New grow room construction on way,need help.

Alright well My grow room is 4ft long,2 1/2 ft wide,and 3ft tall. I am constructing the frame out of 3/4in pvc with sun leaves black/white poly wrapped around tightly so that no light leaks in or out. Heres the problem if the area is split so that there is a shelf in the middle and i were to run a 400 watt MH above and underneath would not that be to close to plants? I plan on only growing them 1 1/2 ft before they go outside? Any advice on if I should use t5 flouresent or MH lights in this small area? Last question is if i use MH lighting what should i use for a fan to get heat out because fixture does not have hood?PLease help newbie

stonehead89 said:

Alright well My grow room is 4ft long,2 1/2 ft wide,and 3ft tall. I am constructing the frame out of 3/4in pvc with sun leaves black/white poly wrapped around tightly so that no light leaks in or out. Heres the problem if the area is split so that there is a shelf in the middle and i were to run a 400 watt MH above and underneath would not that be to close to plants? I plan on only growing them 1 1/2 ft before they go outside? Any advice on if I should use t5 flouresent or MH lights in this small area? Last question is if i use MH lighting what should i use for a fan to get heat out because fixture does not have hood?PLease help newbie

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400W MH burns HOTHOTHOT especially without being air cooled. If you were to get a hood or cooltube you would probably be able to cool it enough to use it in your situation. Anything less is going to be extremely challenging, if not impossible.

If it's just for vegging until a they are a foot and a half I would definately use T5 lights. You should be able to find 4' lights that would fit (and work) perfect in the setup you describe.

alright, thanks for the input. I was considering t5's in the first place so I think ill go with those. How many bulbs do you think I need and do you have any advice on were to get some decent price fixtures w/ bulbs?

stonehead89 said:

alright, thanks for the input. I was considering t5's in the first place so I think ill go with those. How many bulbs do you think I need and do you have any advice on were to get some decent price fixtures w/ bulbs?

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How much light you need depends on how many plants you have and how much vegging you want to do. I don't use T5 fluorescent lighting so I cannot even begin to give you exact wattage per plant vs size, etc.

Any indoor garden shop is going to have the lights you need, as well as simply just finding someone online that sells them. You might be able to find them at a hardware or other lighting store but I don't know for sure.

Stone, I use T5's, 4 tube would be good for 2 1/2 feet wide. Expect temp +7 from the room temps under the lights on the deck, higher the top of the plants. I use one small intake fan w/passive exhaust, depends on the room temps. Hope this helps.

$130 with the tubes, it will be hard to do better. This is not the lamp that I use so take it for what it's worth.
http://www.htgsupply.com/viewproduct.asp?productID=49346

Well thanks for the help, Im going to get t5's and i have found a good place to get some. The thing is I have a shelf splitting the grow room so i have to have two seperate lights. So I figured I wold construct a light myself that will run 2 54 watt t5's above and 2 below, with extra compact fluorescent lights in a old bathroom fixture that has 3 sockets that i am going to put adapters on so that for every socket i can have two bulbs, for a total of 6 compact fluorescent bulbs on each shelf.
So i am only planning on growing them a 1 1/2 ft or so and to use it for clones so I would say it would be enough light for what i plan on using it for. What I calculate is 108 watts from the t5's and using 42 watt 6500k compact lights that total 252 watts on each shelf. tell me what you think!
just got new critical mass seeds today, any experience?