I am in the planning stage of a Bonzi Mother/CLone cabinet. I want to mount a 6 bulb 4 foot T5 fixture flush to the bottom of a flip up lid, aswell as a 6 bulb 2 foot T5, meaning not suspended by hooks, cable, yadda yadda. The local grow shop says I shold be kosher,as long as I get some ventilation, but I could see a bit of confusion and fear in the clerks eyes when I asked, . So I put the same question to the blades here at GC. Further info, the box will essentialy be 6'LX2.5'W'H, 2 chambers, 1 for Mothers 4X2, another for the cloner, a RumpleCloner btw, 2X2. Basicly just big enough to encase the lamps. Thanks for any input
Well... IMO the cab will be great for the cloner setup assuming your going to make one that sits on the bottom and is no higher than a foot tall. Your clones don't need that much light, and a 2 tube T5 is plenty of light for that space... maybe still overkill. Now, even a bonsai mother is going to outgrow that space every week or so. I would consider making the mother section 2 1/2' to 3' square, and 3 1/2' to 4' tall. that way you will get more head height for your mothers. Also, intake low... and exhaust above the lights in the mother side, and I wouldn't mount the T5 light flush to the top. if you leave an inch or two of space... you'll keep that box a few degrees cooler. You are going to need 10-15" of space between your plants and the light, maybe 4-5" for the light itself, and atleast a few more inches for your trays/pots/medium... thats almost 2' right there, and add whatever size you want your plants... and thats how tall you need to make it. Good LucK
Thanks 177 I do realize that would be overkill to light clones with 6 T5s..silly silly... Think I will be able to get by with a couple axial fans for venting, or will I need to explore a higher air flow option?
Whatever fan you go with, you'll need to exchange the air a couple times per min. so that space is 3x3x4=36 cubic feet. so a exhaust fan that moves 50-100 CFM would be good. you could prob. get by with a couple PC fans for exhaust and a couple for intake. The clone setup needs air flow too, but not as much. cuts with no roots do better in high humidity, but they still need some fresh air.
What do you think about 4, 47CFM fans? 2 intake, 2 exhaust? Or will they pull enough that I could just exhaust all 4?