What to Buy? Have: Garrage, Lights, Some EQ. Need: Advice, Tents, Filters, ETC.

So,

I got a bunch of stuff that was bought 3 years ago, set up, and never really used. I have a nice new space to grow in and am pretty sure what I'm gonna do but wanna make sure I'm spending my money wisely.

Some might tell me to just crop out the whole garage, pretty sure it was in the past, but I'd rather run in tents. In CO btw, so weather is always dry, nice in summer, and very cold in winter.

What I have:
1 x Two car garage with 8" exhaust out the roof
4 x 600w Phantom Digital Ballasts
4 x Radiant 8 reflectors
2 x Active Air inline fans, 8"

Don't have specifics on this stuff atm:
1 x Swamp Cooler. Portable, decent size.
1 x Portable A/C 10-12k BTU I think
1 x Small(ish) window a/c
1 x 4' x 4 tube T5 fixture

1 x HTG Mother Keeper tent
4 x 5 gal Airpots
Various other grow supplies, nutes, soil, etc.

What I need(What I think I need):
Advice
"Veg" Tent and "Flower" Tent
Carbon Filters and exhaust set up
Advice on environment control
Scrog Screens
4" exhaust fan for the mother keeper tent.

Notes:
BC of the plant count stuff, I want to run a semi perpetual scrog setup. Where I will always have 6 plants vegging in one tent and 6 plants flowering in the other. I won't actually move them from one tent to the other, instead just flip the lights and swap HPS for the MH. With up to 4 mothers and a clone tray in the mother keeper tent. Thinking about using the 5 gal airpots.

"Questions":
Tents - Thinking 4x8 Lighthouse or AgroMax.

Filter/Exhaust - Is plan ok? What brand and size filter? Thinking about 1 of these in each 4x8 tent.

Environment - Garage. Not heat or a/c. Also no ceiling/attic and no insulation lining the roof. Walls are finished. See the design plan but currently I'm thinking, for the summer at least....

To keep it as clean as possible and run the AC/Swapcooler/Space Heaters in the garage near, but not inside, the grow tents. To try to keep the entire garage as temperate as possible. Running circulation and exhaust fans inside the tents themselves.

Scrog - Does anyone make premade Scrog frames?

Thanks for any input!!


Current Plan:
(Forgive the crude paint skills)

Fyi, I've done some more reading online, reconsidering my ventilation setup.

Everyones enviroment is different so your going to have to figure out what works for you but,

in general growing in garages sucks. (not saying it cant be done, especially if your seasonal temps are kind of constant)

Basically, you have an idea for a lot of air flow with a small amount of btu increase from your lights. So a small increase in ambient temps during lights on.

So the tricky part is, during lights on, whats the temp outside/in the garage? Whats the temp lights off? Are you going to scrub lights off?

I live in a trickier climate year round, and tried everything. I just switched to sealed if its not in a home.

- Jiji

I've decided to change up the ventilation. The set up I posted was based of the example setup they had at HTG in the 4x8 tent. Turns out hydro dudes don't really know all that much about proper tent setup, lol.

I'm gonna use one of the 8" fans to only cool the lights, gonna pull fresh air from out side for that. And I'm gonna get a 300(ish) CFM fan and carbon filter setup on a fan/temp controller for exhaust, this air will come from inside the garage. Unfortunately, I'm gonna have to try to exhaust everything out of one 8" roof port, so that will create some back pressure but I think I'll be ok. Also think I need an intake fan for the tent.

From what I've read that will be way better. Pulling 700 cfm though carbon and the lights is a bad idea in the first place, plus way too much air moving though the tent, would dry the plants out very quickly, esp with the dry air here. And with no intake fan, the tent would have so much neg pressure it would be like a vacuum inside, lol.

Also gonna just start out with one 4x8 tent for now. I'm thinking I might have to work out a way to put the AC and humidifier and stuff inside each tent as I think the garage will be too much of a challenge to keep temperate, especially the humidity and the temp in winter.

if you're buying a tent, you just have to go with gorilla grow tents. nothing beats them. after 30 seconds of googling agromax tents i came across this: https://www.rollitup.org/t/beware-agromax-grow-tent-htg-supply.539288/

the last thing you need is some shitty tent costing you more money than you would have spent had you just went ahead and invested in a gorilla straight away. i own the 4x4 tent and absolutely love it. not one complaint!

CCCmints said:

if you're buying a tent, you just have to go with gorilla grow tents. nothing beats them. after 30 seconds of googling agromax tents i came across this: https://www.rollitup.org/t/beware-agromax-grow-tent-htg-supply.539288/

the last thing you need is some shitty tent costing you more money than you would have spent had you just went ahead and invested in a gorilla straight away. i own the 4x4 tent and absolutely love it. not one complaint!

Click to expand...

Hey, thanks for the info.

I've read that thread btw, the guy was wrong about them off gassing. It's also pretty old. You should read the latest comments in there.

I've read about and looked at gorilla and other higher end ones. The thing I've read the about most of em is they aren't that much better quality for the price.

I set up the agromax mother keeper btw. It's comparable but higher quality than the lighthouse one I had a few years ago. They are more pricey and you have to buy the flanges to hook up ducts but I kind of like that design better than the sock style ones.

AlGore said:

Hey, thanks for the info.

I've read that thread btw, the guy was wrong about them off gassing. It's also pretty old. You should read the latest comments in there.

I've read about and looked at gorilla and other higher end ones. The thing I've read the about most of em is they aren't that much better quality for the price.

I set up the agromax mother keeper btw. It's comparable but higher quality than the lighthouse one I had a few years ago. They are more pricey and you have to buy the flanges to hook up ducts but I kind of like that design better than the sock style ones.

Click to expand...

well if you know someone who owns both the gorilla and another brand tent and they say gorilla isn't worth it then that beats my opinion...but i've just read so many horror stories about different tents and the quality of my 4x4 is just unbeatable. i could probably do pull ups on the gorilla's frame without issue lol.

I've looked at gorilla tents at stores. They are very nice. It's just for 1/3 of the price I can get something that will work for me. Not super heavy duty like the gorilla but yea.

They have a newer line of tents that are more affordable btw, the Gorilla LITE. The 4x8 is like $200 less and they can be extended vertically, which is very cool.

I've just about nailed down everything I'm gonna get. I'll make posts about what all I'm getting and a grow journal and shiz. Should be a fun summer!!

Thanks for the input peoples.

I wish I could edit the OP but can't so....

Here is the set up so far:

Tent: AgroMax 4x8
Lights: 2x Phantom ballasts and Radiant 8 hoods. Exhausted with 8" Active Air. Bug net on intake.
Exhaust: 400cfm Active Air w speed controller. Phresh carbon filter.
Intake: 300cfm booster. Phreash intake filter.

AlGore said:

Thanks for the input peoples.
Here is the set up so far:

Tent: AgroMax 4x8
Lights: 2x Phantom ballasts and Radiant 8 hoods. Exhausted with 8" Active Air. Bug net on intake.
Exhaust: 400cfm Active Air w speed controller. Phresh carbon filter.
Intake: 300cfm booster. Phreash intake filter.

Click to expand...

Hey Al, I just setup my 4x8 tonight and put in my rdwc system. I bought 2 MTN tents off the bay. Super cheap, and good quality fabric. My 4x8 is 600d fabric which is the key, and Im positive that is the material AgroMax uses as well. Those look like decent tents too. The cheapest I saw the 4x8 was $299 for the AgroMax, I paid $200 for my 4x8 and like $115 for the 4x4. I've put them up and taken them down about 4 time and they are 2 yrs old. Holding up good. Just wanted to give you a reference point. If you get good air moving through the lights, you can keep the tent temps about 5 deg above the outside temp. Mine are in the basement which is about 70 in the summer with regular house AC, and the temp will get between 75 to 80 in the tents and that's running a 440cfm 6" fan through 2 600w lights. My garage gets pretty warm in the summer, so if you have your tents in the garage, I would suggest running lights at night and keep them off during the day. You don't want your lights on if it's already 80-90 in the garage. Might also help avoid extra AC costs. Link to my rdwc tent project I have going on w/ some pics: https://www.rollitup.org/t/blackforests-rdwc-2-grow.871178/

Hey thanks dude! I might look at those 4x4s. Gonna need a veg tent eventually, just gonna veg and flower in the 4x8 for the first run.