Fist grow set up

J

Johnnyblue

New Member
This will be my first attempt at growing
Tent size looking at getting 80x80x160cm plan to grow 2-3 plants or more but i imagine that would be a tight squeeze yet to decide on pot size but possibly 5L ?

Mainly unsure about light from what I've researched LED seems to be the most electricity friendly

So thinking of getting either a 600w or would 300-400w be enough ?

Also is there any specific brands I should be looking at ?
 
Last edited:
Randomestguy

Randomestguy

Well-Known Member
So several things, yield is determined by your light more or less, not number of plants, more plants would mean a shorter veg time while 1 plant would take longer to veg but both would give comparable yields, it's just how fast the canopy fills up. Also keep height in mind, any led light is gonna need around 2 feet maybe a little less of space between the tops and the light, plus pots so say your pots are a foot tall, that's 3 feet taken away plus .5-1ft~ for the hanging system. So you'd be able to grow 1.5-2ft tall plants final size as your tent is about 5 feet tall. Sorry for non metric measures but you get the idea.

Pots as long as they aren't too small go for it, your area isn't too big so that won't likely be an issue. For picking a light, yes led is pretty much the best option efficiency wise but is usually more expensive up front by a pretty penny, if you can fuck with electrical measurements and build a simple frame you're basically set for a diy led light, would cost a lot less than buying a reputable model. it's kinda intimidating seeing all the different parts and figures at first but it's pretty simple once you figure out the correct values.

Very basically (strips might be simplest) it's the led chips, a driver to plug into wall and power them, and a frame; you'll still need bells and whistles like heatsinks, potentiometer, wiring etc but that's barebones what a diy build would be. For that space just ballparking a 2-300w actual draw system would do very nicely, rule of thumb is about half a g per watt.

To wrap it up, definitely go for something with more headroom, honestly I'd say consider something bigger as you don't pay a lot more to up size in general, since you're putting good money down anyway. Reconsider leds unless you either want to build one or pay an arm and a leg for a good one, a 400w hid would work for that space and cost less up front. You'll need an oscillating fan, preferably a ph kit so you can check your own water and the runoff from pots.

If you don't have to worry about smell for your living area/location good on ya, but live plants are gonna be several times danker than that loud that fills a room when you open the bag, so for that there's several options, carbon filter usually being king. For a carbon filter you need a duct fan as well to move air/smell through it and at that point you've got a ventilation system so you could hook it up to an hid hood that has air cooling of some kind (air cooled hood, cool tube) just because the three go hand in hand.

Side note, with hid lights, the price difference between different wattage models of the same brand is ridiculous, maybe 150 for a 400w and 250 for 1000w but in turn it gives a much bigger footprint you can grow under so doubling the size of your plans won't be anywhere near twice the cost of your current plans if you catch my drift.
 
rob333

rob333

Well-Known Member
Johnnyblue said:
This will be my first attempt at growing
Tent size looking at getting 80x80x160cm plan to grow 2-3 plants or more but i imagine that would be a tight squeeze yet to decide on pot size but possibly 5L ?

Mainly unsure about light from what I've researched LED seems to be the most electricity friendly

So thinking of getting either a 600w or would 300-400w be enough ?

Also is there any specific brands I should be looking at ?
Click to expand...
ditch the leds pm me ill set u up a nice hid setup for bout 200 bucks peace
 
rob333

rob333

Well-Known Member
Randomestguy said:
So several things, yield is determined by your light more or less, not number of plants, more plants would mean a shorter veg time while 1 plant would take longer to veg but both would give comparable yields, it's just how fast the canopy fills up. Also keep height in mind, any led light is gonna need around 2 feet maybe a little less of space between the tops and the light, plus pots so say your pots are a foot tall, that's 3 feet taken away plus .5-1ft~ for the hanging system. So you'd be able to grow 1.5-2ft tall plants final size as your tent is about 5 feet tall. Sorry for non metric measures but you get the idea.

Pots as long as they aren't too small go for it, your area isn't too big so that won't likely be an issue. For picking a light, yes led is pretty much the best option efficiency wise but is usually more expensive up front by a pretty penny, if you can fuck with electrical measurements and build a simple frame you're basically set for a diy led light, would cost a lot less than buying a reputable model. it's kinda intimidating seeing all the different parts and figures at first but it's pretty simple once you figure out the correct values.

Very basically (strips might be simplest) it's the led chips, a driver to plug into wall and power them, and a frame; you'll still need bells and whistles like heatsinks, potentiometer, wiring etc but that's barebones what a diy build would be. For that space just ballparking a 2-300w actual draw system would do very nicely, rule of thumb is about half a g per watt.

To wrap it up, definitely go for something with more headroom, honestly I'd say consider something bigger as you don't pay a lot more to up size in general, since you're putting good money down anyway. Reconsider leds unless you either want to build one or pay an arm and a leg for a good one, a 400w hid would work for that space and cost less up front. You'll need an oscillating fan, preferably a ph kit so you can check your own water and the runoff from pots.

If you don't have to worry about smell for your living area/location good on ya, but live plants are gonna be several times danker than that loud that fills a room when you open the bag, so for that there's several options, carbon filter usually being king. For a carbon filter you need a duct fan as well to move air/smell through it and at that point you've got a ventilation system so you could hook it up to an hid hood that has air cooling of some kind (air cooled hood, cool tube) just because the three go hand in hand.

Side note, with hid lights, the price difference between different wattage models of the same brand is ridiculous, maybe 150 for a 400w and 250 for 1000w but in turn it gives a much bigger footprint you can grow under so doubling the size of your plans won't be anywhere near twice the cost of your current plans if you catch my drift.
Click to expand...
whats with the steven king novel bro ?
 
J

Johnnyblue

New Member
Randomestguy said:
So several things, yield is determined by your light more or less, not number of plants, more plants would mean a shorter veg time while 1 plant would take longer to veg but both would give comparable yields, it's just how fast the canopy fills up. Also keep height in mind, any led light is gonna need around 2 feet maybe a little less of space between the tops and the light, plus pots so say your pots are a foot tall, that's 3 feet taken away plus .5-1ft~ for the hanging system. So you'd be able to grow 1.5-2ft tall plants final size as your tent is about 5 feet tall. Sorry for non metric measures but you get the idea.

Pots as long as they aren't too small go for it, your area isn't too big so that won't likely be an issue. For picking a light, yes led is pretty much the best option efficiency wise but is usually more expensive up front by a pretty penny, if you can fuck with electrical measurements and build a simple frame you're basically set for a diy led light, would cost a lot less than buying a reputable model. it's kinda intimidating seeing all the different parts and figures at first but it's pretty simple once you figure out the correct values.

Very basically (strips might be simplest) it's the led chips, a driver to plug into wall and power them, and a frame; you'll still need bells and whistles like heatsinks, potentiometer, wiring etc but that's barebones what a diy build would be. For that space just ballparking a 2-300w actual draw system would do very nicely, rule of thumb is about half a g per watt.

To wrap it up, definitely go for something with more headroom, honestly I'd say consider something bigger as you don't pay a lot more to up size in general, since you're putting good money down anyway. Reconsider leds unless you either want to build one or pay an arm and a leg for a good one, a 400w hid would work for that space and cost less up front. You'll need an oscillating fan, preferably a ph kit so you can check your own water and the runoff from pots.

If you don't have to worry about smell for your living area/location good on ya, but live plants are gonna be several times danker than that loud that fills a room when you open the bag, so for that there's several options, carbon filter usually being king. For a carbon filter you need a duct fan as well to move air/smell through it and at that point you've got a ventilation system so you could hook it up to an hid hood that has air cooling of some kind (air cooled hood, cool tube) just because the three go hand in hand.

Side note, with hid lights, the price difference between different wattage models of the same brand is ridiculous, maybe 150 for a 400w and 250 for 1000w but in turn it gives a much bigger footprint you can grow under so doubling the size of your plans won't be anywhere near twice the cost of your current plans if you catch my drift.
Click to expand...
Wow first off thank you for taking the time to drop all that knowledge cleared a lot of things up for me

I could get a slightly bigger tent say 3x3x6ft (I'm having a little trouble finding taller tents that don't also get bigger in width) would that make much of a difference ?

Yes got smell Planning on installing a carbon filter but unsure about where to put the outtake duct as it would be kind of obvious just hanging out my window and I haven't seen anybody say they just leave it inside there room as I imagine it would make then room pretty hot

To finish up you make a good arguement on LED'S also i did not really consider height from plant when I was looking at them so check out dome HID.
again thanks alot for the help
 
Randomestguy

Randomestguy

Well-Known Member
Johnnyblue said:
Wow first off thank you for taking the time to drop all that knowledge cleared a lot of things up for me

I could get a slightly bigger tent say 3x3x6ft (I'm having a little trouble finding taller tents that don't also get bigger in width) would that make much of a difference ?

Yes got smell Planning on installing a carbon filter but unsure about where to put the outtake duct as it would be kind of obvious just hanging out my window and I haven't seen anybody say they just leave it inside there room as I imagine it would make then room pretty hot

To finish up you make a good arguement on LED'S also i did not really consider height from plant when I was looking at them so check out dome HID.
again thanks alot for the help
Click to expand...
Np man, happy to help. so as far as lights go all will need some space and have pros and cons. t5s for example you could have them almost touching the plants with no problem but they tend to lack in penetration, hid is pretty good but heat and space is the issue, leds are technically becoming the best option price aside, less heat and better efficiency but more expensive.

Tent size is really preference just wanted to point out 5 feet would be slightly limiting, and for say a 600w hid a bit under a foot and a half with an air cooled hood would be about the closest you'd do good at as radiant heat and too strong a light could basically bleach your tops.

As far as exhaust, you might want to look up if they do thermal scanning from helicopters and such, different countries have different laws and procedures. A second story exhaust would be ideal as no one would actually notice the heat firsthand from ground level and better security cuz you'll always have an open window but that's preference.

To disguise it there's several methods, one is to get a foam board and wicker blinds to block any prying eyes and vent through the foam board(I can dig up a link for it if you want). The one I like more is using a window fan and somehow attaching the ducting to the holes, like using a Y splitter and (I just used a shitload of tape) somehow connecting the ducts securely and with no leaks, if you go that route you can set the window up and measure the space between the top and sliding pane then cut a 2x4 so it wedges in that space making it impossible to open from outside.

on a personal note, 600w hid you might be able to squeeze into a 3x3 but 4x4 would be better, like I said upgrades are negligible. so a 600w instead of 400w may be 20-40 more. Don't remember tent prices but a 4x4 would be around 100, 3x3 like 70? Try and go for the tents that are 6-7 feet tall 6.5 seems to be pretty common. It really depends on how fast you want to harvest and what kind of yield you want.

Something to keep in mind is you'll need space for everything within the tent probably, like hanging the filter and fan in addition to the light as well as any fans or stuff sitting on the floor, may be kinda cramped in a smaller area.

If you're not in a rush, and you train the gals well, pulling a pound off 4 plants in 5 months with that 600w in a 4x4 would be very possible if everything went ideally.

You should make lists of 2 setups the smaller one and this one I'm putting out and figure out the price difference cuz like an extra hundred could be ozs of difference, I've got a bigger one going 5x5 with a 1000w hid, but idk your budget so trying not to go too expensive with it.

Sorry for writing novels lmao.
 
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