New Grower Needs Some Help

Hello all,

Massachusetts just passed legalization for recreation and growing, yahoo!

I plan on purchasing an Apollo 5' x 5' x 80" grow tent. I'm building a DIY RDWC system to grow 4 plants. The plan is to use LED for veg and then 1000w HPS for flower. This is my first grow ever and need some advice on equipment. I'm not looking for top of the line equipment but I also don't want anything that is going to die 2 weeks into the grow.

1st Question - Is the Apollo 5' x 5' x 80" a decent tent to start with?

2nd Question - I know this one is a doozie and I'm sure there will be some back and forth about it but what would you suggest for an LED for just veg? Budget for this is around $500. I've been thinking about the following lights

1 - Three or four of Mars Hydro 600w
2 - Mars Hydro Reflector 192
3 - Viparspectra 1200w
4 - Meizhi 1200w

Or a combination like maybe a Mars Hydro Reflector144 with a Mars Hydro 300w on either side?

3rd Question - I'm trying to be quiet with the operation due to it being in the next room next to my bedroom. I was thinking of getting a 6" Vortex inline fan with a charcoal filter and speed controller. Is 6" enough or should I up it to the 8" so it can be turned down for silence?
Tent - 167.5 cubic feet
6" fan - 347CFM
8" fan - 728 CFM

4th Question - Does the charcoal filter have to match the CFM of the fan or the cubic feet of the tent?

I would like to thank people ahead for throwing your opinions in if you do take the time to share some of your knowledge and expertise with this newbie that is VERY excited to get into growing

I think 1000w is a lot for a tent. It's a lot to cool in late flower. 600w might be better, also I hear good things about tasty LED.

Your choices for veg are all over the place, I have heard good and bad about the Mars, but not familiar with the other.

Vortex vtx with 10 yr. warranty 6" inline @ 452 cfm. With Variac speed control almost silent.

Charcoal filter should match fan and cfm, but a little extra is good to.

Hth

I have read where peeps use 1000w successfully. But supplement AC for heat control.
Also you'll need to be able to control water temp.

I'm working on a water cooling system. I'm into PC water cooling so l have some leftover parts to hopefully build my cooling system. It's a radiator I'll immerse into the control res and then put through a water block with a Peltier pad on top that'll be plugged into a temp controller. If that doesn't work I'll go either the DIY AC or dehumidifier route

Save your money on a LED veg setup. For the tent size, 1000w is manageable with supplemental cooling but to keep startup costs low just go with a easy 600w hps for flower. In veg I use a combo of 400w mh with 2 dual tube fluorescents, check out wave point, they make insane tubes. I use the ultra daylight and ultra cola...
After a few good grows under your belt then step up into bigger and better equipment. But then again, there's a lot of growers that swear by the 600w platform too.
Good luck, happy growing, welcome to the forum

Thank you. Do you grow in a tent? I've read A LOT and I've watched a lot of videos. I like jumping into things and skipping the first step hehehe

I started in a 4x4 tent with a 600w hps, coco hand feed dtw. After 3 years I got good enough that my wife kindly let me put up walls. Now I rock a perpetual 4000w SOG. Lovin life lol. Next step is go legal with a OPC liscense and I'd like to be a independent grower for some of my local northern Colorado shops. But that's a ways away, still have a LOT to learn myself.
Bit of advice though, start small and cheap. It's easy to get the spending out of control. A process like the dwc you mentioned is a great place for a beginner to start. I've done a lot of different grow setups and for me the easiest is flood and drain in 6x6x6 rockwool with Dyna nutes, cheap, simple, VERY effective.

Why don't you use a t5? how long your vegging? All matters. If your vegging for like 5-6 a good t5 should be enough