First time grow - Few things before I plant

Peg

Active Member
Just would like to check a few things with the setup I have. I'm building a small growing area in the sink cabinet in my bathroom. Area is H26"XW33"XD25" ... I have lined the interior with the satin side of aluminum foil and have setup 3 vertical 25" 75 W flourescent warm white lights and am looking to buy 2 hps lights to hang over the two grow rows. I am at a lose of how much I can fit into this very tight space, so that would be my first question. My second question would be if anyone had some ideas on how to run a ventilation system on this. I have 4 80mm case fans and a 200w psu I am toying w/ to see if I can setup a small input/output system. I already have a small oscillating fan on the inside. Also, I have a surge protector (running to a timer) wired up inside as a convergence point for all my lights, but I'm told it gets very humid in these boxes so I have some worry about a short. Any suggestions would be lovely. Thanks!
 

dertmagert

Well-Known Member
well first i must say that putting 2 hps in that small space may be pretty ugly.. its gonna heat up bad and make your plants grow way too fast.. u need to let them grow slowly so u can control their growth in such a small space.. i would go with all CFLs.. they are cheap, easy to install, and have pretty good results.. im using a very small cabinet myself to veg in.. see my grow in my signature.. it might give u some ideas
 

Peg

Active Member
Thanks for the reply. How much space is that between your cfls and the tops of the bud when blooming(and what strain)? I am using (for my first) something a bit better than whats dubbed around here as "christmas", but I don't really know what it is since seeds seem hard to come by (paranoid about ordering seeds from businesses and all). I intend on ripping that tin foil crap out and doing a proper job with white plastic after I get the main lighting setup down. A few threads in other forums recommended the tin foil, but it seems pretty taboo around here. Non the less, I will look into cfl's ... are the flourescents worth while or just a bunch of clutter?
 

dertmagert

Well-Known Member
the floros arent going hurt at all.. more light = more bud.... CFLs are just easier to place directly where u need the light instead of having to stretch the light across the surface of the tube.. i keep my CFLs about 2-4 inches away... 4 if they are looking like they are shriveling from the heat and 2 if they look good
 

Peg

Active Member
I went and purchased 12 cool white 60 volt cfl's today (rating about 800 lumens appeace) and am designating two of them per plant for the veg period. I have been contemplating adding a third cfl (warm white) to make a little upside down hanging tripod over each plant, but I've been told warm white flouro's only help during flowering. Tomorrow I shall pick up two 16"-17" strips of alluminum rods to setup a hanger/bantry system for each row. Also, the bulb setup is a bit of a jerry rigged system as I went and bought a spool of 14 gauge main wire, bulb pots, and outlet ends to build the first rows lighting rig. I really can't think of any way to ventilate this setup as I want to keep the cabinet doors shut. I have noticed that the doors leave large cracks around the edges so I figured I might be able to rig up a long scoop-tube and put a charcoal canister on the end with a fan, but it seems like it would be too big. Any ideas on how to kill the smell and or ventilate this beast. If pics would help, I could start throwing a few at yah. Thanks for the help.

EDIT:

To make sure I'm not going to burn my bathroom down I calculated amperage of the total setup using 2 cfl's per plant:4bulbs(34W/120V + 12bulbs(13W/120V) = 2.433 Amps ... using 3 cfl's per plant:4bulbs(34W/120V) + 18bulbs(13W/120V) = 3.083 Amps .... w/ a difference of about .65 Amps. Man those cfl's main quite the difference in comparison to those 60 watt round glass bulbs.
 
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