400w Club-Show Off Your 400w Pride And Joy

Huh?? said:
Thanks man!:-D The link to my journal is below.
I didn't know if I was allowed in the 400w club because technically I'm using 800 watts,but I thought I saw another post using 2 400w lights.
Click to expand...

I don't see why not. Having the two lights just allows you to grow a greater number of plants. The quality of any one plant is still mostly dependent on how good you are at squeezing productivity out of 400W.

Right, all...?
 
^^if thats the case then i can still be in the club !
here are some pics of my grow.
14 plants 2 400 w hps for flowering fox farm nutes in soil vegged for a month 48 days flowering with quite some time to go. i have blue mystic,afghan mafia and some unknowen going all at the same time . the pepsi bottle is 24oz.

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Hey everyone. I gotta say that you guys have made my day. I just found this thread and it's cleared up a lot of worries I had about 400w of anything, lol. It's been about 8 years since my last grow and back then, I used only CFL's and I grew in soil. Now I have done my homework over the last 6 months and I've bought everything I will need for my new adventure. Well almost everything. The main thing though, is my 400w MH and my 400w HPS w/ a Lumatek switchable ballast. I have also ventured into bubbleponics. Which by the way, I noticed a lot of you using the rubbermaids or buckets and you were taping up the sides. Great idea, but I found a much easier solution. BGHYDRO.COM has 5 gallon black buckets and they sell 6" net pot bucket lids. That makes life way easier. Anyway, I set up everything for a test run the other day, and I was a little concerned about 2 things. I did the test run in a 2' x 2' x 8' closet which is significantly smaller than the cab I am building. It's gonna be a stealth armoire that is 4' x 2' x 6.5'

Ok.... concern 1.) The test run proved to give off amazing light being that the walls are already a flat white but the problem was that my temps were around 101 degrees F. Granted I didn't have any intake or exhaust set-up but it was still pretty high. I plan on using a S&P TD 100 (100cfm) fan for my intake and a S&P TD100X (130cfm) fan for exhaust. Should I use it the other way around and will that be enough?

2.) My humidity was in the teens. Granted I had no plants in there, but the fact that there was no airflow and my bubbleponics set-up was in there, I would think that my humidity would have been higher.

Any thoughts?
 
rreign said:
Hey everyone. I gotta say that you guys have made my day. I just found this thread and it's cleared up a lot of worries I had about 400w of anything, lol.
Click to expand...

Same for me. I almost started with flouros, then said "no way.. I need more than that.." and once I had my 400W in hand I was like...."hmmmm...I hope this is enough.. damn". This thread was what put my doubts to rest, too.

Sounds like your fan setup should solve your temp problem. Of course, the lower you can keep your ambient temp outside the armoire, the lower it will be in the box.

Your humidity will def go up once you have water and plants rolling around in there.
 
Hey Guys. Guess I'm guilty of starting the 2x400 watt thing.

I think the 400 watts are just perfect for most small grow areas. They are not that expensive, don't get too hot and won't raise your power bill a whole lot.

Anyone can grow some super size buds with these lights so I just had to add another one so I could add more plants, 19 now.

I air cooled one of my lights and kept it within inches of a plant and the buds were giant.

2x400 watt ak 48, ice & haze grow
 
Kriegs said:
Same for me. I almost started with flouros, then said "no way.. I need more than that.." and once I had my 400W in hand I was like...."hmmmm...I hope this is enough.. damn". This thread was what put my doubts to rest, too.

Sounds like your fan setup should solve your temp problem. Of course, the lower you can keep your ambient temp outside the armoire, the lower it will be in the box.

Your humidity will def go up once you have water and plants rolling around in there.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input. I can't wait to OFFICIALLY be in the 400w club, lol. That's just funny to say. Anyway, yeah I thought about going back to CFL's and I thought about bumping up to a 600w. I started another thread about the ideas of fans versus what lights etc I should go with and someone mentioned a 400 over a 600. After that, I just went with it.
 
I just started my first grow last night using a single 400w mh bulb (I have a 400w hps bulb to switch in when it's time to flower), so i don't have pictures of anything but a few pots with clones in them at this point, but I'll be sure to post pictures as the grow progresses.

I do have a quick question. The only experienced grower I know keeps telling me I need to upgrade to a 1000w hps system (preferably 2) before I get to the flowering stage because the 400w isn't powerful enough/doesn't cover enough area. Now, I'm only growing 6 plants in 3 gallon pots, and plan to flower them after 4 weeks, so is second light/more powerful light really going to be necessary?

At the moment I have them in about a 3x2 section of a walk in closet, but will be able to move them into an open room as they grow if needed.
 
I don't know how much of the thread that you have seen/read but I think that with such a small area, it's going to be a matter of preferance. I haven't done a grow with my 400w or anything more than CFL's for that matter, but honestly, it's all about lumens per square foot. You can never have too much light, but is it worth the extra money on your light bill every month? A good 400W will give off about 55,000 lumens. You could also add some sub lighting like strip CFL's for the added lumens and side lighting. That's what I plan on.

The sun will naturally give off about 10,000 lumens per sqft. My stealth armoire will be 4x2x6.5. That's right at 8 square foot or 52 cubic foot. You only need about 3000 lumens per square foot but ideally and closer to perfection, you want 7000 - 10,000 lumens per sqft. With my set-up, I will have about 9000 lumens per sqft.

(4) 4ft 54W 3000k Sunblaze CFL's in the corners (that's about 20,000 lumens) and a 400w MH (about 55,000 lumens) for Veg. I am using the CFL's to give a little more multi spectrum of lumens.

Then I will use (4) 4ft 54W 6000k Sunblaze CFL's in the corners and a 400w HPS for flower.

So do you really need to go to a 1000W ?? I think not.
 
You could fit 9 plants in three gallon pots under that 400. I usually have 6 under each of my 400's, they do fine. A bigger light would make the buds a little fuller, and cause more of the small lower buds to fill in, but it isn't required.
 
Here's a couple of mine under a 400W MH at 4 weeks veg - bubblelicious and superskunks (Nirvana). They'll go under 12/12 in another week or two -- a couple just had a recent FIM to recover from. Pic's 2-3 are FIM close-ups.
 
Nice looking plants. :) How tall are they? It's hard to judge from the pics. The clones I started last night are a 50/50 indica/sativa mix , so I'm hoping they won't end up getting too big on the 3 month growth schedule.


Thanks for all the replies. Everything I've read suggested that the 400w would be enough, but he felt so strongly about the 1000w that I wanted to get some other opinions. I like the ideas about the supplementary lights for the sides, especially since they can be done at a lower cost and without adding much more heat. The room the closet I'm using is in is also empty, so if they start getting wide moving them out into a more open area and setting up side lighting makes a lot more sense then putting two 1000w lights over them and trying to force the light down through the canopy.
 
Hell yeah, those plants would be dust in the morning.

Real quick, I have been nagging myself about this since my last post here. Should I use the same kelvin lights as the 400 watter or should I mix and match them like I plan?

400W HPS (3k) with 54W CFL (6k)
400W MH (6k) with 54W CFL (3k)

OR should I just keep them all the same

400W HPS (3k) with 54W CFL (3k)
400W MH (6k) with 54W CFL (6k)
 
EdGreyfox said:
I just started my first grow last night using a single 400w mh bulb (I have a 400w hps bulb to switch in when it's time to flower), so i don't have pictures of anything but a few pots with clones in them at this point, but I'll be sure to post pictures as the grow progresses.

I do have a quick question. The only experienced grower I know keeps telling me I need to upgrade to a 1000w hps system (preferably 2) before I get to the flowering stage because the 400w isn't powerful enough/doesn't cover enough area. Now, I'm only growing 6 plants in 3 gallon pots, and plan to flower them after 4 weeks, so is second light/more powerful light really going to be necessary?

At the moment I have them in about a 3x2 section of a walk in closet, but will be able to move them into an open room as they grow if needed.
Click to expand...
A 400w light will do just fine for that setup. 100w would be overkill for that few of plants. Not saying you wouldnt get bigger buds from it, but it will require a lot more than just the light to make that work in a small space. Just for piece of mind, here is my last white widow grow. 5 plants in a 3'x3' space with a 400w air cooled...
integra21-157637-albums-my-first-grow-430w-son-agro-white-widow-dwc-scrog-picture861097-week-21-62.jpg
 
rreign said:
That's exactly what he need to see Integra. +rep
Click to expand...
Forgot to post on your earlier question. That should be sufficient intake and exhaust. Youd be suprised how much that will help keep the temps down. As far as humidity, the water in the tub(res) generally stays in the res and doesnt effect RH to much. Your plants on the otherhand will. It generally goes up a decent ammount, but varies greatly based on plant size, temperature, plant health, and total airspace of the room. If it goes too high, just up your exhast and if it gets too low, just add a cool mist humidifier, At the moment I have a conststant 200cfm cooling my light and filling my room with fresh air and I use 2 cool mist humidifiers to keep the RH at about 45%. Any other questions, feel free to ask. Hope this helps.
 
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