First Grow Room Small Complications/Questions. (Overwhelmed)

Hello everybody, ive been researching for probably over 500 hours trying to critique every detail for my grow room before i purchase anything but everytime i think i know what i need and how to do it another obstacle stands in my way. Growing is not an easy thing to learn over night and ive found this out by personal experience. I welcome all experienced growers to shed some light on my issues. Greatly appreciated! We've all been newbies so all of you know how i feel (stressed, over preparing, lost and confused, overloaded with details).

Light
- Looking to do a full hps grow from start to finish.
- Wanting to either get a cmh or a agro (or something along those lines)
The question: If i was going to use either of those which would be better? I know that cmh is being discontinued and that it has the best spectrum but its also hard to find. Now the real problem is " will any model or type of Master Color Ceramic Metal Halide HPS work or does it have to be specific and same goes for agro"

If it does or doesnt need to be specific could anyone direct me to a great bulb website ( a non hydroponic or well known grow supplier trying to be stealth or do they not track that?)

Ventilation
Before i explain the issue lemme give you some details and dimensions that'll help you help me. The room is a closet thats 5x3.5x6 but its in an "L" shape so decided to cut off a part of the "L" and turn that into a supply/humidifier area. Which means the actual growing space is 3x5x6 its complicated to explain without a picture. its more like an "l" shape now but horizontal.

The Plan- Ill have a grow light air cooled system in the center with ducting on the top of the lights drawing all the hot air out. This duct will run into the initial exhaust fan line with carbon scrubber attached. The fan will be on the right end of the horizontal room which will go through the wall and under a staircase.

I will have an inline fan (4" carbon filtered)on the left end of the room sucking air conditioning from the other room. The exhaust fan will then suck all the air from the inline fan (or i guess intake? not sure of the difference if you could elaborate) through the path of the plants and out under the stairs. Reason i was going to use a carbon filtered inline was because we smoke in the house and i dont want ciggaweed in my grow room.

I also plan on putting an inline fan a couple inches in the duct for the lights heat. In theory it would suck more hot air out of the lights and blowing it down through the ducting faster creating lower temperatures in the room. And i was also thinking about another inline in the initial exhaust duct.

The Question: Whats the difference between an inline fan and an intake fan. And do i really need all of those inlines? And is there a way to just recirculated all my exhaust air back through the room? Or is that a nono.

The Problem: I dont think i can run ducting into the ceiling and maybe because the closet is exactly under a staircase on all angles except the inline wall. And i dont know if there is exactly any space for a 4in duct. Is there a way for me to set up some kind of badass quiet ventilation system without going into the walls or ceiling? Obviously the exhaust needs put in.


Quick Simple Questions
Do i even need an exhaust or could i just use inline fans with high cfm? I dont really get the concept of inlines and exhaust if someone could explain fully id be greatly appreciated!

Ive seen videos of people with their carbon scrubber on the inside of the room why is this? Can you use the exhaust air as an intake as well? Making it one big loop of circulation?

IF ANYONE COULD POST A STRAIT UP STEP BY STEP TO GET THIS ROOM UP AND RUNNING EASILY AND PROFESSIONALLY!!!! THANKS IN ADVANCE!!!!!!!

Are you saying that you are going to put a carbon filter on the intake ??

HPS are great lights. They do produce HEAT. Which you need to expel. Do not Loop your Air system... The heat + Air looping back on itself = Convection Oven .... That be a..... No, No
Fresh Air in... Warm Air out.

Commander Strax said:

Are you saying that you are going to put a carbon filter on the intake ??

Click to expand...

They sellem on ebay i believe or i maybe be mistaken.

Ringsixty said:

HPS are great lights. They do produce HEAT. Which you need to expel. Do not Loop your Air system... The heat + Air looping back on itself = Convection Oven .... That be a..... No, No
Fresh Air in... Warm Air out.

Click to expand...

Thankyou! What about my inlines/exhaust system how many inlines should i use?

You want the filter on your exhaust to eliminate odor of your leaving air, not on the fresh air coming in.

So instead of a exhaust system like a nutone from home depot should i just get this- INLINE/Exhaust. But i would really like to go about this without buying a fan online. I believe that would be unwise and might be a flag that im doing something. What could i use to bring cold fresh air through a 1 wall????

So it sounds like your looking at something in the 400w range? That is as big as the CMH goes, I hear they are great lights just make sure you do the research on it. I don't believe they can be used with a digital ballast. I have a setup in my closet that is 2x4x8 and use a 400 with just one 4" 160cfm "inline" fan. I have the carbon filter located mounted at the top of my closet, it pulls hot stinky air through filter which is ducted to my hood (glass in vented hood) which is ducted to my inline fan. From there my fan is ducted and pushes that air out into the attic. I started with a passive intake the negative pressure in my closet would suck outside room air in. I then added a small 5" fan I got from CVS and rigged it up to help pull in outside air and increase air exchange and reduce negative pressure. It also helped reduce temps a couple degrees. For exhaust out don't go with any small computer fan, duct fan or booster fan form home debot. Stick with a inline fan, I like vortex....I always recommend the bigger more CFM fans (wish I had a 6" setup) and using a speed controller so you can dial in the setup and run it at a lower speed (less noise). For intake you can start with passive and if needed add a something else later. As far as filtering the incoming smokey air I am not sure, maybe a negative ion, some filtering fan that would help?

Can you tell us more about size of light your thinking of?

You don't wanna run AC into your light, just use fresh air. The cold air actually works against the bulbs effectiveness (from Hortilux)

Run fresh air into your light and exhaust the hot air out. If you can pump that AC into the closet instead of the light.

The size light you're going to use
has a direct impact on how large of a fan you'll need. The heat difference between a 400 watt and a 1,000 watt is huge..if you're not sure about fan size go bigger instead of smaller.

AvidSmoker420 said:

Hello everybody, ive been researching for probably over 500 hours trying to critique every detail for my grow room before i purchase anything but everytime i think i know what i need and how to do it another obstacle stands in my way.

Click to expand...

I'm thinking that number might be a slight exaggeration.

I am going to use a viagrow light 400hps/mh grow light system with remote ballast and timer. With either an agro or hortilhx or cmh. And as for inline fans I was gonna have my intake carbon filtered 6in. And the rest of my ducting will be dedicated for exhaust or hot air from the lights. And why no duct boosters? Home depot also sells viagrow carbon filters. Now what if I couldn't have an intake of ac air what would my options be?

I want to say first, I'm an HPS grower.

Then I would say considering you need stealth fans (quiet), and have no place to really vent to, my I suggest re-thinking your lighting.

T5 HO's are great for veg, give off relatively little heat, there's a ton of different lengths and number of bulbs to fit even odd places, and when it's time to flower, swap out a few bulbs that favor flowering. Will you get the same yield as HPS....some would and have debated this often. I have a friend that's been growing under floros for years and has the best looking plants around.

There will be someone jumping on here and saying T5's are no good for flowering, and I'm willing to bet that these same people have never even tried.

I've been battling the heat issues from HPS the last few months and if I could do it over again, I would have stuck with T5's and not had to jump through hoops and expense of massive noisy venting.