Hello. Noob UK grower here.
Having moved back to the UK from Amsterdam a couple of years ago, I'm getting pretty fed up with the poor quality and even poorer availability of weed in my area, so I am about to begin my first grow and am in the process of gathering the equipment I need.
I will be using a tent in my attic and because of the sloping roof the largest tent I can get in there is 65x65cm, 140cm high (that's just over 2 feet square, just under 5 feet high). I have been doing a lot of reading over the past couple of weeks on this site and others and I think I've got my head around the basics. Obviously at this stage I have hundreds of questions but I'm only going to ask one, and that is - for my space, should I go for a 250W system or 400W? (we are talking HPS/MH here)
I think most people would say get a 250W, as 400W will generate too much for that space but I really really want to go with a 400W, as I am planning on growing 4 plants at a time, and from my reading it would seem that 4 plants wouldn't do that well under a 250W. Ultimately I would like to end up with 2 or maybe even 3 growing areas, so vegging in one and flowering in another, possible propagating clones in another, but for now I'm trying to keep the initial outlay to a minimum, so will be vegging and flowering in the same space, so if I could only grow 2 plants I don't think I'd get the yield to see me through to the next harvest!
Anyways my house is pretty well insulated and the attic is really cold. I don't know exactly how cold but when the heating is on and the house is nice and toasty, go up in the attic and it is bloody freezing! The point being, if I do end up getting too much heat build up in the tent, I'm thinking I can simply open some flaps and let some of the hot air inside escape and draw some cooler ambient air in?
What I don't want to do is end up buying a 400W lamp and find that I'm having all sorts of issues with excess heat and then have to go spend a load of money on fans and ducting etc. I'm planning to have a small (say 6 inch) fan clipped inside the tent blowing across the plants and if I can get away with just that, I will. I also have some room fans that I can position in the room to blow the air about a bit (will this help?) or I could even use them to blow air into/suck air out of the tent. I only say that because they are existing equipment so would come for free.
Any advice would be most gratefully received, thanks.
Having moved back to the UK from Amsterdam a couple of years ago, I'm getting pretty fed up with the poor quality and even poorer availability of weed in my area, so I am about to begin my first grow and am in the process of gathering the equipment I need.
I will be using a tent in my attic and because of the sloping roof the largest tent I can get in there is 65x65cm, 140cm high (that's just over 2 feet square, just under 5 feet high). I have been doing a lot of reading over the past couple of weeks on this site and others and I think I've got my head around the basics. Obviously at this stage I have hundreds of questions but I'm only going to ask one, and that is - for my space, should I go for a 250W system or 400W? (we are talking HPS/MH here)
I think most people would say get a 250W, as 400W will generate too much for that space but I really really want to go with a 400W, as I am planning on growing 4 plants at a time, and from my reading it would seem that 4 plants wouldn't do that well under a 250W. Ultimately I would like to end up with 2 or maybe even 3 growing areas, so vegging in one and flowering in another, possible propagating clones in another, but for now I'm trying to keep the initial outlay to a minimum, so will be vegging and flowering in the same space, so if I could only grow 2 plants I don't think I'd get the yield to see me through to the next harvest!
Anyways my house is pretty well insulated and the attic is really cold. I don't know exactly how cold but when the heating is on and the house is nice and toasty, go up in the attic and it is bloody freezing! The point being, if I do end up getting too much heat build up in the tent, I'm thinking I can simply open some flaps and let some of the hot air inside escape and draw some cooler ambient air in?
What I don't want to do is end up buying a 400W lamp and find that I'm having all sorts of issues with excess heat and then have to go spend a load of money on fans and ducting etc. I'm planning to have a small (say 6 inch) fan clipped inside the tent blowing across the plants and if I can get away with just that, I will. I also have some room fans that I can position in the room to blow the air about a bit (will this help?) or I could even use them to blow air into/suck air out of the tent. I only say that because they are existing equipment so would come for free.
Any advice would be most gratefully received, thanks.
This first grow is really going to be a learning experience for me. I reckon if I can flower a couple of plants and snag a couple of oz I'll be well happy with that, then build up my equipment and experience as I go along. I think I'll go for the 400W because the way I see it, if I get the 250W and it's not enough for what I want to do I'll be pretty gutted and it would have been a waste of money (although I could probably make some use of it further down the line) but if I go for 400W and it does cause problems, I can solve those pretty easily.
will go 600w next grow 
