growlab 80 - 400 watt vs 250 watt HPS

[fatboycantpost]

howdy.

i've spent a good part of the day reading and i'm still flipping a coin. i don't see many people using a 250 watt for this size tent, mostly 400 watters.

long story short, the ex got the house and i'm stuck in an apartment for another 5 months or so and i'm itching to grow again (and i'm running low on medicine) so i just set up a growlab 80 in a closet. it is 2' 7" by 2" 7" by 5'
11". now i need some equipment. i think my 1000 watt might get too hot! by the way, the tent was very easy to set up.

i've read alot of posts and most people seem to use a 400 watt unit in tents around this size. the typical footprint for a 250 watt is 3' by 3' which seems perfect for this unit. typical for a 400 watt is 5' by 5'. i'm off to the store in a few days and right now i'm thinking of getting a 250 watt HPS with a type of ballast that will allow me to use MH and HPS lamps. the ballast will be placed outside of the tent.

i will be leaving the front of the tent open and blowing in air from the bedroom using a couple fans. maybe use an ossilating fan inside the unit if i can find one that i can mount.

i am not planning on using an inline fan and odor filter as i'm barely able to figure out how to use a hammer and i don't want to buy something i'm pretty sure i will have a problem figuring out and end up not using. i mostly use odor gells and an ozium dispenser by the front door.

the plan is to SOG ending up with 15 to 25 fems (from seed) in 1 gall grow bags (5" footprint). i'll plant 30-36 seedlings (using a 3" footprint bag or pot) and cull the males. i have a nice little home made cross from my cinderella 88 and apollo 13 (old school huh?). they show sex very early and mature enough for my tastes in about 45 days.

i will be moving to a house in about 5 months cuz i can't stand apartment living and pest control wandering through every couple months!!!!!!

when i move, i'll be using this tent for vegging only and will either use a big closet or get a good size tent for flowering, using a 600 watt HPS or 2 400 watters. even though the 250 watt unit i'm looking at is a HPS it can use an MH lamp and at this time, i don't care if it may burn out the unit sooner.

i realize the 400 watt will penetrate deeper but i'm not planning on growing these SOGs very tall. i'll veg for maybe 2 months max, less if i can. if you had the choice and are concerned about heat, would you go with a 400 or a 250 watt unit? tent flap open, fans blowing air into the tent...

i'm a retired homebody and only leave the house at night so i'm not worried about the landlord sneaking in for a look and they give 24 hours notice if they have to do something so i figure i'll just pull everything down and stash the plants in an outside storage closet if it comes down to it. love those thick garbage bags!

any help would be appreciated!

overgrow!@!

 

[fatigues]

i realize the 400 watt will penetrate deeper but i'm not planning on growing these SOGs very tall. i'll veg for maybe 2 months max, less if i can. if you had the choice and are concerned about heat, would you go with a 400 or a 250 watt unit? tent flap open, fans blowing air into the tent...

You've answered your own question here really. If penetration is not the issue and this is only a veg box. In an approx 2.5x2.5 ft grow, multi plant SOG, short stature? Use a 250 MH or, better still, CMH for veg. A tad on the weak side, but ... you'll finish flowering in much more intense light - so I think 250 would be fine.

If you already have both the 250 and the 400 and there is nothing left to buy ... 400 is not likely to hurt much (and it might well help). If it's too much heat for the tent - don't be afraid to drop down to your 250.

 

[fatboycantpost]

howdy fatigues. the name reminds me of my military days! FATaGUEs.

you're right. for a one time SOG and then making it a veg tent, a 250 w should be fine. i've been reading for another 8 hours on the subject and after finding a few good 250 grow threads i think the 250 would be fine and i won't have to worry about heat.

ok, now that that is decided, i have to go back to figuring out what new genetics i want from gypsy and co. !

later!

 

[Quazi]

the typical footprint for a 250 watt is 3' by 3' which seems perfect for this unit. typical for a 400 watt is 5' by 5'.

No. This is not correct. Not at all.

A 250 spread out over 3'x3' would deliver 27 watts per square foot -- hardly what you would want.

You want to try to shoot for 50W per square foot at least.

A 400 spread out over a 5'x5' would be even worse at 16 watts per square foot.

Operating the tent with it just being open with no odor control is going to cause odor problems -- guaranteed. You already said you live in an apartment and you're worried about pest control coming around every so often so this will almost certainly be a problem for you. Also, you're probably going to have light leak problems when you go to flower if the tent is always open. There's nothing to ensure stray light doesn't get in there.

As far as it being "too complicated": if you can use a roll of tape, you can hook up an inline fan to a carbon filter.

Question for you: why use a tent and not the whole closet if you're just going to leave it open anyway?

Lastly: 2 months of veg is pretty long considering how big you (do/don't) want your plants to be in the end.

You may want to think this through a bit more...

-Q

 

[fatboycantpost]

i hate you Quazi!

good points all. you've got me rethinking the whole using the tent idea.

i bought the tent to use for vegging over a year ago. my situation changed and sitting around a couple weeks ago, i decided to set it up for shits and giggles to see what it looked like. then the growing bug hit hard and here i am.

as far as why not grow in the whole closet; my thinking was that i like the tent. nice and neat and no worries of getting the carpet wet or splashing the walls. it's a good size closet and i like the tent's reflecting abilities better than if i laid them out in the closet and i like that i can hang anything in it without having to make something to hang lights and perhaps a fan or filter from. it's not my property and i try to be a good tenant. then again, why not just use the freaking closet? i can protect the carpet etc a couple nails won't hurt anything...

your point about watts per sq foot is troubling and i may have to rethink this. i'll be reading up on it. it was never a concern before because i always flowered with either an 800 watt (400w hps/400w mh unit) or 1000w hps. 23w psf is awfully low but this will be more like a 2' 4" x 2' 4" area which probably won't make much of a difference in watts per sf. after reading a bunch of posts from happy 250w users, i figured it would do...

i always end up vegging clones for 60 to 70 days and my old veg closet (which was about this tent's dimensions) or this tent will be overcrowded quickly. I used to post as fatboyOGOF: i have a thread that shows what 30 clones in a 2.5 x 2.5 closet looks like.

i figure they will grow slower with a 250w vs a 400w and after this grow the tent will only be used for vegging. i get better yeilds with a crowded grow room than one with a good amount of space between ladies. i realize that goes against convention but i've been doing this along time and it's how it works out for me.

as far as light leaks go, i was just going to close the closet door when they sleep. no light leaks! but i'm going to get high and do some serious thinking about just using the closet and forgetting the tent for this grow.

i wan't too concerned about odor because when/if i get notified that the bug guy is coming, i'm just going to put the plants into an outside balcony storage closet; triple wraped in heavy duty, odor restraining garbage bags. i'm in an upstairs apt and no one will see the transfer. if i'm in flower next time he comes around, i'll just tell him to bugger off and he won't be back until the grow is harvested. it's a $50 fine for not letting him in. lol.

in my old set up for vegging it would take 6 to 8 weeks for seedings to get very tall. it may be because i was using a very old 400w MH light (the ballast was over 12 years old) and it was used alot over the years! i always LST (what we used to call tying them down) the hell out of them so i wasn't too concerned about height. I haven't done a SOG for around 12 years so i am a bit fuzzy on using this method but if i can put them in flower earlier, all the better.

i'm now thinking that a 400w, using the whole closet and blowing air into the closet won't get the temps too high but i'm also thinking that i may use an inline fan, a can filter and just lay the tubeing outside the closet into the bedroom. i always just used gels and ozium for odor control while growing but i had a good size house and a back bedroom, not this smallish apartment. back to reading!

you are right, i need to do some more thinking! maybe if i didn't toke for a couple days... naaaa! lol.

thank you!

 

[Kal-El]

Check out my hempy tub sog, it might help ya out.