Maximising grow space in a small tent.

[Reg Dixon]

So I'd like to grow 2 or 3 different strains but my tent is only 2x2x5 feet.
I'm limited to CFL's and coco as far as lighting and medium goes.

I'd like at least to get 1.5 ounces per plant although yield is not so important. Just want a bit of variety in my smoke

I'm thinking of some kind of vertical SCROG running the length of the tent down the middle with plants at back of tent. Screen in middle with buds trained onto the screen and lights at the front hanging down from hooks and chains at various levels.

Any ideas and suggestions that do noti nclude buying HPS lighting and a bigger tent would be very helpful

 

[Boomer89]

Out of curiosity, why no HPS? CFL's are great for veg, but when it comes to flowering, its really difficult to get nice dense buds out of them. There's only so much you can accomplish with them.

 

[teemu shalanie]

u need a air cooled light in that tent 400 or 600? , then scrog that beotch !, prob do coco in 1or 2 gals,or a nft system in ther if I wuz u ,.....
TS

 

[Reg Dixon]

To give you an idea of the smallness of the tent the tent makers recommend no more than 150w HPS in this model.

Not worth it IMHO.

CFL's are a better bet in this particular case as I can get them close to all major budsites. There are after all some advantages of growing in a tight space. Even CFL's are pretty strong in such a confined space if you use enough of them!



There is good airflow through the tent also which means temps are pretty much bang on where I need them to be even running a lot of CFL's.

 

[hush]

My tent's the same size as yours and I have a 400w in mine. It's in an air-cooled hood, of course, but it is only attached to a $20 duct booster fan which keeps the temp inside only 1.5 degrees (F) warmer than the ambient air.

CFL's are ridiculous, IMO, on anything much bigger than a square foot. That cat blynx knows what he is doing... he builds little 1 sq ft boxes to put CFLs in. But not 4 square feet. At least, if you really want to use fluorescent, go with some 54w T5s strapped to the corners and go vertical. Just my opinion.

 

[Harry Gypsna]

If you are using a big CFL like a 150/200watter, then Id go for a donut with the lamp bare in the middle. There was a czech guy had a small grow in a dustbin, chicken wire screen, plant growing though it, CFL in the middle.
EDIT
The picture wasn't showing for me when I posted this. I see that you are using normal household CFLs.
I'd just gropw little plants and surround them with the CFLs.

 

[Kush Technician]

Dude if Ricky can build a string of hps grow boxes out of trashcans, I know you can get at least a 250w hps in there. hehe

Id go with two 150w or 250w hps in cooltubes vertical, since you have 5 ft height. Booster fans on either end or one cheap 4" or 6" inline fan. 4 plants, one in each corner, and scrog around the cooltubes. Possible 8 plants or more if you can make several levels of shelves.

There is a cool low pressure aero/vertical nft design using a vertical manifold of 4" pvc y's with netpots hanging in the open ends of the y's and sprayers for each pot and seperate reservoir. hope that makes sense.

 

[Jnugg]

1x 400w HPS hung bare bulb and vertical or 2x 250w HPS stacked bare bulbed and vertical.I've got a grow going on now,same as every other grow for the last decade or so,horizontal air cooled hood yada yada yada...thinking of going vertical,rather then having a small foot print to work with (2' x 2' in your case) you go vertical and now the lower branches are getting just as much light as only just the tops would get if going horizontal lighting...take a look at the vertical/collosseum forum,might open your eyes or change your perspective on things as it has for me.After checking it out and researching a lot of the threads I am strongly considering going vertical with my current grow with a 400w HPS in my DR90 (3' x 3' x 6' tent).

 

[yesum]

Those cfls without reflectors are wasting over half their light. You could hang them vertically in between a circle of plants. They can be within an inch of flowering plants.

I use 55 watt pl-l fluorescent lights in the corners of my 2x2x5' tent, with LED light overhead. I will one day put four of the 55 watt pl-l into a single array and use that for a overhead light that will fill the growing area with light.

I would put those cfl's into y splitters and that into large clamp reflectors or make some. Might need extenders also if the cfl is over 30 watts. Grow little 1 foot tall plants or just a bit over that with 1 plant per 2 lights in splitter.

The sides of the tent suck in under pressure so if you can fix some rods or flat pieces of wood or other rigid material inside the tent walls to prevent the pulling in, that will give you another couple inches to work with.

 

[unregistered190]

Those cfls without reflectors are wasting over half their light. You could hang them vertically in between a circle of plants. They can be within an inch of flowering plants.

I use 55 watt pl-l fluorescent lights in the corners of my 2x2x5' tent, with LED light overhead. I will one day put four of the 55 watt pl-l into a single array and use that for a overhead light that will fill the growing area with light.

I would put those cfl's into y splitters and that into large clamp reflectors or make some. Might need extenders also if the cfl is over 30 watts. Grow little 1 foot tall plants or just a bit over that with 1 plant per 2 lights in splitter.

The sides of the tent suck in under pressure so if you can fix some rods or flat pieces of wood or other rigid material inside the tent walls to prevent the pulling in, that will give you another couple inches to work with.

good info there...thanks

 

[rocketman420]

i have a 4x8 run 2k no problem, you can run an HID if you have a cool hood. i run a 530 cfm fan blowing hot air under my house. temps differ 2-3 degrees from room to tent. if it was me i would grab a 400 watt dimmable hps cool tube and turn it down if your worried about heat. i would just run a sog and run 1 gallon smart pots and pack it full.

 

[Vernal Equinox]

I'd run two stacked (bare and vertical) 150s down the middle of a 22"x 22" chicken wire tube. Four plants, flowered at @ 20 inches high, finishing @ 48", all the while scrogging to make a huge tube of green (your dimensions are roughly half the setup in my avatar, so it'd look like one tube). I think that's 32 square feet of scrogg screen vertically verses the 4 sq ft traditional horizontal growing area for your tent...quite a difference! I FIM and am going to start supercropping as well. You WILL ACHIEVE the numbers you're looking for with this setup and 4 plants...fewer plants if you want to have a slightly longer vege time. Leave a little room for scrubber/fan setup at the top. At 300 watts, a small centrifugal fan will work for you.

I know you want variety, but I'd still monocrop a few runs to get there. Mixing strains makes things harder, especially in smaller grow areas.

These are the pics someone mentioned earlier in the thread. They ARE NOT MINE, but what i based my cab on...Prenda and G-Man!

 

[Reg Dixon]

I'd run two stacked (bare and vertical) 150s down the middle of a 22"x 22" chicken wire tube. Four plants, flowered at @ 20 inches high, finishing @ 48", all the while scrogging to make a huge tube of green (your dimensions are roughly half the setup in my avatar, so it'd look like one tube). I think that's 32 square feet of scrogg screen vertically verses the 4 sq ft traditional horizontal growing area for your tent...quite a difference! I FIM and am going to start supercropping as well. You WILL ACHIEVE the numbers you're looking for with this setup and 4 plants...fewer plants if you want to have a slightly longer vege time. Leave a little room for scrubber/fan setup at the top. At 300 watts, a small centrifugal fan will work for you.

I know you want variety, but I'd still monocrop a few runs to get there. Mixing strains makes things harder, especially in smaller grow areas.

These are the pics someone mentioned earlier in the thread. They ARE NOT MINE, but what i based my cab on...Prenda and G-Man!

[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=39828&pictureid=941893&thumb=1]View Image[/URL] [URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=39828&pictureid=941890&thumb=1]View Image[/URL] [URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=39828&pictureid=941889&thumb=1]View Image[/URL] [URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=39828&pictureid=941891&thumb=1]View Image[/URL]

This idea looks very promising. Attaching a roll of chicken wire around the outside of a plant pot is well within my DIY comfort zone.

For the donut to work properly I'll need access for regular LST sessions. That is the only obstacle I can see. Access problems increase as number of plants increase.

 

[rocketman420]

that looks awesome. have thought about runnin vert i have 2k in a 4x8 and i think that might be to small of space for that hot of bulb.

 

[Vernal Equinox]

This idea looks very promising. Attaching a roll of chicken wire around the outside of a plant pot is well within my DIY comfort zone.

For the donut to work properly I'll need access for regular LST sessions. That is the only obstacle I can see. Access problems increase as number of plants increase.

How I did mine was to make an inner frame using threaded rebar (tied together with zip ties), around 2 inches inside the perimeter of the inner walls of the cab, then wrapped chicken wire (somewhat loosely, with a few gaps in wire to reach inside tube) around the rebar frame. The two inch gap in the perimeter allows access to the entire outside of tube for training/twist-ties and to pull all the large fan leaves outside the tube of direct light yet still keeps them alive and out of the way behind the tube.

An important thing to keep in mind with this technique is that you're going to need a rear door on your cab, and maybe even put your cab on wheels, because you need to access the opposite side of the tube for maintenance/training, etc. I've run this system before, and even a newb grower's half-assed first run kept me in C99 for around nine months.

My cab, and the drawing of the prototype before construction. You can see the rebar frame in the drawing, which I also used to hang my 150 hps lights.