NEED HELP ASAP with which LIGHT to choose!!

So im building my stealth grow cabinet at the moment and need some advice for lighting and ventilation.

I have purchased this cabinet as my box. the dimensions are: Height (Inches):33.625Width (Inches):31.125Depth (Inches):19.625

i plan on setting it up similarly to this grow box design:


im completely open to other ideas for my cab. if any of you think your idea would be more effecient.

plan to grow hydroponically using 4 5L (5 quart) buckets for a DWC bubbleponic system. (once again, im open to suggestions if you believe i can grow better using a dif. set up for my cabinet.

so my major question is:
as a poor college student...should i buy 1 250HPS or HID light? or should i grow with CFLs?

how do you think temperature will be affected using the HPS light....will it be difficult to keep the temp down?

how many and what wattage of CFLs should i use and how should they be positioned if i dont use the HPS or HID light.

also, will there be enough overhead space to place the hps light and still grow a good sized plant with the proper spacing between light and plant?

and what fans should i go with to ventilate everything.

my only criteria is i am trying to set this up to be as cheap costing as possible but also able to yield the highest quality possible....so what is your suggestions????

Links for where i can purchase these items would be great. with that area and setup am i looking for 45,000 lumens like the Marijuana Grow Bible suggests???

thanks all for your help!! I have searched everywhere with no help.

Much as I love HIDs, unless you're willing to custom build or mod a reflector, an HID is probably the wrong choice for that box. HIDs throw light sideways, not forward or aft. This means you want the lamp perpendicular to the grow. Finding a reflector 19 inches or shorter may be difficult to impossible. Add air ducting, the reflector would need be in the 15 inch range or shorter.

If you're comfortable with modding or building from scratch, I'd go HID. If not, I'd suggest CFLs or Floro tubes.

ok...so if i go cfl or floro tubes....how many and what wattage for both flowering chamber and veg.???

i want the highest quality and largest yield possible...these cabs. are expensive to make so i want to make sure i do it the right way to make it worth it

also, would the 150HPS used in this guys grow (similar to what im setting up) not work with my setup...or would CFL's yield better.

What about P-LL's?

care to enlighten me?

For your footprint, 250 watts is a good choice. My footprint is very close to yours at 22x 29 inches. However, I have 54 inches of vertical space so I can surrender the 12 inches of reflector height, the 3-4 inches of hangers and the 2-4 inches of space to the canopy. You don't have 17-20 inches of height to give up. Subtract another 6 inches for media, you're down to 10-7 inches of grow height. Because there's no space for you to insert your head to inspect, you may need a sliding shelf at a cost of another 2-3 inches.

Note this shot has the lamp parallel to the grow. I've since removed the junction box on the right side (placing all hookups inside the reflector) this allows me to rotate reflector 90º, lower the lamp AND increase footprint at the same time



With a cool tube or homemade batwing, the reflector can be kept to say 6-8 inches. CFLs say 4-5 inches. Floro tubes will only cost you 2-3 inches but, I think they come in 2 foot increments.

A 150 will work just fine but, you'll want to shrink the footprint of the grow to approx 1.5x2 (50 watts per square foot) However a 150 takes up the same vertical space as any other HID (minus distance to canopy)

Have you considered where your fan and filter are going? If inside, there's even less space to work with. Smaller wattage (and thus smaller footprint) would give you space on one side for ventilation equipment.

However you light the grow consider 12/12 from the start and some form of canopy control, LST or ScrOG. Keeping my colas horizontal gave me colas 20" long but only 6" tall

yo big twin, if I did the math right, you'd have a smidge over 2 sq feet in each chamber. You're smart to consider different types of lighting as there are so many pros/cons to each.

It's not gonna be as big a deal in veg as plants are smaller, they're not fruiting and you can consider economy if you wish. If you want quicker veg times, more juice is needed. You could go with CFL, (conventional fixtures) and replacement bulbs are comparatively cheap and you've got an array of watts and several colors. A down side with CFL, it might reduce headroom in an already squat, NGB veg chamber. I lose about 6" headroom in veg but still manage. If you want to maximize your headroom, tube fluorescents are great. You will get good light dispersion and fixtures are typically only a couple of inches tall. T8, T5 and PL-L are all good options. T8 is a little more economical to operate and T5 will grow plants a little faster. PL-L is available in a couple of watt sizes, depending on your cab size. I'm pretty sure you could get 36 watters in there. Even is you had an old T12 bathroom fixture, you could raise veggers if that's all you had to work with. The only drawback to tubes is getting a fixture that'll fit inside the cab.

htgsupply.com is a good place to compare prices on T5 fixtures. They may even have someT8 stuff but I haven't checked.

ahsupply.com has cool PL-L fixtures but don't get the replacement bulbs there. Save that for 1000bulbs.com or other bulb distributor for better prices.

As for flower, you might benefit from a little more consideration. Like FreezerBoy, I'm an HID fan. With your current plan, you'll have 2 sq feet of footprint. A 100 watt HPS or CMH remote setup would be respectable but CMH in that size is expensive. For this reason, I'd consider HPS if you're leaning toward HID. You could also do a 150 watter but you'd have 75 watts per sq foot. Your air system would have to be adequate to get away with it. PL-Ls and T-5s are also a possibility but like CFLs, I think you'd have to push a few more watts to get the same results as HID. If you go with horizontal HID, make sure you orient the bulb element parallel with the short wall of the cab. This will maximize efficiency. Hope this helps.

thanks for all of you guys' inputs! i greatly appreciate it!...if this was your current setup...what lights would you specifically choose?

Double check my math but at 31x20 inches that's 4.3 sq feet.

A 250 would give 58 wsf, a 150 only 35 wsf.

For a 150 you'd want a footprint closer to 1.5x2 or 3 sf. 3 sf @ 50 watts per is 150 watts on the nose.

I love my HID and there are ways you can use one here but, people are doing fantastic things without them. In a cab we want to maximise the cab's potential not the plants. Your cab can't hold what the plant is capable of. Surrendering HID may reduce overall weight but, quality smoke doesn't require HID.

big twinn said:

thanks for all of you guys' inputs! i greatly appreciate it!...if this was your current setup...what lights would you specifically choose?

Click to expand...

Do you DIY? If you're comfortable starting from scratch and wiring it yourself, I'd try a homemade Batwing with HID. If not comfortable with DIY, I'd probably go CFL. While I'd prefer tubes, they don't come in 18 or 30 inch lengths so sections of the grow would receive weaker light. With CFLs, you can go wall to wall.

big twinn said:

i plan on setting it up similarly to this grow box design:

Click to expand...

FreezerBoy said:

Double check my math but at 31x20 inches that's 4.3 sq feet...

Click to expand...

...divided by 2 equals 2.15. The undetermined divider thickness will absorb a little space, that's why I mentioned a smidgen over 2 feet.

does anyone have a link to which lights i should buy online? i went to lowes yesterday and decided to build my own box...i will have 3 square feet to cover for flowering and a height of around 35inches tall.

the lighting department gave me nothing but anxiety and i would much rather prefer a link to where i can purchase everything to setup my lighting including the sockets, electrical, bulbs ect. PLEASE do NOT just post a link to where they can be purchased...i really need specifics as far as which exact parts to buy and which exact bulbs to purchase...as picking out the specifics has been a nightmare for me.
thanks!

Check this out. 150w HPS remote ballast w/reflector for ~$70 shipped (last I checked.) This would give you 50 watts of HID per foot and you can grow hard nuggets with that.
http://htgsupply.com/viewproduct.asp?productID=53025

It's all in one. Hang the reflector, plug it in and you're rockin'. The only possible imperfect thing in this deal might be reflector size. If it's too big you may have to customize it or ditch it all together. If you build a rectangular flower footprint, your best bet is to go with a horizontal lamp setup IMO. You'll need the reflector in this case. Hang the bulb element parallel with the short wall. If your flower footprint is square or close to square, a vertical setup is cool too. Depending on pot size, you may be able circle the bulb with plants and possibly increase yields. You'd have to ditch the reflector but that's no big deal.

So you plan on building? That's good because you can customize according to the stuff that goes inside. Having the light, fans, etc on hand before the design might help determine space needs. Having a working plan on paper before you start building is key.

Measure once, cut twice.

ok so i have decided that i am going to go with
the dimensions are: 31.5 inches wide, 19 (5/8) inches deep, and 32 (5/8) tall.
the reason i switched is that lowes was out of the cabinet i linked above and the floor model was not to my specification. i tried to build my own cabinet but the wood that the people at lowes recommended (fiber board) kept splitting when i attempted to screw into it and it just did not seem to solid once i put it together. so now i think i have found the perfect box for my needs.

another problem i ran into is that i think i was attempting to accomplish too much with my limited space. I will be moving in the next year and after i do so, i will then upgrade to a larger cab to sustain clones and mothers with a seperate veg. and flower chamber.

for now i will be focusing on just one or 2 plants in my box that will be both the veg. chamber and flowering chamber. (how many plant do you think i can fit in these new larger dimensions?)

also, with this new box i need to also re-adjust the lighting im going to use. i think i am going to go with CFLs for now....unless the HPS light mentioned above will be quiet.
as far as CFLs go, i can afford any of the following...so which bulbs should i choose and how many of them do i need from this website (i want to optimize my grow)??????
http://www.1000bulbs.com/2-to-200-Watt-Compact-Fluorescent-Screw-In-Light-Bulbs/

as far as ventilation, once the lighting is chosen (obviously waiting for the recommendation on bulbs from the pros on here; what size ventilation do you think i will need to quietly cool my box efficiently!

thanks for the help, you guys ROCK!! i CANNOT wait to get my plants started...ive grown outdoors and it was wicked easy up until grass hoppers ate my plant within a few days and organic food safe pest spray fried the rest of it...

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except the old box i had planned on splitting it into two chambers....this new one will be one chamber...

...any suggestions for how many and which bulbs in my link??

nothing as far as which bulbs to pick in my link?