New plan for set-up. Tell me what you guys think.

snypavat

snypavat

Well-Known Member
Thanks to everyone who gave me advice before, especially Oregon.

Here is my plan for the new set-up, I need to know if the lighting I have planned will be enough for what I plan to grow.

I'm building a 5ft x 5ft x 6 1/2 ft high closet in my spare bedroom. This is the flowering room. The walls will be painted and I'll have a set-up where I can raise and lower the light all the way to the top at wiill. Will a 400w HPS be enough to sustain 9 plants in 5 gallon buckets at a time?

I am also making another box for mother and clones. I'm not sure on how big to make this one. I already have a 400w Metal halide with a dome hood. (THANKS DAD!) Should I make the 2nd box smaller or the same size for keeping 2 mothers and 9 vegging clones at a time?

The plan is to start the initial grow of about 15 plants, weed out the females at flowering, take 2 and place them back into veg and take 9 or more clones. Bring the clones to root in a tupperware chest using CFL's and transplant 8 of the strongest to the mother box that is on a constant 18 hour light cycle. When the clones reach approx 1ft I'll take new clones and keep them in the tupperware box. When the initial seeded plants that are already in flower need to be harvested I'll cut them and move the 2ft clones from the mother/veg box into the Flowering box. Then, the whole cycle repeats. Hopefully I can fine tune this to I can have a harvest every month.

Sound reasonable? Any suggestions? Will a 400w MH light be enough for the Mother/Veg box? Will a 400w HPS be enough for 8-9 Flowering plants in a 5ft x 5ft x 6 1/2 ft box?
 
I think the 400w MH will do just fine for growth, but i would seriously consider bumping up your flower light to at least a 600w. Considering a 1000w HPS covers roughly a 6x6 area, a 5x5 area would be pretty densely covered by a good 600w light my friend. Other than that you're nicely set-up for the most part. Remember to keep your starts and seedlings at 24/0 until rooted and let the games begin. Bring forth the bud porn :lol:. Happy growing, feel free to shoot me any questions about soil/organics and/or lighting mate

KC :leaf:
 
I would agree that a 400 watt for flowering might be a bit less than you need if you will only be running one light for flowering, I don’t think it will give you equal adequate uniform light coverage over the entire area unless maybe you have some super fantastic reflector.

I think you may end up having to play chess or checkers with your plants moving the outer ones to the inside for a while and then moving the then outer ones back to the inside for a while so they all get good light but it will likely always leave some lacking somewhat for light. I think for the difference in price you will be happy that you went with a 600 watt, if you do go with a 600 watt that is.

I may be wrong but that is my opinion.

Where I don’t agree with the other advice is the 24/0 lighting. The above ground part of the plant will grow faster than the root structure. At some point your roots will then have to catch up to the rest of the plant and that may never happen. You cannot rely on it to happen later as in during the flowering cycle because plants stop putting out/extending roots fairly early in the flowering cycle, roughly around three weeks depending on the strains. If your roots never caught up what is above the soil will never be all it can be because what it needs to be all it can be does not exist under the soil.

Most people love a good fast spurt of growth for what they see above ground early in a plant’s life but myself I am always more concerned about what is going on below the surface of the soil. I really don’t care if what I see seems to be growing slowly at first as long as I am getting good root growth because I know once a good solid root structure exists the above ground part of the plant will take off and that there will always be enough of a root structure to maintain it since it is what got the head start and the initial burst of growth.

But some people swear by a 24/0 light cycle and if you are one of them then by all means do what you are most comfortable with.
 
Okay. You are either gonna need to the 600W fer flower (still fucking the outer borders of yer space), OR ya can add about the same Wattage in CFL's, putting them UNDER the flowering canopy, and getting more penetration than ya wud w/the 600Wer!
 
Good advice guys, sny you've good got some good folks on your forum right now, we'll take care of you bud

KC :leaf:
 
I admit that I am an old fart and that means I am old school but I just cannot get into the CFL craze. Sure they put off less heat but that is at a tradeoff for less light and efficiency, not as in electricity used but lumens per watt.

Look at a comparison:

23w CFL = 1600 lumens = 69.6 lumens/watt
30w CFL = 2000 lumens = 66.7 lumens/watt
40w CFL = 2600 lumens = 66.3 lumens/watt

compared to

150w HPS = 14000 lumens = 93.3 lumens/watt
250w HPS = 28000 lumens = 112 lumens/watt
400w HPS = 50000 lumens = 125 lumens/watt
600w HPS = 90000 lumens = 150 lumens/watt


You may have noticed that with CFL’s as you go up in size/watts your lumen to watts ratio drops and with HID your lumens to watts ratios increases, dramatically by the time you get to 1000 watt HID lighting that is not included in the comparison, so that is a more efficient usage of the wattage when it comes to lumens per watt.

The counter argument is that while HID lighting is more efficient in lumen to watts ratio much of the light put off is in light spectrums plants do not use and a high-output compact fluorescent grow light will almost totally create nothing but the light spectrums plants need so to some that means more efficient use of lumen/wattage since in reality PAR ratings is what is far more important than lumen rating because PAR is what the plants use and lumens is just light regardless of the spectrum.

The counter to that might be that HID’s penetrate deeper so while you can position your CFL’s very close to your plants they still will not penetrate as deep especially through thick foliage and if you position your CFL’s as close as they need to be to gain their maximum efficiency when your plants are growing fast you may need to move your CFL’s daily or even more than once a day. If you do not have to do that your CFL’s are not positioned close enough for maximum efficiency so that means you are wasting light and wasting energy and not getting the maximum penetration you can from your CFL’s which is already less than HID’s making your light penetration even worse.

A strong argument for CFL’s is lower heat so they can be placed closer to the plants and there is less heat buildup in the grow area. Well you can buy a Cool Tube, or for that fact easily find instructions online how to build your own really cheap, and can have it close to your plants and increase the already better light penetration of its HID lighting and not have a heat problem because it’s design for heat extraction/exhaust is so efficient that heat is not an issue.

I guess it all comes down to a tradeoff, like everything in life is, and what seems to be best to each individual.
 
Brick Top said:
I admit that I am an old fart and that means I am old school but I just cannot get into the CFL craze. Sure they put off less heat but that is at a tradeoff for less light and efficiency, not as in electricity used but lumens per watt.

Look at a comparison:

23w CFL = 1600 lumens = 69.6 lumens/watt
30w CFL = 2000 lumens = 66.7 lumens/watt
40w CFL = 2600 lumens = 66.3 lumens/watt

compared to

150w HPS = 14000 lumens = 93.3 lumens/watt
250w HPS = 28000 lumens = 112 lumens/watt
400w HPS = 50000 lumens = 125 lumens/watt
600w HPS = 90000 lumens = 150 lumens/watt


You may have noticed that with CFL’s as you go up in size/watts your lumen to watts ratio drops and with HID your lumens to watts ratios increases, dramatically by the time you get to 1000 watt HID lighting that is not included in the comparison, so that is a more efficient usage of the wattage when it comes to lumens per watt.

The counter argument is that while HID lighting is more efficient in lumen to watts ratio much of the light put off is in light spectrums plants do not use and a high-output compact fluorescent grow light will almost totally create nothing but the light spectrums plants need so to some that means more efficient use of lumen/wattage since in reality PAR ratings is what is far more important than lumen rating because PAR is what the plants use and lumens is just light regardless of the spectrum.

The counter to that might be that HID’s penetrate deeper so while you can position your CFL’s very close to your plants they still will not penetrate as deep especially through thick foliage and if you position your CFL’s as close as they need to be to gain their maximum efficiency when your plants are growing fast you may need to move your CFL’s daily or even more than once a day. If you do not have to do that your CFL’s are not positioned close enough for maximum efficiency so that means you are wasting light and wasting energy and not getting the maximum penetration you can from your CFL’s which is already less than HID’s making your light penetration even worse.

A strong argument for CFL’s is lower heat so they can be placed closer to the plants and there is less heat buildup in the grow area. Well you can buy a Cool Tube, or for that fact easily find instructions online how to build your own really cheap, and can have it close to your plants and increase the already better light penetration of its HID lighting and not have a heat problem because it’s design for heat extraction/exhaust is so efficient that heat is not an issue.

I guess it all comes down to a tradeoff, like everything in life is, and what seems to be best to each individual.
Click to expand...
Yes, it is a trade off, and ya put it all very tactfully!!! :bigjoint:
I wasnt suggesting replacing, so much as ADDING to in the most neglected places, that no matter HOW many watts you have on TOP, under the canopy only is penetrated so far and the only solutions to getting Under (while maintaing temps), is through fluoro. I prefer CFL over larger flouro's.
 
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