5 x 10 Tent light and fan recs

[the protege]

I'm looking to purchase a 5 x 10 tent for personal use. I'm not looking to maximize yield in a commercial sense, I simply want to grow the highest quality marijuana that I'm capable of. Some may be given to friends as presents but this isn't a commercial operation.

With a 5 x 10 tent, what would you do for lights and fans? I'm going to be growing all organic so the largest containers would likely be 5 or 7.5 gallon buckets/pots.

I don't want my electric bill to be too high and I don't want to run too many lights. I was thinking 2 x 600 with a 6" fan and carbon filter. It'll be in a dedicated room, I'm uncertain if I'll need a separate air conditioning unit for this. The room is a typical bedroom, nearly 15 x 12.

I'm interested in what fan you think I'll need, what size scrubber and if you think it'd be advantageous to run a different blend of light wattages, maybe even a 2:1, HPS:MH?

I will likely veg for 7ish weeks before flipping the lights but I'll allow the girls to help me decide. I appreciate any help I can get as I've never grown in this kind of space before. Any questions, fire away.

 

[pezthetoker]

That space would be more ideal for two 1k lights, or 3 600w. You want to shoot for around 50w of light per square foot of space. As far as the cooling it really depends on the ambient temperature of the room. Your tent will likely be 5 to 10 degrees warmer than outside the tent, and you don't want to go over 85 max temp. If you are going to pull through a scrubber and exhaust out the roof, 8" fan will work great. You may want a smaller tent depending also... This will certainly raise your electric bill a bit. I would use blue lamps for veg and red for bloom.

 

[pezthetoker]

One last thing.... Do not over veg your plants in there or they will cook! And as far as tents go for gorilla if it's in your budget, they can go just under 8ft tall with extension on them. Tall height is really helpful, especially for lower plant numbers and long veg time.

 

[DemonTrich]

I currently grow in a 5x10x6.5 tent. I run 2x600hps in 6" big kahuna hoods, 1x600hps in a 6" sunmaster hood (no room for a 3rd big kahuna hood), 2x 6" 440cfm fans for cooling my hoods, monster DIY carbon scrubber matted to an 8" 750cfm fan, 8" 400cfm intake fan, 8000btu portable a/c unit (intake fan sucks a/c air into tent), 1x 18" oscillating fan blowing under the hoods. I can fit 9x5gal pots plus a few 3 gal pots (im limited on how many pots I can veg at 1 time--either 9x5gal or 12x3.7gal pots maxed out in my veg tent).

I will soon be upgrading to an 8x12x6.8' room or a 7x12x6.8' room built flower room.

 

[the protege]

Thanks for the replies thus far. So I'm guessing it'd be better to do 3 - 6s than 2 - 1ks? For more even coverage across the footprint?

demontrich,

How do you run your fans for cooling the hoods? You have two 6" 440cfms cooling three hoods, I would've though you'd have daisy chained the hood ducting and run a single fan to cool. This is a lot more ventilation than I expected.

You have 2 6" for hoods, 2 8" for ventilation/scrubbing and an 8k btu a/c to cool directly into the tent. You also have the 18" oscillating fan to keep air moving within the tent.

How loud is your room? If the door was closed would you hear everything running? What is your energy bill like? This sounds borderline commercial and that's not really the way I'm wanting to go. I may need to size down. What kind of production are you looking at? How long do you veg? Are you a dirt or hydro grower?

12 x 3.7 gallon pots sounds great, that's around what I was imagining, maybe a few more 15-16ish.

I'll either slim down to the 4x8 or stay at the 5x10 and get the extensions to make it 9ft tall. Would that reduce the need for any of those fans?

Is there a thread or document that shows air circulation needs when supplying square footage and lights?

Thanks for your help!

 

[tenthirty]

How much money do you want to spend?

 

[DemonTrich]

hood cooling:
duct-6" fan-duct-tent-duct-hood-duct-hood-duct-hood-duct-tent-duct-6" fan-duct

air intake-a/c
8" hydrofarm intake fan on speed controller with custom duct from a/c taped to the 8" fan

monster carbon scrubber (180oz of charcoal in the scrubber) hung from tent ceiling-duct-ternt-duct-8" 750cfm fan-duct

power bills are about 500/mo

I also run a 600w in my veg tent, with a 6" fan for hood cooling, 8" exhaust, 6" intake, 4 4" clip fans, clone/mom room: 2x 2x4' t8 6500 lights in my clone/mother tent, plus a cloner, humidifier, 4x 4" clip fans, 6" exhaust, 4" intake


im a state LEGAL caregiver for a total of 6 people including myself. I don't talk about numbers, sorry.


guarantee you WILL need an a/c unit to cool the flower room, especially with 2 or 3 600's even with a cool tube or a/c hoods. my temps are stable at 73* year round (+/-3*). if I had more veg tent room, id be running 14-16 3.7gal pots. but im maxed at 9-5gal or 12-3.7 gal pots due to my 4x4x7 tent.

 

[the protege]

How much money do you want to spend?

I want to do it right so I have a safe, effective set-up that allows me to have plenty homegrown medicine. I'm not interested in spending boatloads of cash just to have the newest or coolest toys. Reliable, tried and true equipment will work for me.

Ideally I wouldn't spend over 3k, when I was pricing two lights plus a fan and scrubber, some ducting and buckets/pots and a few extras for my organic soil components, I was coming in aroudn $2300.

I'm willing to shell out more for quality if needed, I just want a smooth, efficient growing set-up and I may eventually add a mother's station but that isn't a part of this equation.

I don't want to draw attention, I don't need commercial yields. High quality, connoisseur canabis (cannassuer?). I want enough to make butters, hash, etc and have plenty of headstash for personal use. Let me know if you have any other questions.

 

[tenthirty]

If it were me, I would go with CXA 3070 COB leds at about 35w sq ft.
That would give you better quality than any hps.
On the down side, you have to assemble them your self and they will effectively last for ever.

4-6 inch fan sucking through a scrubber and a portable 8k btu ac would do the trick.

 

[the protege]

If it were me, I would go with CXA 3070 COB leds at about 35w sq ft.
That would give you better quality than any hps.
On the down side, you have to assemble them your self and they will effectively last for ever.

4-6 inch fan sucking through a scrubber and a portable 8k btu ac would do the trick.

Has this been proven? I haven't seen any research published that shows LEDs are able to outperform HIDs. I'd be interested in any research you've seen or any tutorials on building one.

 

[Granger2]

A 5x10 will grow vastly more than you need for your purposes. You can cut costs by downsizing. That is, unless you only want to grow like one maybe 2 crops per year. Good luck. -granger

 

[tenthirty]

Has this been proven? I haven't seen any research published that shows LEDs are able to outperform HIDs. I'd be interested in any research you've seen or any tutorials on building one.

Yes......
Google "DiY LED - Cree CXA3070"

I'm running them now and the results are impressive.

 

[the protege]

Yes......
Google "DiY LED - Cree CXA3070"

I'm running them now and the results are impressive.

I've done a bit of googling but I rarely see grows completed. I saw some university pubs about ongoing studies but nothing to verify. You truly believe they outperform HPS in some regard? Is it watts/gram? Quality of mj/watt?

And if what you say is true, why aren't there more operations going over to this? It seems like the bleeding edge peeps who like to jump on the new stuff and work out the kinks until it's proven to be a winner or falls by the wayside.

I'm really not trying to be inflammatory but I haven't seen much offered. Can you point me in the direction of the grow journals showing side by side comparisons of HPS vs the Cree LEDs using the same clones and atmospheric controls?

I've seen a couple completed grows but I'm not seeing how they produce better buds. I do appreciate the input though.

 

[dank.frank]

You're biggest problem - like any grow - is going to be fan noise. That's the reason I'm not a fan of tents. For the cost of a Gorilla tent - I can frame something out with 2 x 4's and over pack it with insulation to cut down on sound and keep temps more steady. Not only that, then I have solid walls on which I can actually mount things on vs the fabric which holds no weight.

If noise is even an concern - then a single 4" duct fan can be heard through walls - let alone an 8" and a couple of 6" - it'll sound like a jet taking off from your spare room with that much air movement.

Your BEST idea - would be to provide overkill on the air conditioning and and use oscillating fans to move the air about and then to use a single 8" on a big filter to scrub the smell...

Just my opinion...



dank.Frank

 

[Granger2]

My "tents" are made out of 2x4's, cheap paneling, 1x2's, thin plywood. I can hang anything anywhere, and do pull ups [if I wanted to]. I can fall into anything without the slightest vibration. Cheaper. Good luck. -granger

 

[Mikell]

I can fall into anything without the slightest vibration.

Excellent. I am going to include this in my new book, "Successfully Gardening while Drunk off your Arse", unless you object?

 

[pezthetoker]

Drunken gardening is dangerous! I almost took my eye out with a bamboo stick that was helping to hold up a plant. Thank God I was wearing my method 7s cause that one would have caused damage.

 

[Mikell]

^HAH! I was not drunk and did that, without glasses. Oh wait, that makes me look stupider... Bloody thing took me right under the eyebrow. Learned to look where the fack I'm going pretty quick after that

Hah, dragged a thread off topic again. Apologies to OP

 

[the protege]

Thanks to everyone for the responses. I'm thinking of doing a custom cab instead that would have separate mom, clone, veg and flower rooms and aimed at generating the least amount of heat and giving consistent personal yields. I think i was allowing the tent size to bloom too big so I'm going to reverse that direction a bit.

I'll post a thread as the projects launches.