soo this is what im probably gona go with for my grow room...

[drew2420]

I have a large walk-in closet 5'x6'x6'. I cant modify the closet to a "grow room" so I will be putting 2 grow labs inside the closet one is 3'11"x3'11"x6'7" and the other is 2'7"x2'7"x5'11"

I will be using all fox farm products for Nutrients, ocean forest cut with perlite & vermiculite for grow medium. I will be flowering 5 plants at a time in 5 gal smart pots, the mother will be kept in either a 7 or 10 gal smart pot depending on room. the genetics of my seeds I'm unsure of, I do know for a fact that the mom was a White Widow form greenhouse seed co. and the father was either Aura or Big bud not sure where the seeds were from, greenhouse I think. I had the female WW in with the two male plant and well the harvest had seeds (of course) and I kept them...

The three foot tent will be the flowering chamber using...
lighting: 600 watt hps lumatek with a 4" air cooled sun grow reflector, can be supplemented with vertical led or cfl light if needed.
can fan 4" 142cfm & can filter 9000 25" for exhaust & 4" 80cfm intake fan
the flowering chamber will have co2
environmental controller: a AIR-3DN-day/night cooling temp/c02

The lg two foot tent will be for 1 mother and clones using...
lighting: 2 foot eight bulb t5 veg light with vertical supplement if needed
exhaust: 4" 80cfm fan no scrubber.

the main thing I am worrying about is how much my monthly power bill is going to raise when i start the grow up... the total cost for everything is almost $2500. otherwise just wanted to hear some thoughts

 

[NoLogo]

well the general rule is that a 600 watt light will cost approx $20-$30 a month to run at 12/12. where you have a 600 watt, a t5 system, 3 4" fans, and an enviromental controller, i would imagine your bill will increase by quite a bit.

this is a guess, but with all the extra equipment i would suggest your bill would increase to $60+ a month possibly more.

 

[drew2420]

ok keeping in mind that i live alone in a 2 bed 2 bath with den, so its a 3 bed 2 bath my bill atm is around $75... as long as my bill wouldn't be higher than $150 i could make it.

and on top of that i would be saving $100 a week since i wouldn't be buying pot anymore...

 

[TorturedSoul]

Main thing is pay it, don't steal it. And (reasonably) high electrical consumption is not in itself reason for suspicion. If you have piles of empty nutrient jugs lying around outside, 100 skunks mating in your home, a large amount of traffic coming to your home at all hours and only staying a few minutes, and are routinely seen carrying large bags of soil/media in and large bags of used soil/media out, well, yeah - when they serve you the warrant it might say something about "his electricty bill was up 300%" lol.

You get the picture. Be a good neighbor, be smart, be safe.

 

[drew2420]

Main thing is pay it, don't steal it. And (reasonably) high electrical consumption is not in itself reason for suspicion. If you have piles of empty nutrient jugs lying around outside, 100 skunks mating in your home, a large amount of traffic coming to your home at all hours and only staying a few minutes, and are routinely seen carrying large bags of soil/media in and large bags of used soil/media out, well, yeah - when they serve you the warrant it might say something about "his electricty bill was up 300%" lol.

You get the picture. Be a good neighbor, be smart, be safe.

you make good points... all my bills get payed ON TIME never late, more needed to know how much my monthly bills are going to go up. I'm pretty sure I'm going to keep it at 6 flowering plants, a mother and 6 veging clones at all times, no more no less... and as far as traffic goes the grow rooms will be located at a very long time friends house (about 19 years I've known him)
and he is the most privet person i have ever met in my life (might as well be a pothead hermit) rofl... when it come to disposing of used soil, nute containers etc, he keeps his 2 large 55gal trash cans in the garage so everything will be disposed of behind closed doors and wheeled out to the curb...

im trying to be as safe as possible with this grow.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Best way to keep track of your electrical devices' consumption is to purchase a kill-o-watt (google it).

 

[drew2420]

i have heard of this product before, wasn't sure if it was a need for my grow might want to factor it in...

i think i did the math right on this 104 sq ft. and the bulb i have says it puts out 90,000 lumens
so thats like 865 lumen per sq ft... that is overkill, i think... or would it be premo lumen per sq ft ratio?

 

[TorturedSoul]

WOW... That's not overkill - that's barely even annoying it lol. You need at least 3,000 lumens per square foot for vegging and 5,000 lumens per square foot for flowering.

104 square foot? I take it that you are growing in a room that's 10 feet by 10 feet and a fraction over an inch? Yeah, you need way more than one 600-watt HPS for that.

 

[drew2420]

um the tent is 3'11"x3'11"x6'7" powered by a 600watt hps bulb says 90000lumen... its explained above.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Whoops, my apologies. I saw the "104 square feet" and thought you must have changed your growing area. You're looking at 104 cubic feet. 15.3 square feet. Which gives you ~5867 lumens per square foot (not 865).

Now I'm guessing that your reflector will throw a rectangular footprint but in such a small area - assuming the walls are highly reflective - I'd think that your choice of lighting should be adequate.

A 1000-watt bulb at approximately 120,000 lumens would provide you with 7,823 lumens per square foot which would be even better, but you'd also have whatever extra heat the light radiated - that the air-cooling didn't remove - to deal with. A 1000-watt HPS puts out more heat, both because it's bigger and because it's less efficient. You might even get enough lumens with such a bulb that you'd need supplemental CO2 in order to take full advantage of it (I'm not sure as I can't remember the exact point where CO2 is useful).



So... Yeah, in your shoes I'd probably go with a good 600-watt HPS too. At least for the first round to see how it worked out. If you are using an electronic ballast with that fixture that would give you more net lumens over a magnetic one, cut down on heat (from the ballast), and be "easier" on your bulb. It would also have the benefit of consuming slightly less electricity since they are more efficient than a magenetic ballast of the same rated wattage.

I might go ahead and add some supplemental flourescent lighting to bring the level up to around 6,500 lumens per square foot... A total addition of 9700 lumens or just a little bit over that which could easily be done with either 6 26-watt CFLs rated at 1700 lumens or so spread evenly around the perimeter of the tent, different size/amounts of CFLs, or tube-type flourescents.

 

[drew2420]

so down at the local wall-mart they have a 42watt cfl that is supposed to be the same as 150 watts huge cfls... i think they give off around 4500lumen and i have 12 of these or i have 4 mixed led hoods
not sure what to supplement with...