New to micro growing, looking for lighting advice.

[.clunk]

Hey all, I've been growing outdoors for many years but I have been reading some of the threads here (particularly some by DrBudGreenGenes) and I'm pretty impressed by the results people are getting in small spaces. I didn't even know that people were getting results like they are before I stumbled upon ICMAG so I'd like to give it a try!

I have a small closet space available which I'd like to convert into a small stealth cab running some kind of SOG setup. My dimensions are 36" width, 36" height and 24" depth - by my calculations this is 6 square feet. I have a small space behind the closet (under a stairway) to place a small carbon filter, so the dimension I listed above will be only for flowering. The clones will be supplied from a friend when I help prune his indoor show - no need to keep mothers in here.

I'm thinking of lighting the area with either two 150w HPS bulbs or 7 42w CFL's - either will give me around 50w/square foot. Given the small space, I'm worried that the twin 150w HPS bulbs will give off too much heat and I'll need a bigger fan, any comments?

I also plan on building a mini stadium in the area, so I can get a bit better light penetration. Any comments?

Thanks, looking forward to learning as much from you guys as I have in the Outdoor Forums!

 

[anavar]

i'd go for the two 150w hps bulbs with a remote ballast housed outside the grow space. its much easier for a beginner (or anyone for that matter) to get good results with an hps lamp.

what exactly do you mean by a stadium?

 

[thehappyguy]

as long as you can dissipate the heat, do those 150s. perhaps im having trouble understanding, but you're in a small closet and you're going to have a box inside of the closet? if that is so, you'll need a way to exchange the hot air from inside the cab with cool air from the rest of the house. if you don't, you'll be recycling hot air and get rid of far less heat. if you can't do that, get some PL-L bulbs...they'll outdo spiral CFLs by a long shot.

 

[.clunk]

i'd go for the two 150w hps bulbs with a remote ballast housed outside the grow space. its much easier for a beginner (or anyone for that matter) to get good results with an hps lamp.

what exactly do you mean by a stadium?

I'm only worried that I won't be able to cool the two, I don't want to buy two cooltubes really and would like to keep the fan as small and quiet as possible - maybe a 250w HPS with one cooltube and the ballast relocation would be good. I've vegged plants in all stages from clone and seed under everything from shop lights to 1k bulbs, just never flowered anything in there, it usually just goes outside.

Stadium growing is where you build steps so the canopy isn't all even, it's staggered a bit from low to higher on the sides. You can spin the plants every couple of days so every side of the bud gets more light instead of just the very top of the canopy in a typical jam-packed SOG method. People probably refer to it other ways too, who knows...this is what I call it anyways.

as long as you can dissipate the heat, do those 150s. perhaps im having trouble understanding, but you're in a small closet and you're going to have a box inside of the closet? if that is so, you'll need a way to exchange the hot air from inside the cab with cool air from the rest of the house. if you don't, you'll be recycling hot air and get rid of far less heat. if you can't do that, get some PL-L bulbs...they'll outdo spiral CFLs by a long shot.

This is a shot of my space, it's a walk in closet type thing under a staircase. In the back you can see that I've closed off a non-functional vent which goes to the basement from an old renovation, this will be my exhaust route. I plan to pop the cover off and run my vent through there into the basement or the main furnace or something, who knows at this point. The space will consist of one small easily removable panel at the very back where I will house the ballast and inline fan.

I'll also build another wall with removable door at the front which will be the main entrance.The intake will be a bit tricky, I'm hoping that I can find a strong, quiet enough inline fan that will keep it cool and suck in enough air passively from the rest of the closet. I might have to add a small fan in the front wall to pull some fresh air in.

Heat is my main concern here and I don't really want to get into buying too many things like cooltubes, but I like the idea of a homemade unit if it's cheap enough...I need to do some more reading. At the same time, I don't really want to buy a bunch of CFLs and splitters and stuff, it's the same hassle and my house is OLD with some old wiring so I don't want anything too sketchy hah. In the end for me and I'd rather spend a bit more and get better results. Also the HPS is easy to take down and move around compared to a hardwired "board" of CFL's which will not fit into future spaces as easily if I move to another house.

 

[Tatz]

Go for the twin HPS, throw one MF BIG fan in the basement, let it suck the air from your cab. Quiet, and if it´s big enough and you don´t get visitors in the basement, you wouldn´t even need a scrubber...
Might be an idea you could use....?

 

[FreezerBoy]

Cooling is easy. The problem is the noise cooling produces.

My 4" Elicent (the quietest centrifugal available at the time) had a muffler, scrubber, speed control, fan isolation box and insulated duct. With the garage door up, you could hear it at my neighbor's door across the street more than 100 feet away. With the garage door closed, all noise was contained. But I could no longer allow anyone in the garage.

If you can lock up the fans in the attic or basement... somewhere no one is allowed to go, you're golden. If the fan is in any kind of common area, you'll want to look into things like S&P, WhisperFans and/or LEDs while employing a masking agent (box fan aquarium, computer servers) or a patsy like my freezer. You can hear it across the garage but it's supposed to make noise.

 

[Sam the Caveman]

I'd go with a 400w ceramic metal halide. They don't put off as much heat as an hps or a regular mh.

 

[.clunk]

I'd go with a 400w ceramic metal halide. They don't put off as much heat as an hps or a regular mh.

interesting idea but since I won't be vegging long (under a week probably once I have the SOG method dialled to my space) I'd be sacrificing too much by using a MH bulb for flowering, rather stick with an HPS

 

[Fuzz420]

interesting idea but since I won't be vegging long (under a week probably once I have the SOG method dialled to my space) I'd be sacrificing too much by using a MH bulb for flowering, rather stick with an HPS

you're mistaken, ceramic metal halide and metal halide are similar but are not the same

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=72215&highlight=ceramic+metal+halide

 

[thehappyguy]

you're going to need a big boy fan to cool those. you're gonna have to give in somewhere...i'd say a cool tube is practically necessary with two 150s or a 400w

 

[Toyot4]

i think you gotta figure out how much bud/month you need, assuming its for personal consumption. That will make a huge impact on the lighting based upon what your expected harvest would be.

 

[.clunk]

i think you gotta figure out how much bud/month you need, assuming its for personal consumption. That will make a huge impact on the lighting based upon what your expected harvest would be.

I only smoke around 1oz/month, less if it's chronic indoor. Based on this I figure I could get away with the CFL's but I'd like to see how much I can yield in a small space to help a few friends out here and there between my outdoor crops.

 

[Sam the Caveman]

Ceramic metal halide bulbs use hps ballasts and put out a much more usable spectrum than an hps bulb. The plants love it.

With how little you smoke, you would only need one grow a year. That would reduce your cultivation exposure down immensly.

 

[Toyot4]

I only smoke around 1oz/month, less if it's chronic indoor. Based on this I figure I could get away with the CFL's but I'd like to see how much I can yield in a small space to help a few friends out here and there between my outdoor crops.

what do you think you are capable of pulling off for cooling? how stealth do you need to be? if you are trying to help out a few friends as well i would look into minimum 250w hps but may as well go with a 400 seeing as how u have the space for it.

 

[.clunk]

what do you think you are capable of pulling off for cooling? how stealth do you need to be? if you are trying to help out a few friends as well i would look into minimum 250w hps but may as well go with a 400 seeing as how u have the space for it.

well, because of other power loads on my house I'd like to keep this small, below 300w or so. I actually have a 400w HPS that I use for vegging my plants before they go outside but I'd like to use lower wattage if possible. I'll be honest, I have other sources of as much good medicine as I need monthly for no cost, but this is more of a hobby to see how much I could yield from a small set-up. Everything about gardening (not just our lovely Mary Jane) interests me, and this is no different. It's also a chance for me to geek out and build a little cab and see how well I can maintain things in there.

As far as stealth, I don't have to worry too much but the closet is in my bedroom, I don't really want to be listening to a fan hum all night...it's more of a nuisance thing rather than a security thing for me.