Thank you, I’m going to go with 2 or 3 5x5 tents.
Need advice on grow tent size
- Thread starter Mazz744
- Start date
I haven’t purchased anything yet. I was interested in kind led X750’s from the reviews I’ve read and I spoke to someone who has them and he said they were amazing lights to grow under. I also liked the fact that you can adjust the UV and IR with a separate dial. I’m here because I want growers opinions on what they’ve used and had great success with. I know there are so many variables, but I’d rather spend extra now and get really good equipment. I’m also going to use co2. I’m going to go with two 5x5’s one for veg and one for flower. I already have a separate room set up to dry. There’s so much to learn, but I’d rather be guided by people who’ve been doing this and learn from the successes and mistakes. So far I’ve really enjoyed the entire process of growing outdoors two times and want to try indoors now. My main focus is growing amazing quality with descent yields. I’ve grown in soil using emerald harvest line. Again any advice is greatly appreciated and welcomed.
sfw1960
Well-Known Member
I had a friend who fell for the Kind crap and his stuff was failing while under warranty with the fans which they expected him to ship back?
I sent him a link for a replacement fan (I don't need fans - was replaced and he whines after losing his butt) and then he AGAIN didn't listen to me but his clueless pushy wife (because she controls the money and everything else there) and complained that HLG lights were a few hundred bucks more than the spider farmer overheat specials she picked out for him off scamazon.
I'm going to get labeled an HLG fan boy so I'd say ask Corey what he's running and he has others that are chiminilly willy made if you want.
There's a reason why chinese lights CLAIM to be using Samsung and the majority of GOOD LEDs are made in Korea, Japan and Taiwan - I dog on SF too because he (my whipped friend) got screwed with half a fixture going out and them ignoring him like so many customers you've probably read about.
In the appropriate $4800 USD he WASTED he could have bought 4 of the biggest HLG units and they would still be in service as well. There's a lot of other places building great lights and HLG has 25% off everything through the end of the month which makes for some good deals on long lasting and dependable lights. Tomahawk 720 would crush a 5*5 and there's others, Optic is a name mentioned by a user here that's a really nice light but again, more expensive than the asian 1 year wonders.
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sfw1960
Well-Known Member
I have a bunch of DIY lights and most are HLG panels.
Thru end of month:
Need promo code Croptober for the 25% off as the sale was supposed to end last night.
The Tomahawk 650 is a hundo less but wouldn't cover the 5*5 as well in flower but would still veg it great, probably no hurry because black Friday might see a bigger or same discount but IDK for sure.
horticulturelightinggroup.com
***************************************
horticulturelightinggroup.com
Thru end of month:
Need promo code Croptober for the 25% off as the sale was supposed to end last night.
The Tomahawk 650 is a hundo less but wouldn't cover the 5*5 as well in flower but would still veg it great, probably no hurry because black Friday might see a bigger or same discount but IDK for sure.
HLG Tomahawk 720
HLG Tomahawk 720 Bar Lamp’s revolutionary design has been created specifically for indoor commercial and home horticulture. With 700W of power and 5 bars of Full Spectrum White with Deep Red LEDs, this lamp provides a comprehensive range of light that can enhance plant growth and maximize yields.
horticulturelightinggroup.com
***************************************
HLG Tomahawk 650
HLG Tomahawk 650 Bar Lamp’s revolutionary design has been created specifically for indoor commercial and home horticulture. With 650W of power and 5 bars of Full Spectrum White with Deep Red LEDs, this lamp provides a comprehensive range of light that can enhance plant growth and maximize yields.
horticulturelightinggroup.com
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tstick
Well-Known Member
What I don't understand is how someone who wants to START an indoor grow (for the first time), will opt for such a large space. What is your growing experience? You might want to consider starting smaller and seeing how that goes, first. I am only growing enough for my own personal use and my 2 X 2 and 3 X 3 tents are more than enough space for me. I think it would be VERY difficult for a new grower starting with such a large area. For example, it's bad enough when I have to deal with bugs or some kind of pH issue (currently dealing with)....It can be a real pain in the ass -even on a small scale.
I don't mean to be snarky by this, but when you say that you are interested in the Kind LED brand, it "kind" of indicates that you're not very informed about modern lighting options. The Lighting Gods of RIU will not approve!
If I've missed something and gotten out of line, then I apologize....but if I was starting out, then I'd definitely get my feet wet on a smaller scale, first.
I don't mean to be snarky by this, but when you say that you are interested in the Kind LED brand, it "kind" of indicates that you're not very informed about modern lighting options. The Lighting Gods of RIU will not approve!
If I've missed something and gotten out of line, then I apologize....but if I was starting out, then I'd definitely get my feet wet on a smaller scale, first.
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Just a couple thoughts... outdoor and indoor are two different worlds, might be better to first gain some experiance, then expand. I'll bet it would influence your setup and equipment decisions.
Co2 in tents? How would you control temperature humidity?
Thundercat
Well-Known Member
I love growing in basements, but I've only ever had unfinished basements. If yours is finished and temp controled just ignore the rest of this post 
.
The first grow I did that way was in a homebuilt tent. It work just fine, but was not easy to control the temps on in the open unfinished basement. The next grow I build a small room setup and insulated the parts I could and vented my light hood to exhaust the heat and help control the environment. My next build got better exhausting, a dehumidifier, and and more space, but less insulation(which bit me in the ass in the winter a few times).
Environment and Genetics is what grows plants. You are just there to facilitate that. So everything you can do to control that is going to improve your success.
So tents are all well and good if that's the best option. But if you have that much space is there a reason you aren't building a room? Rooms can be insulated to drastically improve climate control. You could even do tents inside a room( a lung room). Or theoretically, even tents inside a tent like someone up top said if you really can't build anything solid.
. The first grow I did that way was in a homebuilt tent. It work just fine, but was not easy to control the temps on in the open unfinished basement. The next grow I build a small room setup and insulated the parts I could and vented my light hood to exhaust the heat and help control the environment. My next build got better exhausting, a dehumidifier, and and more space, but less insulation(which bit me in the ass in the winter a few times).
Environment and Genetics is what grows plants. You are just there to facilitate that. So everything you can do to control that is going to improve your success.
So tents are all well and good if that's the best option. But if you have that much space is there a reason you aren't building a room? Rooms can be insulated to drastically improve climate control. You could even do tents inside a room( a lung room). Or theoretically, even tents inside a tent like someone up top said if you really can't build anything solid.
Fair point.
"The Lighting Gods of RIU…" love it!I don't mean to be snarky by this, but when you say that you are interested in the Kind LED brand, it "kind" of indicates that you're not very informed about modern lighting options. The Lighting Gods of RIU will not approve!
If I've missed something and gotten out of line, then I apologize....but if I was starting out, then I'd definitely get my feet wet on a smaller scale, first.
I understand where you're going and, until I went back to the Kind site yesterday, my primary concern was the lack of PPFD maps on the Kind site. To my way of thinking, a vendor's site will put up the information that they believe will do the best to maximize long term profits for the company. If it's on the site, it's there for a reason. Alternatively, if it's not on the site, it's not there for a reason. Kind, historically, did not publish their numbers. Chilled publishes third party efficiency and PPFD data. HLG publishes efficiency reports and has third party PPFD maps for a few of their lights. more manufacturers are posting PPFD maps but the vast majority are in house. Seeing that "everyone" was posting numbers and Kind didn't, I put them in the "Nope" category.
Lo and behold, Kind does publish PPFD charts for their lights! However, when I check their specs, they're still in the Nope category for me. I don't have info on their X Series lights, which they tout at the "commercial" line, but they don't have a compelling argument in their "Home" series, either.
One issue is for growing in a CO2 enhanced environment. I'll impose the "Bugbee standard" when it comes to CO2 - CO2 should be 1200ppm and PPFD should be 1200µmols. "should be" - meaning that's what he recommends in one of his many YT videos (check for a short vid with CO2 in the title but I don't recall the name off the top of my head). None of the Kind X Series lights come even close to a PPFD of 1200µmols so
Looking at the X Series lights, their output is in the Migro array region - they'll get you to the lowest part of the light saturation point but not much further (the range for the LSP is 800-1000µmols). I bring up Migro intentionally, BTW, because Migro is selling below the price of competing lights and one way they can drop their price and still keep their margins is to sell a lower-powered light into a given market.
The PPFD map for the X750 from Kind is shown below. It sells for $995. Lights for a 4' from Mars and Spider are markedly less expensive and generate about 50% more photons than the Kind. And they generate enough light to take advantage of 1200PPM CO2.
What about being able to use the change the spectrum as shown on the Kindsite? Will that make up for the difference in PPFD? I can't see that it will.
"Light color drives plant shape; light quantity drives yield." Nothing controversial there, right? Plants exposed to blue light will be short and compact, while red light "encourages cell expansion". Also we know that there's an almost linear relationship between light levels and crop yield.
OK, those are basic facts about grow lighting. I'll add one more thing - with a fully tunable spectrum, which their commercial light might support but the X series lights don't, you could avoid what I refer to as "the blue photon penalty". Blue photons make a plant grow short and bushy. The low height makes it easier to work with the plants and it encourages branching but blue photons reduce yield in flower.
The paper "Cannabis lighting: Decreasing blue photon fraction increases yield but efficacy is more important for cost effective production of cannabinoids", the Abstract states:
"The lowest fraction of blue photons was 4% from HPS, and increased to 9.8, 10.4, 16, and 20% from LEDs. There was a consistent, linear, 12% decrease in yield in each study as the fraction of blue photons increased from 4 to 20%…Yield was higher at a PPFD of 900 than at 750 μmol m-2 s-1. There was no effect of spectral quality on CBD or THC concentration."
OK, 20W% blue photons dropped yield by 12% so why not get a Kind light so that you can shut off the blue photons flower? Good idea but you can't do that. The X series Kind doesn't have a tuable
The X 750 doesn't have a tunable spectrum, unfortunately. If it did, the yield from a Kind grow might be able to overcome the lack of PPFD. Unfortunately, it's not a tunable spectrum light rather it's "yet another white LED" with a switch that adds some extra red + some far red but there's not way to cut down on the blue photons. The PPFD output is too low to use with CO2 and for any grow that doesn't have an almost perfectly flat canopy, you won't be able to get enough light on a good portion of the grow area to hit the light saturation point. Finally, at 2.55µmol/J their lights are less efficient than the competition. The latter isn't a major point but it does bear mentioning.
All told, I don't see that the Kind X series will generate the yield that a grower will get from lights from other manufacturers that are significantly less expensive and that can be used in a CO2 enhanced environment. I understand that Kind is making controllable spectrum the center piece of their buying proposition but the only data that they offer, the PPFD map, actually works to undercut their argument.
The bottom line - lacking the ability to shut off the blue photons, Kind goes back in the "Nope" category for me.
Really interesting spectrum and excellent PPFD map is the ProGrow 320. It's designed for a 2' x 4' and the fact that their spectrum is a clone of the flower spectrum that Chilled has had for years is quite a fortunate coincidence. Two of those would work quite nicely in a 4' space.
Hello all again, I thank everyone for all the great comments and advice. I have a basement that is fully insulated and heated. I also have a commercial dehumidifier if needed. Also have ac in the basement. I’m definitely learning about led lighting and the various brands and outputs. I really appreciate all the comments and concerns. Honestly it’s the only way to learn is from people who have done it. I’m trying to get an idea of what the best equipment would be for two 5x5’s. I don’t mean to sound like a snob, but I’d like to start out with exceptional equipment regardless of the price. I’d like to cut out as many problems as I can before starting. I know there are so many variables when growing. I have other hobbies like saltwater fish and corals and racing super bikes professionally. So I realize what it’s like trying to get things dialed in. It’s all a learning experience and enjoy meeting people with the same interests. One thing I’ve noticed is anyone who’s really into hobbies is always willing to share advice and help others that are at a learning level. No one starts out as a pro, so I really do appreciate and enjoy learning from everyone here.
What do you think of theFair point.
"The Lighting Gods of RIU…" love it!
I understand where you're going and, until I went back to the Kind site yesterday, my primary concern was the lack of PPFD maps on the Kind site. To my way of thinking, a vendor's site will put up the information that they believe will do the best to maximize long term profits for the company. If it's on the site, it's there for a reason. Alternatively, if it's not on the site, it's not there for a reason. Kind, historically, did not publish their numbers. Chilled publishes third party efficiency and PPFD data. HLG publishes efficiency reports and has third party PPFD maps for a few of their lights. more manufacturers are posting PPFD maps but the vast majority are in house. Seeing that "everyone" was posting numbers and Kind didn't, I put them in the "Nope" category.
Lo and behold, Kind does publish PPFD charts for their lights! However, when I check their specs, they're still in the Nope category for me. I don't have info on their X Series lights, which they tout at the "commercial" line, but they don't have a compelling argument in their "Home" series, either.
One issue is for growing in a CO2 enhanced environment. I'll impose the "Bugbee standard" when it comes to CO2 - CO2 should be 1200ppm and PPFD should be 1200µmols. "should be" - meaning that's what he recommends in one of his many YT videos (check for a short vid with CO2 in the title but I don't recall the name off the top of my head). None of the Kind X Series lights come even close to a PPFD of 1200µmols so
Looking at the X Series lights, their output is in the Migro array region - they'll get you to the lowest part of the light saturation point but not much further (the range for the LSP is 800-1000µmols). I bring up Migro intentionally, BTW, because Migro is selling below the price of competing lights and one way they can drop their price and still keep their margins is to sell a lower-powered light into a given market.
The PPFD map for the X750 from Kind is shown below. It sells for $995. Lights for a 4' from Mars and Spider are markedly less expensive and generate about 50% more photons than the Kind. And they generate enough light to take advantage of 1200PPM CO2.
View attachment 5339662
What about being able to use the change the spectrum as shown on the Kindsite? Will that make up for the difference in PPFD? I can't see that it will.
"Light color drives plant shape; light quantity drives yield." Nothing controversial there, right? Plants exposed to blue light will be short and compact, while red light "encourages cell expansion". Also we know that there's an almost linear relationship between light levels and crop yield.
OK, those are basic facts about grow lighting. I'll add one more thing - with a fully tunable spectrum, which their commercial light might support but the X series lights don't, you could avoid what I refer to as "the blue photon penalty". Blue photons make a plant grow short and bushy. The low height makes it easier to work with the plants and it encourages branching but blue photons reduce yield in flower.
The paper "Cannabis lighting: Decreasing blue photon fraction increases yield but efficacy is more important for cost effective production of cannabinoids", the Abstract states:
"The lowest fraction of blue photons was 4% from HPS, and increased to 9.8, 10.4, 16, and 20% from LEDs. There was a consistent, linear, 12% decrease in yield in each study as the fraction of blue photons increased from 4 to 20%…Yield was higher at a PPFD of 900 than at 750 μmol m-2 s-1. There was no effect of spectral quality on CBD or THC concentration."
OK, 20W% blue photons dropped yield by 12% so why not get a Kind light so that you can shut off the blue photons flower? Good idea but you can't do that. The X series Kind doesn't have a tuable
The X 750 doesn't have a tunable spectrum, unfortunately. If it did, the yield from a Kind grow might be able to overcome the lack of PPFD. Unfortunately, it's not a tunable spectrum light rather it's "yet another white LED" with a switch that adds some extra red + some far red but there's not way to cut down on the blue photons. The PPFD output is too low to use with CO2 and for any grow that doesn't have an almost perfectly flat canopy, you won't be able to get enough light on a good portion of the grow area to hit the light saturation point. Finally, at 2.55µmol/J their lights are less efficient than the competition. The latter isn't a major point but it does bear mentioning.
All told, I don't see that the Kind X series will generate the yield that a grower will get from lights from other manufacturers that are significantly less expensive and that can be used in a CO2 enhanced environment. I understand that Kind is making controllable spectrum the center piece of their buying proposition but the only data that they offer, the PPFD map, actually works to undercut their argument.
The bottom line - lacking the ability to shut off the blue photons, Kind goes back in the "Nope" category for me.
Really interesting spectrum and excellent PPFD map is the ProGrow 320. It's designed for a 2' x 4' and the fact that their spectrum is a clone of the flower spectrum that Chilled has had for years is quite a fortunate coincidence. Two of those would work quite nicely in a 4' space.
Photontek XT 1000W CO2 Pro LED
Perhaps the Kind X2 series, which they dub "Commercial", would fit into the category of "exceptional". From what I can see of their X series, it's not suited to your needs because their lights do not generate enough PPFD to take advantage elevated CO2 levels and their claims are unsupported and suspect re. superiority in ambient CO2 levels, as well.
For excellent environmental equipment, I've used a Pulse One and Inkbirds for humidity and temperature and I replaced them with the AC Infinity Controller 69 and their humidifier. Those products have been superb. Highly recommended.
Light meter - Uni-T (Bluetooth) or, if you're so inclined, an Apogee. I use an MQ-500 and it's an excellent piece of equipment. I also have a Uni-T (not Bluetooth) that I use from time to time. The Apogee (or a Li-Cor) are the marquee names but SPOT On looks good, as well. The Apogee and the Uni-T should result in close to the same numbers but you'll only know for sure with the Apogee, ±5% of course. Just like the Uni-T.
If you want to avoid the blue photon penalty, get separate veg and flower lights. HLG makes "separates", as does Chilled. I went with Chilled because I didn't want to try to work around the HLG hot spot. Back then, HLG produced only board lights but their most recent lights are a completely different design so they may warrant investigation.
harris hawk
Well-Known Member
make sure your tent has a light that will be strong enough for you tent (light intensity and pentration) text book - plants need 2.5 ft (growing space) per plant - can increase this by using 3 gallon instear of 5 gallon
Big light.
Not HLG driver, not that there's anything wrong with that.
Not Samsung diodes, not that there's anything wrong with that.
Compare the PPFD map to a big Mars or Spider light. The Spider 1k watt light looks a lot light their SE 700, both excellent. The Photonek is no slouch but the Spider lights put out more photons. OTOH, the Spider spectrum is a white light vs the Photontek which is red heavy.
Photontek has a red heavy, blue-not-heavy spectrum. Very similar to the Chilled flower spectrum. You might want to go with a veg light if you go with the Photontek but not necessary if you've height in the grow room.
Mars and Spider seem to be more consumer oriented whereas the Photontek strikes me as more industrial. On that point, Mars has an app - I didn't see that from Photontek but they do have an industrial looking controller.
Perhaps growers from the commercial space can provide input on the Photontek.
Thundercat
Well-Known Member
I've been watching the LED market for years. It seems like there are tons of okay options. When I build out my next room I'm hoping to go with @Grow Lights Australia. I've got a buddy with fluence lights that he likes a lot.
tstick
Well-Known Member
I have only purchased lights over the years from people who have been vetted by this forum. I've read posts where people were ripping each other apart over which lights they were/weren't using. Apache Tech was the gold standard at that time....(and now they hardly ever get a mention). Vero, Cree and Meanwell caused more arguments than any other three words in the dictionary for awhile, here! And now after all that, we have arrived at a point in time where ANYone can get pretty much whatever they want in terms of equipment. In fact, growers don't even have to be at the grow!....They can just do it all from their phones! Sheesh! I mean, that would take the fun out of it, for me, but I'm just pointing out how quickly the tech advances and becomes readily-available. Even some of the (what USED to be called) "cheap" Chinese junk companies have come back stronger than ever and are now producing quality lights that will grow plants as good as any other company's lights. Personally, I like the idea of picking a company that provides good customer service in addition to safe and dependable lights. HLG..."Timber"...Area51....Nextlight...and, yes, even Updayday! LOL! -I own lights by ALL of these companies. Some of them have gone away. ALL of them were discovered after reading this forum.
And now after all that, we have arrived at a point in time where ANYone can get pretty much whatever they want in terms of equipment. In fact, growers don't even have to be at the grow!....They can just do it all from their phones! Sheesh! I mean, that would take the fun out of it, for me, but I'm just pointing out how quickly the tech advances and becomes readily-available. Even some of the (what USED to be called) "cheap" Chinese junk companies have come back stronger than ever and are now producing quality lights that will grow plants as good as any other company's lights. Personally, I like the idea of picking a company that provides good customer service in addition to safe and dependable lights. HLG..."Timber"...Area51....Nextlight...and, yes, even Updayday! LOL! -I own lights by ALL of these companies. Some of them have gone away. ALL of them were discovered after reading this forum.
sfw1960
Well-Known Member
@Mazz744
Check this out!
CAUBAK https://a.co/d/8Mojg1l
$116.99 plus 15% coupon
Amz big discount 5*5 tents, under 100 USD with coupon
@tstick
What about Mieemclux and i-Plantop?
(I could spell and remember those names)
I still have a few of those QB klonez and I ran and sold cheap a big ole pile of their blurples to and boy they were steaming hot poo lol
They brought the ganj but with tons of heat, poor efficiency, fans puking left and right and you probably know about what many people refer to as "the typical chinese warranty" so I'm glad I upgraded the fans to 50k hr double BB higher RPM units for maybe a cycle or two more before something else failed.
Sold cheap.
The only reason I have the other two is I don't run them anyplace near max.
They both have 150w drive attached and neither will go lower than around 90 watts. A Sosen (kaka) and a Ming Wei ELG 200H-48A which runs on 120v too but the efficiency drops off and it'll only get ya 200 watts on 240v - if it was the good ole standby HLG 150 or a 185 you'd get full power. Not worth the price of another driver so I got two corner irons and turned the driver on it's side because the ELG series has the pots on the BOTTOM...
Anyways with all the discussion of wanting a few 5*5's it's a pretty good deal as long as the zippers and stitching are fairly decent.
Check this out!
CAUBAK https://a.co/d/8Mojg1l
$116.99 plus 15% coupon
Amz big discount 5*5 tents, under 100 USD with coupon
@tstick
What about Mieemclux and i-Plantop?
(I could spell and remember those names)
I still have a few of those QB klonez and I ran and sold cheap a big ole pile of their blurples to and boy they were steaming hot poo lol
They brought the ganj but with tons of heat, poor efficiency, fans puking left and right and you probably know about what many people refer to as "the typical chinese warranty" so I'm glad I upgraded the fans to 50k hr double BB higher RPM units for maybe a cycle or two more before something else failed.
Sold cheap.
The only reason I have the other two is I don't run them anyplace near max.
They both have 150w drive attached and neither will go lower than around 90 watts. A Sosen (kaka) and a Ming Wei ELG 200H-48A which runs on 120v too but the efficiency drops off and it'll only get ya 200 watts on 240v - if it was the good ole standby HLG 150 or a 185 you'd get full power. Not worth the price of another driver so I got two corner irons and turned the driver on it's side because the ELG series has the pots on the BOTTOM...
Anyways with all the discussion of wanting a few 5*5's it's a pretty good deal as long as the zippers and stitching are fairly decent.
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coreywebster
Well-Known Member
Mazz, i think you mentioned photontek,
Which is the US brand name for lights known as Lumatek over in Europe, a brand that came from HID lighting and has been around a long time.
I own one and they are great lights that have good customer service and will stand behind their warranty.
Also own lots of horticultural lighting group lights and some grow light Australia boards.
Both those companies started out on this forum and have excellent customer services and great lights. Good people.
But there are also many other great lights from reliable companies these days.
Which is the US brand name for lights known as Lumatek over in Europe, a brand that came from HID lighting and has been around a long time.
I own one and they are great lights that have good customer service and will stand behind their warranty.
Also own lots of horticultural lighting group lights and some grow light Australia boards.
Both those companies started out on this forum and have excellent customer services and great lights. Good people.
But there are also many other great lights from reliable companies these days.
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amneziaHaze
Well-Known Member
I got the europian version lumatek 300w and its an amazing light i have a diary here