What Items Do I Need for a Grow Room?

Hazhavoc

Active Member
As cheap as possible really... i got myself a flourecent light which is cool and my plants are sprouting VERY well and growing very fast. How can i make my plants be really strong and produce a fair amount of bud. And what is a fair amount of bud as i can get my plant about 6ft tall?

Mostly waht will i need to get a good little grow area for about 5-10 plants?

Just list waht the items are and stuff

thanks :D:D
 

big-chillin

Active Member
Hmmm youll want a floresents for sprouting, and if money is no thang, get a 400 watt metal halide or other high output bulb for vegging. Then get a HPS for flowering room. 6 foot tall plant? thats outrageous. Get it 14-20 inches then flower that sweet thang. Look at Widow's guide to growing, thatll answer your quesitons.
 
Some guidelines to get you started:

I'm a closet soil grower, without any multi-light or mover experience. More advanced techniques will have different, but similar requirements.

The best possible assets a grow room can have are vertical space and access to ventilation. Without these two components, you're going to compromise on other things. Lack of height means you'll be fighting stretch and heat buildup every step of the way with both money (in the form of equipment like blowers) and effort.

To me, trying to flower full-sized plants without at least a 7' ceiling is going to require extra effort for less result. You need a foot for the pot, 3 feet for the plant, a foot of space to clear the light fixture, the fixture is around a foot, and then you want some space for air above the light. Seven feet. There are lots of folks who do it in less, but that's my guideline and it's worked well for me.

In terms of footprint, vegging plants and flowering plants have different requirements. Little plants and clones can be happily kept in 3" cups, allowing about 16 plants per square foot. Vegging plants and moms need space to branch out. Moving up to 6" pots puts 4 in a square foot - you do the math as far as space required to do your thing.

Once in flower, I do soil in 5 gal. buckets, which take about a square foot per plant. I do a pretty fancified training thing, so others who let their plants branch more freely would likely do best with a little more space.

To me, a proper grow room should have two totally seperated sections. One for cloning/vegging, the other for flowering. They must be light-tight, because they will have different light cycles. Having two sections allows you to be vegging one group of plants while the other flowers, or to keep clones ready to flower at any time. With a single section, your cycle time will be 8+ weeks per harvest. With 2 sections, obviously, halve that. If you want to keep adult males for breeding and seeding, the sections should also be air-isolated so as to prevent unintended cross-pollinations - best to build the boys their own space following the veg guidelines actually.

For lighting, flouros will do OK in the veg section, but they are a compromise, IMO, and not a good one at that. I don't use the incandescent equivalent number on CPFs, so I treat the "125w" bulbs as their true 27w when calculating wattage per square foot. You want about 30w/sq ft to veg, and since the flouros have little penetration, you'll want side lighting as well. If you can, just get a properly sized MH and you're golden.

For the flowering area, flouros are simply inadequate. They lack penetration, and will produce smaller plants with lighter buds. It's been argued plenty, but there are very few flouro growers doing it who have HPS available. Get an HPS light that provides 40+ watts per square foot and hang it on pulleys or chains that allow raising and lowering it as needed.

Ventilation is the hardest thing to come by. As a rule, I try to vent 3 times my total volume per minute. In my 35 cu. foot space, a small 100cfm blower worked great with just passive intakes. In a smaller veg cabinet, a 90cfm bathroom fan was plenty. I put the fresh air intakes at the bottom and the exhaust outlet at the top so that cool fresh air would enter at the bottom, and once it rose and became heated, would be removed. Aim for a temp under 80 and your plants will love you.

Good luck!
 

Sublime757

Well-Known Member
Some guidelines to get you started:

For lighting, flouros will do OK in the veg section, but they are a compromise, IMO, and not a good one at that. I don't use the incandescent equivalent number on CPFs, so I treat the "125w" bulbs as their true 27w when calculating wattage per square foot. You want about 30w/sq ft to veg, and since the flouros have little penetration, you'll want side lighting as well. If you can, just get a properly sized MH and you're golden.
Fluoros are all you need to veg. only people who want to pay more on their electricity bill to get the same thing use MH for veg. Fluoros pentrate 24" of foliage, so unless you plan on vegging your plants taller than 24", then the use of a MH would be logical. CFLs run cooler, cost less, dont require a ballast system, use less electricity, and have a full spectrum emission. so clone and veg under fluoros, then flower under an hps. it'll save you money and problems
 
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