New Grower first time auto grower- need advice on lighting.

[scoobydoo]

hi guys. i have 20 seeds (10 royal dwarf, 5 little cheese & 5 green-o-matic). i'm looking to do a small stealth closet grow with 3 or 4 plants at a time. i was thinking of getting a blackstar 240w led mainly to try and cut down on heat. i was also thinking about cfl's but i think they might get too hot. if anyone has any advice on lighting or auto growing in general it would be much appreciated.
p.s. i'm just planning to keep it simple with soil and maybe some light nutes.

 

[Bexter]

I'm a new grower too and had a post going in the new grower's section on LEDs - got some useful advice. I've gotta very small grow tent, 0.7m2, and am using a 135w led ufo. I've tried to grow in a very small stealth box before once with a 250w cfl - but plants didn't make it, far too hot. Couldn't keep the temp below 30 degrees C. With the led it's about 24-25 C. Am gonna upgrade to a 240w led in the next few months. Good luck!

 

[Muddy]

Welcome to AFN. LEDs and CFLs are both good options for small grows. Tell me a little more about your space. Size, location, etc. and what you are planning. Besides the light you also need to consider air circulation, odor control and venting. Those factors should also be considered when picking the right light.

 

[scoobydoo]

i'm looking at a space about 2ft x 3ft by about 5ft high, basically a hollowed out chest of draws or something similar. i was thinking of running a sealed grow space using C02. that's also why i want to run an led to cut down on heat. i can put in a vent with a carbon filter at a later stage if heat becomes a problem. any advice you have would be appreciated. i just want to grow enough to smoke myself so i'm looking to pull roughly 2-3oz every 8-10 weeks.

 

[Bexter]

Hi Scoobydoo,

Follow Muddy's advice - much more experienced than me. I'm doing the same growing exactly the same as you 2-3oz every 2-3 months. One thing I would say - I went to a hydroponic shop over the weekend to pick up a carbon filter kit, and everyone I met there told me it was an absolute must cos it provides very good airflow (the carbon filter is needed to control odour - something I need to pay a lot of attention to). They also said that although it won't help with temperature or humidity, the airflow will help with preventing mold / budrot bigtime.

 

[agito]

Co2 is an issue in such as small space and if your a new grower you want to stay clear you would have to vent to keep temps down unless you ran 2 extraction systems and a double sided sealed hood sealed from the grow space you might scrape it with t5's but to be honest that setup is to small to need co2 and you want a filter from stage one running that sort of heat in that sort of space but let muddy/T-shirt tune in on the led heat side of things