Beginer Closet Grow

Okay so i have a couple of questions about what i should do, i have a closet in my room i wanted to grow a couple plants in, it is almost 8 feet tall and is 2x4ft

what kind of lights/Watts should i get, and how many plants could i safley run in here?

btw, i can cut the closet in half so it has a shelf in the middle, so possible getting 2 grow lights, 1 on bottom one on top

pleaseeeeee help out

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I would go with a 250 mh/hps

i have a 400 wt MH/HPS in a closet almost exactly like that... just make sure there is enough airflow getting to the plants, and no, i wouldnt cut the closet in half... just let em grow high. You could easily get 5-6 plants goin in 3-5 gallon pots

if u cut it in half u can double your amount of plants although with the lights and room for the plants is limited because it would only be 4 feet of space to set up each one. so you should check into a light that doesnt take up very much space and grow 10 to 15 3 or 3 and a half foot plants is what id think to do

Man that looks like a nice closet...

I am gonna say that you never grew before right? Well if not, taking that into consideration with my advice to you. First empty out the closet and take out the shelves/poles. We should have one big grow area about 8x4x2 now right... right. Moving on, the way I am looking at this closet I would want to find a way to make it somewhat perpetual. We will need a mommy chamber, but not a big one of course. I would set up a wall about 1' in from either side wall. I would also construct a ceiling about 6' high, from my closet growing experience you will not have enough room in there for a few big plants. About 3.5' tall around harvest is about as big as they should grow not including the grow container.

So looking in we should see three chambers, one measures about 6'Hx1'Wx2'D, the one right next to it measures about 6'Hx3'Wx2'D, and the third should be on the top of the other and measure about 2'Hx4'Wx2'D, right? You can see where I am going with this I hope. You have a flower power chamber, a mommy, clone chamber, and ballast/nute/supply storage up top... starting to make sense right. Cool moving one to the next step... lights and venting. Not knowing your situation, be it you live alone, or with your folks, maybe a roomy that you need to hide it from. I will assume that you live alone and are renting a place. With the lights I personally like to rig my own, its all I have ever done and have never spent more than 100.00 bucks on a complete light system. Not entirely true I recently bought a new bulb that cost me 50.00 (special 400w CMH !!NEW!! to the market), plus a 50.00 ballast and a 26.00 reflector. This is for a 400w setup so about 146.00 shipped and I need to put it together not a bad deal. I would suggest you do the same as I did. Buy the same light system for your flower chamber. Whats that you say... won't 400w heat this little chamber up? Well yes it will but a 400w CMH is considerably cooler than any other 400w HID light. And they output more light/watt, AND they are more efficient, AND they have a MUCH better color temp, AND they can easily plug into a HPS ballast... sound great huh. The other room (mommy chamber) can easily be lit with CFLs. Go an buy two or three 85w CFLs, not the one that are rated at 40w, and say equal 100, I mean the 85w CFL's that equal 400w regular bulbs. It is uber easy to rig up your own outlets and fixtures for your lights. You can look it up on the internet, or go to Lowes/HD and read a book for 10 minutes. Now that the lights are set up and the rooms are layed out lets get to venting. This may be a challenge depending on what you are working with... tools, landlords, neighbors, etc. We will say the situation is extreme and you need silent and secret. You will have two priorities, get the smell out and get the heat out. Now when I say out I mean out of the whole closet not just the grow areas of the closet. This will be hard to explain with out pictures but I will try in this next paragraph.

Ok we have all seen the rectangular heater vents and the ducts that connect to them. Well if you put one of those at the top of your door and connect flexpipe to it and then to a fan you at least have your exhaust setup. I would also say that you need to have a scrubber at the fan inlet so that it pulls all the air through the scrubber then out of the closet. I am thinking that you could put two other vents in at the bottom in front of each chamber. This way you can use one fan to exhaust both chambers. I am say that you will need to find a way to attach the vents to each chamber and pull cool, clean air in from the bottom of the closet. Then you will need to cut holes in the top board and connect a centrifugal fan, scrubber and exhaust pipe, and vent.(SEE MY PIC, hope it helps). As far as a setup goes it come down what you want to do soil/hydro/aero. Tell us and we will help you with that as well.

Are referring to me dude? I come to help and spend your first post insulting me. Aside from what I already said I will leave you out of my mind. Thread starter make sure you give this guy REP for his oh so helpful advice.

I've got a similar closet that I was looking to 'alter' in a similar way. Only difference is I only want the flowering chamber. The rest of it I planned on keeping as my closet. I was thinking about using the 'heater vents' as intake holes, but that's where I got stumped. If I put one of these vents into my wall on one side of the closet, then put another vent on the same wall on the inside of the closet only about 1" higher up, will the air naturally flow through the wall once I get the exhaust fan hooked up? If so, will this block the light from escaping from the intake? I don't know too much about walls, so I don't know if they are empty between the two. Also, what would it take to cut out a hole in a wall? sorry if they seem like dumb questions, just never did any home repairs of this type before.

Need pics? Or is my explanation good enough to grant answers?

I think I understand what you are saying and if I am correct then you should be OK. I am getting the impression that if looking at it from the front so to speak, you will only see one vent. One the other side right behind it you have another vent but slightly above the first vent. If you take out the walls it looks like a vent on top of a vent, with the top one facing the opposite way. So as long as I am correct I see no reason why that will not work. You should be able to turn on the your exhaust and the air should pull from the front vent through the wall and into the closet from the inner vent. Sound good to me.

mikeeees said:

Okay so i have a couple of questions about what i should do, i have a closet in my room i wanted to grow a couple plants in, it is almost 8 feet tall and is 2x4ft

what kind of lights/Watts should i get, and how many plants could i safley run in here?

btw, i can cut the closet in half so it has a shelf in the middle, so possible getting 2 grow lights, 1 on bottom one on top

pleaseeeeee help out

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Lighting should be the least of your worries dude. What I would be worrying about is how your planning on getting fresh air to your plants, and how your going to exhaust it.
A constant flow of air is key to optimal growth.
No......An oscillating fan all by itself will not work.
Once you have your ventilation working, then I would get rid of that bottom shelf and put in one 400 watt light. Anything higher in wattage and you will have problems with heat, with a room that small.

The perfect grow room comes from "Planning ahead".
The perfect enviroment for your plants need 3 basic needs:
Air, Light, and water.

I wanted to add one last thing about constant air flow.
Your room is 2X4X8....So you have approximately 65 cubic feet. Then with that in mind, and also with the fact that the room air quality ahould be exchanging new air twice a minute (at least). So you'll need an intake fan that is capable of bringing in fresh air at 130 cfm and something of the same rating to exhaust it.
No..... cutting holes in the walls adjacent to another room will not work as a fresh air vent.

mdgcmd said:

I think I understand what you are saying and if I am correct then you should be OK. I am getting the impression that if looking at it from the front so to speak, you will only see one vent. One the other side right behind it you have another vent but slightly above the first vent. If you take out the walls it looks like a vent on top of a vent, with the top one facing the opposite way. So as long as I am correct I see no reason why that will not work. You should be able to turn on the your exhaust and the air should pull from the front vent through the wall and into the closet from the inner vent. Sound good to me.

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Thanks man, yeah, thats just about exactly what I had in mind.

BongJuice said:

Then with that in mind, and also with the fact that the room air quality ahould be exchanging new air twice a minute (at least). So you'll need an intake fan that is capable of bringing in fresh air at 130 cfm and something of the same rating to exhaust it.
No..... cutting holes in the walls adjacent to another room will not work as a fresh air vent.

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Personally I was planning on moving at LEAST twice that amount of air. But that's just me. And why will creating an air vent coming from another room through the wall not work?

specialkayme said:

Personally I was planning on moving at LEAST twice that amount of air. But that's just me. And why will creating an air vent coming from another room through the wall not work?

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If your only going to have a cut hole adjacent to another room it won't work. You'll need some kind of blower/air mover connected to that hole. Then another to exit the exhausted air in a safe location, (preferrably the chimney).
Cutting holes in closet walls adjacent to rooms to create air flow just seems like a huge pain in the ass. If this was a closet adjacent to an exterior wall it would work much more efficiently. You'll have fresh air coming in and stinky exhausted air going out.
Plus the blowers that you'll be using can be quite pricey and most of all extremely annoying. They make this annoying buzzing sound.

I've seen people grow in closets before, and it never seems to reallly work and eventually they end up buying or building there own growhut. They never seem to work mostly due to the fact that air becomes stagnant, or the blower noise in the room becomes annoying.
You'll want to put your grow space in an area that's inconspicuous. A closet in a bedroom where noise and a dank smell becomes very suspicious.
If you had some storage space under some steps or a small pantry in the basement would be a better choice.

BongJuice said:

If your only going to have a cut hole adjacent to another room it won't work. You'll need some kind of blower/air mover connected to that hole. Then another to exit the exhausted air in a safe location, (preferrably the chimney).
Cutting holes in closet walls adjacent to rooms to create air flow just seems like a huge pain in the ass. If this was a closet adjacent to an exterior wall it would work much more efficiently. You'll have fresh air coming in and stinky exhausted air going out.
Plus the blowers that you'll be using can be quite pricey and most of all extremely annoying. They make this annoying buzzing sound.

I've seen people grow in closets before, and it never seems to reallly work and eventually they end up buying or building there own growhut. They never seem to work mostly due to the fact that air becomes stagnant, or the blower noise in the room becomes annoying.
You'll want to put your grow space in an area that's inconspicuous. A closet in a bedroom where noise and a dank smell becomes very suspicious.
If you had some storage space under some steps or a small pantry in the basement would be a better choice.

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The plans to cut a hole in the wall for ventilation were for a passive intake. The exhaust fan would move more than enough air out. It's the same concept that I have used for growboxes in the past. I don't see how it wouldn't work here either. My question wasn't so much on if cutting a hole would provide enough air flow, because with a 500 cfm exhaust fan moving I'm sure it will, but more if it would physically work. I wasn't sure if the air would naturally flow through the wall, or if there was too much insulation in there to inhibit it, or something. I'm not too sure about the construction of residential walls.
I am familiar with the blowers as well. I have used the S&P Td mixvent fans before, and they move lots of air long distances, overcoming static air pressure with very little noise. In addition to this I planned on hooking up a fan controler to limit the air flow, a carbon scrubber, and insulated duct work. This all should seriously reduce the noise of the fan, of which it naturally produces very little. If need be, I would use heatmat, and create an insulated noise box for the fan to be housed in, further reducing the noise.
In case I wasn't clear before, cutting a hole in the wall is for the intake, the exhaust fan will be located in the attic, and will pull the air up and out the top of the closet. Then after being cleaned with the carbon scrubber, it will be recycled back into the house, or if it still isn't clean enough into the attic, where it will be released into the air. The noise from the fan is of little concern to me, as I will be able to limit the noise it makes, and the residual noise can be blamed on the a/c, heat, or the duct fan in the attic.
As far as putting a grow in an inconspicuious place, I couldn't agree more. Personally I planned on sectioning off a portion of my closet for the grow, and creating a false wall. Between this and the ventilation vent, it would look like ducting to the ac unit is running wherever the closet used to be. Make sense or would pictures work out better?

what i was thinking of is the attic entery is in that closet and using a regular box fan at the entrance......then using normal vents like you door on your heater has those vents at bottom of door......

#2 ive heard people tell nightmares about the "humidty" of 4-8 plants collecting in attic and causing lots of damage.....is that true sounds like a "story" to me but id hate to have it rain in my living room

is there any other way to vent it? i cant really stick a vent in my closet, thats a little too heat.any other ideass? hopefully?