First time op. need opinions and suggestions!

[Neondancepanda]

So I'm about to start a garden..finally! And am here to appeal for some guidance, the area we will be working with is a ten foot depth by six foot width working on five and a half feet of vertical height. I want to segment the room into both flowering and veg,

With the lights was thinking of running multiple 175 hps, or shoot for one large 600? would really prefer to have a hps as well as a halide..

thoughts on harvest rotations and staggering? We will be cloning and would much rather get a staggered regiment going.

How much air pressure- fan brands or ideas on ventilation- site will be in a basement so temps should remain manageable, looking to build a box in the basement.

Will post some pictures when i get home from work-

All of your knowledge and help is greatly appreciated-

thinking that with a 600 watt can comfortably flower a 3x3' area with a 1.5ft. walkway around the perimeter.

 

[BesideHimself]

How many plants were you wanting to have to start?
How big do you plan for them to get?
Answering these questions will give you a better idea about how much light you want.

Honestly, for a first time operation, a 400W CMH or HPS would be very decent. Hell, a 250W CMH produces more bud than I can smoke. I have heard others say the same thing, but everyone's needs are different. I noticed you said you wanted to fill a 3' x 3' area for flower, and have a separate area for veg. It's great that you're already thinking about this, and obviously it means you'll need 2 lights.

Check out this thread on Ceramic Metal Halide fixtures. Lot of information in there. With most CMH, a 400W would give you about (2'-2.5') x (2'-2.5') growing area. You are correct, the 600W would give you substantially more, in the area of (3'-3.5') x (3'-3.5').

...looking to build a box in the basement.

Does this mean you are going to be growing in boxes? If this is the case, I would not recommend getting a 600W. I think you will find that the heat is way too hard to manage in a box with that powerful a light - unless you have a cool air intake for your boxes and Cool Tubes for your lights. The 400W lights would be optimal in such an environment, especially if you applied reflective/white coating to the sides. The system would not get too hot if you used the cool tubes above, and proper ventilation.

As far as ventilation goes, for box or cabinet grows I have used the Soler & Palau (S&P) fans with much success. They pull a lot of air, have speed settings (and a speed controller you can buy), and don't sound like vacuum cleaners. I would recommend getting one for each box (probably the TD-150), but you may prefer getting one large unit (like the TD-200 or TD-250) and using that to exhaust both. Passive intake (big holes w/ light traps) is cheaper and easier than active intake (another fan pushing new air in), but requires much bigger holes in your cab to get proper airflow and reduce strain on your exhaust fan. Rule of thumb for passive intake is double the size of your exhaust, but there is a little more math to it than that. Generally, it's bigger than you'd think. On growboxes, you'd want to use something like this Darkroom Louver to trap the light while allowing substantial passive airflow.

In an active system, your exhaust fan should always be more powerful than your intake (creating a negative pressure environment). This helps with odor control.

Speaking of odor control, you'll want one of these Carbon Scrubbers, or the commercial version of it. Everyone seems to like the commercial scrubbers, but for smaller projects these DIY scrubbers are great.

Since you are going to set up two growing spaces, your system can be nearly perpetual (in that as soon as batch 'A' finishes flowering, batch 'B' is just finished vegging, and clones/seedlings 'C' are already in the vegging chamber, or getting are getting ready to be). Reducing the time between these steps is key to running your grow as efficiently as possible, but in the beginning it just - wont - happen. Mistakes will be made, timing will be off, the strain you thought would only take 1.5mo's to flower ended up taking 2mo's. It's all good practice, though.

Also, when you get a chance, browse through the D.I.Y. Link-O-Rama pontiac & others helped throw together. I know, right? This place is awesome.

 

[KMK0420]

I'd do 400W CMH & HPS. Get a S51 (i believe) ballast and it can fire both HPS & CMH bulbs (http://www.plantlightinghydroponics.com/400w-hps-ss10-remote-ballast-p-1384.html) for example

airflow is important even though temps will be fine. plants need fresh air just like we do!

i'm not too great on cloning so i cant comment on that...

but in a 6x10x5 environment, you have a lot of floor space but not height.

look into SOG/SCROG setups...you have to account for buckets/pots decreasing height, hanging of the lights, etc. so you probably only have 4ft of usable height maybe a bit more. in that case, you can't let them get too tall. SOG/SCROG setups allow you to have an even canopy which producing maximum yield

on second thought, depending on floor space maybe 2 250Watters would be better for light coverage. pics of area would be useful, but i would either do 1 400W or 2 250watts. 1 600 isn't good unless youre hitting the target area with the light...with that much floor space...a lot of your plants won't get much light

correction!

if you're only flowering in a 3'x3' area (i am in the exact situation myself), stick with a 400. thats what i run.

(28 days)

and look at it this way as far as yield...

without a SCROG/SOG setup, assume around .5gram/watt of light up till 1gram/watt (for exp growers who have a technique mastered)

so 1 400 or 2 250's would prob get you roughly 7 dried oz. again depending on medium, grow technique, feeding, lighting, etc.

 

[Jnugg]

For a 3' x 3' area I'd choose either a 400w HPS or a 600w HPS.Since you only have 5 feet total of vertical height it all depends on how well you can control temps that would be the deciding factor.

If your going to make a seperate mother/clone and veg area make it 1/4-2/3 the size of your flowering area.

I would think SCRoG or SoG would be your best option.

Figure 8-12" in height taken up just by the planters,then about another 12" from the top of the box to the top of the light,and another 6"-12" between the plant canopy and the light...that's 2' - 3' of height taken up and that leaves you with 2-3' of plant height when done stretching/flowering.A 400w HID will effectively penetrate about 2'-2.5' below the plant canopy,a 600w HID will penetrate about 3'-3.5' and a 1000w HID about 4'-5'.

Make sure to use quality inline centrifugal exhuast fans (Vortex,Elicent,Can Fan,Eco Plus,Fan Tech etc.),the S&P mixed vent fans are nice and quieter then their inline cnetrifugal cousins but still cant handle the amounts of static pressure that inline centrifugals can.S&P does make inline centrfugal fans too,they are known as the PV or Power Vent series

If wanting to go with S&P I would strongly recommend going with their inline centrifugal line a.k.a. the Power Vent series.Here is a link to their Power Vent series technical spec. sheet.If you scroll to page 4 of the .pdf file you will see the power and airflow ratings at different levels of static pressure for each fan from their 4" to their 12.4".

I'd take a look at either their PV-150 or their PV-150x 6" fans.

S&P PV-150 6" Inline Centrifugal specs. :

Nominal RPM : 2750

Volts : 115

Maximum Watts : 78w

Rated Airflow @ 0" Static Pressure : 245cfm

Rated Airflow @ .25" Static Pressure : 177cfm

Rated Airflow @ .5" Static Pressure : 129cfm

Rated Airflow @ .75" Static Pressure : 93cfm

Rated Airflow @ 1" Static Pressure : 59cfm

Maximum Amount of Static Pressure the fan can work with : 1.2"


S&P PV-150x 6" High Output Inline Centrifugal specs. :

Nominal RPM : 3075

Volts : 115

Maximum Watts : 149w

Rated Airflow @ 0" Static Pressure : 438cfm

Rated Airflow @ .25" Static Pressure : 395cfm

Rated Airflow @ .5" Static Pressure : 335cfm

Rated Airflow @ .75" Static Pressure : 285cfm

Rated Airflow @ 1" Static Pressure : 240cfm

Rated Airflow @ 1.25" Static Pressure : 203cfm

Rated Airflow @ 1.5" Static Pressure : 161cfm

Maximum Amount of Static Pressure the fan can work with : 2.29"


I'd opt. for the S&P PV-150x 6" Inline Centrifugal.Yes inline centrifugal fans are/can be very loud but there are things you can do to silence the fan and/or the noise of the air wooshing around in the duct and exiting the ducting,you can :

Build an insulated fan box to help silence the noise of the fan's motor and the air wooshing within the fan itself.

Build or buy a duct muffler and place somewhere along the exhuast side of the fans duct work,duct mufflers do not add any unwanted static pressure.

Place a carbon filter on either end of your fans duct work and this will not only take care of odors but also silence the sound of the air wooshing around inside the ducting and the air exiting the ducting.Carbon filters can add anywhere from .25" - 1+" of static pressure to your fan depending on the compatability between the two (Carbon filters have maximum and minimum airflow ratings ie: the amount of air that can be pulled or pushed through them.).

If we look at Can Fan's fan and filter specs we'll have something to reference.We'll compare the Can Fan 6"HO to the S&P PV-150x 6" inline centrifugals.

Can Fan 6" HO inline centrifugal fan specs. :

Nominal RPM : 2940

Volts : 115

Maximum Watts : 138

Rated Airflow @ 0" Static Pressure : 392cfm

Rated Airflow @ .25" Static Pressure : 348cfm

Rated Airflow @ .5" Static Pressure : 301cfm

Rated Airflow @ .75" Static Pressure : 260cfm

Rated Airflow @ 1" Static Pressure : 230cfm

Rated Airflow @ 1.25" Static Pressure : 179cfm

Rated Airflow @ 1.5" Static Pressure : 139cfm

Maximum Amount of static pressure the fan can work with : 2.08"

(Seems like the PV-150x beats the Can Fan 6" HO both in performance and price!)


Now if we look at the Can Filters website,we'll use the Can Fan 6" HO and Can33 and url=http://www.canfilters.com/canfilters_50.html]Can50[/url] filters for reference.

Can33 Filters specs. :

Maximum Airflow for scrubbing/recirculating (filter attached so that air is being pulled through it) : 400cfm

Maximum Airflow for exhuast (pushing air through the filter) : 200cfm

Pressure Drp @ Maximum CFM : .75" Static Pressure


Can50 Filters specs. :

Maximum Airflow scrubbing/recirculating : 840cfm

Maximum Airflow exhuast (pushing air through filter) : 420cfm

Pressure drop @ Maximum Airflow : .75" Static Pressure

Also Can Fan gives specs. on what your expected airflow would be when you match your fan to a carbon filter.Using the Can Fan 6" HO and the Can33 filter you should have an airflow around 219cfm.Using the Can Fan 6"HO and the Can50 filter the airflow you could expect would be around 300cfm.This does not account for pressure drops/static pressure caused by attaching ducting to your fan,any airflow obstructions from cool tubes or A/C reflectors,any bends in your runs of ducting etc. just the fan and filter.

So with the CF 6"HO and CF33 we'd see between a 1'-1.25" pressure drop,and using the CF 6"HO and CF50 filter we'd see about a .5" pressure drop.

Using an S&P PV-150x and a Can50 Filter we'd most likely see a .5"-.75" pressure drop so the effective airflow after we attach the fan to the filter would be about 285-335cfm.

If you must go with an S&P TD (mixed vent series fan,not inline centrifugal) then I would recommend getting either the 8" or 10"/ TD-200 or TD-250 to compensate for pressure drops.


I vote you purchase an S&P PV-150x.

Check out the linksin my sig. below.....How Do I Design A Fan Powered Cooling System for My Grow Box,and Ventilation 101.


Good luck and happy learning/growing!

 

[Neondancepanda]

Awesome sorry no pics yet got caught up after work yesterday- Putting in work as well tonight but i will have pics and concepts drawn and ready by the afternoon tomorrow. "Only so much planning time to be had- swinging it on the days off thank you for the input so far can't wait to bounce back some ideas