Planning my indoor basement garden

I'm about to start growing for my first time, and i've done a lot of reading and research lately. In my basement, i got a closet where i will be growing my ganja. The closet is W3.3ft x D1.8ft x H5.2ft, and i'll mount a 400W HPS in there, paint the walls white and have a water resistant bright vinyl flooring in there (for spill and ease of cleaning There will be a bathroom exhaust fan at 58 CFM, blowing the exhaust trough the chimney (which is easy accessible nearby), and a 6in tablefan monted on the wall of the closet.

But i've been thinking a bit ahead of this. I've got another empty closet in the next room. I guess this is about W5ft x D2ft x H2.5ft (Haven't measured it), and i thought i might split it in the middle, have the one side for cloning and early vegging, and the other part for drying and curing. In that way, i can clone before i set my other girls into flower, and have some clones ready to take over when they are taken down for harvest. So this room doesn't have to be a hardcore vegging room, merely a cheap solution to keep my clones alive while flowering in the other room. So here comes the questions:

1. How much lighting would i need in such a room? I imagine either smaller E27 sockets LE bulbs or T5 CFL's, not huge >100W E40 socket LE bulbs.

2. Why keep a motherplant, instead of just keep cloning the ones that are about to flower and have the cycle going? Seems to me as one extra plant to keep alive in a small growth setup.

3. Does this sound like a good idea, or am i just overcomplicating and overdoing things?

(Sorry if my english suck, auto correction seems to be on holiday )

Dude, I have this setup, in my basement, check out my sig. I even use a bathroom vent fan, which is fine as long as your ambient temps are low. I have to use an a/c for about 6 weeks out of the year (dog days of summer, lol). In the winter, my basement drops to 58f so I use a thermostatic switch on my vent fan to keep temps at 76f.

handerre said:

1. How much lighting would i need in such a room? I imagine either smaller E27 sockets LE bulbs or T5 CFL's, not huge >100W E40 socket LE bulbs.

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I use cfls and they work fine, I got 416w for $100 in materials including bulbs. If you're buying a light, I'd get t5s. I built mine with vegging in mind so I packed as much light as I could fit in there, but I've since decided to skip veg altogether (waste of time) I only use it for a few mothers and maybe a dozen or so clones. Moms and clones don't need nearly as much light, I could probably get away with half that but it works so I don't fuck with it.

handerre said:

2. Why keep a motherplant, instead of just keep cloning the ones that are about to flower and have the cycle going? Seems to me as one extra plant to keep alive in a small growth setup.

3. Does this sound like a good idea, or am i just overcomplicating and overdoing things?

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Mothers are kept for cloning to speed up the process, you could certainly veg out a clone and clone it again, veg out that clone and clone it... but it's inefficient and unreliable. Your mothers might have a dozen or more shoots ready to be cut while your clones will take another 4 weeks to get to that point. Timing is everything here, you might take 2 dozen clones for a 12/12 from clone sog grow, and take 2 dozen more clones 2 weeks before your harvest finishes, then those clones are rooted and ready to go into your flower box just as you're chopping down your finished plants.

You can do it any way you want, but most people try to increase efficiency and yield.

Ok, thanks for good and informative answers. Say i break down that other closet to W2.5ft x D2ft x H2.5ft, then i could fit a few fixtures in the top, and probably wouldn't need to have a height adjustment for them. Say i buy 4 x 14W T5, that would give me a total of 56W and 4800lm. Would that be sufficient, and should they be 5600k or 6500k? I guess i could fit a couple of mothers and a cloning dome in there

I only plan on having 2-4 plants in my veg/flowering closet, and starting out with Northern Lights seeds from Nirvana. My basement keeps a temperature about 65°F all year long due to my massive stonewalls

EDIT: I see now that the T5 lights are also available in 24W 6500k in the same size. I guess that would be a better alternative, but would two of them do, or would i still need four?

I use a 4 bulb T-5 fixture for cloning and early veg. I use a 6500k spectrum. I do not keep a mother unless it is a new strain. I keep rotating plants every 8-10 weeks so that I am taking clones from the plants before they go into flower. Every mother I eliminate (once I have established that I can clone it to my satisfaction) is less nutrients and less room I am taking up. I am also doing a basement grow. I am using three rooms. I have the cloning room (T-5 Lights), the veg room (400 watt MH) and my flowering room (400 watt HPS). It took me a while to get the venting, humidity, odor control and temperature dialed in but the process can be gratifying. Good Luck.

The T-5 bulbs I use are also called High Output or HO. That sounds like what you are looking at. 2 would probably be fine.

Yup, sounds about right, i found them on a aquarium website. The ventilation should be sufficient for my room, it should be able to change all the air in the room in about 30 sec. If it's enough to keep the room at a decent temp will be another question. I think i'll start out with a empty room or with bagseeds just to watch the temps and humidity. As for odor, i'll be venting out the chimney, and i will only be growing a few low-odor plants simultaneously. As for the drying room, i might have to consider venting and odor control in there...

I loved the title because I am on this site research the basement grow room I am building right now! I think if you intend on it being like a room just to get veg young plants, i think any fluorescent lights will do the trick. I recieved some t12's for free so I plan on using them to do some small veg. I think they will be fine. I have heard, completely randomly, that when you clone a clone, that plant tends to be weak. I don't know why but to me it makes sense. I intend on keeping two mothers for 3-4 cycles and then starting new mothers(seeds from nirvana)! I strongly reccomend looking into the traits of specific strains you want to grow because of heighth restraints. Using an HID lamp with only 5 feet of clearance makes me wonder if you will have enough room. I have similar issues and went with wonder woman and venus fly trap. Both of these strains do well in the SOG/SCOG and they say that if you start flowering at 1ft, they should get to 2-3ft in total height. and the heighth of your pot and the clearance for your light and by the time your plants are done, they are very close to a hot lamp. even with very short plants. Since I have similar issues, I am going pure CFL. Just think it out from all angles. I love the exhaust though, im not as fortunate

I have been growing from my clones for years - taking clones from clones. There has been no noticeable change in the genetics. I always start more than I need and select the best ones. I also choose the cuttings from the best plants. If anything, the genetics have improved by selecting from the best of the best.

@chasmtz
I have been thinking a lot on the height issue, and i wouldn't mind having an extra foot or two to go on, but this is what i got. I also considered 250W HPS to be able to get closer to the plant, and that might be a better solution, hard to say. I've calculated to have about 2-3ft for the plants to erect, and if they try to go further, i guess i'll have to top them and maybe even tie them down a little. The Northern Lights plants aren't the biggest ones, so i think this will work, one way or another Also, the tablefan will help me cool the canopy when things get tight.

There is also the ScrOG method, i have considered it, but i think i'll skip it in the first round. It sounds a bit messy and clumsy to me, and probably require more work. This is my first grow ever, so i wanna use the KISS (Keep It Stupid Simple) logic for now. Thanks for your feedback though, it's motivating to get other opinions about my setup

I am new to growing indoors but i have grown outdoors for many years. I have always tied my plants down to get the little branches to actually produce. I am gonna tie my inside plants down as well. I know for fact that it improved yield on my outdoor plants. I agree with keeping it simple. good luck!!