Hello everyone, Im new here and have been reading a lot in the last few days and am in the process of assembling a tent. I really like the community here better than some of the other forums. So I decided to make Grasscity.com my home for this build. OK on with the show. Set-up this far Secret Jardin DR90 6†Cool Tube 400W Generic 400W Digital Ballast accepts MH and HPS 240CFM 6" Duct Fan 6" Carbon air filter 310CFM I may add a second fan for the carbon filter and run the tube fan separate I am not worried about the smell as much as I am about proper ventilation and climate control, and feel separating the fans will give me more control. I plan on using the generic HPS bulb that comes with cool-tube Does this make a difference? I dont mind buying a better bulb if it will help. I purchased a Ushio HiLux Gro 400w MH conversion bulb, and this brings me to my first questions. is it OK to run the conversion bulb in the digital ballast? the reason I went with this is because the bulb is a lot slimmer than the normal MH bulbs that are about 5" in diameter and was concerned it may not work well in the 6" cool-tube. The guy at the Hydro store said its fine. Also the Hydro store guy is telling me that I can not stop the fan on the cool-tube because it will make the bulb get to hot and break it. My plan was to hook the fan up to a regulator and a AIR CAP 2 and have that be my temp control. Will this mess up the Bulb? If I run a CAP 2 I will add a humidifier I saw a DIY mod on here that seemed to work well. I will be using Fox Farm ocean forest soil in 9x9 pots I think I will be doing 8 plants depending on the space they take up and if I can access the back ones I have the Fox farm three pack of nutrients Attitude seeds sent me Northern Lights Fem auto Flower from nirvana and a few "free" ones not sure what they are but I will be tossing them in as well. (as long as they are Auto flower) OK guys and gals sorry to fire all this off at the same time but I needed to brain dump. I appreciate any and all feedback comments tips and tricks, thanks!
I'm not sure about the bulb thing, it sounds like it'd be okay? The thing about the bulb, that's shit. Your bulb was built to operate at a temperature that's higher than the temperature of the 'filament'. Your bulb shouldn't break unless you have some incredible hot exterior conditions. A big heat change can cause your bulb to break of course. You should never...douse your HPS bulb to cool it hahahaha Is there a reason you picked to grow autos?
Thanks guys, I picked autos because they seemed idiot proof. After ordering I continued to read and think I would have done fine with non autos but no big deal I can just get more once we see how this goes. So I just opened the package for the light I bought and there was an few surprises. 1 it had two bulbs in it a hps and a mh haha so I may return the 80.00 ushio. Also the ballest is dimmable. I don't think I will use this feature on a 400w ballest but it's cool. The description for the light ballest set up never mentioned these two things, what a great deal I think it was 170.00 total including shipping. So the ambient temps for the room that the tents in is mid 60's so extreme temps won't be a problem, I may actually leave the exit of the cooltube detached and let it vent into the tent to help bring the temps up. Ttyl
www.LEDwholesalers.com - 400 Watt Digital HPS Grow Light with 6†Cool Tube 400W Cooltube this is the light I bought it from this seller thru amazon. I'll post some pics later if you like. It does have a small crack in the glass. I don't think it will affect anything and don't want to deal with the return process. So I will keep it as is.
OK. everything is up and running, I am going to do a dry run for a few days to figure out the temps, also I decided to return the ushio bulb and just run the free one that came with the light. I took some pics I will post up in a bit. ambient temps for the room the tent is in Temp High 62F Low 40F RH High 45 Low 30
I grow hydro, but have the same tent as you and a very similar setup. Check out the sig links for my journals is you want. Peace.
Yeeah nice man. I have pretty much the same setup. 400 watt MH/HPS Cool tube with a 6 inch fan and carbon filter, all in a GL 80. Dont you think 8 plants might be a little much for that amount of space and light? I think 6 would be more reasonable to give the plants more room to spread out, I only have two in mine but im ScrOGing them. Good luck!
for sure now it's set up and I see the space I am going to do max 6. I just figured I'm running the light I might as well max it out. Thanks for the insite.
Thanks for the heads up, I took a look nice job man. I will be really happy with 6-7oz average. I was kind of disappointed to see that you had to go back to the cool-tube as I wanted to see what results could be with that different hood, that I almost bought btw. I am supprised is was a 8-10deg diff. Is that the vII tent looks like I have more vent spots than you. I have the vII
[quote name='"Tyte"'] for sure now it's set up and I see the space I am going to do max 6. I just figured I'm running the light I might as well max it out. Thanks for the insite.[/quote] Yeah I think 6 will be better. I'm new to this so I don't know from experience, but what I understand from the forums is that you can have 6 plants make up a canopy under a 400 watt or 2 plants make up the canopy and get the same yield because it's the light producing the energy for the yield and it's either split between 6 or two plants. There are + and - of both ways though Using more plants you'll end up with more females if your not using clones, and if get a grunt or kill a plant on accident it wont affect your yield so much. also the veg time will be less to fill up a canopy then if you have to wait for less plants to fill up the same space. Benefits of using less plants are that if there is a limit on how many plants you can grow legally you can get a higher yield off less plants, your plants can grow bigger and develop bigger root systems, and there is room to use training techniques like lst and ScrOG,. Now that I list out the benefits I'm thinking I should have put more then 2 plants in my tent... Haha I want to ScrOG them though.
Wait, you are trying to do 6 - 8 plants in the DR90? Man, thats just not gonna happen. I wanted to go with 3 and I can't even do that. 2 plants fill up that DR90 with little to no room to spare. I can even imagine the nightmare you will have trying to tend to 6 plants in that little space. I wish you luck, but just don't see how its gonna happen.
Went to hydro shop to return the 80.00 uroshi mh bulb and ended up using the credit to grab a sentinel evc-2 controller. This thing is the tits and maybe a little overkill for this small setup but it was bad ass and the guy gave me 20% off I will grow into it I'm sure haha. I will probably add a humidifier now I have the ability to control it. The eh now averages 25-30 so a little boost may help. I'll post picks of the evc-2 when it comes in on Tuesday or wed.
Ya know I thought 2-3 was going to be all I could fit, but after talking to a few people they said because I'm running auto flower genetics they will not get to big and to just max the sucker out and go wall to wall with it. I have never seen any plant live in person so I have no idea how large these things get especially the auto flower type. I am hearing they don't get very large at all. I will say I'm more apt to Listen to the dude with 4 grows in the same setup as me than I am to listen to joe schmo. Thoughts?
Ok, Well 2 things that make me wrong. 1. I have the DR80, not the 90, so you got more space than I. DOH. And 2. I did not realize you were growing auto's, missed that. I have not grown auto's but from what I have seen, yes, they remain much smaller than a normal sized MJ plant. So your plan of 6 just may work in your tent. Sorry if I put a scare in ya and made ya change your plan. My bad.