LED Grow Light Forum

I am planning on growing tomatoes and hot peppers in a closet enclosure, i have been researching led and hid and i was leaning toward making a dual 250w or by using a 1000w air cooled hood and making a fixture on the other side for the second light, but i was worried i would have too much heat in such a small space, thus a dual 150 watt option, using the same hood
or a 600w cooltube if they are small enough with snough coverage
Any advice? Thanks
PTW

I would skip the single large hood/tube, the bulbs wouldn't be far enough apart to cover the 4' length. 2x4x6 is not the best shape but we deal with what we have so I'd suggest either 2 x 250w HID or 2 x 400w SolarStorm if you're looking at LED. The LED option would actually be more light but they're also more expensive to buy. You could go with the self-contained ballast/hood options for the 250w HID option (they should offer an air-cooled option) or you could go with separate ballasts and hoods. Modern digital ballasts should be able to handle either MH or HPS. With only 6 feet of headroom, you'll definitely want to flower while they're small so SCROG/SOG type grows would be best.

Hope that helps...

Thanks SME it does help alot,

My concern was about heat though, will 2 250w HID be too much with the 2 cooltubes? i will only be able to get a 4" inline 135 cfm fan too with the bigger lights as i have limited funds, would that be enough to cool the room and lights?

The heat won't be any different with one hood or two, it's the number of watts and the ambient temps. A single 4" fan would be pushing it, a 6" HO fan would be better and not that much more expensive. You'll still have to deal with odors if you plan to vent the lights and the room out the same exhaust and you can't shutdown the room fan, if the lights are on, if it gets too cool and you only have one fan.

The fan was a combo with a speed controller and 25' of foil ducting and a filter, but yeah, the only cooltubes i can find here are 6" and 8" so i would have to have at least a 6"?
How noisy are they?
I might just have to wait a little longer for the extra money before startup would the 6" be maxed out too? or close?

Also, the lights would have to be vented seperate from the grow because of the high cfm right?

If you already have the 4" combo; you could use that for odor/temp control and get another fan just for the lights. I'd still go with the 6" model. Noise varies depending on brand, etc. The 6" would have plenty of room for later light expansion and, yes, you *should* vent the lights and the room separately.

i dont have anything yet, i just dont want to buy anything i dont need, i meant, that i would have found out i needed more, and i was going to go 4" now im going 6", thanks SME. I was thinking, could i put some holes in the light vent tubing for the grow area venting?

Im just worried that when the 6" turns on that it will be too much for young plants at the air intake. Another concern i had was will these lights be too much when they are young? if im doing it right i would have 62.5w/sqft?

It's still a good idea to have separate light and room fans but if you insist on using just one then it would go:
carbon filter - light 1 - light 2 - fan

A 6" fan is about 400 cfm not that much., while they're small you can use 1 light until they go into flower or until they're using more than 2x3 during veg. Yes, 62.5w/sqft is fine as long as you deal with the heat, you want at least 50 during flower.

I was going to have the fan like this, ill try make a picture
wall I wall I
filter=fan========light=====light==hole======house air air flow<<<<<<

i dont have enough room to have the filter inside the grow room if im understanding your pic right, the fan should be pushing or pulling?

damn the walls dont line up..

Axial fans are designed to pull. Is that closet your only option? No room for the filter at the top of the space? Can't stack it vertically in a corner of the 2x4?