Im fairly new to growing and have questions about fresh air getting into my grow room . My grow room is an en suite bathroom with no windows , im growing 15 plants under 400 watt HPS and an additional 200 watt CFl . Ventilation , circulation , temperature and humidity are all fine . I leave the grow room door open and my bedroom window open to create fresh air flow into the room , is this sufficient air flow into the room ? I was thinking of adding a fan by the window and by the door to direct the air in more efficiently Any help is apprechiated
15 plants under a 400w HPS + 200w cfl seems like a lot of plants to efficiently cover, but if it works for you great. As far as fresh air intake goes, I assume that the bathroom/grow room is fairly small. I think leaving the door open is probably plenty of fresh air intake; as long as the odor that will eventually develope is not a problem. Also, as long as it's not too hot outside you can run your furnace fan 24/7 with the heat turned off, of course. All furnaces have fresh air intakes built into them, so running the furnace fan with the heat off will constantly bring in fresh air through the vents. I grow in tents in a spare bedroom and this is what I do in order to bring in fresh air. So, in the winter I can run the heat in the rest of the house as I please; in the grow room I just cover/uncover part of the vent (it's a small bedroom, so it only has 1 vent) untill the desired temp is reached--that cold winter air really cools down a room and is high in CO2! In the summer after the outside air gets very hot I block off all but a small opening in the vent to allow for fresh air intake and run the window AC--which also brings in some outside air. If it gets too hot outside I just entirely block off the vent, allowing the AC to both cool the room and bring air from outside. I use insulated foam board to create a covering over the windows in the grow room. This insulates the grow room from excessive cold in the winter, and excessive heat in the summer. This, combined with exhausting into the attic, creates a grow room that is very easy to both heat and cool. The insulated covering over the windows also creates a very light tight cover and serves to eliminate any possible heat signiture coming from the windows. P.S. running the furnace fan 24/7 is actually less wear and tear on the fan, as the "surge" of current as the fan kicks on and off is actually what causes a lot of the wear on the fan. Hope that helps, Bud
Well, like I said it depends on your style of growing--growing trees is going to be a lot different than growing SOG style. Each is going to take different strategies. However, assuming you're talking about average size plants that are Indica or at least Indica dominant, I think another 400w PLUS reducing the number of plants to 8-10 will get you better results. I just don't think a 400w is going to cover more than 4-5 plants effeciently. I use a 600w with a Block Buster 6" air cooled reflector, and I only grow 4-5 at a time in a 4.5' X 4.5' tent. Even then, I consider the 3' X 3' Botainicare tray I use in the tent to be the "primary grow area"--that is, I keep all the pots within this 3' X 3' tray, allowing the branches to spill over the edges as necessary. this way I keep the bulk of the growing plants (and their main colas and bud sites) within this more limited area. This allows me sufficient light intensity to grow Indicas, Indica/Sativa crosses, and even Sativa/Indica crosses. Two 400's will cover a 5' X 5' area, but I wouldn't go much beyond that. The problem is that 400s simply don't have that much penetration power--or I should say that since they have lower light intensity (in terms of lumens) to begin with, distance from the light really reduces the 400s ability to flower a plant well. So, you need to keep a 400 pretty darn close to your plants in order for it to be effective. When I first started growing I used a single 400, and keep it about 3" from the tops of my plants; I got decent results. The problem here is that at that close of a distance to the canopy you don't get very good light spread; However, if you raise the light to cover more area you loose too much intensity. thus, my recommendation for an area ~5' X 5' for TWO 400s. If you're new to growing and it's just for personal use I would seriously consider just using 1 400 and reducing your plant count 4-5. Use this time to learn and improve your growing techniques. At this point it will be a LOT easier to manage just 4-5 plants than 8-10. After you feel comfortable with this then you could more reasonably assess your desire/need/ability to increase in scope. You'll get a very respectable yield from this. If your purpose is to get to a level that reaches a commercial grow--even a modest one--then, in my opinion, you would be MUCH better off going with 600s. Hope that helps, Bud