2 questions about my design

Ok completely hypothetical question about growing vegetables under HPS lights.

1) What is more ideal- 8 1000W HPS fixtures or 12-14 600W HPS fixtures?

I was under the impression from reading Jorge\'s book that having more small fixtures are able to deliver more usable lights to the plants and create much more even light distribution because they can be closer and sources of light.

2) In a conversation about ventilation, we were confused. We planned on making 2 rows of the lights with ducting running through each row to cool off the lamps. 2 ways we were looking at doing it, one would be to run fresh air from another room cooling off the bulbs and run it right back out of the room with hopefully no smell, or we could just use the air from inside the room cooling off the bulbs. Our main concern was this- If we used the second method (where we just use the air from inside the actual grow room to cool off the lamps) would it be sufficient to keep the grow cooled off enough without another exhaust fan. In other words, would I need 3 exhaust fans (1 for the room and another one for each row of lights)?

You might get away with putting all the cooltubes in series but you will need a decent fan pulling in excess of 750cfm's. You will also need similar fan for ya grow space and 1 beast of a filter. I very much doub't you will get away without running at least 2 a/c's during the summer, I need 1 for my 3 x 600w. I am sure others will say otherwise but I would go with the 600's over 1000's, more flexability and better coverage. I hope you have got a cover story for using that much power, during the summer you will be pulling in excess of 10-12kw easily...... and that aint gonna be cheap. Make a cover story up and contact your supplier for advise and cost etc, that way they will have info on their system when the warning lights start flashing about your power consumption. If you don't ya may as well put the cuffs on yourself.