My room currently maintains an average temperature of 88 degrees. I am at 24/0 for lights right now. And this is all with 3 fans blowing. Do you think if I got a 600w with a cooltube I could keep this 2x6 cool enough? My babes have shown staggered growth due to the heat and recently the leaves have begun to curl and it has really worried me.
I think that should work. I used to run a 400 watt HPS in my closet. I did it once and it worked. I left the doors open enough to allow my 6 inch ducting to come out which was connected to my cool tube. I think that with your type of space that two 400 watt lights might be more effective. I think it might get a little hard for that 600 to reach an area that is 6 feet wide, but would be much easier for two smaller lights. But yes, cool tubes help tremendously. As long as you keep your temps in the grow room at 80 or under and run your cool tube with at least 150 cfm pulling air out of each cool tube, then that should pull all or most of your heat away from the light and it will exit wherever you have your fan exiting at. Just make sure you have something thats at least a 6 inch high velocity fan. They usually put out about 430 cfm. They sound like an airplane when maxed out, so just get a fan speed controller so you can tone it down a bit since chances are that you won't need to max it out for one tent or light.
Okay, new question. I have 2 grow spaces. One I plan to do a 600w HPS and that is in a 4x4 tent. I plan to use this for 6-8 plants at a time. I'm also considering now doing a 2x6 in my closet and running a 400w or 250w hps in there. Which do you think would be better? I'm planning to use the room to flower 5 autos so the lights will be on 20/4. Then I think I'm going to make a 2x4 section for veg. Do you think this will be big enough? I'm planning to veg under CFLs as this spot will be in the same small room as the 4x4. Maybe down the road I will be able to vent up together and get a MH.
It depends on how much vertical space you have. If you have plenty of vertical space the 400 watt would be able to be cooled and would penetrate the plants much more than a 250. As long as you have 5 inches of space between the bulb, and the plants you should be alright, if you keep the temps down.
I would actually do two 400 watt lights for that 2 by 6 area. It will cover the area much better than one light. It would be weak if you just used one 400 watt light. I think that reaching six inches from side to side would also be hard for a 600 watt light so I would think that two 400s under cool tubes would be best. Just make sure you got good ventilation. You could probably even connect the two hoods up in series to one another to get them both connected. I have never grown auto plants before. I heard that there almost isn't even a point in growing autos if you grow indoors where you can control the light. I have always just grown photo period plants and just waited for them to finish. For vegging space, It depends on a lot of factors. These things grow faster or slower depending on your grow medium, lights, water etc. I would think that area should be big enough to veg. These plants double if not triple in size during the first 3 weeks of flower. I think I would try to ditch the cfls if you can and just veg with MH. MH is superior and will provide more light. You could have a 400 watt MH in that veg space and that is actually a very good light for vegging. They don't create that much heat, but they are fairly bright fir their size.
I have a lot of vertical space in the closet. The tent I'm not as sure about. I haven't even set it up yet since the space where it will be is still full of junk atm. There is no way I could run 800 watts in the closet. It would require far more ventilation than I would be able to do. This is the same closet running at 100 degrees with the door shut under 325w florescent. I do want to get rid of the florescents down the road but unfortunately it just isn't in the budget yet. My intention was to do the autos in the closet just as something to get me by for a few weeks while all of the photos are growing. I know they won't provide much and I'm alright with that. I feel I can make up for it in the tent. As for the 4x4 space where I was going to put my tent, well, if I really wanted to I could turn that into a large room, maybe 8x8, and run 4 400w through there. There is a chimney I can link to for ventilation in there. I could then just turn my closet into a veg/clone room. Does a 400w MH put off as much heat as a 400w HPS? Would 400w work well enough in the 2x6 veg closet? If not I suppose I could just cut down a portion of the room and make an extra closet inside my closet.
I think I would want to use that 8 x 8 and put 4000 watts in there. It would be kind of rough on the electric bill, but that would all wash out in the end if you know what I mean. haha As far as light goes in a 2 x 6, I think at minimum I would want a 600 watt MH/HPS. 600 / 12 = 50 watts per square foot which is perfect actually. The part that gets hard is because its six feet long. Its hard for a 600 watt light to reach that far. The two 400s would provide better reach or coverage, but I also agree that they produce heat. I'm running 1800 watts of HPS light and I gotta run an 8000 BTU air conditioner just to keep things cool I would think that MH/HPS produce about the same amount of heat. I think they are both consuming the same amount of power so they probably put out the same amount of heat as well. I think they get hotter as you get into the higher wattage systems.
Since I've only got 5 autos in there and I don't plan on them getting very big anyways, I've been considering blocking out half of the closet and making the grow section a 2x4. That way I could use a smaller light and still have steady coverage. That should still equal out to 50w per sq ft. I think for this first run I'm going to create the 8x8 space but use my 4x4 tent. I think once I go 8x8 I will run 3 600w instead of 4 400w. I might use 2 of them partially as angled lighting to work in with a scrog design. But for the 4x4 I will just go with 1 600w. In the time it takes these girls to flower I will have earned enough money to contribute to a much better setup next time around. I'm sorry for having a bajillion questions. But I really appreciate all of the help and advice I've been getting.
Not a problem man. I think we were all starting out at one point and had questions. Potheads just seem more willing help in my opinion I guess. But yeah, I think a 600 would work for that 4 x 4. I have heard of some using a 600 in that type of tent. That sounds like a plan. Maybe the 600 is easier to acquire. Then once you get a harvest under your belt, then upgrade equipment. A lot of us kind of take that route actually.
Check out this post. http://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/55790-mh-vs-hps-heat-2.html#post625721 He took a reading of a 400 watt MH then HPS with a laser thermometer. He said that the HPS light got like 8 degrees warmer than the MH light. I was reading on google and there seems to be something about if the bulb puts out less heat, it will put out more light energy. If it puts out more heat, it will put out less light energy. Thats why I kind of thought that a MH could be a tad cooler, but I guess not according to that guys meter.
Okay so I'm looking at iPower and Apollo on Amazon with complete sets. Any recommendations as to which I should take? I'm leaning towards the apollo right now.
I have a couple of the ipower sets myself 400, and 600 models. I honestly don't know if I can tell a difference between them besides the black ipower color compared to the purple apollo color. I'm going to say that they will both work and will both get you through a grow or two. They are not exactly name brand or the best out there, but I think both of them will work just fine. I think you would be happy with either one
DONT GET IPOWER. I just got that 600w combo pack last december. I got 1.5 harvests out of it before it went kapoot. I brought it to my local hydro store and it turns out, the ballast is not UL safety listed (if it starts a fire, not only are you in deep shit legally, insurance wont pay for it). But the bulb as well, the filament started to burn. I ended up having to scrap the ballast and bulb, the bulb would have exploded in another 30 days, and the ballast was a ticking time bomb. iPower sucks, I regret buying that brand so much. I'd go with a reputable brand, that has safety certifications, and comes with a warrenty. The one i'm getting is a digital greenhouse 600watt dim-able ballast. It comes standard with 5 years warrenty and is UL safety certified, and costs about the same as the cheap packs. http://htgsupply.com/Product-Digital-Greenhouse-%20600w-HPS-&-MH-Ballast.asp
The budget is super tight for me now, and I need something that will be mostly a complete set for a fair price. That's why I was looking at this: http://www.amazon.com/Apollo-Horticulture-GLK1000CT24E-Digital-Dimmable/dp/B0054LXQHY/ref=sr_1_1?s=industrial&ie=UTF8&qid=1370574778&sr=1-1&keywords=apollo+horticulture+1000w+digital+dimmable+hps+cool+tube Though I also saw these guys http://www.illumalights.ca/component/option,com_rokecwid/Itemid,75/view,ecwid/#ecwid:category=1893261&mode=product&product=8151723
I agree with everyone that Ipower may not be a the best. I'm sure that Apollo isn't any better than Ipower. I guess there are a few brands out there that make a decent ballast. I know that Phantom is one of them. Phantom has an "SA" on it which stands for Canadian Standards Association which I guess qualifies as an alternative to the UL Mark. So I decided to pick up a Phantom ballast and a Hortilux bulb. I can understand in his case too though. He is starting out and on a budget. I was the same way just like a lot of us probably are when we just start out. The ipower should work fine for a grow or two until you can afford to upgrade.
I appreciate the advice and that is probably the best bet. Safety definitely is very important to me, so if one of these can just get me through a single grow that should work perfectly. If I get this setup I can just switch out the ballast later.