Help me designing my grow room

Hello ICMag!

First post, recently registered, been lurking these forums for quite a while. Thought this would be the time to get things rolling, and I'm in need of your expertise!

So I'm very new to the hole "hobby", no grow under my belt. But very eager to try it. Since I recently got to live the single life, this is the best oppurtunity!

So I got this room (pic below) wich is 120x220x250. And it's in an apartment, so I can't do any major changes to it. No big holes in the walls etc. But I can dedicate this room to growing only.

My first thought was to get a growtent for it, I wanted the Secret Jardin DR120 Twin. But apparently you need extra space on the sides of the tent for ventilation, I have no idea why though as I've never seen a grow tent in real life. There is the same tent with 90 width instead, but it feels like I'm losing out on alot of space then. I want to use as much space as I possibly can for this!

In said tent I intended to grow a sog type grow. Giving each plant 20x20 or 30x30. And I was going to use the hempy bucket method. The lighting would be a 600W HPS.

In the veg tent above I'd use the Secret Jardin Tneon with 2x 55w 6500k flourescent lights. The idea was to do one strain and keep around 3 mother plants and do clones 3-4 weeks before the plants in bloom are done. A perpetous sog if you will.

But since I got told that the 120 tent wont work, I'm back at the drawing board. Will you help me getting the most out of my room? Please!

Picture of the room:

Couldn't find the edit button, sorry if I'm blind.

The little spacing in the top of the pic with the arrow pointed at it is a radiator.

I dont see why you need any more room than a few inches on each side of the tent for air flow, providing you have your filter(if used) and blower(if used) inside the tent, and not beside it, taking up your room.

As long as you have .5cm of space between tent and wall, and sufficient intake/exhaust youll be fine!

standsideways said:

I dont see why you need any more room than a few inches on each side of the tent for air flow, providing you have your filter(if used) and blower(if used) inside the tent, and not beside it, taking up your room.

As long as you have .5cm of space between tent and wall, and sufficient intake/exhaust youll be fine!

Click to expand...

Problem is, since the room is 120cm wide, I don't know if I'll even have .5cm in between tent and wall. I don't know how accurate the measurements of the tents are. If it's 119cm I'm golden. If it's the other way I'm screwed.

But the filter and fan are ment to be inside of the tent.

Thanks for your reply!

It should actually measure about 123-125 on the outermost points. Most tents are measured inside the "cage" or "poles"

Why not go with the dr90 twin?

Some dudes here pullin nice #'s from dr90's!

Thats what im orderin shortly

What I can advise is plan it out very well, and don't go cheap on things...

I started out trying to be super cheap and you end up upgrading too frequently. Not a lot is going to beat HID lighting (MH/HPS). I recently starting vegging with a HPS instead of MH and noticed no significant change on node spacing, if any at all.

If you do get a tent know that it will be about 10-15 degrees hotter inside than what it is ambient in the apartment.

Sorry for not replying to you, I appreciate the answers. Been hard at work the last week.

I'd like for you veterans to take a look at my list and see if I'm lacking anything, any opinions are welcome really.

Dark Room Twin 90 - 219.95€
Exhaustfan kit 355m3/h 125mm - 129.95€
Lumatek NXE 600W Electronic Ballast - 169€
Spudnik Reflector Prima Klima 125mm - 89.95€
Sylvania 600W HPS-TS - 29.95€
Tneon armature 2x55W - 63€
TC-L lamp 55W Growth 6500k - 7.95 x2

Grand total: 717.70 Euro or 923$.

What do you think?

Looks good to me

How's the price? Can I get a better deal somewhere or is the grand total within the acceptable range?

Hello again!

Different reasons made me postpone my grow, mostly due to money. But I think it was a good thing, have had alot of time to think about this and I might have come up with a different plan. I felt that the tent made me lose out on alot of space, as I said before. Not to mention it's an extra cost.

A friend then told me of ONA-gel/block. Wich apparently is a smell neutraliser, and apparently an effective one. Made me think, if that works, I don't need a carbon filter, if I don't need a carbon filter I don't need a tent, if I don't need a tent I can utilize every inch in that room. Joy!

Problem is, I don't actually know if it's working or not! Maybe someone can chime in here for a bit? Or maybe someone have another solution? If I indeed do need a carbon filter and a fan I do need a tent since I can't cut holes and such in the room. I do have a very small window in the top left corner of the picture. But I can't open it, it got a little venting hatch though. Roughly 15-20cm wide and when open the most it's 1cm "high". Maybe I can cover this up with a bit of plywood, cut a hole in the plywood and attach outgoing air there? But what about incoming air? Are the gaps in a regular doorway enough (when door is closed)?

I've also been thinking of what sort of grow I want to do. I've been set to do a SOG grow, been told it's faster. But that depends on how you look at it if I'm not mistaking. Sure vegtime is less, but bloomtime is the same. So if I would go with a bush style grow, I could veg plants in the same time as I got plants in bloom. Kicking off another bloomcycle right after harvest. So the same time for both really? Question is, wich way will give me the highest yield? Attached two pictures (piccasso quality) to give you a better view of what I'm talking about.

Either way, I will use hempy buckets. If SOG I'll use small 15x15cm pots. If Bush I'll use 27.5x24.5cm pots (~18L ~4.5gallons).

Lighting in bloom would be 2x 600W HPS and I think t5 flourescents in veg. Advice on reflectors and bulbs are much appreciated.

I'll stop here since this is already a freaking wall of text, hopefully some of you who reads this got the time and will to help a fellow out. I'll include your name in the credits!

Thanks

Bah I always forget something!

The green area in the SOG picture is the actual grow area, the white area is place for me to move. Did not include such space for bush since I can just move plants out of the room when I need to reach veg chamber.

Could a mod move this to the new grower section instead? Might get more help over there

I'll give this thread another go since now it's actual "design" problems I've run in to. Mainly how to set up the tent I've decided on. Made the decision that utilizing the whole room is not very smart.

So the idea is to use the Secret Jardin DR90 Twin. And making it work with only one exhaust fan and one carbonfilter. Connecting the two chambers with ducting. As you can see in the picture I'd place a regular fan in the top chamber near the passive intake, blowing air over the plants and towards the connecting ducting to the bottom chamber (flower chamber).

The idea here is to push the "polluted" and smelly air down to the bloom chamber. Down there I have the spudnik vented hood (http://www.head-nature.com/article/08458/Spudnik-Reflector-Prima-Klima-125mm.xhtml), connected to a Activated carbon filter 125mm - 400m³/h wich in turn is connected to a LTI Fan 125mm - 355m³/h. Note that the air coming from top chamber /veg chamber) is not connected directly to the hood, it just goes in to the bottom chamber and mixes with the rest of the air down there.

The idea is that that setup will vent the flower chamber of polluted air, and create enough negative preassure to make the passive intakes work. The exhaust fan will suck air through the filter. And the exhausted air will go through ducting towards a window I have high up in the room, where I have a venting hatch. Hopefully this will make heated air escape the room, making it unable to recirculate heated air, and that way keeping my temps down.

During fall/winter I can keep my ambient temp in the room at 19C, will this setup be able to keep the temperature at a good level inside the tent? I don't really know how effective vented hoods are since I've never grown before.

Thoughts?

P.S If anyone has any ideas of a regulator/thermostat for the exhaust fan feel free to let me know. Would be great to have it go on when it hits say 25C and goes off at 22C or something.

I have one suggestion and that is to put the filter and fan on the cool side of the light. That was the hot air is not being drawn through the fan and the bearings, lubricant and other parts are not being subjected to the heat. It will make the fan last a hell of a lot longer...

Good Luck

vukman said:

I have one suggestion and that is to put the filter and fan on the cool side of the light. That was the hot air is not being drawn through the fan and the bearings, lubricant and other parts are not being subjected to the heat. It will make the fan last a hell of a lot longer...

Good Luck

Click to expand...

Ah very true! I got told that it's important to suck the air through the filter and came up with that setup. Your idea is much better, thanks!

Do you think my plan will work in other aspects?

I like your last picture...its how I draw my shit out on the computer.

Unfortunately your design will not work my friend. From where the air enters your tent, it's gonna take the path of least resistance to exit your tent.

That means that fan at the top isn't going to do fuck all I'm afraid.

As simple as I can explain it...which is still probably confusing lol...is you need to pull the air into your tent via the passive intake you have at the bottom. No other spot, simply one intake. Then run it through the hood, filter, fan, and out. Not "near" that area above..."through" that area above.

The last thing you want is ANY of that hot air being recycled in your tent/room. Get it the hell out of there.

5th said:

I like your last picture...its how I draw my shit out on the computer.

Unfortunately your design will not work my friend. From where the air enters your tent, it's gonna take the path of least resistance to exit your tent.

That means that fan at the top isn't going to do fuck all I'm afraid.

As simple as I can explain it...which is still probably confusing lol...is you need to pull the air into your tent via the passive intake you have at the bottom. No other spot, simply one intake. Then run it through the hood, filter, fan, and out. Not "near" that area above..."through" that area above.

The last thing you want is ANY of that hot air being recycled in your tent/room. Get it the hell out of there.

Click to expand...

So two intakes wont work? Even with the oversized exhaust fan I chose? If not, how would you set the venting up for the top chamber?

I can't push the air out I'm afraid, not without being obvious. Figured I'd give this a go, if it doesn't work I need to come up with something...

No two intakes won't work. (personal experience) The air is going to enter the intake that is less obstructed. While the other one is going to sit there dormant being useless to you.

Overkill or not...your exhaust fan isn't going to work if your ventilation system isn't set up properly.

I'll go over your pics again to see if anything comes to mind to make this work...

Atleast you had the fore sight to get a bigger fan...that why my (and countless others) cabs took so long to figure out...we lacked a proper air circulation.

I'm not trying to dicourage you in any shape, form, or fashion but temps are make or break for small grows.

get a piece of paper and draw a line on it that looks like this;

Intake---------------------------------------------------exhaust

The order you stick stuff like filters n' such is upto you...but you can't break that like...it literally needs to flow from one to the next with no breaks inbetween.

Edit: yeah...a 600w bro? If you can keep those ambient temps at 19C like you said...maybe...but them shits are hot dude. Tent looks sketchy as fuck too I might add...I'm sure its sturdy...but anyways...

Now this is not trademarked in anyways. This is actually a drawing by me and not google sketch up like you may have thought.
The air comes in through the passive intake, across your tent into the hood of your reflector,(small fan might help with the convectional heat) through the ducting to your top area. You'd leave the top area open, all air would be sucked through the filter before being expelled from the tent.

I hear you, loud and clear.

I was thinking about that way first, but then for some reason I thought to myself "the veg chamber will only get used air and no fresh air". Maybe I was wrong?

I'd like to run a 600w very much. But I've been told it might be hard. Was thinking about buying a 600w electronic ballast that can dim down to 400w. Should make it possible to run 400w bulbs as well then? I'm not worth a dime when it comes to electronics though, so that thought might not work?

Thanks alot for taking the time to help me, with drawings none the less! You're golden!

Hmm I just remembered. When I asked head-nature they said it's important to suck the air through the filter, not to push it through. With your way of setting it up I would almost have to keep the exhaust fan outside of the tent. How's the noise level of those..?