I've litterally been researching for the past 6 months and have come up with a plan that i would like to bring to life. I'll start off with all of the information i have and have come up with and i'll post my questions afterwards. I'll be moving into an apartment in approximately 2 weeks and would like to set up a grow room in my closet. It's a walk-in closet i'm still not sure of the dimensions but i can adjust my setup to whatever size it is. I plan on having 3 seperate grow areas in the closet each one 2x3'x4' high. Two of the rooms will be my flowering rooms and one is going to be my veg room. Each will be equipped with 400 watt lights (hps in the flower rooms and mh in the veg). I will be growing 4 plants in each area and they will be moving into the following area every 6 weeks (so 6 weeks veg, 6 weeks flower, 6 weeks flower). this will allow me to have a continuous harvest every 6 weeks. I will be LST'ing them in hempy buckets and either growing them in 2 gal pots or 3 gal pots to control thier size also. What type of fans should i use to ventilate my rooms? Is 400 watts too much for the grow areas? Any other help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated thank you
I just got my cab up and running with plants and all equiptment in a walk-in closet up in my loft. Without any ventilation in the closet my cab is running at 94.5!! when I opened the closet door and let the AC blow indirectly in it cools to 85.2. This is a relativley small walk in closet with just ONE 400w bulb. Im going to change my AC duct that runs to my bathroom up there and put it in the ceiling of the closet. that should cool the closet and the cab down 6+ degrees minimum...... I hope!!! So unless you have AMPLE cooling for the CLOSET (portable AC) as well as for the multiple 400's in a smallish closet get ready for some MAJOR proplems with the heat!
CnS speaks the truth but i think he's going overboard. i tried growing in my closet - it was a great idea at first, got the cabs setup and all. but then i ran into the problem that no matter how well the air flowed in my cab. i was still in a closet with no central air vent. essentialy just a fan blowing in a sealed room. just cirulating already warm air. so first thing to think about is making sure you can get fresh and temperate air from somewhere, into your cab. then think about blowing all the hot and smelly air somewhere that won't interfear with your fresh air. you sound ambitious like i first was. 4 plants, 6 weeks veg with LST. thats going to be some serious budding. 400watt light if you do it right and have it diald in you could get maybe 10+ oz's per harvest i'd imagine. just make sure you are growing to suit your needs is all i'm saying here. otherwise your plan sounds great. rethink your cooling - make sure it will work.
If i ran cooltubes rather than just a straight reflector with intake and outtake would that make much of a difference in the grow area temperature? Also as far as keeping the closet cool i'm gunna be putting 2 big 20" oscillating fans in there while keeping the closet door open to allow for nice air cirrculation. I plan on my bedroom door being locked and having the grow areas locked up tight when i'm not in my room so nobody will be snooping around. More input and help would be greatly appreciated
Cool tube is just a bit smaller.... the light pattern is not as good either. but either one is good if you are pulling/pushing air through the ac hood. you do have glass on those right?? What are you doing about smell? 4 plants are gunna stink. your entire floor will smell it
I could use an air cooled hood to get a better light pattern, and yes they'll have glass. As far as smell i'm gunna use can fans on each of the outtakes. And probably putting a miniature bucket air filter in each room with a pc fan rather than the big black fan. Here's the link http://forum.grasscity.com/grow-room-design-setup/144976-perfect-odour-neutralizer.html Thank you for the input you're bringing up great points !
I pull air conditioned air from another room through my lights with a centrifugal inline fan 432 max cfm got a 400 mh & 400 hps. I've got two intake fans (common bathroom fans) one pulls from yet another a/c room and the other air from outside, still i needed a way to exhaust more heat from the room so I got another inline centifugal fan with an air scrubber filter hooked to a climate controller. Damn, now i forgot what your question was, hope this gives you some ideas.lol - chetto
ILG i think you're still missing the main point of being able to get cool air into the cab and closet. if your ventilation isn't working right and you can't close the door on your grow and be sure that temps won't stray .. it gets rather annoying. oscillating fans will only stir the already warm air. without proper intake (from a source other than air in your closet) and exhaust - you might run into troubles. one case where you could intake air from your closet is if you exhausted outside of it. keep that in mind
That's some great information you gave me. Are your rooms linked together or are they sperate? I found this grow on here a couple of weeks ago and i think it'll be a big help for me since we're working with basically the same grow area dimensions http://forum.grasscity.com/general-indoor-growing/364274-first-ever-grow-tell-me-what-you-think.html I'll probably just fork out a few more bucks for air cooled hoods with 6" holes. But i'm still not sure what type of fans i should use. Any suggestions would help me out and feel free to throw in your own ideas to improve this grow
last time i bought a fan i got it from an ebay store: texas wholesale hvac, got a quality 6" centrifugal fan w/5yr warranty for like $114 w/free shipping it works great have it hooked to a freak drive so i can contol the air flow. Room that i pull from to cool lights is seprated by a wall the ducting travels a short distance through the attic maybe 6 ft. I built that room too 12'x 16' (may have plans in the future there). The g. rm was actually part of the 2nd room that ac air is pulled from, i built a false wall at one end. it's actually pretty cool you enter through the back of one of the cabnets on the wall, can't even tell it's there when standing right next to it. peace chetto
Damn sounds like a nice setup you got going there. I'm thinking about grabbing a few 6" inline fans off ebay to pull air through the hood and out of the grow area. Would i need dual fans for each tent? or could i do what CnS did with his setup and just have a single fan pulling air out through my hood into a carbon scrubber, with a passive intake? Also would my plants get root bound in a 3 galloin bucket if they are vegged 6 weeks and flowered for however long until they're finished?
That is a great point that i overlooked. If i added an AC unit to my window would that help improve the cool air cirrculation in my closet? Or would i need to run something from my AC unit to the closet rather than just having it blow into my room?
"Would i need dual fans for each tent? or could i do what CnS did with his setup and just have a single fan pulling air out through my hood into a carbon scrubber, with a passive intake?" The hydro shop I go to has an 8'' vortex cooling 2 1000's pulling through about 20 feet of ducting and pushing out another 10 feet..... So yes if your fan is strong enough 1 should be able to cool a couple of lights and scrubb at the same time. "That is a great point that i overlooked. If i added an AC unit to my window would that help improve the cool air cirrculation in my closet? Or would i need to run something from my AC unit to the closet rather than just having it blow into my room?" You would definately lower your ambient in the room ?? degrees, but the closet will still be a bit warmer. (thats how I have my set up right now and my closet runs 4 degrees hotter then my room and my box is 3-5 degrees above the closet temp. so I have my room at 77, my closet is at 80, and box is 83-85 degrees). I have the closet door open with NO fan blowing in (im sure it would be as cool as the room if I did). Im running my AC to the closet this weekend, I hoped to get it done last night!! but plans changed! I figure If I can get my closet down to 77 I can keep my box almost as cool. remember you gotta get the heat out before you can cool, so if you are exhausting into you closet you are doubling the challenge of cooling the space.
Yeah i gotta figure out how to get the hot air out without drawing attention to my closet cause i can't keep my closet door open all day everyday. Once i move in i'll be able to get a better idea of how hot my room and closet will be. And i'll be sure and post the info on here to get some help. Are my grow areas big enough for 4 LST'd plants? I'm kind of second guessing it lately especially since my plants are going to be sativas. I appreciate the help everybody!
Im going to get a couple of cpu fans and put them in the ceiling of my closet to exhaust it... prob 2 120mm fans..... my closet is a total of 240 cuft. so 2 hopefully will be enough to cool it down. I ran my ac last night and changed my box around a bit....took pics will update my journal later this evening. OH SHIT!!!! Went to the club today and they suprised me with this MONSTER of a clone!!!! great guys I tell ya!!! Ill post that pic to! Gotta run for a bit thanks for the +rep! Oh real quick yeah you should be able to lst in your cab.... or a scrog might be a little easier.