4x8 Sunhut. What size lights????

insanestang4life

insanestang4life

Well-Known Member
I am going to be setting up a 4x8 grow tent for flowering. I am trying to figure out which light setup would be better. Should I put 2 600W HPS lights in there or 1 1000w Hps on a light mover? Also, should I go with a Super HPS bulb or the Eye Hortilux Super Blue Bulb? the lumen output on the Super HPS is way higher. But, the SUper Blue has both spectrums? Which light and lamp combo should I go with. Thanks
 
jtotheitothedblmwhy

jtotheitothedblmwhy

Well-Known Member
2 600w youll get better coverage, the conversion bulb i think you are talking about is the one that is 400w mh and 600hps? im almost sure ne ways i use just hps with great results, but i never used a mh so idk, but then again ive nebver needed a reason so personallyi get 2 600w hps in there tho it might be easier to cool with one 1000. but still for me i would get two 600's cuz if you ever wanted to got into a two room setup you already good to go
 
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peach

Well-Known Member
I have a 4ft square tent (about 2m high) with a 1kw super hps in there. It's in a small room that has it's door closed 24/7, the radiator is off and the window is open.

To keep the temperature in the tent around 25C or lower I pull air in through a duct that goes to the window. My tent has vents that open on the INSIDE, so if I leave the tent like that, the vents still flap out inside and allow air to get sucked in through that path (because it's easier than getting it all through the inlet duct). Because the room the tent in is closed so often, letting air recirculate through the side vents lowers fresh CO2 concentration and lets the tent warm up quite a bit. I purposefully block the tent's vents from the outside by putting a few sheets of paper over them (which stick because of the slight vacuum in the tent trying to suck them against the vents).

At night, to avoid them getting too cold, I just unzip the door and let it recirculate the air in the room, which keeps them happy. During winter, pulling in fresh air 24/7 through the night became an issue because it was getting down below 0C outside.

With sativas in 3g pots (15l) they're finally flowering and are up near the lamp.

As your tent will be twice as long as mine, I'd go with two 600w's or three 400w's. The 400w's would get my vote. Really, if you can fit the shades / tubes in, you could even go for four 250ws. Each bulb will be producing 1/4 the heat of a single 1kw lamp. Overall, the heat they give off will be the same, but there'll be less under each, so you'll be able to run them closer to the plants and have to worry less about running out of vertical space.

You'll also want to sort out ventilation with ~250 -> 300cfm of air going through for each kw. Cooltubes would be nice, it's necessary with my lamp since so much heat is in one place. If you're hard for cash, you could probably make fine tubes by scoring a length of wide drain pipe then sawing a window into the side and lining the inside with kitchen foil. If you use multiple ballasts, stagger the time they switch on so they don't all clunk on in harmony, which may trip breakers and encourage fires.
 
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peach

Well-Known Member
insanestang4life said:
Those are looking nice Peach. How many plants you got in there. What kind of system or dirt and pots are you growing in?
Click to expand...
They're in coir, the standard brick kind. It was thoroughly washed over a few days in tap water, squeezed dry, then washed in pH / nutrient balanced water and had about 30 - 50% perlite mixed in. It drains beautifully. The seedlings (about 12") were planted with mycorrhizal infected gravel around the root base. The pots are 3gal (15l). The foil is there because the scrubber fan, air moving fan and heat of the lamp dry the media out far, far quicker than the plant pulls water out. Since I was having trouble keeping the coir 100% damp all over with the drippers, I found covering with foil helps make it so.

I made a post just recently about why I'm not so keen on drippers;
https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/165928-drip-irrigation-i-dont-like.html#post2142220

The fungi is a symbiant found on 80 - 90% of plants outdoors. It doesn't occur in houseplant soil / coir or any other artificial media because it's usually baked to kill pests. The fungi infects the plants and creates something like a microscopic fluid lung inside or around each of the root cells. The roots of the fungi then spread out into the media. They're much finer, so they can get into all the tiny, tiny microscopic gaps. Bigger surface area allows for better absoprtion and mining of resources. They can also release enzymes to digest nutrients the plant can't, which they then pass to the roots in exchange for carbon. The fungi even helps with things like dehydration / salt resistance.

It's well known in plant sciences that mycorrhizal fungi infected plants usually perform significantly better than those that aren't. I'll be interested to see how the yield turns out; they're a big part of managing crop soils.

5 plants in there. So much sativa in the strain makes it a real climber / stretch lover. Much more than 5 and they'd be all over each other. If you were doing something heavy in indica, you could no doubt fit a whole lot more in there, ten or more.

Patience + not wanting addict like couch lock + liking the strains that are like a trip = heavy sativa dominance

From what I've heard, this is quite the mindfuck (20%+ THC says greenhouse, whatever that's worth). BUD DAMM YOU! :-P
 
J

james g

Member
i have a 4x8 with 2000 watts that are air cooled hoods with 2 smaller can fans and filters and my temp stays at 72-74 during flower and 82 when in veg hope this helps u
 
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