Lighting Input PLEASE!

[username dude]

Whats up! I have been planning my room for a while and just got my clones so this build has now become reality., After altering and changing the plans I have a question.

This is my first grow setup., I am having some trouble deciding about the lighting. Here is the deal...

I have a 3x3x4 grow space for one plant and I am essentially limited to CFL/T5 lighting due to sealed box heat concerns.

I am leaning towards a 2 foot x 8 bulb setup that will run around 200watts. I plan to run the box at around 1500ppm CO2 and an RDWC hydro system.

So now the question.

Do I need more light? if you think so, how much? I want to max out the light for the one plant. Would switching to LED work better? Remember the heat is the issue and its a small sealed box (see above) with 1 plant. with mylar on every surface, even under the plant (which is growing up through a hole in the bottom)

I look forward to your input., THANKS

 

[Snype]

Whats up! I have been planning my room for a while and just got my clones so this build has now become reality., After altering and changing the plans I have a question.

This is my first grow setup., I am having some trouble deciding about the lighting. Here is the deal...

I have a 3x3x4 grow space for one plant and I am essentially limited to CFL/T5 lighting due to sealed box heat concerns.

I am leaning towards a 2 foot x 8 bulb setup that will run around 200watts. I plan to run the box at around 1500ppm CO2 and an RDWC hydro system.

So now the question.

Do I need more light? if you think so, how much? I want to max out the light for the one plant. Would switching to LED work better? Remember the heat is the issue and its a small sealed box (see above) with 1 plant. with mylar on every surface, even under the plant (which is growing up through a hole in the bottom)

I look forward to your input., THANKS

A good number to be at is 50 Watts per square foot. You have 9 square feet so 450 watts would be ideal. Also 1500 PPM of CO2 is too much in my opinion. With my 55" bushes, I only run 600-900 PPM CO2.

You say that you are running RDWC and have multiple clones but then you talk about maximizing 1 plant. I don't understand that one. Are you growing 1 plant or multiple plants?

Heat will probably be a real concern unless your room is really cold. You would need to exhaust all that hot air. I don't run LED's so I can be of no help there but I hear that they still heat up the space pretty good, esp in a sealed box that small.

 

[username dude]

Thanks and comment?

Thanks and comment?

Yeah I wasnt totally clear., I received a couple clones as a gift and plan to grow out only the strongest one.

I have been checking out fluorescent lighting and LED as well and at this point I am leaning more towards LED.

This is the light I think I will be getting for the 9sqft space. Do you guys think this will be enough?

btw, here is a picture of day 1 DWC setup, its looking a little limp and I think that I could have done better with it for the two days it was in cubes with minimal light. Opinion?

REMEMBER THIS IS MY FIRST GO ROUND>

 

[username dude]

Forgot to attach the pic

Forgot to attach the pic

here

 

[username dude]

and again I forgot the link to the light., `

and again I forgot the link to the light., `

http://growblu.com/120x3w-apollo-led-grow-light

 

[sunset limited]

1. welcome to your new life.

2. poor little monkey, turning all yellow on top. don't kill it with kindness. let that medium dry out from time to time. won't take long with that hydroton either.

3. 50 watts/ sq. ft. is good. 100 is even better. you won't get to that with 4 ft ceilings though, ventilation and AC or no. any light is going to generate heat. LED's generate less heat, but they are still cost prohibitive and don't tend to make good flowers by themselves. if you can cool an 8 bulb t5 rack though, you can nearly as easily cool a 400 watt HPS. the issue is going to be whether you have enough headroom not to cook your plants with radiant heat. since you're already looking at expensive lights, consider a 400 watt induction light with an LED pontoon. there's a local outfit in my town called inda-gro, but they're hardly the only folks around.

keep us posted!

 

[username dude]

again thanks

again thanks

Thanks for the Re. That pontoon light looks pretty cool (I am posting a link for others to see if they want). It looks like that thing is running around 1500$. I really do not want to spend that much for a light for just 1 plant but maybe in the future.

So you say 100W/sqft. I was thinking the same thing., I have read a bit which leads me to believe that LED may be a nice viable option for my setup. In my space I plan to scrog the plant out to fill the whole horizontal space and keep the light right down on the plants.

Regarding the heat issue I was unaware that the CFL T5 would end up generating heat equivalent to the HPS., I must stay away from heat as I am going to try to run this setup without AC and only a recirculating blower fan that pulls everything through a filter., I have access to an almost unlimited supply of dry ice which I plan to add to the inline fan system to cool and supplement if temps start to get too high.,

Lets say., I am pretty sure I am going to get the LED light that I have linked in a previous post., it is very economical at $500 for the rig and will address my heat issues as well as being full spectrum., I have read some things here and there that LED can produce excellent product. This brings us to the real question. Do you know of any other source for LED that may be better? Do you totally disagree with my LED option? If you do I would really be down for an intelligent and in depth discussion as to the reasons for opting to go with one over another.,

off to work, I can check forums tho so ill be around., THANKS


http://bubbleponics.com/forum/showt...on-Lighting-with-LED-quot-Pontoon-quot-option

 

[Snype]

Thanks for the Re. That pontoon light looks pretty cool (I am posting a link for others to see if they want). It looks like that thing is running around 1500$. I really do not want to spend that much for a light for just 1 plant but maybe in the future.

So you say 100W/sqft. I was thinking the same thing., I have read a bit which leads me to believe that LED may be a nice viable option for my setup. In my space I plan to scrog the plant out to fill the whole horizontal space and keep the light right down on the plants.

Regarding the heat issue I was unaware that the CFL T5 would end up generating heat equivalent to the HPS., I must stay away from heat as I am going to try to run this setup without AC and only a recirculating blower fan that pulls everything through a filter., I have access to an almost unlimited supply of dry ice which I plan to add to the inline fan system to cool and supplement if temps start to get too high.,

Lets say., I am pretty sure I am going to get the LED light that I have linked in a previous post., it is very economical at $500 for the rig and will address my heat issues as well as being full spectrum., I have read some things here and there that LED can produce excellent product. This brings us to the real question. Do you know of any other source for LED that may be better? Do you totally disagree with my LED option? If you do I would really be down for an intelligent and in depth discussion as to the reasons for opting to go with one over another.,

off to work, I can check forums tho so ill be around., THANKS


http://bubbleponics.com/forum/showt...on-Lighting-with-LED-quot-Pontoon-quot-option

Just some concerns of mine. I hope you have a decent air pump and air stone. I have rates that I made through testing that can be found in my RDWC guide in my Signature. Also You should be using chlorine with a plant that small. I don't like to put plants that small in RDWC until they grow I good size root first. The plant usually starts to show stress with plants that small with a small root. I would make sure your solution is at least an 1" below the pot and hand water it every 4-6 hours for now until the roots hit the solution by itself. I also wouldn't go over 1 EC / 500 TDS / 700 PPM until they get older. Even with they are huge, I wouldn't even consider going over 2 EC / 1000 TDS / 1400 PPM ever and you would want to be much lower than this for your small lights. Also I'm not sure why you are going to use dry ice for 1 plant and a small light but if you do make sure your air pump is outside of your sealed space. CO2 is heavier than air and you are going to suck all that CO2 into your bucket solution. Good luck but the odds are not in your favor with that potential heat in RDWC. And I'm pretty sure that LEDs are still going to give you a good amount of heat in that little space. I recall a few threads here where growers thought that LED's had almost no heat and were surprised when their rooms / sealed boxes got to the 90's with LED's.

 

[username dude]

Re:

Re:

I do have a decent air pump and stone, it seems to be sparging out the solution nicely.

One step ahead of you on the CO2. I am not too concerned with the CO2 sparging out the solution. The plant is going to grow up through a hole in the bottom of the growth chamber and the stem will be wrapped loosely with a small cloth to further isolate the growth chamber from the root chamber (which will be regular atmosphere). The only reason that I mentioned dry ice was as a potential cooling solution if the growth chamber temps got too high due to lighting. I will likely use a chiller coil to maintain constant temp in the reservoir for the DWC setup if the temps do not maintain themselves.

I do appreciate the input regarding the lights. I really need to gain a firm grasp on how much light one plant can utilize with DWC and CO2. I am more or less just choosing based on as close to 100w/sqft as possible, minimal heat, and optimal spectrum.

Project Status:
- Just got the hydro setup running
- Still in the process of determining the best lighting solution.
- Will be building the chamber this weekend.

I will post pictures of the chamber once it is complete (and some during construction) so that anybody following this will have a better idea of what is actually going on.

 

[Snype]

I do have a decent air pump and stone, it seems to be sparging out the solution nicely.

One step ahead of you on the CO2. I am not too concerned with the CO2 sparging out the solution. The plant is going to grow up through a hole in the bottom of the growth chamber and the stem will be wrapped loosely with a small cloth to further isolate the growth chamber from the root chamber (which will be regular atmosphere). The only reason that I mentioned dry ice was as a potential cooling solution if the growth chamber temps got too high due to lighting. I will likely use a chiller coil to maintain constant temp in the reservoir for the DWC setup if the temps do not maintain themselves.

I do appreciate the input regarding the lights. I really need to gain a firm grasp on how much light one plant can utilize with DWC and CO2. I am more or less just choosing based on as close to 100w/sqft as possible, minimal heat, and optimal spectrum.

Project Status:
- Just got the hydro setup running
- Still in the process of determining the best lighting solution.
- Will be building the chamber this weekend.

I will post pictures of the chamber once it is complete (and some during construction) so that anybody following this will have a better idea of what is actually going on.

50 Watts per square foot is plenty of light for your space. Anymore light and you are going to run into more problems with such a small space. The more light that you have, the more AC that you need which you don't have. 100 Watts per square feet sounds pretty crazy to me in a 4 foot high box. Doesn't really make sense but good luck with the grow! The hole that your plant grows out of is cool but if your air pump is in the room with the dry ice, it will pull the CO2 into the pump and into the solution and mess up your plants. Also I've used 50 pound blocks of Dry Ice in a 4 x 8" tent and it didn't really cool down the temps and the dry ice also went pretty fast.

 

[username dude]

I am going to start a new thread that is more appropriately titled. I will be posting a diagram that I just created to give viewers an idea of my concept to clear up any ambiguities.