Lighting in a small closet

[Coughing_Anon]

Hello everyone, SWIM is looking to grow in a small closet, 19in deep, 42in long, 8' high.
SWIM can't cut holes in walls/ceilings for ventilation. The best SWIM can do is open the door and air it whenever SWIM is alone in his room. (there will be an oscillating fan however)
Which would be the best lighting for this veg chamber? (SWIM will construct a flowering chamber later) SWIM is considering the following: 4 bulb 2ft T5 system (8k lumens), 250w MH (25k lumens), or 400w MH (55K lumens). (all light outputs are approximate)
Which one should SWIM go with? Would a Metal Halide create heat problems if I can't air it out for a day or two?
Thank you all ahead of time.

[Lookyhere]

What I would do is get a 400 HPS then you can get the conversion MH bulb for it. Conversions are 360W I think. I would rather have the 400W HPS and the 360W MH than a 400W MH and a 360W HPS. Can you keep the ballast ouside of the room? That will make a big difference. The ballast puts off the heat. A 250 probably wouldn't put out as much heat. Do you plan on expanding you room size in the future? If you do then the 400 is good. If you don't plan on getting a bigger area ever, then you would probably be ok with the 250.

[Coughing_Anon]

Good points you make there.
SWIM is thinking of getting a digital ballast, any experience with those?

[jmtx]

i love t5ho i got an 8 bulb, and i just love you can start with 6500k bulbs then switch out some for 3000k when you start flowering.

[roc]

T5 fluro here but it still gets pretty warm in there with the doors closed.

[suckerfree]

if you don't have any ventilation system going, i would stick to fluorescents...
any HID lamps (mh or hps) whether it be 250 or 400 will be too hot for your plants/closet and will be a screaming fire hazard... (even without the ballast in the room)

sounds like to me you are renting, or living with roommates/parents that aren't in the know.... which is a bad idea and i sure hope isn't the case.
i would wait till you can do it right at your own house. it isn't worth risking your safety if you are a renter, and not worth risking the safety of people who live with you.

[prism1234]

Originally Posted by suckerfree

if you don't have any ventilation system going, i would stick to fluorescents...
any HID lamps (mh or hps) whether it be 250 or 400 will be too hot for your plants/closet and will be a screaming fire hazard... (even without the ballast in the room)

sounds like to me you are renting, or living with roommates/parents that aren't in the know.... which is a bad idea and i sure hope isn't the case.
i would wait till you can do it right at your own house. it isn't worth risking your safety if you are a renter, and not worth risking the safety of people who live with you.

Agreed 100%!

[Hippie3]

right, cfl lighting is best bet in closet with no ventilation

[Lookyhere]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

right, cfl lighting is best bet in closet with no ventilation

This may really be your best bet. I love HID's, but I have never grown in that small/tight of a space. I know when I first began growing hydro, I had only 1 400W in a walk-in closet ~6' X 6' X 8' tall. I kept my ballast outside of the closet and it was good enough to work with the temps, but any smaller and I would have had problems I think.

Maybe start off with a couple of those shoplights flourescents, and then swithch over to CFL's? Shoplights are very cheap and put out no heat. CFL's are good as far as having little heat and bulbs last a long time.

sounds like to me you are renting, or living with roommates/parents that aren't in the know.... which is a bad idea and i sure hope isn't the case.
i would wait till you can do it right at your own house. it isn't worth risking your safety if you are a renter, and not worth risking the safety of people who live with you.

When I move down to Florida within the next month I will be renting. I will also be starting up a hydro setup. I've done it before. It's definitely not an ideal situation, but sometimes all you can do is rent. I take a lot of extreme precautions when renting and growing. Locks are the first thing to be changed. Not just the front door, but also any and all doors leading into the room(s). It's a real PITA if anything goes wrong in the place that needs fixing. When I was in Houston and we rented a place, we didn't live there. We disconnected the water heater and refrigerator and never use the oven or stove so we never had a chance for anything to go wrong. Every once in awhile though the apartment people would want access to spray from bugs and stuff which was very nerve racking. We always told them we didn't want to be sprayed due to allergies and stuff, always had an excuse for any reason they may need/want to access our apartment.

[jmtx]

hip3 i wouldnt say cfl are the best, alot lower lumens, even though it really means nothing for plants, and a cfl will put out alot more heat then a t5 or t8 at the same wattage. and plus cfl's degrade quicker, a t5 or t8 can last you 20,000-24,000 hours, thats around 3 years if you leave it on nonstop. and lumen maintance is around 95% and effiency around 95% aswell. Now cfl's efficiency is is less than 85%, and have alot lower cri rating, and its life is around 8000 hours, hope this clears some things up, but cfls are good for side mouting, to get light to ur lower leaves, and good if u have little room, but id go with a t5h0, but thats just me.

[Lookyhere]

I'm sure the t5h0's are good, I would just have a hard time growing using a light that looks like a smoke detector. I have heard some good things about them, but I will stick with HID's. You should do SOG definitely. It will help a lot if you keep these plants as small as you can. Then you don't have to worry about getting light to the lower sections, stretching. You will get more frequent harvests and it will be a lot easier to end up with decent bud using less than perfect bulbs. If you do SOG you will end up with virtually all bud too, instead of a bunch of empty spaces.

[Hippie3]

Originally Posted by jmtx

hip3 i wouldnt say cfl are the best, alot lower lumens, even though it really means nothing for plants, and a cfl will put out alot more heat then a t5 or t8 at the same wattage. and plus cfl's degrade quicker, a t5 or t8 can last you 20,000-24,000 hours, thats around 3 years if you leave it on nonstop. and lumen maintance is around 95% and effiency around 95% aswell. Now cfl's efficiency is is less than 85%, and have alot lower cri rating, and its life is around 8000 hours, hope this clears some things up, but cfls are good for side mouting, to get light to ur lower leaves, and good if u have little room, but id go with a t5h0, but thats just me.

everyone's got an opinion.
i like cfl because they're flexible,
i can stick them in an cheap thrift store lamp,
drop light, etc.
and they put out minimal heat,
last plenty long esp. run 24/7 .
grow big phat colitas too.
might not be 'maximum' efficiency
per square inch
but i just don't care.
good enough is fine by me.

[Hippie3]

Originally Posted by Lookyhere

I'm sure the t5h0's are good, I would just have a hard time growing using a light that looks like a smoke detector. I have heard some good things about them, but I will stick with HID's. You should do SOG definitely. It will help a lot if you keep these plants as small as you can. Then you don't have to worry about getting light to the lower sections, stretching. You will get more frequent harvests and it will be a lot easier to end up with decent bud using less than perfect bulbs. If you do SOG you will end up with virtually all bud too, instead of a bunch of empty spaces.

you should not neglect to mention the downside of sog -
large numbers of plants.
that will matter if shit ever hits fan.

[jmtx]

Originally Posted by Lookyhere

I'm sure the t5h0's are good, I would just have a hard time growing using a light that looks like a smoke detector. I have heard some good things about them, but I will stick with HID's. You should do SOG definitely. It will help a lot if you keep these plants as small as you can. Then you don't have to worry about getting light to the lower sections, stretching. You will get more frequent harvests and it will be a lot easier to end up with decent bud using less than perfect bulbs. If you do SOG you will end up with virtually all bud too, instead of a bunch of empty spaces.

what do u mean looks like a smoke detector???

[Lookyhere]

True, that is the only downside. With his dimensions though, I can't see him really getting a ton of plants in there. I just think that it would really help with maximizing the lumens and produce better bud. The bigger plants he grows I think the less potent the bud will be. Maybe do a large SOG, what I mean by that is keep them small, but a little larger than flowering them when they're only 3 or 4 inches tall. Maybe wait till they are a foot and then cut to 12/12.

[Lookyhere]

Originally Posted by jmtx

what do u mean looks like a smoke detector???

IDK. I saw a light that is LED's that looks like a smoke detector. Not sure if that is even the right light, or if I'm talking about something completely different. If I'm talking about something completely different, sorry, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. It's been about 4-5 years since I have been shopping for lights. I'm still pretty stuck on my HID's. When I get back to FL I will most likely get a 1000W HPS with a MH conversion bulb. Oh yeah, and a shoplight for my clones.

If you go with CFL's be careful and keep a close eye on them. I have seen a couple of things that look like it could be a potential fire hazard. I think if you were to go with CFL's you would need to keep them upright as apposed to upside down.

[jmtx]

t5ho arnt leds its high output fluorescence, i hear those conversion bulbs suck, kinda like what the old blue painted plant floods light, but i havn't had any experience with em, just what alot of people say on gardenweb. but give it a try im sure ull get something to grow. one thing i didnt like with cfls is that they turned my plants yellow, and ive tried it on a couple occasions. maybe i got the wrong color temp.

[Lookyhere]

I've grown for over 10 years using the conversion bulbs and had GREAT success. The MH conversion is the way I would go as apposed to the HPS conversion, because I would only use the MH for a very short cycle and would be using the HPS for the majority of the life of the plant. Conversion bulbs don't suck at all. I think that it's funny that people were talking shit about the conversion bulbs, I don't think they really know what they're talking about.

And if they compare them to the old blue painted floods light, then I am very convinced that they have no clue what they're talking about.

[jmtx]

they just say that the blue intensity is low, but o well if u have great success, cant argue there.

[Lookyhere]

Don't know, but all I can say is that in our grows if we were to have submitted our pictures in Hightimes, we could have taken up every page every month. Our shit was as dank as dank can get. We had no stretching and nothing but trichomes. Also, like I said, my veg cycle is a very very short period of time.

[jmtx]

1 month?

[Hippie3]

cfl are no greater 'potential fire hazard' than HID , less imo.

[jmtx]

less, enless you go with a cheapo from dollar store, but if u get a good quality one like ge or phillips, should have no problems, usually, this topic defiantly went off topic kinda haham but anon id say ur best bet is to see how much money u wanna spend, for best, dense and potent buds you want alot of intensity, and hps will be ur best bet, as far as veg goes its a toss up, i like fluoros cause u can put em soo close to the plant with out them getting burned. but mh are amazing too, just very bad lumen degrade, enless you get a ceramic mh.

[Lookyhere]

I was basing my whole statement on these pictures.

Originally Posted by jmtx

1 month?

No, like 1 1/2-2 weeks. I keep em under flourescent shoplights to root the clones, then they go under a MH for 1.5-2 weeks, then onto flower with the HPS.

This is all on topic, it's all about lights. True about the MH degrading, but if you use them very minimally they will last a long long time. Oh, also, I only grow hydro so 1.5-2 weeks is really all they need IMO for the way that I grow. 1.5-2 weeks in soil would'n' do a whole lot, but in rockwool, you can almost watch them grow.

[jmtx]

ok well the second pic looks like it was built on wood??? and its not even painted white, endcaps are very old style as well. but o well things like this does happen, but alot less with fluoros then hids is for sure

[procell]

Originally Posted by Coughing_Anon

Hello everyone, SWIM is looking to grow in a small closet, 19in deep, 42in long, 8' high.
SWIM can't cut holes in walls/ceilings for ventilation.
SWIM is considering the following: 4 bulb 2ft T5 system (8k lumens),

Since you can't vent, HID is right out.
To get the most light I would recommend a (2) 3' x 4 Bulb system.
Placed along top of the closet
peaked in a /\_____\ on yoyos.
Then add 5" box fans along each side of the closet pointed in, perhaps every 18 inches or so from the bottom to the top. Heat is still an issue but since the closet is so tall you may have a decent chance.
PS Those pics were from a t_12 setup the T5 HO parts are much better, but keep an eye on them anyway . . .

[Hippie3]

that 2nd picture has nothing to do with cfl per se,
now the first pic is a cfl that was incorrectly installed,
trapping the heat .
easily avoided.

[procell]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

that 2nd picture has nothing to do with cfl per se,

well, actually, the burnt bi post sockets was started by fatigued cardboard ends (possibly due to humidity). They failed to keep the posts separated and then arced, catching the cardboard on fire, which started the plastic socket burning, in surprisingly rapid succession. So it was a cfl failure I think

[Hippie3]

never saw a cfl using 'bipost sockets',
mine screw into regular lamp socket.

[sinthetic]

i use CFLs in my veg closet

[procell]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

never saw a cfl using 'bipost sockets',
mine screw into regular lamp socket.

Oh, right. sorry.
CFL Circular Flo Light
Not a T-12 straight Flo