Noob accepting grow room design advice

Prefontaine said:

seriously though that looks like it will be real nice grow space

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Thanks! I hope it works out for me. I've never grown anything but tomatoes and flowers with my grandparents and now I'm setting up this whole project, but at least it's keeping me busy. GL with that grow tent, and as for the GF situation - just find a chick that loves to chief LOL, she'll understand

but now i put drian tables on top of the tables that way you dont have to move the plants

One key factor that has not been mentioned is the height of this area. If your 7' you probably want to go with a 600 which would give you 3.5 x 3.5 of light. A 1000w and a huge hood would give you a 4 x4 flower area. I would split the room and have mostly flower and small, light sealed area to use for vegging and cloning. Given your small space, and beginner status, I would invest in a high quality flourescent light for clones and veg. or perhaps a 400 watt.

Controlling the climate in there is CRITICAL. Like the most important factor..period. So your going to have to plan to run ducting and a quality inline fan. 6" will work just fine. If your savy, splice a Y duct with a flapper in it so that in the summer you can exhaust outside the house but in the winter you can blow that hot air into the heating duct that is over your head. Hey! free heat.

Your going to have a hard time growing trees in there, seems like a pretty small space. The trees get like 4' wide... I would suggest a simple soil grow for one round and then try a SCROG. 6 plants in a 7' x 4' flower area. Vegging and cloning in a 3' x 7' areas. divde the room with panda film. A SCROG would work really well to maximize yield. spread those bitches out sideways. (you would need 2 600 hoods to really produce quality buds).

Start simple. You may find that growing weed is too much GD work. Cheers!

Thanks legallyflying, I was thinking of splitting it too but then I bought this 4x4x7 grow tent off eBay. I think it will be perfect for vegging and cloning!

So now I'm thinking I'll be able to use this entire space for flowering... would that be a good idea? or am i being to ambitious? I really think the plants would like some room, and then i can max on harvests.

No, that will work great.plus you can spend money down the road on co2 and climate controls to really dial in your flower room. Its nice to have well controlled vegg but it matters most in flower.

Another thing to consider is space and usable space. You have to be able to walk around in there and tend to the plants. so give your self a foot on each side... If it is 7 wide I would go with side by side 600's. Not going to be the best for running the duct but it will work. In OR you can only have 6 "mature plants" which means anything over 1 foot x 1 foot or in flower. Bummer is that any mothers I have qualify as mature.. Your likely going to be in the same boat. I would definately go the mother route though as you once you get your clone and veg time dialed you can harvest your girls, give the room a good scrubbing (cause your NOT going to half ass it like many do) and then plop your new girls in there for flower. Minimal down time.

legallyflying said:

No, that will work great.plus you can spend money down the road on co2 and climate controls to really dial in your flower room. Its nice to have well controlled vegg but it matters most in flower.

Another thing to consider is space and usable space. You have to be able to walk around in there and tend to the plants. so give your self a foot on each side... If it is 7 wide I would go with side by side 600's. Not going to be the best for running the duct but it will work. In OR you can only have 6 "mature plants" which means anything over 1 foot x 1 foot or in flower. Bummer is that any mothers I have qualify as mature.. Your likely going to be in the same boat. I would definately go the mother route though as you once you get your clone and veg time dialed you can harvest your girls, give the room a good scrubbing (cause your NOT going to half ass it like many do) and then plop your new girls in there for flower. Minimal down time.

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So, it's been a few days. I couldn't get onto the site because it wouldn't load. anyone else have that problem?? anyway, I've taken a few steps since I was last able to get on here. I cleared out all the shelving and put up 6mil black sheeting all on the inside of the area. I now have a 1kw mh/hps fixture with a parabolic reflector, it easily illuminates the entire floorspace when I hung it in the middle of the cieling. However, I had trouble trying to get the heat down and now I'm experimenting with different airflow/exhaust models. I now have a 500 cfm inline fan that I can use.

Here are a few pics of how everything is set up so far, I know it needs reflective material but that's on delivery still (so hard to get things in the middle of nowhere).
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n523/wpsown79/100415.jpg
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n523/wpsown79/100542.jpg
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n523/wpsown79/100522.jpg
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n523/wpsown79/100446.jpg

Here is the vegetative tent, 4x4x7 currently has 4 ft t8 2 bulb fixture X 2 a single oscillating fan and 6 bagseed babies. Oh and a DIY filter at the top.

http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n523/wpsown79/100711.jpg
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n523/wpsown79/100728.jpg

So my question to you rollituppers is 'what should I do with this now?'. I have about 25ft of 8 inch flex ducting to work with and there is a dryer vent about 9ft from the enclosure. I want to get the temps down via exhaust and intake work and then improve the environment from there, I was thinking maybe a small ozone generator..? any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

My thOughts..parabolic reflectors suck. They actually suck dick so if your not into that, I would ditch it and get a quality sealed hood. My personal favorite based on reflectivity tests... SuPer sun II but it's kind of small for a 1k bulb.

Duct that hood and you will likely eliminate most of your heat problems. Avoid cheesy purchases ( ozone generator) and save your money... You got a mountain of expensive gear to obtain if you want to get serious.

legallyflying said:

My thOughts..parabolic reflectors suck. They actually suck dick so if your not into that, I would ditch it and get a quality sealed hood. My personal favorite based on reflectivity tests... SuPer sun II but it's kind of small for a 1k bulb.

Duct that hood and you will likely eliminate most of your heat problems. Avoid cheesy purchases ( ozone generator) and save your money... You got a mountain of expensive gear to obtain if you want to get serious.

Click to expand...

Ok so a 1k won't be to much for this spot then? I am liking the idea of trying another hood though. If this parabolic doesn't work out I'll bite the bullet and buy a nice 8" cool tube fixture. I've read all over that you can keep a 1kw mh 1' from the tops. that just seems like the most efficient use of space to me :/... any thoughts on that?

Also, i don't know if you can tell from the pictures, I've started to lst the young plants. I will be growing this way with a scrog mixture later on. I was also thinking of building a couple small steps for the sides and using a faster paced sog method to increase my yield.

The growroom would look like this b_d with large plants under the vertical bulb going lst, and much younger clones (from trimmings of the lst girls) on the benches feeding on the side lighting. I was thinking total lollipop style for the sog. My grow mentor has said that lollipoping is the most productive method there is. Do you know anyhting about that?

Wow. Lots of questions...

I think you need to settle on a grow method than pic a hood to match. If your going to grow stadium style than yeah, a cool tube would be good. If your going to SCROG then you want a big hood.

12" off the plants with a 1k is a pipe dream. Maybe with a huge fan and only one bulb. But you wouldn't want it that close anyways as you won't get any spread.

Forgot all about updating this thread. here it goes.

I've finished my flower chamber and It is running w/7 bagseed that were vegged and trained for 8 weeks. My lights on temp is 81.5-83 F with the light off temp currently around 73-75. However winter is coming and I'll probably have to put a heater in the room. Here are some pics of the plants:

These are the seven bagseed.
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n523/wpsown79/100_1029.jpg

These are a mixture of clones and seedlings. The three in the back left are bubbalicious seedlings 2.5 weeks along. The rest are clones of the three strongest bagseed plant (I just wanted to try my hand at cloning). I've given the strains names: Elmo, bigbird, bertha, but have no idea of the genetics yet. The four in the upside down plastic container have not developed sufficient roots yet but the transplanted ones have. I'd also like to note that I rooted them using only willow tree tea, a concoction made with willow tips and epsom salt. It seems to have helped bacaue all eight clones have taken some level of roots.
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n523/wpsown79/100_1038.jpg

These are some pics of various parts of the groowroom:

This is my DIY carbon filter affixed to the end of my exhaust
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n523/wpsown79/100_1036.jpg

This is my 1k hps hung vertically in a 3ft parabolic reflector
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n523/wpsown79/100_1031.jpg

This is my ventilation system beginning with the main intake (a dual 6 inch window fan)
It is in the bottom right hand portion of the pic, I have a sheet of carbon prefilter over the outside to prevent light and dust/insects through it.

http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n523/wpsown79/100_1034.jpg
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n523/wpsown79/100_1033.jpg
This is the AC unit and exhaut ports form the inside. The bottom right port is the cool air in, the next port to the left is the AC intake, and the port to the far left is the exhaust port which is powered by a 400 cfm fan.
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n523/wpsown79/100_1030.jpg
this is a shot from the outside.
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n523/wpsown79/100_1032.jpg


and to think, this entire area looked like this 1 month ago:
http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n523/wpsown79/141652.jpg


The veg tent w/seedlings and clones is on 24/0 while the flower chamber is on 12/12. I've only recently begun flowering these bagseed and they will probably take another 8-10 weeks to finish. I believe that will be great timing because the killer seedlings will be ready to clone about that time and I will be able to immediately flower them after rooting! SOG HERE I COME! lol


I've learned so much since beginning this grow and I'm looking forward to being self-sufficient(as far as producing my own smoke). If anyone has any feedback it will still be greatly appreciated. however, I will not be making any major alterations to this room until these plants are done flowering.

looking good. Your temps are a little high but as you said, winter temps will help that.

my only suggestion.. don't run 24/0 during veg. Plants won't keep photosynthesizing for 24 hours straight, even with the brightest of light on them. Plants prefer to have some dark time to process the sugars that have been produced and also to respire. They have an internal circadian rhythm that can only be tweaked so much.

There is some debate about the 24 -vs- 18 thing but I don't buy it. Show me a single C4 plant that grows in an area that receives 24 hours of light.