Need everyone advice

Ok if you have seen my previous post you have seen my setup.

Right now have a stealth box setup 28 inch length, 19 inch wide,36 inch tall

Using 2 65 watt cfl and 4 27 watt cfl to veg.

2 pc fan for cooling

Anyway i have been giving much thought on when i reach the flowering stage, and honestly i would like to use HPS instead of 2700k cfl.

So i am wondering if two 150 watt hps system will work in my setup.

Please all advice is appreciated. I am growing 4 plants still waiting for them to break through the soil.

My concern is heat build up with two 150 hps

If anyone has experience with 150 watt hps please let me know

From what I see you should do great with the HPS. As long as you increase your ventilation. PC fans are not going to be enough.

if you can find a small wattage hps that has a ventable reflector you should be fine. The better the fan and ventilation the bigger hps you can get away with. I have succesfully cooled 400w hps in a 2x4x5 box. If your going to use hps then your going to be spending additional money on a good ventilation system. So were talking $75 to $150 for the hps fixture then atleast another 75 bucks for fan(s), tubing and other hardware. Thats over 200 bucks. You allready have some CFL's and a very small space adding on more CFL's would be where i would be thinking.. You should be able to find 125w CFL's for arround $50 each. You could spend that 200 bucks on 4 nice high wattage CFL's and get away with a free-bee cooling fan from a PC or something like that. 5.3 of those 125W CFL's are equil to that of a 400w HPS and a hell of lot less heat for such a small area. Adding those 4 new CFL's with what you allready have would be very close to that of a 400w hps and your thinking of replacing it with a 150w hps..

My main concern is to maximize my yield that is why i am curious if two 150 watt hps can work in my setup.

The HPS is strickly for flowering purposes

If you were to add 4 more CFL's that are 125w The light output is going be greater than 300w of HPS and alot easier to cool.. The room is just very small your going to be spending alot of extra money on climate controll and on hot days still may have high temp problems. If you have 5.3 of those 125w CFLs it is equal to a 400w hps.

Yes you want the most yeld. A 400w HPS would perhaps save you a week of veg time and yeld wise i have seen properly done CFL gardens totally out do some HPS gardens..

if the plant genitics are there I wouldnt worrie about yeld. The CFLS are going to be easier to cool and require alot less of a high dollar ventilation system which will allow you to buy more CFLS.

Syriuslydelyrius said:

If you were to add 4 more CFL's that are 125w The light output is going be greater than 300w of HPS and alot easier to cool.. The room is just very small your going to be spending alot of extra money on climate controll and on hot days still may have high temp problems. If you have 5.3 of those 125w CFLs it is equal

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is that 125w equivalent cfl's or actual cfl wattage?
IF it takes 5.3 125 actuall watt cfl's to equal a 400w HPS you would be silly to run the cfl's thats 662.5 watts you would be consuming vs the 450-500(including ballast) watts the hps takes.
If you have the money the HPS is the way to go, research building a 'cool tube' setup or buy an air cooled reflector for the hps and a fan to push the air and you shouldnt have any problems. The key to an efficient cool tube is pull air from outside the grow room and vent back outside the grow room so the cool tube venting is totaly seperate from the grow area.
If your pc fans are high volume (100cfm+) and you have a short straight run of duct to and from the cool tube you may even be able to rig one of the pc fans to push that air.

Mr.J420 said:

is that 125w equivalent cfl's or actual cfl wattage?
IF it takes 5.3 125 actuall watt cfl's to equal a 400w HPS you would be silly to run the cfl's thats 662.5 watts you would be consuming vs the 450-500(including ballast) watts the hps takes.
If you have the money the HPS is the way to go, research building a 'cool tube' setup or buy an air cooled reflector for the hps and a fan to push the air and you shouldnt have any problems. The key to an efficient cool tube is pull air from outside the grow room and vent back outside the grow room so the cool tube venting is totaly seperate from the grow area.
If your pc fans are high volume (100cfm+) and you have a short straight run of duct to and from the cool tube you may even be able to rig one of the pc fans to push that air.

Click to expand...

Yes i am afraid to say that is actual wattage. Yeah the 400w hps will be more bang for the watt, however you are not including the extra wattage used by your cooling system and the cost of that system..

Remember this dudes garden is 28 inch length, 19 inch wide,36 inch tall. Screwing arround cooling hps fixtures in that space when he already has some cfl's I just dont think is worth all the fuss.

Pros: better light penetration with HID lighting (HPS in this case), better light spectrum for flowering with HPS.
Cons: more heat.

Flip a coin.

Check out the link to a 150 HPS light:

http://www.htgsupply.com/viewproduct.asp?productID=53025

Starting price $69.75 plus S&H. You can upgrade your reflector if you want and some upgraded models have glass and ventilation ports so you will keep heat off your plants and suck it right out of the lamp hood/reflector. Or you can use the basic reflector or a better upgraded one without glas and ports and just increase your regular air intake/exhaust system.

I would like to say thank you to all who replied

I really appreciate all the advice

After thinking about it, I believe it is true. Two 150 HPS will just generate to much heat to vent out.

My final question would be what if i use one 150 hps with a combination of 2700k cfl when i start to flower

Do you think i would be able to manage that heat in my stealth box setup

2 of these http://thegardendepotinc.com/115.html will allow you to put the lights much closer to the tops and zero heat worries. 150 hps isnt a whole ton of lumens, if you have a good inline blower on a 400w vented fixture with a well ventilized grow box then you should see an increase in yeld. If it has to be HPS then your better off with 1 400w lamp instead of 2 150w ones because those 2 bulbs will be creating more heat than the one and more lumens with the 1 400w hps of course.

OK so the question thats left is would 1 of these 150w lamps be better than adding 2 nice CFLs? Lumen wise 2 of those lamps will be just a slightly higher than the 1 small hps and even better when you consider how much closer they can be. Yes you will consume more power with those 2 CFLs in comparrison to the HPS but all we are talking here is only 100w differance and what you get in return is assurance that an unseasonably hot day or broken fan doesnt cook your harvest. I would gladly make that trade.

Syriuslydelyrius said:

2 of these http://thegardendepotinc.com/115.html will allow you to put the lights much closer to the tops and zero heat worries. 150 hps isnt a whole ton of lumens, if you have a good inline blower on a 400w vented fixture with a well ventilized grow box then you should see an increase in yeld. If it has to be HPS then your better off with 1 400w lamp instead of 2 150w ones because those 2 bulbs will be creating more heat than the one and more lumens with the 1 400w hps of course.

OK so the question thats left is would 1 of these 150w lamps be better than adding 2 nice CFLs? Lumen wise 2 of those lamps will be just a slightly higher than the 1 small hps and even better when you consider how much closer they can be. Yes you will consume more power with those 2 CFLs in comparrison to the HPS but all we are talking here is only 100w differance and what you get in return is assurance that an unseasonably hot day or broken fan doesnt cook your harvest. I would gladly make that trade.

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Just out of curiosity how many lumens do those 125 watt put out

Also does it require a ballast or will a standard socket work.

Actually for that price it looks great

Just wish the sight provided more specs on the product

The ballest is built into the bulb and normal sockets will work. The same company that I linked the bulbs from also sell a socket with 8ft of cord for arround 15 bucks. You can also buy reflectors for these bulbs.

Now about lumens, I have seen bulbs like this listed anywhere from 7000 to 10,000 lumens. They are avaiable in 2 different light spectums for veg or flowering. A lumen is a mesurement used to determin the amount of light visible to the eye and doesnt consider what this light spectrum is. So 3,000 lumens of the perfect spectrum for plants would be better than 9,000 of a bad spectrum. Now will defently agree that a HPS will achieve the best possible spectrum per watt over those CFL's however it does this with 1 big consiquence and that is HEAT. I have seen many nice buds on the tops of plants have there cyrstals "toasted like a slice of bread" where as that the top bud that was closest to the lamp has darker sorta tanned crystals and the buds that were a few inches lower getting cooled better had white/clear crystals. If you can keep them cool under atleast a 400w HPS then by all means do so. However in a small tight area those CFLs are going to be safer and alot less headaches than the HPS.

Just do a google search for "125w CFL grow" lots of differant hydro shops and companys carry them and some will have the info your looking for. You can get them in a 200w version also however the 125w ones are way more better lumen per watt.

Ok so now I am search on that 125 watt cfl directly from the manufacturers website and it requires a mogul base socket.

Which is cheap and available all over the internet

Just thought I would point that out if there is anyone else following this thread and using the advice here

http://www.hydrofarm.com/pb_detail.php?itemid=116#https://www.rollitup.org/HYDROFARM%20125%20WATT%20COMPACT%20FLUORESCENT%20BULB for info on the bulb

http://www.hydrofarm.com/pb_detail.php?itemid=1957 for info on the mogul base with cord attachment

the bulb puts out 8125 lumens

also more info you cab get a Mogul Socket adapter and use in a regular socket

Well I just thought i would give out the extra info

Thanks for all the advice it really helped me come to a decision regarding which bulbs i will use when flowering
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Syriuslydelyrius said:

if you can find a small wattage hps that has a ventable reflector you should be fine. The better the fan and ventilation the bigger hps you can get away with. I have succesfully cooled 400w hps in a 2x4x5 box. If your going to use hps then your going to be spending additional money on a good ventilation system. So were talking $75 to $150 for the hps fixture then atleast another 75 bucks for fan(s), tubing and other hardware. Thats over 200 bucks. You allready have some CFL's and a very small space adding on more CFL's would be where i would be thinking.. You should be able to find 125w CFL's for arround $50 each. You could spend that 200 bucks on 4 nice high wattage CFL's and get away with a free-bee cooling fan from a PC or something like that. 5.3 of those 125W CFL's are equil to that of a 400w HPS and a hell of lot less heat for such a small area. Adding those 4 new CFL's with what you allready have would be very close to that of a 400w hps and your thinking of replacing it with a 150w hps..

Click to expand...

Pardon me for buttin' in but your dimensions sound like mines. However, I am having a bit of a temp problem with my setup. It's 14" x 42.5" x 34" and I have a 197 cfm S&P fan sucking air out of the box and cooling my 400w HPS. I tried a few different variations including adding a 70 cfm 120mm pc fan over my passive intake to promote more cool air in the box. Would you happen to have pix of your setup? I cant get my temps under 84 degrees. The funny thing is.. when I stick half my body in there it doesnt feel that hot. I'm starting to think my Hygrometer is trippin'. And my cool tube is attached to the roof of my cab on hooks, pretty musch as high as possible.

7th1der said:

Pardon me for buttin' in but your dimensions sound like mines. However, I am having a bit of a temp problem with my setup. It's 14" x 42.5" x 34" and I have a 197 cfm S&P fan sucking air out of the box and cooling my 400w HPS. I tried a few different variations including adding a 70 cfm 120mm pc fan over my passive intake to promote more cool air in the box. Would you happen to have pix of your setup? I cant get my temps under 84 degrees. The funny thing is.. when I stick half my body in there it doesnt feel that hot. I'm starting to think my Hygrometer is trippin'. And my cool tube is attached to the roof of my cab on hooks, pretty musch as high as possible.

Click to expand...

Here is a pic of my setup

It is set up to veg

My questions concerning the lights regards to lights for when it is time to flower

7th1der said:

Pardon me for buttin' in but your dimensions sound like mines. However, I am having a bit of a temp problem with my setup. It's 14" x 42.5" x 34" and I have a 197 cfm S&P fan sucking air out of the box and cooling my 400w HPS. I tried a few different variations including adding a 70 cfm 120mm pc fan over my passive intake to promote more cool air in the box. Would you happen to have pix of your setup? I cant get my temps under 84 degrees. The funny thing is.. when I stick half my body in there it doesnt feel that hot. I'm starting to think my Hygrometer is trippin'. And my cool tube is attached to the roof of my cab on hooks, pretty musch as high as possible.

Click to expand...

Sorry no pics of that old system. I would be glad to describe it.

A 400w switchable hps in an aircoolable reflecter much like this one.
http://thegardendepotinc.com/6yimasycolum.html

A 630 cfm 6in fan with temp a temp controller module. The fan and filter are plumbed so the filter is in the room and the blower is drawing air from the room through the filter. Then the output of the blower is plumbed through a tube and runs through your reflector across the bulb and out of the room through another tube. With a passive intake that was a piece of 3in pvc drain pipe that ran down the inside of the wall to the basement below a foot or so off the floor. If you had the door door closed and the fan going full bore the air flowing into the room through that little 3in pipe passive intake was enough to blow out a bic lighter.

I just dont think a 197cfm fan is going to be enough airflow to do it, Your simply not moveing enough air and if you useing that 197cfm with a filter your moveing even less air across that lamp. The differance between my old system and yours is mine had 3x the airflow yours does. Changeing to a better fan with more CFM would be benifical if your not pulling the air through a big filter you might get away with 450cfm but a bigger one wont hurt. Hooking that fan up to a speed controll and thermomiter that adjust the fan speed according to room temp will also be benifical.