stealth grow room help

That is a tight drawing, you have special porgram for that?? If you sit back and look at it for a minute you will see that only the outside of the plants will be getting any light. You will not want 4' fixtures on the walls of a 6' high room, you will be lighting the pots or system your plants are in. I did find some t-5's that might work for your situation. You could easily build a rack to hold the lightd over the top out of pvc. You could design it so the bottom stabilizing part of the structure is up a few inches and attach your liner to it. Build straight up to the point were you want to put your light at maximum height, probably 5 to 5 1/2'. The key to building these kinds off things easily and inexpensively is using 2 'T',s to form your 90 degree angles to build your square stand. Then hang your lights over the plants, I use shower curtain hooks to attach the chains to the pvc and I buy the chains ( I get the 50' package the have smaller ones) and 'S' hooks at Menards, they are available other places as well. The chains is easy to make to the length you need, just bend it open with a pairs of pliers, 'S' hooks the same. If you get the shower curtain hooks you won't need the s hooks. VV

I was looking into the CFL's, I think they might be a little bit better for my budget as of right now. Is there a website that anyone know about that tells the ideal amount of lumens per area? I know the more light the better, If I make one of those vanity light set ups, with the 8 lights per set, I was thinking about making 3 for a total of 24 lights. By my calculations that should give me about 36,000 lumens, but I am not sure if that will be enough. If I hung the lights above the plants I could supplement them with a couple of wall mounted fluoros. At least I could start with the cfl's, I can wire them up myself and the bulbs look to be about $100. I can make the fixtures, buy the sockets and attach them onto a piece of wood, shouldn't be a problem. if I make the fixtures I could make them hold more bulbs too if I needed. Does anyone know of a good thread that uses CFL's? I am curious the outcome and what type they used. thanks for your help thus far. WB

1000bulbs.com ... gives specifics on lumens and color freq .... they have small sizes all the way up to the big monster cfls that are like a foot long

thanks DOT, there are quite a few to look at. I was reading somewhere that you need 2,500 Lumens per square foot. Does that sound about right? I know I have about a 50 cubic foot growing area, and the floor is about 9 square feet. Do I go by the floors square footage, or do I go by something else. If I go by the floors footage, I need at least 22,500 lumens. Should I be looking at the full spectrum lights or the cool white, or both? Thanks for all your help WB

you use Sq feet.. only floor space... so use 9. you want about 3000 lumens minimum
assuming your using most of the space to grow.... 5k is a good mark to aim for ... the sun produce's around 10k per sq ft so thats the ideal number.. as for color freq.. cool white is better for veg and warm is better for flower... so try a mix of them... get
33% to 50% cool white because they will be most effective in veg ... and plants are small in veg... and get 50%-67% in warm white because this spec will be most usefull when the plants are in flower(biggeR) .... or im sure you can go with all full spec lights... even thou a mix might be more effective

9 ft space = try to aim for 30k+ lumens... 1 x 400 watt hps would work perfectly (55k lumens) and cost around 150.. around 200 if you want a cooltube.... or you can get t-5's 1x8bulb fixture (around 40k lumens) cost around 300 but less heat
or go with CFLS 100 watts = 20 (7k lumens) or try a mix of them

so how much more would I need to vent this if I purchase an HID lamp system? After racking my brain with numbers for the past 2 hours I think I would rather buy 1 light for 150-200 bucks than to have to buy 10 lights or even 5 lights (depending on what I am looking at) for the same price. I see there are a lot of people who have used MH and HPS systems and have had great results. What to you think is the maximum amount of plants that should go in the grow area, I have roughly a 2'x2' area after adding all the other stuff.

I have been looking at some lower watt HIDs on 1000bulbs.com. I have found some 150watt bulbs that actually fit in a regular medium base fixture. It would cost me a lot less money than a 400watt system, some of the bulbs there are pretty cheap, about $12 per MH and $6-$8 per HPS. If I were to buy 4 @ 150W 10,000-15,000 lumens, I was thinking either 2MH and 2HPS or 1MH and 3HPS, would I:

1. Still have to buy a ballast for the lights
2. Be able to mix the 2 types on one set up(2MH and 2HPS)
3. Need to have a fan on them to keep them cool
4. Need to buy anything special to put them in (fixtures or anything else)
5. Be able to build my own fixture set up
6. Blow my circuit breaker every time I turn the lights on
7. Burn the freaking house down

ok.. first of all... only 2x2 ? what happen to the extra foot on either side... i would go and get 1 x 400 watt HPS light they are the most effective for growing and you can get a coversion kit if you like so you can use both hps and Mh on the same system......
1 400 watt light = comes with ballast,reflector,cords, ... go to ebay and check out HTGSUpply will cost around 150 ish for everything and put out 55k lumens.. enough to grow 4 amazing plants. its actully kinda overkill for 4 plants.. so try to clear out some space so you can put 9 or so in there

second building your own fixture is not recommended... unless your an electrician...

third its only 400 watts... a toasteroven use's alot more then that... also if you get a reflector with a glass (shield) on it it will contain anything that might blow up... even thou the premade systems are very safe... just dont touch the bulb dirrectly with your hands... use a plastic bag or something... hands + bulb = boom

the area is 3x3, but i figure after I put all the venting supplies and all the other stuff in there it might lessen the area, I could be wrong though. as of right now I only have 6 seeds, and they aren't feminized, so I will most likely only get 1 or 2 plants out of them, I am hoping for at least 4 though. They are bag seeds from a good bag I had a few months ago, I have been saving what I can scrounge up, I have a couple of my smoking buddys save what they find, they are hard to find in the buds we get. If I get this grow going well, I will consider buying some, but I am worried about them getting taken. I plan on cloning the first batch, so I will be able to fill the room a little better the second time around. I am thinking I will take 4 clones from each plant before I sex them, and get rid of the males after. Anyway I think you are right and I will plan on getting a 400W conversion system, about $160 from what I have seen. With getting this lamp, how much extra venting am I going to need?

a good amount.... if you want you can get an air coolable hood or a cooltube and vent the air right out from the light to out of the growroom... try atleast 100 cfm+ for the room and some extra for the lights .......as for the seeds... i would suggest not using bagseed. genetics is in the TOp 3 most important things for a grow... along with lights and soil if you plant crappy seeds you will get crep weed even if you do everything right.. and even if its from some good shit it prolly wont come out the same... its basicly gambling with your weed... just buy some seeds online for 20 bucks and youll be 10x happier with the results... ive ordered seed's with my credit card to my address without any problems... if your worried then send cash or use a visa gift card( dont regester it) and use a friends address...(odd's are wont have a problem.. unless ordering 50 packs of seeds) they send them in a small unmarked envolope... seedbotique.com is were i ordered from

Thanks for the input I will check it out, see what I can do. what are some good choices there are a ton of seed there. A lot of them that I have see are 20 British pounds, which is about $40. Is there a good type that has a fairly high yield yet won't put a huge dent in my wallet?

check mandala and nirvana seeds at seedbotique.com i am currently growing speed queen and misty one from each of those brands... there just sprouts.. and ive fucked them up a bit but there fast strains and have upidy highes... most nirvana = 25 USD and mandala = 20 ish USD

thanks Dot, sorry I haven't been on in a bit, those look good to me, I am going to order some as soon as I can get my hands on a Visa Gift Card, it sucks not having credit cards anymore, but I will figure it out. You have been a huge help now only if I can get these things to grow as well as the advice you have given. WB