Lighting help please urgently!!! 4 pot wardrobe grow

hi there, I need a new light asap (like in a couple of days time so i can use my only florescent tube for newly germinated seeds).
These 2 plants have been under a florescent tube for about 4 weeks, when i potted them and started using a 400w metal halide i found out it was too powerful for my grow area. I put the florescent up for now because the 400w is far too hot but its going to be needed in a day or 2 for some seeds i have germinating. do you think if i got a 250w ballast & metal halide it would still be too hot or would it be ok?

really need to sort this asap!!!! any advice would be great
heres some pics.

1. what size is your grow area inc height?
2. is your extraction the recommended size for the room

first off your electricity goes above your water, dont want to burn the house down. And if i was you id save up for a cooltube and a cheap duct fan and run that 400w.

plz tell me ur not usin aluminium foil to connect the wires instead of the twist onwire caps........... ur setup is scary wit the power , watering, wires, surge in room clean nd start fresh an do it right an get a cooltube an ductin

No obviously its not tin foil i've used electrical connector blocks. water above power is easier said than done in this space but yes, it does make me nervous how its set up at the moment.

currently got no extraction but am in the process of sorting it. plan is to have a 250w metal halide running in the top section with a carbon filter hung beside it. then have a 4" fan sucking air through it and leading out of the space through ducting and out a vent hole in the door (cant go out ceiling or walls).

Ideally im going to get a cooltube sooner or later but for now I've just brought a whole 400w light steup thats no good and im now guna have to buy a whole 250w lighting setup and on top of that a carbon filter... im broke as shit right now so no cooltube till the next grow

Sensi123 said:

No obviously its not tin foil i've used electrical connector blocks. water above power is easier said than done in this space but yes, it does make me nervous how its set up at the moment.

currently got no extraction but am in the process of sorting it. plan is to have a 250w metal halide running in the top section with a carbon filter hung beside it. then have a 4" fan sucking air through it and leading out of the space through ducting and out a vent hole in the door (cant go out ceiling or walls).

Ideally im going to get a cooltube sooner or later but for now I've just brought a whole 400w light steup thats no good and im now guna have to buy a whole 250w lighting setup and on top of that a carbon filter... im broke as shit right now so no cooltube till the next grow

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The whole point is that you could buy the cooltube instead of the 250w MH... Do the exact same thing you described but with a 400w in a cooltube... there's no rational reason to go the way you're going... with the proper ventilation a 400w cooltubed will manage your heat way better anyway...

What kind of fan are you planning to use? It doesn't even look like there's enough space to hang a carbon filter and reflector side by side, so how is that going to work?

keep the 400
carbon filter>cooled reflector>inline fan>exhaust
profit

dude use the 400 get a fan put the light on a slight angle put a fan thare on HIGH blow the bulb with the fan youll be ok a little trick , u could get that light a foot away ! with a good fan grow fast !

how much hassle would it be to change the bulb from MH to HPS in a cool tube when its time to start flowering and the plants are getting in the way making work in the cupboard even more awkward and dangerous?

Only problem with keeping the 400 is that the ballast was a bit of a bodge job and has to go underneath in the little section... i really wana get elec above water better to be safe than sorry.

im thinking get a new 250 ballast n bulbs n use the reflector i've got already,... then somehow hang from the ceiling carbon filter>fan> ducting leading to a vent in the cupboard door blowing into a room of the house... would this work? ideally want to be pulling fresh air into the space as well but thats easier said than done. unless i have a bathroom vented fan sucking in through the middle of the door (comes in at the bottom of the top section) that mite do as an air inlet.

just awkward having 2 potted plants and a tank with 20L of nutrient mix water in it in the space that needs working on... (yes i know, i should have done all the DIY before it saw a plant) too late for that now though, just guna have to spend some cash that i aint got and try my best to keep em alive

never mentioned room size lost interest now

you will never know what temp your room will run at until fan is installed plants need c02 to grow so you can cram as much watts in there but they wont be utilised no where near fully until your sort your ventilation.

They dont grow on hopes and dreams

Ok so, i've come up with this. the vents in the door the top one is a simple 4" outlet vent and the bottom is a bathroom ceiling type fan that will suck air from the room into the cupboard, it will rise and get sucked through the carbon filter, and blown out the top of the cupboard door into the room. this is using the reflector pictured above with a 250w MH for veg and HPS for bloom.

im confident this will work, but would like an opinion if anyone thinks it would work without the intake bathroom fan? (i int got money to be chucking about unless its a necessity)

the intake fan would be something like this... http://www.plumbworld.co.uk/linear-series-4-bathroom-fan-550-22015?utm_source=GoogleBase&utm_medium=GB&utm_campaign=GoogleBase

and filter & outlet fan would prob be from this kit - http://www.hydroponicfans.co.uk/acatalog/187-m3-hour-TT-Fan--Filter-Kit-4-.html

yes the outake is the right sort of fan but you want fresh air
so really you dont want to suck in old expelled air venting to the loft/crawl space above would be a better idea if you have one

it would work without intake fan but hole should be larger and light proof

A regular ballast, even a 250, is going to generate a lot of heat. If you do not get a digital one, you need to keep the ballast out of the closet.
MH will run hotter than hps. I veg with my hps, I'm too lazy to swap lights out.

Why cant you run the outtake up out the top?

ROFLhacks said:

Why cant you run the outtake up out the top?

Click to expand...

Thinking about it more I think i've got no choice but to go up through and out of the grow room ceiling and into the loft because i have a feeling the air would just build up in the room its being extracted too and be totally pointless. thats just ALOT of hassle for me... you have no idea how full of junk my loft is... not been up there in years.

what needs doing needs doing i guess :/
going to have to pull the whole setup out now its got 20odd liters of nutrient water mix and a couple of plants in it too... yay

looks like i need to order a filter and get the hell up the loft. not sure it will be possible for me to have the ballast outside the grow area though mind you. it wont do any harm on a shelf in the grow room say beside a house fan would it?