Help Me Design New Room

Hey everyone,

I've finally run into the space and cash needed to setup a nice grow room. After growing with soil in closet like spaces with CFLs for the past few years, I am overjoyed.

I will be starting to inclose a space in my basement that's around 12ft x 16ft to use for flowering. I plan on drywalling everything including the ceiling and painting it all white next weekend. Other than electrical/exhaust, is there anything else I should think of doing before the room goes up?

I'm thinking a larger size ebb n flow hydro system to put in this room.. maybe 2 systems of 12 buckets each.. along with 4 600w air cooled HPS lights, so every 4 plants will get their own 600w light... is that enough/overkill?

Anyways I would like ideas and opinions from you more experienced growers out there on what you would do.. I've been growing for about 5yrs but never hydro or anything big.. still researching and going through the learning curve with that but I feel confident in my skill level. I would like something hydro that is a bit easier to work with when you have more plants (20+).

I will still use a large closet type space with CFLs for veg/clone for now as I've had good results (can place my CFLs very close to plants w.o burning them)... at least until I have more funds to work with.

Thanks everyone! Reputable brands for digital ballasts/reflectors also very much appreciated

try out some LED's maybye? not enough grows have been done with LED to really see how well they perfrorm against hps. however they cost a bit more. for the grow room. do a couple of sketches in some notebook and see for yourself how good would it work out for growing purposes. most likely nobody will design a big grow room for you for free not knowing what is your location, budget, amount of concealment. Later post some progress.

doooood u gonna want so much shit ;x

dehumidifiers
AC
fans
chillers
light controllers
timers
monitors

to begin with

blendy said:

I'm thinking a larger size ebb n flow hydro system to put in this room.. maybe 2 systems of 12 buckets each.. along with 4 600w air cooled HPS lights, so every 4 plants will get their own 600w light... is that enough/overkill?

Click to expand...

I've never personally used an ebb and flow bucket setup, but people I know that have didn't stick with them. Make sure thats really what you want before you dish out the cash for two systems.

Its definitely not overkill, and you need to check your math.

- Jiji

Hey Blendy a couple things that and its purely my opinion

I think you should go save your money and save on the hassle with a couple 1000 Watt air cooled lights rather than multiple 600 watters. 600 watts is perfect for a 4x4 but considering the size of your room I think it'd be alot smarter to go with maybe 4 1K watt. As far as heat is concerned Idk what state you live in but you're growing in your basement so it should be cool enough unless your in somewhere like Arizona. Not to mention cool tubes take a lot of the heat away. Personally I have a 1000 watt in a 4x4 tent on a third floor apartment. I turn it down to 750 watt in the summer but 1000 is perfect in the winter and the yields are amazing.

Its best never to skimp on the electronics but Ipower is the cheapest brand on ebay/amazon and I never looked back with regret. I've had mine for over 3 years without a glitch and they have a warranty. you can find super cheap package deals on amazon/ebay.

If you've never grown Hydro and you're set on the whole ebb and flow I suggest you read up because Hydro is quite finicky for newbies even with the most basic of hydro systems like DWC. You have to mess with the feeding schedule, ppm, ph. You're probably going to want to have the probes that monitor it 24/7 and they are PRICEY.

If you haven't looked into yet I'd suggest looking into blumat. If you do a supersoil grow this thing will literally feed you're plants from beginning to harvest and you never have to lift a pinky except to fill up the reservoir time to time. Also, you can go organic at the same time and save on bottled nutes and all the hassles of hydro and still have great yield because it constantly keeps the soil at the perfect moisture level

Apart from everything that Butsack has mentioned you're going to need a pretty large inline fan capable of changing the air in the room at least 3 times every minute especially in a basement and carbon filter because the odor will be strong...not to mention duct fans to pull the heat from all the cool tubes

I always tell my friends who start growing to imagine how much they'll spend and double it by the time they first harvest.

Hope this helped.

Thanks for the reply everyone.

I do plan on taking my time setting this room up with quality equipment, I know it will be a little pricey to get everything I need but gotta start somewhere! Here are some more details..

Ive changed my mind and have decided to run a scrog 4x4 flood table setup under 2 600w. The room is much bigger than needed for this but I will expand and upgrade after I get a few grows under the belt. Maybe switch to a 4x8 or 2 4x4s in the future.

I plan on lining the entire room with poly film. I live in Michigan, so temps and humidity everywhere depending on the time of year. This is a legal grow, but I still want my room air tight and filtered. Do you think I can get away without using a water chiller? Would I need to move the res out of the room?

Rough construction of the room starts this weekend. Should be able to get all the walls/elect/drywall/poly film installed.. then its time to start thinking about ballasts and hoods. Any recommendatons for this type setup? Would like quality equipment, especially the ballasts. Thanks!

Your best bet would be to leave the option for moving the res outside of the room, but test it inside first. If you can dial in your environment with the res in the grow room, then you can maintain a stable temp for the res.

If you can't stabilize the room environment to your liking, then you've already planned ahead with a space for the res outside (or as you said, a chiller).

For a 4x4' table, I'd run a 1000w bulb, but you already have ideas for two tables (or one longer one), so two 600w is what I'd do. Having two lights also has the added benefit of having one still going until you can replace the other if it fails.

-spek

spek9 said:

Your best bet would be to leave the option for moving the res outside of the room, but test it inside first. If you can dial in your environment with the res in the grow room, then you can maintain a stable temp for the res.

If you can't stabilize the room environment to your liking, then you've already planned ahead with a space for the res outside (or as you said, a chiller).

For a 4x4' table, I'd run a 1000w bulb, but you already have ideas for two tables (or one longer one), so two 600w is what I'd do. Having two lights also has the added benefit of having one still going until you can replace the other if it fails.

-spek

Click to expand...

Thanks spek.

I'm pretty sure I'd have a good res temp for most of the year but it does get warm in summer.. I don't know if just moving the res out of the room would be enough in the first place.. should probably just invest in a chiller.

Lighting is just the thing I'm trying to decide on now. I really want to do scrog even though I have high ceilings. Do I do a 1000w on 4x4 flood, 2 600w on a 3x6? Opinions?