Tropical indoor grow room set up.

[Reg Dixon]

Hi everyone. Just joined this wonderful community and have been reading the very generous and knowledgable comments on this forum. May I ask you to have a look at my planned grow room set up. All comments are very welcome....

Am contemplating attempting a first grow...
Please could you critique my planned grow room set up. .....
I have a small to medium spare bedroom which is about 10x12x10 with a 3 speed overhead fan fixed to the ceiling in the center of the room and a window (not overlooked at all) about 3x4 on one wall.
My main fear is that it will be too hot as I'm growing in a hot and humid environment. About 40-55% humidity and temps ranging from 23-33 degrees celsius.
With the fan on max and the window open I'd say the average temp will be in the high 20's during the day and low 20's at night.
The room gets direct sunlight in the morning from about 8am until 11am at best but the heat is always there. The door to the room will always remain closed for security purposes.
In such a situation where I need to keep the temp down and the window open what kind of artificial light and what strength should I be using?
I will be able to stop the bug problem from keeping the window open by using a mozzie screen. This will diffuse the sunlight a little but I can always make up for it with more light power.
One more light question. Are halogen lights the same as HPS?

I most likely will go with MH or CFL in any case for now.

Got a few ideas to control the smell but a grow tent/carbon filter seem to be impractical for this set up due to excessive heat. It has been suggested to use a carbon filter but I cannot see a way I can practically do that without having major renovation, knocking holes in the wall which is not an option in this case. I can open the window in 2 ways I can close the window. I can effectively cover the window for the flowering stage. but a fan/filter system seems out of the question in this case.
Have looked at using an ionizer to hide the smell from neighbours (town house). There is one on the market locally with a built in humidifier fan feature as well which should suit my needs nicely.

On failing all this a tray full of gel air fresheners in each corner of the room plus a few on the windowsill is my back up plan.

Unfortunately fitting an intake fan with carbon filter is not an option so the best I can come up with is an ionizer with carbon filter.

I'm currently undecided as to what strains to grow exactly as I have a mix between autoflower and normal feminised seeds. For my first grow I think I'd like something quick and easy but at the same time some of the others are big faves (TD/LSD/DrG) so the temptation is there to load them all in together and see if I can pull it off!

These are my choices....
Tangerine dream
Dr Grindspoon
Afgan Kush Ryder (autoflower)
Connie Chung
Green-O-Matic
Blue Cheese
LSD
NL (autoflower)
Blue Hash
Blue Widow
Critical (autoflower)
Pineapple express

Which of these would be easiest to grow? Which of these would be the least smelly? I'm thinking the Afghan kush would be quickest. Is that right?

Have not chosen a soil yet but will most likely will have to go for a local one from a garden center. Remember I'm in a tropical country far far away from the USA so things are different......


This is a first grow so all comments/questions are welcome. Sorry if this in in the wrong forum but I'm casting my question net wide in the hopes of finding help.

 

[Phaeton]

Welcome, I live north by Canada and don't have heat problems requiring air conditioning.

I have two budrooms.
One with crossflow ventilation, the air comes in a bottom corner and goes out the top at the opposite corner. It takes one cubic meter per minute for every twenty-five watts. This is sucking in ambient house air and it keeps the room within 5 degrees.

The other room has a fan blowing in the bottom of the doorway and another fan blowing out the top of the doorway. The fans are rated two cubic meters per minute for every twenty-five watts and keeps the temp within seven degrees.

The mixing of the air (hot and cold) by reversing it back to the one opening cuts the efficiency of the coolling by over half. If at all possible, route the airflow so the air picks up heat and carries it without turning and mixing, the fan wattages and temperatures will be much less for half the effort.

Halogen is a tungsten light, 90% infra red.
HPS is a discharge light, 90% green and yellow.

http://youcannect.com/blogs/564/29/light-spectrum-charts-ushio-hortilux-sum-master-solar-max

This is discharge lights and distances.

http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/LuxRender_Lighting_lampspectrum

This is illustrated spectrums.

 

[Reg Dixon]

Thank you for the reply. My main problem is keeping the heat down. For that reason I will have to go with CFL's unless I buy an A/C unit which will increase my budget considerably. The ambient temp in the room is 28-32 degrees C with a RH of 50-70%.
Fans keep the temp down to 28-30 degrees C but that is without any lights on.
Since I'm using CFL's I'll need to build some kind of cab I guess and then heat within the cab will become a problem in itself.

I'm looking to build a cab that is 3 foot long and 1 foot wide and about 3-4 foot high. The long sides would be blocked off by light reflecting insulation with the top the same with lights hanging down. If I can run a couple of fans from the open short sides on the plants themselves it may keep the temp down to about 30 degrees.
The only way of seeing if this will work I suppose is to build the cab and try the light/fan set up whilst measuring the temp. I can't shake the feeling that even with this system the temp will be too high. Is there another method of non A/C type cooling I should be considering?

 

[AlexTrebek]

If your ambients are already that high, you may have to resort to fluo tubes or maybe a cooltubed 250w jumbo cfl.
Depending on your budget you'll either have to give it a poorman attempt and roll with the punches or try and find a cheap cooling technique. ( Wal-mart DIY chillers can be made for about 100$) In my sealed cab that has no extraction or uptake, 4 x 23w CFL's = 10 degrees over ambient. with extraction it's only 4 degrees over ambient though.

Start out with 1 bulb, move it up as the plant needs it, no need to buy a big bulb until you've got the girl ready for it, save it up and keep planning like you are and by the time you'll need to buy it, whatever "it" may be, you'll be SURE you'll need that exact one.

Grow on!