Hello rollitup,
I'm a complete newb to growing, never done it before. I just recently purchased a 400w Sunburst Light w/ Built in Ballast for $100. I have been doing a lot of research on the internet and just decided now to make an account. I'm sort of on a budge grow, but I think I have the 'inventive' skills to make everything work out nicely while using the least amount of money possible. I also plan to make a DIY grow room. I looked around on the internet for one and couldnt find anything, so in the next couple of weeks be on the look out for a full write up filled with a lot of pictures. Anyways here are my plans let me know what you guys think. Here is a link with some of the dimensions and a pic of the light =):
Dimensions: http://i656.photobucket.com/albums/uu287/croninc09/growroomdesign.jpg
Light: http://i656.photobucket.com/albums/uu287/croninc09/400watgrowlight.jpg
The plan is to grow 4 plants in 4-5gallon square pots. Maybe if everything goes well on the first grow I might try to fit 2 more pants in there, but for the mean time I think growing 4 plants to about 5' tall will yield a good first crop. Now, I do not have a lot of space in my house and have resorted to building a grow room within another room. I will do this by constructing a 3'x3'x8' room out of ply wood, plastics, and maybe mylar if I have the cash. White plastic might just have to do, heard it works fine. Next I plan on buying two 70cfm fans from a local home improvement store. They are meant for use in a bathroom, but since I'm trying to save money these are way cheaper. Let me know if there is a down side to this, also I will need help converting these into standard wall plugs...If anyone has any information on this that would be great! So two of those fans will move 140CFM which is almost twice the size of the room. These fans will connect via flex duct and be emptied out a window. Later on down the road I plan on either purchasing or making my own carbon filter and attaching it to the exhaust duct. Now, I'm sure on what I'm going to do with the intake. Was thinking about running the flex duct from my window and then down low to the bottom of the grow room, wouldnt fresh air from out side be better? or if the exhaust and intake openings are too close wont I just be sucking the same air back in? Also no sure how big of ducting I should get or how big the intake hole should be. After thats figured out the light will be hung and I have a small osculating fan that I'm going to attach to the wall in the inside of the grow room along with a thermometer. After that the room should be setup and ready for the grow. Finally, I have been doing some calculations on the correct amount of lumens. Can someone who knows what they are talking about review my calculations. So since a 400w bulb puts out 53,000 lumes the height of the light will need to be adjusted for different growing periods(veg. and flowering). You need 2,500 lumes per square ft. at veg stage. So,
53,000/x = 2,500
x = 21.2 sq. ft.
(4.6x4.6 ft.)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in order to get my plants the correct amount of light, I will need to hang my light 4.6ft from the plants in order to spread out 2,500 lumens across my grow area. The area of the actual space where the pots will be is 6.25ft.^2 vs. the 9ft.^2 of the entire grow room. This also means the light cover an area of 21.2ft.^2, which easily covers my space.
Again correct me if I'm wrong, same equation as the one above but with just different numbers. This time it is for when I'm flowering. I will need 10,000 lumens for flowering.
53,000/x = 10,000
x = 5.3 sq. ft.
(2.3x2.3 ft.)
The surface area of where my plants will be is 6.25ft^2 which is very close to amount I just came up with above. I think my numbers and the recommended ones I are close enough to not really make a difference?
Well I think that is about it, all the clones/seeds are already taken care of....they will be provided by more experienced growers along with the soil mixture. So these two things I dont really need to worry about until I have got the hang of everything, then I will start experimenting! Sorry for the extremely long first post but atleast you kinda of got an overview of my plans. Please feel free to post any pointers or correct any of my calculations. THANK YOU and Hope to be a life long member of the site!
I'm a complete newb to growing, never done it before. I just recently purchased a 400w Sunburst Light w/ Built in Ballast for $100. I have been doing a lot of research on the internet and just decided now to make an account. I'm sort of on a budge grow, but I think I have the 'inventive' skills to make everything work out nicely while using the least amount of money possible. I also plan to make a DIY grow room. I looked around on the internet for one and couldnt find anything, so in the next couple of weeks be on the look out for a full write up filled with a lot of pictures. Anyways here are my plans let me know what you guys think. Here is a link with some of the dimensions and a pic of the light =):
Dimensions: http://i656.photobucket.com/albums/uu287/croninc09/growroomdesign.jpg
Light: http://i656.photobucket.com/albums/uu287/croninc09/400watgrowlight.jpg
The plan is to grow 4 plants in 4-5gallon square pots. Maybe if everything goes well on the first grow I might try to fit 2 more pants in there, but for the mean time I think growing 4 plants to about 5' tall will yield a good first crop. Now, I do not have a lot of space in my house and have resorted to building a grow room within another room. I will do this by constructing a 3'x3'x8' room out of ply wood, plastics, and maybe mylar if I have the cash. White plastic might just have to do, heard it works fine. Next I plan on buying two 70cfm fans from a local home improvement store. They are meant for use in a bathroom, but since I'm trying to save money these are way cheaper. Let me know if there is a down side to this, also I will need help converting these into standard wall plugs...If anyone has any information on this that would be great! So two of those fans will move 140CFM which is almost twice the size of the room. These fans will connect via flex duct and be emptied out a window. Later on down the road I plan on either purchasing or making my own carbon filter and attaching it to the exhaust duct. Now, I'm sure on what I'm going to do with the intake. Was thinking about running the flex duct from my window and then down low to the bottom of the grow room, wouldnt fresh air from out side be better? or if the exhaust and intake openings are too close wont I just be sucking the same air back in? Also no sure how big of ducting I should get or how big the intake hole should be. After thats figured out the light will be hung and I have a small osculating fan that I'm going to attach to the wall in the inside of the grow room along with a thermometer. After that the room should be setup and ready for the grow. Finally, I have been doing some calculations on the correct amount of lumens. Can someone who knows what they are talking about review my calculations. So since a 400w bulb puts out 53,000 lumes the height of the light will need to be adjusted for different growing periods(veg. and flowering). You need 2,500 lumes per square ft. at veg stage. So,
53,000/x = 2,500
x = 21.2 sq. ft.
(4.6x4.6 ft.)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in order to get my plants the correct amount of light, I will need to hang my light 4.6ft from the plants in order to spread out 2,500 lumens across my grow area. The area of the actual space where the pots will be is 6.25ft.^2 vs. the 9ft.^2 of the entire grow room. This also means the light cover an area of 21.2ft.^2, which easily covers my space.
Again correct me if I'm wrong, same equation as the one above but with just different numbers. This time it is for when I'm flowering. I will need 10,000 lumens for flowering.
53,000/x = 10,000
x = 5.3 sq. ft.
(2.3x2.3 ft.)
The surface area of where my plants will be is 6.25ft^2 which is very close to amount I just came up with above. I think my numbers and the recommended ones I are close enough to not really make a difference?
Well I think that is about it, all the clones/seeds are already taken care of....they will be provided by more experienced growers along with the soil mixture. So these two things I dont really need to worry about until I have got the hang of everything, then I will start experimenting! Sorry for the extremely long first post but atleast you kinda of got an overview of my plans. Please feel free to post any pointers or correct any of my calculations. THANK YOU and Hope to be a life long member of the site!
