150w HPS Club and Resource Guide......

[Black Ra1n]

actually I use and recommend the (cool blue) daylight floros for veg as do a few others around here. They help to keep the plant nice and squat in veg. Then into the 150 cab which is perpetually on 12/12.

Black Ra1n that is one slick looking cabinet man - nice and clean classic NGB style - very nice! what size is the flower area and what did you use for ventilation?
suga

I have 4 cool white 15 watt t8's, I didn't see any cool blue's at home depot, guess I should get some eh!

Thanks Sugabear, I took NOKUYS cabinet build and tweaked a few things. The dimensions are 3 feet tall, 3 feet wide and 2 feet thick. The flower room is 3 by 2, I used two fans I got from the source or radio shack if you live in the states. They're 4", 120v fans that run pretty quiet. I don't have a scrubber hooked up yet so I'm not sure if I have enough flow to go through the scrubber, but I'm hoping I do. Here's a few pics of the fan setup.

This is the fan that's hooked up to the cool tube, I just mounted it to the back of the 4" toilet flange, it fits perfectly.


Here's the one that vents everything out the back.



Hey Pipeline, thanks for the info on sterilizing rockwool cubes I would have never thought of that.

B/R

 

[sugabear_II]

hey blackrain - cool white is kinda same thing as cool blue - if you look closely on the tube you may be able to find a number with a K next to it, like 3200K or 6500K - or it will be on the tube package - this tells you spectrum. Cool white/blue is the 6000K and up area whereas 3000K is warm white. A good place to pick up floro tubes of many spectrums is at pet stores - they make different ones for different types of aquariums and they usually have the 15 watt variety.

HP - man oh man that is a thread I definitely need to subscribe to - LOL

 

[green_grow]

harvested feb 18 ...


this is how she looks today ...




it's my sugarwarp . when i stripped it clean (with the exception of 2 of the tiniest leaves imagineable) i seriously doubted that it would reveg. the leaves are kinda pale ; i believe that means she might be underfed ? nonetheless, it looks like she will survive nicely so that i can take cuttings in the future .

p.s. black rain : what have you got for intake ? i am curious because all i see is one (small) pipe. how's the temps ?

 

[rasta]

hey sugarbear i have a question about that last thing u said about the aquarium lights....i was thinkin the same thing i have a blue one in my growroom just chillin the marine glow i believe its called as u can see here

thats also alil update on my grow...i pulled alot....im down to 11 strong plants but ya am i wasting space with that light or u think its helping? i have a couple other bulbs to i can try if that one is no good

 

[Pipedream]

rasta - Any and all additional light help, with the exception of Green. Blue spectrum is especially good at the beginning of veg to keep them short and bushy, and again at the end of flower to help add on the trich's.

 

[HeadyPete]

Hey guys,

Suga, great info about colour temp.

Black Ra1n and others, all the home depot bulbs list it on the packaging, so it is easy to compare. Here are the kelvin ratings for all the popular Philips tubes at Home Depot, from yellow/white (lower kelvin) to blue/white (higher kelvin):

HOMELIGHT SOFT WHITE - 3000K
HOMELIGHT COOL WHITE PLUS - 4100K
HOMELIGHT NATURAL SUNSHINE - 5000K
HOMELIGHT DAYLIGHT DELUXE - 6500K

PLANT & AQUARIUM - n/a (I believe this is warm white, down around 3500K)
BLACKLIGHT - ultraviolet (This is beyond the spectrum of visible light, after violet)

Some of the aquarium actinic bulbs can be from between 7000K and 20000K, extreme blue.

I don't know if it is worth spending money on a high end bulb like that (ie. Coralife) for growing when I'm sure the home depot 6500Ks will do just fine. Add one 3000K to the mix to get a more balanced spectrum. For a few bucks a bulb I doubt you will need anything more expensive.

The other factor is usable par watts, where you may have 400W of CFLs and a 400 W HPS, whereas the HPS will generate more usable light at the same wattage, as hps is the most efficient light technology at the moment. CFLs are better in a small spot than tubes, and many CFLs will make more usable, penetrating light than tubes.

Hope this helps.

 

[rasta]

ok good so its good....just making sure i wasnt wasting an extra 18hours of 15w lol thanks pipe and pete

 

[Black Ra1n]

Thanks Headypete for the info.

B/R

 

[sugabear_II]

howdy 150 club here's a few shots of what will be my last grow for a while..

I switched from my usual two bucket to this single large container (4 gallons or so) when i realized I would need to leave them for a week and they did fine with this res. here's the whole shebang in the cabinet with the red arrow showing the position of the lamp.

and from above - there are two clones in there - grapefruit on left and burmese on right. As you can see the burmese was healthier aand produced more roots and hence much bigger growth. from the side you can see how I've trained three branches out to catch all the light w/o getting burnt. I kid you not when I say they changed orientation within 10 hours of lights on after the training.

suga

 

[rasta]

wow. nice grow suga, i think this is my first time seeing it. is that a SWC? everything looks soooo healthy.

 

[sugabear_II]

wow. nice grow suga, i think this is my first time seeing it. is that a SWC? everything looks soooo healthy.

hey rasta it is actually dwc ... deep water culture as the water is a good 6 deep - swc tends to be more shallow. thanks for the complement I try to keep them healthy by giving lots of air movement and fresh air along with fresh nutrients every week and not too much on the nutrients. i've grown both these strains before so I also know what they like.

suga

oh and headypete one more point on floros and that is that tubes will produce more light per watt than cfls. however you can usually fit more cfls in the same space.

 

[HeadyPete]

Thanks suga, would you use tubes or CFLs, for say, a 4' x 4' mother chamber?

 

[sugabear_II]

Thanks suga, would you use tubes or CFLs, for say, a 4' x 4' mother chamber?

i'd probably use a bunch of the 4' t8 shop lights available at home depot or walmart for pretty cheap. or a t5 setup if i had extra money.

however i use cfls in my little eleven and a half by eleven (inch) and a half veg cab.


suga

 

[Pipedream]

Hey Guys and Gals,

This might be a very appropriate place to post a link to a new thread I just started.

It deals with an inexpensive, better type of CFL, I just recently started to work with. So far, it seems very promising. Take a peek and let me know what you think.

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?p=967138#post967138

Regards to all, PD

 

[Jaxom]

Urgent Help needed!

Urgent Help needed!

Just when you think things can't get any worse, the often times they do. I'm not gonna sit here a whine about how rotten my life has been, rather I need some help to get growing PDQ!

Actually thing were looking up, I had just gotten out of trade school and was agressivly seeking working in a trade. But then one morning my mother, whom I live with injured herself. While examining her for that injury they found that she's got advanced breast cancer. It's quite possible it's in her lungs and liver as well, we just don't know yet as all the tests haven't come in.

We've discussed it, and she is willing to try some medical herb while she is on chemo. So that's what I need advice on.

We own our home, but we still need to keep things stealthy. So I'm thinking a pair of "speaker stands". One for scrogging, the other for mother plant, seedling, drying, ect.

Most home improvement stores sell pre-cut pieces of plywood in 2'x4' sections. These would be the basis of my grow towers. I'm mainly concerned about heat in the flowering chamber. I've already purchased one of those 150w hps that are recommened throughout this thread. It's already disassembled and ready for re wiring as soon as I find a suit able box to mount it in. I've also purchased two 100cfm muffin fans for ventilation. I'm wondering would this be enough for such a small space? (2'x2'x4'=16sqft)

Speaking of ventilation. I've got a bunch of those 3" round soffit vent plugs. The way I would like to trim this all out, is have these mounted on the bottom of the box, then using some short 2" tall legs to keep the very bottom off the floor and enough space so air can freely flow under the box. This would all be hidden by some baseboard trim and would be very light tight. Just how many of these plugs would I require?

I have other questions, but I'ld like to solve one issue at a time.

Any and all suggestions will be greatly appericated,

Jaxxx

 

[chosen]

Here are a couple of small setups. You can do whatever you imagine. Growers are resourceful. And medical growers are even more resourceful.
Pc Case Setup
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=54235
Pc Growers thread
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=54232
Yukon's larger size cab around 2' x 3' sections
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=50763&page=1&pp=15

Red Greenery's stealth cab
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=31605

 

[Pipedream]

To cool my 150 plus a host of other electrical components, I'm using a 4.5 inch computer-type fan and have three 3" vent holes in the bottom of my box. It seems to work fine for me. Of course the smaller the space, the harder it is to cool. As far as the baseboard goes, I assume you'll do the front and two sides and leave the rear open for air-intake to the space below the cabinet?

Here's all I'm cooling and my vent holes.

 

[sugabear_II]

Jaxom - I am sorry to hear of your moms illness and wish all the best for her.

I use three 2" OD (1 and 1/2inch ID) pvc intakes for my 150 cabinet and a single 4" exhaust which a 134cfm dayton blows through.

One question I have to ask is your plan to intake and exhaust from under the enclosure? I would be concerned about the air recycling too much

Why not just build/convert a cabinet or a dresser? - a wardrobe cabinet can easily be converted to a grow cabinet with enough space for both your moms and your flower space. Tot-loks can secretly secure it. I and many other folks have these cabinets in our bedrooms. I would think by keeping the cabinet in a bedroom inside a piece of normal furniture like a TV armoier or dresser would be more stealthy then custom built speakers... but hey that's just me.

-suga

 

[BonsaiGrower]

Power to the 150watters

Harvest imminent.

I'm lovin this little thing and I built it because of you guys.



You know I'm always following this thread.

Peace
BG

 

[Jaxom]

Pipedream,

Yes! That's it exactlly! Way back in the beginning of this thread I seen where someone used a darkroom vent, then placed a wire rack above that to support the dwc bucket. I liked this example so much I was going to include that into my "ulitmate" scrog box. But lack of funds is preventing me from doing this now. I have to go with materials that I have on hand.

While I don't have the wire rack to install, I do have some left over scrap industrial peg board. I figure if I use some oil based primer to seal this and then use moisture resistant bathroom paint (flat white) that I have, should seal up the peg board nicely. I know pegboard seems flimsey, but this is that really thick stuff meant for garages, nearly 1/2" thick, and I'll reinforce it with some 1"x1" frame for extra support.

Sugabear II,

Noooo, the intake will be on the bottom, and the exhaust will be as close to the top backside I can get it above the hps. I plan on routing out some of the 3/4" ply so I can litterly set the fans into the box. Then on the outside use some 1"x1" with some 1/4" ply to make some baffels preventing the air from recirculating too much. On the inside, also use some wood strips and make some interchangeable oder filters per what Pipedream recommended to me a long while ago.


Next issue. Assembling the lamp and building a hood for the bulb. I've seen where folks have used an electrical box to house the balast and ignitor stuffs, I'm just wondernig how hot this gets. The room it will be in is carpeted and am concerned if I lay this on carpet it will cause a fire. Could I mount this on the back of the box? And if so, would it cause the box to get to hot?

I had thought about building a cool tube, but the size of these towers I feel will prevent me from doing so. I do however have some sheet aluminium and some 1/2" ply that I can cut ends out to build a hood. Would this work? Or are there some other ideas for building hoods about?


Tia,

Jaxx