Im building a flowering chamber - Can you help?

Mantis

I plan to use a 600 W High Pressure Sodium with Digital Ballast, and air cooled reflector mounted above a space for plants. On the sides I want to use 2 shoplights I have, each has two 4 foot fluorescent bulbs so there will be four 4 foot fluorescent bulbs in the chamber. One light on each side, the back wall for mounting things, and exhaust, and front wall for access doors is what I'm thinking.

Im not sure about design..

Ideas:

Either Get a cabinet with doors or maybe a wardrobe that can be modified, or build a custom free-standing box from scratch out of wood or other materials.. I like to build anything I can and get materials cheaply, keeping budget lower.. although I'm not afraid to spend decent amounts of cash to get what will work right.

At the moment I am wondering firstly and mainly- how much light to add into the fluoro fixtures.. One warm and one cool bulb per fixture? or should I use all warm, or think about installing extra cool bulb fixtures and devote both 4 foot shoplights 2 warm bulbs, to have four warm 4 foot bulbs, a couple smaller cool, (and HPS above)..

Im thinking the chamber will be 5 feet tall altogether, 4 feet of lights and 1 foot for pot?..

Also, what should other dimensions be, and how many plants should I do?

So if anyone has any ideas I'm all ears. Im ready to build this now.

CitrisDiesel

If you can build it then do, but if you pick up a magazine (gen. growing or hightimes) there are ads for like aluminum frame boxes made just for this purpose that are covered in some material, so that might be a fast easy method too. You must have some constraints as far as space I assume. And if you plan on going as small as you make it sound then just the 600w HID is plenty, but what the hell throw in the fluorescents you got. Your ceiling hieght is the most limiting problem. They want to grow tall, so your gonna have to prune and hopefully have a strain of indica that stays pretty small. Three feet isn't much when you don't want the buds hitting the glass on the bottom of your reflector. The space you can buy like I describe earlier are at least 6 feet from top to bottom if not 7 or 8. As far as the number of plants, again that all depends on how big the space that you have is. One plant per square foot is packin them pretty tight depending on the strain and how you prune them, bushes or tall and skinny. Theres some methods of tieing branches off like tieing the top down and stuff, but haven't done that myself. I would think that whatever you're doing with the veggin already would give you an idea about how many plants and the space needed. A general rule is they will about triple in size over the course of flowering. Depending on your situation you gotta think of some things: a carbon filter or something for the exhauste, CO2?, A/C in the summer cause it gets hot, a small heater while the light is out for 12 hrs to keep the temp constant, and many others you'll run in to I'm sure. Dirt I'm assuming? Hyrdo has a lot of other things to consider, though I can't speak of the difference between dro and dirt because I've never grown with dirt, I've had incredible results from the beginging with a simple ebb and flow sysytem. Remember, they want to grow tall! and they'll almost triple the size they are when you begin flowering, so this would be what to consider when you're putting something together, especially since you're using the HID and need a good foot at least between the top of the plants at the end of flowering and your light which you can't just keep raising up if the ceiling is too low.

tokinGLX

if youre only planning on a cab about 5 feet tall, the side flouros arent really necessary. a 600w has plenty of penetration power to do the job in that short of an environment.

a box can be easily constructed with some 2 x 4s, plywood and a black and white poly lining inside. give it an exhaust and an intake fan, using a more powerful exhaust/bigger exhaust hole.

youll want to monitor what your lights on and lights off temps are, trying to keep a constant temp of 70-75º f


if you train the plants properly when they are young, it is easy to make them very short and VERY branchy. look around here on the site, soak up as much info as you can. be sure to ask if you have any specific questions

growing is a constant learning experience, and the more you know going into your grow the better.


welcome to the sf!

__________________
united we toke, divided we choke.
/check out my videos at marijuanaTV.com

CitrisDiesel

"youll want to monitor what your lights on and lights off temps are, trying to keep a constant temp of 70-75º f"

Hey TokinGLX, about this ideal temp range, I have an excellent book on growing ('How to supper charge your Garden') and it gives graphs that show experimental results at different temperatures and it suggests that 85 degrees F is completely optimal, and that suger production is actually twice as fast at 85 degrees versus 75 resulting in faster growth rates. What are your thoughts (or anyone elses) on the right temp? Where do you get your info from? I can say from experience that 85 is what I go with. Think of a tropical paradise, lol.

As far as maintaining that 85 degrees you can get switches that will turn your fan on and off to keep the right temp, or with an adjustable control you can changes fan speeds manually when the seasons change to keep it in a good range. As far as monitering your temp, I have a wireless remote temperature sensor that you might use outside your house with a base unit that wirelessly recieves the temp. I hang this (a little metal temp probe attached to a wire and then a signal broadcaster sitting up over the light) down about 12 to 18 inches below the bottom of my lights reflector, obviously off of one corner of the housing, so that I can keep an eye on the temp without even going in there. If you have a space heater (oil filled is safest) then you can set that to come on when the lites go off (by a timer) and you can monitor the temp even in the dark. Now remeber, the little things like that you put in there sometimes have little flashing lites and stuff, so you wanna cover that up with black duck tape or something so it doesn't effect the plants while there in the dark and flowering. Sitting on the couch and knowing the temp is 84 degrees at your colas is a good feeling.

Mantis

First let me say thank you for the help and support, and also I'm glad to be here! Hope I can learn a lot.. and lend some of my knowledge..

I plan to become a plant geneticist or horticulturist.. growing cannabis of course.

Well I want to ask, is 85 deg good for flowering only, or should I aim for that for every normal veg grow? And what would you say, based on experience and research, is the optimal humidity? Does it differ from veg to flowering? And what about at night, temp/humid.. I heard they love the temp to go down at night even down to 50 deg.. what about humidity at night also?

To the grow chamber- I have no space limits.. I am just starting with the 2 shoplights, each has 2 four foot fluoros. I have them so I just want to use those, fugure out how many warm and cool bulbs to use, out of 4 bulbs, on the sides of the chamber, should all be cool, or 2 be warm, or all be warm? depending on if I use a MH or HPS above, which configuration would be best, assuming Im going to start with 4 four foot fluoro tubes.. I do want to put some kind of light in the ceiling of the box, as I have seen in other chambers (tubes on side, HID above).. and I would like to be able to use the chamber throughout the whole grow, veg and flowering..

Im mainly focusing on the lighting now.. one thing at a time..

What I would really like to know is where to find some scientific data on the actual light spectrum ratio of blue/red/other light.. (do plants need other than blue red?) for veg and flowering cycle.. For vegging cannabis, how much blue light to red light ratio, and then what for flowering..

An interchangable socket, MH to HPS might be good, yes?.. use the MH and cool tubes for veg and switch tubes to warm, and switch to HPS.. (Do they need any red spectrum during veg really? And do they need any blue during flowering?) Im thinking its like a reverse ratio.. large blue small red for veg and then opposite for flowering..

So just to get started, maybe I should use a MH/HPS above, (what wattage then? for how big of chamber..?) that will be a given, Ill get that later.. but then for starters, what about the fluoros?

As far as size, it doesnt matter to me.. it can be as large as full size wardrobe.. I just want to use the 4 foot 2 fluoro bulb shoplights as a basis for the whole thing, on the sides of the chamber..

Thanks again.. I love this place!

Mantis

First let me say thank you for the help and support, and also I'm glad to be here! Hope I can learn a lot.. and lend some of my knowledge..

I plan to become a plant geneticist or horticulturist.. growing cannabis of course.

Well I want to ask, is 85 deg good for flowering only, or should I aim for that for every normal veg grow? And what would you say, based on experience and research, is the optimal humidity? Does it differ from veg to flowering? And what about at night, temp/humid.. I heard they love the temp to go down at night even down to 50 deg.. what about humidity at night also?

To the grow chamber- I have no space limits.. I am just starting with the 2 shoplights, each has 2 four foot fluoros. I have them so I just want to use those, fugure out how many warm and cool bulbs to use, out of 4 bulbs, on the sides of the chamber, should all be cool, or 2 be warm, or all be warm? depending on if I use a MH or HPS above, which configuration would be best, assuming Im going to start with 4 four foot fluoro tubes.. I do want to put some kind of light in the ceiling of the box, as I have seen in other chambers (tubes on side, HID above).. and I would like to be able to use the chamber throughout the whole grow, veg and flowering..

Im mainly focusing on the lighting now.. one thing at a time..

What I would really like to know is where to find some scientific data on the actual light spectrum ratio of blue/red/other light.. (do plants need other than blue red?) for veg and flowering cycle.. For vegging cannabis, how much blue light to red light ratio, and then what for flowering..

An interchangable socket, MH to HPS might be good, yes?.. use the MH and cool tubes for veg and switch tubes to warm, and switch to HPS.. (Do they need any red spectrum during veg really? And do they need any blue during flowering?) Im thinking its like a reverse ratio.. large blue small red for veg and then opposite for flowering..

So just to get started, maybe I should use a MH/HPS above, (what wattage then? for how big of chamber..?) that will be a given, Ill get that later.. but then for starters, what about the fluoros?

As far as size, it doesnt matter to me.. it can be as large as full size wardrobe.. I just want to use the 4 foot 2 fluoro bulb shoplights as a basis for the whole thing, on the sides of the chamber..

Thanks again.. I love this place!

CitrisDiesel

Well, things are getting more complicated if its not just a flowering chamber. I had assumed you already had a veg chamber going or something to that effect.

I'll tell you what I know from a year and a half of learning as I've gone. I just joined this forum a month ago to ask about a specific issue I had run into, but the general knowledge I have is from experience and from the book I mentioned in my previous reply, which is something I would recommend to you if you're serious. "How to Supersize your Garden" takes you from begining to end, highly recommended.

So you want a constant temp about 85 degrees night and day, veg and flower, for the fastest growth and suger production. BE CAREFUL that you are measuring the temp under your light and not on the other side of the room where you will have significant temperature differences. It might be 80 in the room and 85 under the light, thats about what I run. Over 90 is bad, and below 80 they're just gonna go slower. An oil filled heater at night and an A/C unit in the summer is what keeps my girls at just the right temp. The HID's get very hot, but they are what you want for vigorous growth.

They do NOT love temps down to 50 degrees at night. Thats crazy talk. A slightly higher temperature during the night (2-3 degrees) will actually cause closer internodes (distance between braches), which is beneficial when growing indoors because it will keep your plants shorter and easier to work with.

Hydro is gonna get you the quickest biggest results, and its not as hard as you might think.

Humidity isn't as big an issue as temperature is. 40-70% is a pretty normal range night and day. Keep it on the lower side during flowering cause you don't want the buds to get moldy and the plants put out more resin, and the higher side during vegging. The lower the humidity the faster the plants are gonna suck up water and the more they will need. The higher the humidity goes the more likely you are to have pests (bugs, etc.) or mold developement. I have a dehumidifier that I set at 60% and just let it go. I got sick of emptying the water chamber so I bought the small pump that pumps the water that builds up in the dehumidifier's water chamber back into the reseviour for my hydroponics system, but you could have it drain anywhere appopriate if using soil.

WATTS = BUDS more watts more buds. I don't know so much about fluorescents and spectrums, but they are good for cloning and okay for early vegging, but during flowering its the HID that counts, so definately put that on the top. Fluorescents produce a wider spectrum which off sets their poorer lumen output to some degree. I use the variety of cool and warm for cloning/vegging, but haven't gotten into spectrum details to heavily.

If you want to do everything in one then you definately can, but you'd speed your cycles up a lot if you made a seperate chamber much smaller for cloning and early vegging. Use the 4' fluoros for the cloning/veggin chamber, make it roughly 4'x2'x2' but large enough to accomodate the housings on the lights. It doesn't need to be very tall cause you're gonna move to the other chamber to flower. If you're using hydro you might need a little extra space for other equipment. Temperature isn't such an issue with the fluorescents cause they're more efficient and the humidity you want high in the begining for cloning, say 80-90 percent and taper it down as they start to veg. The 600w HID can work for a space at least about 4x4 to 5x5 but you can make it a rectangle and use one end for equipment (fans, etc). A fan needs to be blowing on the light, right under the light adding some wind to strenghten the plants as they grow and to keep that hot air under the HID moving around.

Look for the book I mention. You gotta think about CO2 enrichment, how to clone, fans, timers and switches, temp and humidity sensors, hyrdo vs soil, A/C, a heater, get some good surge protector extension cords, a good inline fan for the exhaust on the air cooled condenser, a carbon air filter, where to dry and cure (it smells!), and if you decide on Hyrdo then we're talkin a few more things added to that list like a pH meter, a system, nutrients, a resevoir heater, air pumps, water pumps, growing medium and other things.

The MH is for vegging and the HPS for flowering, but if you use the fluorescents for cloning/vegging in a seperate chamber than just use the HPS in the main chamber. If you do it all in one chamber then yes you need to get a switchable balast or an HPS balast and an MH conversion bulb. And in that case then throw all the fluorescents in there too like you were talking about and if you do that then the 600w it fine. If you go with two seperate chambers then 1000w might not be bad for flowering a 5x5 or 6x6 chamber. I use the 1000w myself, and like I said watts=budds. I use a square for the size because light distribution on a square reflector and an HID is gonna come down in a square area, making a rectangle with room on one end for equipment is a good idea. Again, all this depends on how much you're looking for I suppose. Bigger is better, right? This will produce quite a bit though, so if you aren't lookin for that than scale it back, even just the 600w in the flowiring chamber is fine, even if the fluorescents are used else where in the cloning/vegging chamber.

It's confusing to use the shop lights as the basis for where you start because they are probably one of the cheapest simplest things to get, and how you use them won't necesarily have a huge impact. Utilizing them to clone though is great. Probably even just one of those for the cloning/vegging chamber and throw the other one in with the 600w in the flowering chamber. Things work much better when you have a seperate space for each. You can be cloning and vegging the next cycle as one is going so that when they're done the next ones are ready to start flowering. That's efficiency.

I've gotten good information from this site from people more than happy to share their knowlege so I'm happy to take a few minutes and pass it on. It also helps me to think about how much I've learned and to make sure I'm still paying attention to everything. A random guy I met at a garden store, not even an employee, spent at least 30 minutes with me one day and gave me a lot of really important advice at a time when I was just begining and really needed it. I haven't seen him since, but I've wanted to thank him for much of the success I've seen.

tokinGLX

the reason i say 75 is because thats what it recommends in the book i read
(':
in there, it also states that teh plants respiration rate doubles every 20 degrees(f)

and i do agree that 85 is the optimal temperature, exponentially so when co2 is used with the grow, but if a person is to shoot for this range, you need to make sure the temps absolutely do not get any higher.
so thats why i say 75 is an ideal ambient room temp. it is a good medium, giving a person a bit of leeway on both ends before any major growth issues due to temperatures may arise.

mantis, the only thing cd didnt touch on with the humidity is that if you have a batch of clones, they love a very high humidity environment.
if you have the means to monitor it, id use a 60% in the veg room, 40% in flower, and 80/100 with clones, depending on how fresh they are.

id read through a couple others, bought one of ed rosenthals, but the best book ive come across(and bought on first sight) is the latest edition of jorge cervantes' book- marijuana horticulture: the indoor/outdoor medical growers bible. it is not the be all end all of marijuana growing information, but is is a most excellent source for the basis of lots of info

__________________
united we toke, divided we choke.
/check out my videos at marijuanaTV.com

Mantis

All I need to know is if I need ANY blue spectrum for flowering, say, if I were to use all CFL spiral bulbs, would I need any cool white? or should I use all warm., red spectrum? If I were to use hanging 4 foot shoplights, which bulbs should I use for flowering, if I were to use those.. I know HID would be much better, but this is a question of how much, if any blue (cool light) I would need for flowering, if any, or should I use purely red spectrum (warm light)? I do plan on having a chamber with all fluoro, 4-foot and CFL bulbs, for flowering.

Veggii

a little bit of blue does help in the flower stage , you should consider going vertical with lights and grow bushes instead of tall skinny trees.
take a 4x4x7 grow box and put a 600wMh and 600HPS in a cooltube in middle of box approx 3-4ft off ground, grow 4 plants can get approx 1.5 lbs a plant, use 5gal bubble buckets and lucas recipe gtg bbl peace