New Grow Room Advice

[RickyNewman]

Hey Guys,

I am planning my first real grow room setup. I would like to run things past you guys who are a lot more experienced and can guide me better. So, let me start by explaining what I have, and want :-)

Basically, I just want to be self sufficient.. I smoke ~ 2 - 3 oz a month. I have seen these autoflowering strains which allow seed - bud in 8 - 10 weeks, great! I can grow a handful of different strains, for 2 months and get enough to keep me going until the next crop. Or so this is the plan. I would like to use autoflowering seeds, maybe grow 10, and hope for an oz of each and that should see me through.

Onto my space. I have a built-in closet that I would like to use, its in one of the upstairs bedrooms so nice and out of the way. The space size of this room is:

70cm x 70cm x 160

So not a great big space but enough to be self sufficient I hope :-)

My research so far has led me to thinking of this:

Grab a grow tent such as this one (60 X 60 X 140CM DARK ROOM GROW TENT DARKROOM | eBay)

And use CFL lighting such as these two:

300w Red Giant CFL hydroponics grow light & reflector | eBay

and

300w Blue Giant CFL hydroponics grow light & reflector | eBay

Now, from what i've read about these two types of CFLs, is blue = beg, red = flowering, or i could use both throughout. Considering that i am going to use an auto flowering strain which has light on constantly at 18/6 maybe just use both of them lights constantly on 18/6?

My questions are these:

1) WIth my setup i explained, can i get away with out an exhaust and intake fan for my first grow because of the lack of heat (i am in the uk, so temp is cold now, and the CFLS don't generate too much heat).. maybe next grow i can look at intake/exhaust/carbon filter - or do i have to have a filter system in place or is it just going to fail otherwise? (Baring in mind i will have a big oscillating fan in the room at all times and i can open the vents and close the outer closet door so it can get venting that way?

2) Are those two lights enough to do an auto flowering strain from start to finish and get some decent bud from?

I would like to hear some advice please? I have around £200 to spend on this setup, I'd like to contain it all in a tent and use CFLs because of the low electricity/heat usage.. so what should i go for is the above setup adequate for a first grow?

Look forward to hearing your comments

RickyNewman Reviewed by RickyNewman on 09-19-2011. New Grow Room Advice Hey Guys, I am planning my first real grow room setup. I would like to run things past you guys who are a lot more experienced and can guide me better. So, let me start by explaining what I have, and want :-) Basically, I just want to be self sufficient.. I smoke ~ 2 - 3 oz a month. I have seen these autoflowering strains which allow seed - bud in 8 - 10 weeks, great! I can grow a handful of different strains, for 2 months and get enough to keep me going until the next crop. Or so Rating: 5

[smoketoker]

Hi Firstly, you will need to vent the room. The plants will need a constant supply of co2, and passing fresh air through the room will increase the rate of growth. If you don't suck fresh air into your grow room you will need to inject CO2, which can be a pain, but there's a cheap method of injecting CO2 with water, sugar and yeast. If you don't have enough CO2 in the room your plants will grow really slowly, plus you are wasting some of the light seeing as photosynthesis uses light and CO2 together. Hooking up a bathroom fan to a hole in the room can exhaust enough air. Here's some info on ventilation for your grow room. You don't have to have a carbon filter if smell is not an issue.

Those two lights are enough, but HPS lights are much more efficient than CFLs. You will get more light for every watt of electricity you use. Yes, HPS gives off more heat but if you are exhausting air it shouldn't be a problem. Are you sure you have 300 watt CFLs? I didn't know there was any bigger than 200, maybe 250. A 250 watt HPS should you plenty of light for a room of that size. Here's some info on lighting.

If you want to save money then don't buy the tent! It is only a couple of inches smaller than your actual space. You can buy enough reflective mylar sheeting to cover your room for 4 pounds. You said that you smoke about 2 or 3 ounces a month, if I were you I'd set up the perfect grow room to begin with, you will easily get your money back.

I'd recommend getting a 250watt HPS, an extractor/inline fan with some ducting and building your room with mylar instead of buying a tent.

If you are growing autoflowering strains the HPS will do for the whole cycle if you want, but you can add some small blue spectrum CFLs or replace the HPS with a 200 watt blue spectrum bulb for the first week or two, because vegging plants grow better with blueish light. You could buy a MH setup, but if you think that's too expensive just get the blue CFLs. Some digital ballasts allow you to use either HPS or MH bulbs, but they are much more expensive than magnetic ballasts.

If you still want to use CFL for the whole grow you will get enough light from about 300 watts of CFL.

[RickyNewman]

Hey,

First of thank you for your quick response.

The reason I want to get a tent is because I can't make any physical changes to the closet, so installing ventilation would be an issue if I can't vent it out of the room, so to overcome this I thought of buying a tent, at least I can vent from the tent out into the closet, then have the door (of the build in closet) slighlty open to have the ducting come out of.. so that should ventiltate the tent just fine for the small grow I am planning?

I have now purcahsed the following:

Tent: eBay - The UK's Online Marketplace
Extractor: eBay - The UK's Online Marketplace
INtake: eBay - The UK's Online Marketplace
light for flowering: eBay - The UK's Online Marketplace
light for veg: eBay - The UK's Online Marketplace
hygrometer: eBay - The UK's Online Marketplace

Is there anything else you think i should get?

Do you think the above will give me a decent grow?

The reason I have gone for CFLs are:

1) THey are cheap to run, produce hardly any heat and can touch the plants, so can penetrate canopies etc)
2) I don't think I can run a HID/MH in the small space I have for two reasons, heat and space.. yes i have ventilation, but im going to loose a lot of space because the distance from the bulb to plant etc..

So for the first grow I think i'll stick to CFLs, see what they produce, if im not happy then look to other ideas?

Do you think this is acceptable?

I am new to all this i've grown outdoors before just not indoors.. are there anything else i should consider?

I have purchased the following seeds:

World of Seeds Afghan Kush Ryder Autoflowering Feminized
Samsara Seeds El Alquimista Feminized (these came free)

I plan to do a soil grow first too if thats any help

Anyway, thank you for your reply, any feedback / opionons / advice welcome :-)

[RickyNewman]

oh another question i forgot to ask.. looking at the above lights i have bought, 1 300w red and 1 300w blue, to my understanding blue is better for veg with its 65000k and red for flowering with its 27000k right?

As I Plan to use autoflowering strain, I have some options:

1) use blue light for first 2 - 4 weeks, then the red one from there till harvest?
2) have them both full throttle until harvest?

I am leaning towards having both red and blue on 18/6 until they harvest as i guess two is better than one

What are your thoughts?

[smoketoker]

Hi,

If you only have a 2ft x 2ft area you won't need to run both lights together, one is enough. That's the first I've seen of a 300 watt CFL. I have a 200 myself and I like it. You should use the 6500k for veg and the 2700k for flowering. It doesn't say what the lumen output is for the 300watt bulbs, I'll assume it's about 18,000 lumens. Running both of them would give you 36,000 lumens and use 600 watts of power. A 250 watt HPS gives out about 35,000 lumens and only uses the 250 watts. A 250 watt HPS doesn't need to be placed that far away from plants. If your house isn't too warm you can place it 6-10 inches above your plants. Plus, one HPS will take up a lot less room than 2 large CFLs. CFLs are good, but you can see in this case you will be using over twice the amount of power to get the same result. CFL have the benefit of being able to place them an inch or two from your canopy, but they do not penetrate the canopy as well as HID lights. But like you said, try it out and see what you think. You have more than enough light with the CFL anyway. You should have between 3,000 and 5,000 lumens per square foot, and you will have 4,500 with just one of those monster CFLs.

The tent looks good, I have a dark room tent myself and it's still going strong.

The extractor fan doesn't give a CFM or CMH rating, make sure the intake fan is less powerful than the extractor, or the carbon filter won't work. If the intake is too powerful, the smell will escape through the intake. The ventilation setup you will have looks excellent, especially for a room of that size. Just make sure the air in the room is fresh, the plants can use a lot of CO2, especially with that much lighting.

Soil growing is good, and it's harder to make a mistake. It looks like you have a good setup and I think it will go well for you. I've never grown autoflowering strains, I hope it goes well for you

[RickyNewman]

Hey,

Thanks again for the quick reply :-)

OK excellent, I will use the blue for 2 - 3 weeks or at least until I see signs of sex (I read about 2-3 weeks with autoflowering strains). Then I will switch to the red light for the rest of the time.

I do have 2 x 400watt HIDs but the problem with these is the ballasts are built into the reflector box, so the heat of those would be too much for a small space. I will defintiley look into getting a 250watt HID for the next grow then if you think that the setup can handle it, i think i would have to SCROG it or LFT it to get anywhere with a HID In that space. We shall see :-)

Good point, I had not thought about that regarding the extactor fan/intake fan! Thank you for pointing this out to me, I will find out the power on both and report back :-)

I Will also keep you posted, when everything arrives I Will take continuous pictures throughout so we can see how it goes.. I would love to see any pics of your grow under the 250 CFL to see what I can expect :-)

Again thanks for your advice!

[RickyNewman]

OH heck, just thought of something.. I have this nice big oscillating fan here that I was planning to use, however, how the heck will i fit an oscillating fan in the grow space i have, i have order some 3 litre pots (just big enough for 2 months growth i think), and i plan to have at least 6 pots in the room? Hmmm, how can i get a fan in there, can this space do without? I would of thjought it would need one.. any opinions, ideas?

[smoketoker]

Hi again, no problem

You might have to wait a little more than the advertised 2-3 weeks for flowering, so I've heard from others who grew autos anyway.

Yeah those 400 HIDs with the built in ballasts will definitely give off too much heat in a space that small. You have plenty of light with the 300watt cfl, the 250 HPS would slightly reduce your bill but because of the heat you will probably end up sticking with the CFL.

You can hang the fan on the wall, but you shouldn't need a fan. I think you will have enough air movement within your room. You should worry more about making sure there is always fresh air going into the room. With an intake at ground level and exhaust at the top the plants should get enough air.

I flower with a HPS light because I have a 3ft x 3ft area which needs more light. I veg with a blue CFL though, 200 watt, and it works really well. It's not really the bulb that matters, more so the lumens. The 200 watt CFL (12,000 lumens) would give me 1300 lumens per square foot in my flowering room which really isn't enough. I haven't got a camera unfortunately, but you can expect some big buds. In my opinion fresh air flow and light are the two most important things, and you have plenty of light and you should have plenty of air

[RickyNewman]

Awesome thanks for the encouring advice!

I have had an answer back regarding the intake fan:

"Hi there it will push 130m'3/hr at 2800rpm"

THe exhaust fan i have is here: Amazon.com: Inline Fan TT100 4" 115CFM 2 Speed: Kitchen & Dining - the specs listed are:

115CFM 2 Speed

You have me a little concerned about the power ration between the intake and exhaust system i bought.. can you confirm with the information above that they will be sufficent and work together well?

Or do you need more info, just let me know

Thanks again!

[smoketoker]

130CMH is 76CFM. So if the intake is 76CFM and the exhaust is 115CFM then it should be fine. Carbon filters and lots of ducting can slow air flow. So if you have a lot of ducting you might need a more powerful exhaust fan.