Help make my grow space into a thing of beauty!

Hey Sadista, hopefully I can help out and further this grow room to the next level. To begin, the first consideration will be making sure that you have access to the flowering room without exposing them to the light of veg. In short, flowering plants CANNOT be exposed to light during their dark hours: it reverts them from their normal sugar breakdown into photosynthetic receivers like during the day time, stressing them out with what they percieve as an abnormal lighting schedule.

Once this aspect of the growroom has been figured out, I think that a T5 system for your veg, or a 400W metal halide bulb should be ample for your veg room

http://www.hydrogardencenter.com/t52ft8-tubedesignersystemwbulbs.aspx
or
http://www.hydrogardencenter.com/hortiluxbase-upbluedaylightsupermetalhalide400w.aspx

For your flower room though, a single 600W HPS hortilux bulb is my recommendation considering the size is perfect, and the heat won't be overwhelming

http://www.hydrogardencenter.com/sunmastersuperhighpressuresodium600wbulb.aspx

As for intake fans and outtake / airflow, are there any restrictions regarding what you can and can't do? And also, how visible is that window from the road / any people. Hope to hear back soon and ask any questions if you have!

Sadista said:

What I really need are recommendations and advice on the lighting and ventilation setups:
What size/type lights for which areas?
Placement and types of fans?
Passive or Active air intake?
​

Click to expand...

you may already know this from your reading but you need to completely separate the flowering and vegging areas because they will be on different light cycles.

for the flowering area you want to use an hps light - 600 watts meets the specs for indoor lighting (6,000 lumens) but you could use a 1000 watt hps if you want to go the overkill route.

for the vegging area you want to use a mh light or flourescents. a 400 watt mh would be adequate or you could go up to 600 watts. you'd need about 500 actual watts of flourescents.

for ventilation you should get air cooed hoods for the hps and mh lights. then you set up your ventilation as: carbon filter - fan - ducting - light - ducting - light - outlet.

you have some choices to make about venting. if this is a stealth grow i would not vent out of your front window. instead i would seal the window and vent somewhere in your house or out of the attic if you can access it.

you need to include an intake but typically it can be a passive (no fan) opening to the room, preferably near the floor. if you have forced air heating and/or cooling that will provide enough fresh air.

you may need to add more ventilation to keep the room cool enough - which would require adding another fan to extract air preferably to an outlet near the ceiling.

Wow quick reply sexyroots thanx!

ok sorry forgot to mention that im planning on putting up a partition frame along the broken line in the pic. with some sort of support on the top for hanging my lights/fans etc from it. Im then gonna cover each side of the frame/walls with black PVC sheeting on the outside and diamond mylar on the inside for reflection.

Im not sure whether the window is a blessing or a curse... fresh air is great to have access to but it also poses a security risk...

Its 3 floors up and theres a large green area in front of the house, the house opposite is at least 50 metres away so they wont be seeing in. But the row of houses are all terraced so have to make sure odor and noise is not an issue either.

I was thinking of blacking the window out somehow and attaching an insulated black flap with exhaust holes for ducting to the bottom of the window so that the window can be opened outward without any telltale light leaks. That would be my primary concern.

Iv done a rough sketch of this also.

With this window set up I should be able to leave the window open all the time so perhaps a passive air inlet would be ok once im venting regularly enough? Correct me if I'm wrong!

ooh Question! If i'm separating the two areas do I need 2 separate exhaust fans or is there some way I can use one for both areas?

Thanks for your help!

sexyroots.for.all said:

Hey Sadista, hopefully I can help out and further this grow room to the next level. To begin, the first consideration will be making sure that you have access to the flowering room without exposing them to the light of veg. In short, flowering plants CANNOT be exposed to light during their dark hours: it reverts them from their normal sugar breakdown into photosynthetic receivers like during the day time, stressing them out with what they percieve as an abnormal lighting schedule.

Once this aspect of the growroom has been figured out, I think that a T5 system for your veg, or a 400W metal halide bulb should be ample for your veg room

http://www.hydrogardencenter.com/t52ft8-tubedesignersystemwbulbs.aspx
or
http://www.hydrogardencenter.com/hortiluxbase-upbluedaylightsupermetalhalide400w.aspx

For your flower room though, a single 600W HPS hortilux bulb is my recommendation considering the size is perfect, and the heat won't be overwhelming

http://www.hydrogardencenter.com/sunmastersuperhighpressuresodium600wbulb.aspx

As for intake fans and outtake / airflow, are there any restrictions regarding what you can and can't do? And also, how visible is that window from the road / any people. Hope to hear back soon and ask any questions if you have!

Click to expand...

Sadista said:

Wow quick reply sexyroots thanx!

ok sorry forgot to mention that im planning on putting up a partition frame along the broken line in the pic. with some sort of support on the top for hanging my lights/fans etc from it. Im then gonna cover each side of the frame/walls with black PVC sheeting on the outside and diamond mylar on the inside for reflection.

Im not sure whether the window is a blessing or a curse... fresh air is great to have access to but it also poses a security risk...

Its 3 floors up and theres a large green area in front of the house, the house opposite is at least 50 metres away so they wont be seeing in. But the row of houses are all terraced so have to make sure odor and noise is not an issue either.

I was thinking of blacking the window out somehow and attaching an insulated black flap with exhaust holes for ducting to the bottom of the window so that the window can be opened outward without any telltale light leaks. That would be my primary concern.

Iv done a rough sketch of this also.

With this window set up I should be able to leave the window open all the time so perhaps a passive air inlet would be ok once im venting regularly enough? Correct me if I'm wrong!

ooh Question! If i'm separating the two areas do I need 2 separate exhaust fans or is there some way I can use one for both areas?

Thanks for your help!

Click to expand...

Good to know the other details

Ventilation is extremely important to your growroom, however, stealthiness is even more important. With that in mind, as much as I would love to say you should use that window as an intake or exhaust line, it is better to black it out for safety sake. A safe way to blackout though is by buying a colorful fabric to put as a base layer that people will see, and then wood behind the fabric to ensure complete darkness. You'd be surprised how much light these HID's can throw off and if a colorful thing is all they see, it'll make you feel at ease.

Setting up an oscillating fan in each room is a great idea, but considering your space requirements, a semi permanent work around may be a good idea. One Such system would be a 6" air line that runs into each room, stemming from a 4" vortex fan situated outside of the growing room.

http://www.hydrogardencenter.com/4inchin-linefan165cfm.aspx

This would be your intake line, and would lie on the bottom. As for your outake, you could let the air from the intake line create enough pressure that the room eventually reaches equilibrium and dissipates naturally into other rooms / through leaks. Or, you could use 2 small fans and create intake and out-take lines seperately. Key points though are...
-Heat will rise so your exhaust (out-take) line is on the top, and intake on the bottom
-good aeration in your room so that air is blown underneath and up through the leaf system from bottom to top will provide much needed airflow for a dense sea of green system.

Now, for odor, a carbon filter is an absolute necessity, but how you set it up is a question as to your budget because if you wanted to rig a permanent setup with 2 (1 intake, 1 exhaust), connected up to a big carbon filter that sits outside the room is a possibility. But, considering that flowering is your primary room of pungent pleasantries, setting up a 6" vortex that hangs from the ceiling - connected to a carbon filter that runs outside the room is an ideal solution too (and actually more practical, just involves more work on the setup). In short, the air is pulled through the carbon filter by the fan which removes all the smell, and then is run out of the room If you have any more questions don't hesitate to ask!!!