Cooltube temperatures? How many watts should I use?

I ran t5's for my first grow, and when I finish up in 3 weeks I'm ready for an upgrade.

I can get a 400w digital ballast with a cooltube for $266

or

I can get a 600w digital ballast with a cooltube for $280!

$14 more bucks for nearly double the lumens!


My cabinet is 24" deep 36" wide 54" tall.

Running my t5's I havent seen a temp higher then 75.

Extra lumens be great, but I don't want to run into a heat nightmare!

I plan on placing a carbon filter inside my cabinet, and air would suck through the carbon, through the cooltube, and exhausted out my cabinet. I will be using a 300cfm inline fan.

I will have 2 100cfm (pc fans) so pull fresh air into the case.

+rep for any insight <3

no replies? geeze!

I need help deciding =O

the 600 will give you considerably tighter nuggets. I haven't used the cool tube reflectors yet, but someone said you could touch the glass on them using a 1.8" inline.

The Son of Man said:

the 600 will give you considerably tighter nuggets. I haven't used the cool tube reflectors yet, but someone said you could touch the glass on them using a 1.8" inline.

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I know but here is the thing. All that heat is going somewhere. I don't haev the ability to exhaust the hot air anywhere but into the closet my cabinet is within! Although the closet is far from airtight I'm concerned all that heat will get the closet so hot that during a 18 hour light on cycle the closet will get so hot the inside of the cabinet will get hot =[

yeah if your not going to vent the closet in any way then i would say scrap the idea. A 400 watter exausted into a closed space i would think would be the same as no cool tube in that space. Any chance you can exaust out the top of the closet? and do an intake down by the bottom of your closet door?

I take it you can't cut holes in anything and the closet door is solid..

My first grow was in a closet 5x5 with one 400. Left the door shut all the time no problem.

The only solution I can see is possibly getting gallon sized zip lock bags--filling them with water--freeze them--makes big chunks of ice---put them in a cooler with the lid off---with a little fan blowing on the ice chunks. That might make a difference.

The Son of Man said:

I take it you can't cut holes in anything and the closet door is solid..

My first grow was in a closet 5x5 with one 400. Left the door shut all the time no problem.

The only solution I can see is possibly getting gallon sized zip lock bags--filling them with water--freeze them--makes big chunks of ice---put them in a cooler with the lid off---with a little fan blowing on the ice chunks. That might make a difference.

Click to expand...

I have 2 doors into the closet. One is solid, and the other is a set of those folding doors. So it's far from airtight. But there is no ac/heat running into this room. So it's always hotter/colder then the rest of the house. Right now it's 68 in my house, and in my cabinet with the lights on it's only 66!

Right now with be being chilly temps wouldnt be an issue I'd guess...but during summer when that closet gets to 70-80 without any lights on I'm thinking with a 400w hps having all its heat pushed into the closet it might take the temp above 90 which i wouldnt want to grow in.

hrmm...what to do what to do...the t5's just didn't produce the bud i expected..i need a hps...im thinking a 250w hps might do the job..i plan on growing violator kush which barely brakes 2' in height! so im thinking a 250w hps might be good enough? i dunno though...i skimped on lights last time around and regret it...dont want to do that again =O

Grow what you can grow. Heat will ruin everything. I bet if you drilled a hole through a cooler--hooked ventilation line up to it--filled the cooler with the big ice chunks--it would make a pretty kick ass medium maintenance air conditioner. Or you could just buy a little portable air conditioner for like $150. They have little remotes.

The Son of Man said:

Grow what you can grow. Heat will ruin everything. I bet if you drilled a hole through a cooler--hooked ventilation line up to it--filled the cooler with the big ice chunks--it would make a pretty kick ass medium maintenance air conditioner. Or you could just buy a little portable air conditioner for like $150. They have little remotes.

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Hmm...that gave me a good idea...

Well first off portable ac units have a problem. You are suppose to hook up a duct to vent the hot air they push out the one side...So that would kind of cancel out the cooling effect.


BUT

I will be adding a second intake to my cabinet when I make this light upgrade. I could put this intake on the side and place a cooler right next to it. I could run a duct from the cooler to my intake. Then like you said simply throw some ziplock bags full of ice in there every day or 2.

Inside cabinet is only temp that matters. So if it was breaking 90 that should be enough to bring it down to 85..

hrmm im thinking the 400w hps with the 300cfm fan might be enough

coll said:

yeah if your not going to vent the closet in any way then i would say scrap the idea. A 400 watter exausted into a closed space i would think would be the same as no cool tube in that space. Any chance you can exaust out the top of the closet? and do an intake down by the bottom of your closet door?

Click to expand...

Keep in mind the closet is large!

about 4' deep, 8' high ceilings, and about 15' across!

And one side has those slotted folding doors.


I really dont have the option of cutting holes to vent out of the closet on this grow. Will have to wait for the move to setup something with better ventilation.

hrmmm....

You think even a 400w cooltube would produce enough heat to warm up a closet that large to over 90degrees? That be pretty freaken impressive if it did!

you can get those 20$ 150w hps econolights.. can get better bulbs if you dont wanna use the default one..

i would play it safe and use the 400. you will still get nice buds. i dont think the 400 will warm that large of a closet to over 90. what about getting a different door that you can use during your grow? then put the original door back on when you move. then you could run a 600, and exhaust it out of the closet and really tear shit up.

h8popo said:

i would play it safe and use the 400. you will still get nice buds. i dont think the 400 will warm that large of a closet to over 90. what about getting a different door that you can use during your grow? then put the original door back on when you move. then you could run a 600, and exhaust it out of the closet and really tear shit up.

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Hrmm....Thing is if anyone were to enter the closet I don't want them to be able to tell whats going on within it! As of right now when you open the doors looks like a regular closet with a large cabinet within. There are no light leaks of any kind and its silent!

When I add this new fan I'll make sure its silent as well. Only way to exhaust out of the closet or pull fresh air into the closet would require something making it look out of the ordinary =O. So for now will do a 400w

Thanks for the help!