grow tent advice on lighting

Im currently looking at getting a grow tent (8x8x6) and wondering if i can use my standard 400w hps lights i have , or will i need cool tubes with ducting through them to keep the heat down ?

i will be using a 6" high quality carbon filter !

i dont really want to go for the all singing all dancing hoods and ducting cool tubes things if i can get away with it, i like to keep things simple, but if i gotta ,then i gotta ...

try turn it on and see how close you can keep your hand. personally i wouldnt put it in without a cool tube/hood

It all depends on the temps in your room when the lights are on but 400's are not the best choice for an 8x8 unless you are using 6 of them and growing short plants or stagger them at diff heights and do a vertical grow because a 400 watt bulb does not travel very far for bud production. 600's are your best bet as far as 4 lights and still not blowing up the power bill. If you already have alot of 400's use ac to cool the room and go staggered vertical raw bulbs for best results.

Tony Sativa said:

It all depends on the temps in your room when the lights are on but 400's are not the best choice for an 8x8 unless you are using 6 of them and growing short plants or stagger them at diff heights and do a vertical grow because a 400 watt bulb does not travel very far for bud production. 600's are your best bet as far as 4 lights and still not blowing up the power bill. If you already have alot of 400's use ac to cool the room and go staggered vertical raw bulbs for best results.

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i have a 600w mantis which gets really hot and 2 x400w small reflector cheapy lights, the 400w are alot cooler and get good results and ineverveg so i dont need the penetration , i was going to get a 4x8 and put the mantis in the middle of the 2 400w

then i decided for a few more pounds i can get a 8x8 and use half of it , giving me lots of room to work, plenty room for more plants if needed, keeping everything less cluttered,ect,ect

if a small tent with a big light in gets too hot, im thinking that a big tent (only using half) with a few lights would be cooler??

thanks for the input ..........

ineverveg said:

i have a 600w mantis which gets really hot and 2 x400w small reflector cheapy lights, the 400w are alot cooler and get good results and ineverveg so i dont need the penetration , i was going to get a 4x8 and put the mantis in the middle of the 2 400w

then i decided for a few more pounds i can get a 8x8 and use half of it , giving me lots of room to work, plenty room for more plants if needed, keeping everything less cluttered,ect,ect

if a small tent with a big light in gets too hot, im thinking that a big tent (only using half) with a few lights would be cooler??

thanks for the input ..........

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I have a friend that has a fairly large tent, like yourself, just sitting in his dinning room. He uses the central A/C to help keep ambient temps down to the point where it's actually a little too cool for comfort in the condo. He uses 2 of those big ass 8" Mag. XXXL hoods with 1K lights, which may be over kill. HOWEVER, he can keep those lights almost right down to the point of touching the tops of the plants if he wants because they stay so cool to the touch.

im tryin to avoid the expensive air cooled lights tho. do you think with a good extractor fan i will keep the temps down ?

going to give em good fresh intake and keep it negative in there....

Use CMH bulbs in the 400's they run cooler and have a much better light spectrum than any hps.

http://advancedtechlighting.com/cdmed18.htm

I run 2 - 400's in a single large, open, un-vented hood and can keep it right on top of the canopy (6 to 8 inches)

WattSaver said:

Use CMH bulbs in the 400's they run cooler and have a much better light spectrum than any hps.

http://advancedtechlighting.com/cdmed18.htm

I run 2 - 400's in a single large, open, un-vented hood and can keep it right on top of the canopy (6 to 8 inches)

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thats exactly what i have been looking for without knowing it lol, +rep dude and thanks for the advice, i just finished watchin the video and im gonna get some of them bad boys.

do you think they perform as good or better than hps ?

8 inches away, man thats a cool light. nice 1 dude....

CMH bulbs are good for veg but you don't want to flower with them unless you don't mind missing out on alot of your yield come harvest time. HPS has no rival when it comes to yield in flowering

you could run all three lights in there if you can keep it cold enough wether you use a small portable ac unit or simply hang a fan in the tent to bring in air and tap it into the central ac of the house/apartment. i just cut a piece of cardboard, cut a round 6" hole and attach the ducting with duct tape making a clean seal. then just staple the cardboard to the wall over the vent of the room or where ever the ac vent is at. try that and if that dont work then your gonna have to buy either a portable ac unit or air cooled hoods. utilize your tent, dont waste space.. i run 8x8's and a few other size tents with no room to walk in there.. ive also used different light combinations with the 8x8 i did 4 400's the first time, then 2 600's and a 400 and now im gonna do 4 600's in there. currently im running a 4x8 tent with 2 600's in an air cool magnum 6". one fan running through a filter then the lights and out the tent/room and one intake fan hanging in the tent tapped into the ac stapled to the wall. stays 70-78 all day, hits 78 when its 100 outside... good luck on what ever you do.. "el throttle"

Tony Sativa said:

CMH bulbs are good for veg but you don't want to flower with them unless you don't mind missing out on alot of your yield come harvest time. HPS has no rival when it comes to yield in flowering

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I'm gonna have to disagree with you here. I've run mh, hps, & cmh (all in the 400w range) and spent over a yr & a half with a 350w led, and here's what I've seen.

HPS is the leader in penetration down into the plant with the light having more energy say 3' away from the source. It has a higher overall lumen output than either mh, or cmh. With that being said it also has a much higher heat output and more energy is wasted in heat production. The buds I've seen were physically larger, but not as dense as the buds under the cmh.

CMH lower lumens but more lumen in the proper color wave lengths for both vegetative, and flower cycles, than either mh, or hps. CMH also covers non-visible wave lengths of IR and UV. When I switched from hps to cmh I did notice the smaller physical bud size, but after weighing many colas they had the same weight as those I'd grown under the hps, they were just smaller and denser. With the CMH stretch going into flower is reduced, plants that would stretch 2.5x to 3x under hps now log in at 2x or under. So with smaller inter-nodial spacing you don't need as much light penetration range.

All I can say is that the CMH is a very viable flowering lamp, here's a shot of my current grow at 5 wks and the hood is 8" to 10" above the canopy.

WattSaver said:

All I can say is that the CMH is a very viable flowering lamp, here's a shot of my current grow at 5 wks and the hood is 8" to 10" above the canopy.

View attachment 2188182

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that`ll do for me bud ^^, who can argue with that, nice dense nuggets, good size with some time left,plenty buds per watt there! this is exactly why these sites are what you need to become a better grower, its all well and good reading up things but when sum1 with experience shows me a picture and gives me the benefit of their experience i can confidently buy a cmh bulb (which are a fair penny) and know its gonna produce results, cheers bro, nice setup...

cmh bulbs are the perfect solution to heat problems caused by the hps bulbs , which is alot of waste heat at that ,


air ducted lghts vs air conditioner vs cmh bulbs..

for me its not about which performs the best , its about whats practical and cheapest lol, so its less work and less money = less stress

WattSaver said:

I'm gonna have to disagree with you here. I've run mh, hps, & cmh (all in the 400w range) and spent over a yr & a half with a 350w led, and here's what I've seen.

HPS is the leader in penetration down into the plant with the light having more energy say 3' away from the source. It has a higher overall lumen output than either mh, or cmh. With that being said it also has a much higher heat output and more energy is wasted in heat production. The buds I've seen were physically larger, but not as dense as the buds under the cmh.

CMH lower lumens but more lumen in the proper color wave lengths for both vegetative, and flower cycles, than either mh, or hps. CMH also covers non-visible wave lengths of IR and UV. When I switched from hps to cmh I did notice the smaller physical bud size, but after weighing many colas they had the same weight as those I'd grown under the hps, they were just smaller and denser. With the CMH stretch going into flower is reduced, plants that would stretch 2.5x to 3x under hps now log in at 2x or under. So with smaller inter-nodial spacing you don't need as much light penetration range.

All I can say is that the CMH is a very viable flowering lamp, here's a shot of my current grow at 5 wks and the hood is 8" to 10" above the canopy.

View attachment 2188182

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"hps is the leader in penetration" - so why use anything else? you wanna control heat cool your lights or you room. how is this suppose to impress any "one" reputable grower (not saying thats me) but come on bro your using a 400, anyone can get these results with a compact fluorescent or a set of t5's which have full spectrums and less heat. if those were the best bulbs to use evry pro out there would have their garden loaded with them.and about the stretching, to me its all about the strand you use. i have some that dont ever stretch and the ones that do dont go more than an inch or two max! and in my experience "smaller inter-nodial spacing" actually needs more penetration due to the fact that one bud spot covers the other one not to mention the leaves in between them. i only see this with my kush strands. not trying to talk shit just giving my opinion, if i have to i post a pic later of my two 600's air cooled in a 4x8 only 6"-8" above my canopy, talk about dense! lol heres a few pics of some of my kush.. hps!
View attachment 2188464View attachment 2188465View attachment 2188466

ineverveg said:

that`ll do for me bud ^^, who can argue with that, nice dense nuggets, good size with some time left,plenty buds per watt there! this is exactly why these sites are what you need to become a better grower, its all well and good reading up things but when sum1 with experience shows me a picture and gives me the benefit of their experience i can confidently buy a cmh bulb (which are a fair penny) and know its gonna produce results, cheers bro, nice setup...

cmh bulbs are the perfect solution to heat problems caused by the hps bulbs , which is alot of waste heat at that ,


air ducted lghts vs air conditioner vs cmh bulbs..

for me its not about which performs the best , its about whats practical and cheapest lol, so its less work and less money = less stress

Click to expand...

what are you gonna do if you put "them" bulbs in and still have heat issues? or what if your buds in the end suck? just saying it doesnt hurt to try and see who really is using them out there (and i dont mean some squirrel either) . i think if they were that badass everyone would see them, hear about them, and have them. hps is all i see or hear...

el throttle said:

"hps is the leader in penetration" - so why use anything else? you wanna control heat cool your lights or you room. how is this suppose to impress any "one" reputable grower (not saying thats me) but come on bro your using a 400, anyone can get these results with a compact fluorescent or a set of t5's which have full spectrums and less heat. if those were the best bulbs to use evry pro out there would have their garden loaded with them.and about the stretching, to me its all about the strand you use. i have some that dont ever stretch and the ones that do dont go more than an inch or two max! and in my experience "smaller inter-nodial spacing" actually needs more penetration due to the fact that one bud spot covers the other one not to mention the leaves in between them. i only see this with my kush strands. not trying to talk shit just giving my opinion, if i have to i post a pic later of my two 600's air cooled in a 4x8 only 6"-8" above my canopy, talk about dense! lol heres a few pics of some of my kush.. hps!
View attachment 2188456View attachment 2188459View attachment 2188460View attachment 2188462View attachment 2188464View attachment 2188465View attachment 2188466

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nice picz m8, and everything you just said makes absolute sense ,to me anyway lol

however, im a simple man that likes it simple, im getting a tent because i have to so i can control the smell mainly. until now i had a cupboard with either a 400w or 600w , soil growing in small pots with no vegging , very very easy and basic setup.
i do love the hps lights , but i would rather not have the headache of air con or cooled hoods besides the cost( im spending around £1000 to upgrade wen i move so i really need to use the lights i have), i need new bulbs anyways so i wiil spend a bit extra on them and get cmh, if i get nice buds like wattsaver i will be happy
your buds look nice aswell throttle, but they were grown in a setup tailored to your individual needs im sure.

would you advise against the 400w cmh then throttle?

If you will do your research on Cmh bulbs you will find hardy anyone flowers with them and really not to be used in a air cooled hoods for best results. I've used them in the past before I went to all digital ballast but only for veg. I tried them by themselves and with adding them to hps in my grozilla reflector. I lost alot of weight come harvest time using them alone and Mh did a better job as a combo with Hps in the grozilla. Other forums have several pages saying I'm not wrong but it's still your garden so do what you want

el throttle said:

what are you gonna do if you put "them" bulbs in and still have heat issues? or what if your buds in the end suck? just saying it doesnt hurt to try and see who really is using them out there (and i dont mean some squirrel either) . i think if they were that badass everyone would see them, hear about them, and have them. hps is all i see or hear...

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i will test them next to a 400w hps but if the heat is an issue with hps i will go with all cmh, likewise if the buds are shit i will go all hps, i love hps, tbh if heat isnt an issue i will prolly go with hps anyway, i cant imagine why the buds would suck tho as it is a hps/mh hybrid and i have seen evidence they work.....

i would since you could get an air cool hood for a no namer as cheap as 50-60 us dollars(ebay or amazon) and most hydro stores carry air cooled hoods made by xtrasun for around 100 bucks.. my first cheap run was a xtrasun 6" hood (100 us dollars) with a hydrofarm 4" fan(80 us dollars) and used another (80) 4" fan to bring in air and thats cause at the time i wasnt even sticking it to my ac vent the way i do now. i did put it under my bed to draw in air since that was the coolest air in the room till it hit me to just tape, staple it to the dam ac vent! i did this all with a 3x3 tent running one fan through a 4" filter and through the light anf one fan bringing in cold air thats all you need! i did 9 plants in one gallon containers, flowered them when they were around 20" and got 14 ounces of dense dank! the dark pupple silvery pic on top came from that drop and that was my first grow ever on top of it! ive only been doing this for one year with not a single problem. all you have to do to be successful in anything in life is to do your "due diligence"!

Tony Sativa said:

If you will do your research on Cmh bulbs you will find hardy anyone flowers with them and really not to be used in a air cooled hoods for best results. I've used them in the past before I went to all digital ballast but only for veg. I tried them by themselves and with adding them to hps in my grozilla reflector. I lost alot of weight come harvest time using them alone and Mh did a better job as a combo with Hps in the grozilla. Other forums have several pages saying I'm not wrong but it's still your garden so do what you want

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good point and heres some of my research m8

The basics:
These bulbs can be used in BOTH vegetative and bloom cycles
Benefits:
There are many benefits to these lamps. The main reason for even considering these lamps is the fantastic spectrum of light they produce.
HPS lamps produce lots of light but its not the "right" light.
It is true that plants can adapt and grow well under HPS but they will do better under CMH. Think of it this way, the sun, the light we are trying to reproduce inside, is full spectrum not just a lot of yellow / red. So why just give them yellow / orange? Basically HPS has become the standard for growing in supplied lighting conditions. This is mostly historical (now) because that was the best we had…now we have alternatives.
Other benefits include they "throw" less heat, they have very little color shift (less than 200K over their life time), your plants will have less stretch (tighter internodes)
Ceramic Metal Halide FAQ:

1. I have noticed that the Ceramic Metal Halide HPS Retro bulbs produce less lumens compared to other HPS bulbs?
A: Lumens is an antiquated way of comparing grow lamps. Lumens are a scientific definition based on the human eye and NOT on a plants response curve. This is the hardest part for people considering trying the CMH's to get past. We have been snowed over by the manufacturers just focusing on the max lumens.

however i have never used them so i can only go on other peoples grows ...

lol you sound like the guys i know that grow with compact fluorescent and t-5 that buy the "red bulbs" "full spectrum" lol. i know guys that are very successful at what we do and only use hps during veg and flower. these things are weeds and will grow if you stand over them with a flash light..and if hps is historical then we must be living in the past and you and a handfull of aliens are from the future..wow! its not cheap to grow especially if your trying to be a serious grower, if not just go to walmart for some compact fl, problem solved.. and you wanna talk about historic, trying to mimic the sun is the oldest shit in the books. there are many mh bulbs out there with some yellow trying to "mimic" the sun.. i dont understand why people get all organic about the sun.. next your gonna want some butterflies and other flowers in your garden.. just fucking with you but seriously get whatever helps you sleep at night its not gonna hurt my garden..