=o227967]

That's a 6" 464 HO sucking through a ceiling-mounted Can 33 and firing directly through a wall. No ducting--a straight shot. :thumbsup: Tight fit, though.

[ddcolorado]

Hermie, love your ventilation set up!! Thats exactly what I want to copy. Where did you get that set up? Cost? How big is your room?


Thanks

[ditdotter]

There are several ways to determine the amount of light you need for a given size room. One way is 5000 lumens per square foot of space minimum up to a maximum of 7500 any more than that and you will stand a good chance of "sunburning" your tops.
The other way is 50 watts per square foot minimum up to 75 watts per square foot. Using either formula will give you a very close idea of what your basic needs are to flower good plants.

Vegging plants is a different story all together. All you need to veg 9 plants is one 4 foot by 4 bulb T5. I just did 12 clones for my present grow under one such light that were 32 inches tall (topped) when put into flower after 60 days.

[ddcolorado]

Thanks for all the advice. I have decided to hold off for alittle .

I checked out the 5 despenceries in my town and all are alittle different some good some not so good. One of them has grow classes and very professional. I thought I was in my dentist office oppossed to a headshop. I enrolled in there class ($150) starts Oct 6 and it runs twice a week for a month.

In the middle of the class and at the end they give you an exam, If you do well ,the despencery will set you up to grow for them legally up to 99 plants.

This place also had the cheapest meds, prices range wildly here.