I tagged you as you are the resident light expert here lol. I’m looking to invest in a second tent set up and need your expertise. The idea is a veg tent and a flower tent. At the moment I’m working with one 3x3 tent and a 600w viparspectre light. I know this light isn’t that great but when I got it that was what I could afford. So I’m wanting to upgrade a bit for the next tent set up and down the road there will be a third set up, but for now I’m curious one the second.
I’m debating just getting a 4x4 or maybe a 5x5 and needing an idea on what type of light to use. I see the hlg lights are thought very highly of these days and my major concerns at the moment is: heat, cost, elec cost from the wall and production. I want the best for the tent that I can afford (don’t we all lol).
So all of that to ask you what you would recommend to hit the sweet spot between cost and quality. I’m currently growing 4 photos in my tent but will almost certainly switch to autos for my next grow if that is a factor at all. I’ve already realized I’m likely going to have to flip my photos earlier than anticipated due to size restrictions but I thought I’d pick your brain a bit if you don’t mind!
I don’t mind, and will try to help with whatever I can.
I’m guessing you’re gonna veg in 3x3 and use new larger space to flower in? Your vipar should work fine as veg light there for now. In the flower space, do you plan to harvest it all at roughly the same time, or are you planning on having plants at different stages of flowering in the space at same time? I guess, what is planned harvest frequency and how much are you expecting to harvest?
We are all always shooting for as much as possible, but it’s important to have budget that lines up with expectations. If what you’re looking for can be reasonably done in a 4or I don’t see any reason to spend double setting up a 5x5.
@dbrn32 at this stage I’m still on my first grow and money is tight as it usually is so I’m essentially planning ahead so I can start acquiring the things I need now. As far as frequency of harvest I guess I’d say as often as possible. I do realize what I’m describing isn’t the classic perpetual grow, but I just want some things going in each tent at all times. If that means harvesting once a month or every 6 weeks or whatever. I wish I had more experience growing to answer that question.
Yes I planned on vegging in the 3x3 for now and flowering in the 4x4. Once I have the second tent set up I will look into replacing that light. I’m not necessarily looking for the maximum on harvests but of course want it to be as good as it can with my set up and skill such as it is lol. I’d like to get a semi regular schedule with some autos. Ideally I’d keep them fairly close in switching to flower as I’m assuming I will be planning to fly that space equally and will have babies on the way.
First goal was to grow anything to harvest lol. Secondary goal was do it well
Next goal is autos and then I will be looking into cloning and other things like producing seeds and what not but that’s way down the road. For now I’m thinking I just need a veg tent and a flower tent and I will come up with a germination set up and just fine tune my timing to constantly have things harvesting. I hope all that made sense lol.
Edit: realized I missed your actual question…jeez. In my mind I’d be harvesting at roughly the same time to make room for the stuff in veg to move over.
Imo if you want to grow perpetual your best bet would be to look into getting away from the autos as quickly as possible. I’m sure cost is major factor for your reasoning, which is understandable. But you can get setup to clone for about the cost of a pack of seeds. From there one healthy plant is capable of producing an indefinite amount of plants. So the cost savings of having to grow 1 plant from one seed are immeasurable. And that’s really just a small benefit of growing with clones. The main reason is to have mature plants when rooted. So you could flower them at any time as opposed to waiting 4-5 weeks for plants to mature from seed. It outweighs trashing 12+ weeks on a seed run for sure.
I’m guessing you have the autos already, so we’ll get back on that. Growing perpetual with autos relatively simple. You pretty much just start a plant as often as you plan to harvest one and hope they start to flower and finish on similar timelines. Probably not, but that’s the unpredictable nature of autos. Maybe something like every 2 weeks? If you drop enough to fill your flower tent from beginner you will likely over grow your veg tent waiting for them to finish. That’s no good lol. Probably be some bumps in the road, but I’m sure you will figure out timing.
Getting a 4x4 setup not too big of deal. Two 260 xl kits from horticulture lighting group will do nice job. Chilled tech growcraft fixtures real nice too, also available in kits you can assemble yourself to save some $. 500-600 watts of lights like these put you up around 2 pound harvest potential with good grow and full canopy of heavy yielding strain(s). Probably worth saving for if you have to. The cheapest I feel you could successfully go with is probably an air cooled 600 watt hps light. Plenty of great weed grown with them. Any of the lights capable of growing top shelf bud. Just need to keep your light density at recommended levels and keep plants healthy.
@dbrn32 funny you should mention seeds…sooooo I kinda went wild when I ordered some. I started with ilgm pop culture pack and have 2 Skywalker og’s, 1 black widow and a Bruce banner going now. So I have those other 11 photo seeds from that pack and then I ordered some more from other places and at this point I’ve got around 30 seeds to choose from lol. The reasoning at the time was I wanted to learn how to grow both to see which I preferred etc. The other factor was variety, I wanted to sample some things. I definitely see the benefit to clones as you pointed out. Ive watched some videos on it and have a basic understanding but I was worried that might be rough on a new grower or that I’d screw it up . I’m definitely interested in clones tho. Also, if this helps with my light questions I’d say I’m working with a budget of somewhere in the $500 to $750 range give or take a hundred lol. So I’m going to say I’m hoping to get a decent light for a few hundred or so if possible. I’ve seen tents for a couple hundred or less that look like they will do just fine. So the rest is basically light money other than the usual indoor costs like hangers and fans etc.
Gotcha. The only benefit to growing autos indoors when you have 2 spaces is they wouldn’t need to be light tight. Since you’ll be growing in tents, that will be null if they are setup properly. Having the two spaces would cover any timing benefits.
As far as lights go, there aren’t really any led lights in that price range I have confidence you would be happy with. Even middle of the road DIY light will probably run you about $500, and that would be sitting around waiting for some discounts usually. You could probably get into an air cooled 600 for that though. I’m a little rusty on hot hps setups though, maybe @peachfuzz or @Hellraiser could help you out there.
I think if you watch Amazon 4x4 tents can be found for around $100. Put one in your cart but don’t buy, see if it pops up as deal of the day or something. If you need a fan that’s quiet I would take a look at ac infinity s6. Doesn’t have fancy controller like t6, but is an awesome little fan.
I usually get all of my stuff from (sunlight supply)…
100 buck’s for a 600 watt magnetic ballist
200 buck’s for a good air cooled hood
50 buck’s for a decent bulb
75 buck’s for a good fan
Charcoal filter
Ducting
And off to the races you go…
@dbrn32 which model of the hlg would you recommend for a 4x4? Is it the 260xl v2 or the rspec? I want to investigate those a bit and see if I can make it work. Maybe buy one and then the other type of thing. If I’m not mistaken hps usually run hot and I’m worried I won’t be able to keep things cool enough on the hot days. At the moment my led runs about 5 to 7 degrees hotter than my house so for the most part heat isn’t a factor but I definitely am keeping it in mind.
They’re highly efficient at turning electricity into light instead of heat. Is ventilation going to be an issue for you, because you want air exchange for other reasons in addition to temperature regulation?
nb: It has been really hard to get lights from Rightbud in a timely manner right now, in my personal experience. Specifically, they keep moving their delivery date back. I mention that, not to bash Rightbud, but because you want to line up your lights as early as possible.
@KeystoneCops im in the middle of my first grow so that’s hard to answer. So far air flow hasn’t been an issue. I haven’t gotten to flower yet tho. I’m able to maintain temps between 74 and 77 fairly regular.
I should have been clearer. Air exchange brings in CO2 and other atmospheric gases. You want to ventilate. A fan/filter is probably much cheaper than CO2 supplementation.
@KeystoneCops oh I see, I do have a filter and fan and they smell fairly strong when I open the tent but the filter is doing its job very well. I may add an intake fan just to be safe but so far I’ve just been running my exhaust fan. I have slight negative pressure but the girls are doing pretty well. I’ve made some mistakes of course but they are chugging right along.
I try to stay away from recommending spider farmer lights. They advertise blanket chip data without providing sphere or gonio results for the fixtures they’re selling. Kinda makes it smell like they have something to hide. They also do things like sell their fixtures with 250 watt drivers that are only configured to have around 200 watt output. In short, they make it look like you’re getting same thing horticulture lighting group sells at $50-$100 discount, but everything points to them being lower performance light. They will still grow good weed though. So if you want to save a few bucks and aren’t necessarily worried about having the top notch stuff, it will fill the bill.
That particular model probably just a smidge small to veg 4x4. They list it as 3x4 veg, which is probably about right. I’m sure if you put plants in it they would grow, maybe just not as much with little more light. If you like to run less than 18 hour veg schedule I would definitely look for bigger fixture.
