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indoor Tent + Lights for Complete Indoor Growing

C

Chillin

Hi, just registered here as it seems a haven of information. :cool:

I started growing Chillis this year and have had some fruit but I also have a lot of plants about 60 - 80 % complete (some choc habs just flowering and some other varieties not yet full size fruit). The sun hours in the UK have been lousy so I figured I would like to pursue this hobby without depending on the weather. I'm interested in making my own cross varieties so this may be an advantage in some ways too.

I'm looking at buying a grow tent (something like Secret Jardin 1.2m x 1.2m x 2.0m). I've researched for days and days and talked myself in and out of LEDs about 100 times. I love the sound of the low energy costs and not having to worry about too much heat around the place but there seem to be people who know a lot more than me who warn against them. If I did buy, I would buy something like a 90w UFO illuminator or 2 (or perhaps a 180w). But for that money I would want to throw myself off a cliff if it turned out to be not up to the job to get great fruit (I don't want the hassle of augmenting with other lights or putting outside if I'm paying that money).

Interestingly, I've contacted a few suppliers and been told a number of stories such as 'you need a 180w in a 1m x 1m' to 'you need 2 x 90w for correct footprint'. Both of these advices came from suppliers of the same product!

So perhaps HPS/MH is the way to go? But then I've read that there might be too much heat. I have a wife and baby boy to think about so the last thing I want is to make something dangerous in the home! But then people say CFL is not as good as HPS/MH ...

... so here I am looking for some advice. Sadly, most of the advice seems to be aimed at people growing 'other' plants. I am absolutely not here to stir up any kind of argument about LED vs CFL vs HID. What I would really appreciate though I some passionate advice on what sort of set up I should go for. I don't mind spending money if I need to in order to get great chilli plant growth but I don't want to throw it away needlessly either.
 
I am quite a newbie also, to this point I have brought 4-6 plants to a decent size, with just 4' shop light fixture with T8 Flourescent bulbs 2x, and they are flowering. It has seemed to keep them bushy and rounded, but I know they are now starting to explode with size and have to look at others.

I myself am looking at what you are looking at, I have done enough research online to know that my choices I'm looking at are.

8-Bulb T5 setup, around $180-220 bucks. (lower cost power (around 400watts, the one I have looked at), less heat, and way less power consumption.) (questionable whether it will work like I want
but my success with T5's I'm feeling like this is my best option.

or a 400watt, HPS something like the HTGsupply one I found on ebay. for $119

says it will cover a 4x4 area, but I have not looked into what is needed for cooling and a fan, I was going to use it in the wide open unless it gets really cold in my basement.


good luck comparing.. I will watch this thread for ideas... I think I have my mind set on the T5 for me, but I'm tempted with the idea of high watt CFG, and cutting a trash can also to make a big reflector. -> saw a video on ebay looks pretty cool.
 
IMHO you would get more production from hid lighting.
That being said I am running a 4ft 4bulb t-5 from HTG supply
All my plants seem to like them but take off like a rocket once they are under my 1000 watt HPS.
A 400w with a 4inch cooling fan should do just nice!
Check the complete set ups HTGsupply.com has to get an idea.
 
RouteBound, how far above the plants are you using that HPS? I'm trying to plan for space.
also are you using it for just a 4x4 or have you put it up with the reflectors out to maximize coverage?
 
I try to get as close as i can.
prob around 18 inchs above the canopy.
Its in a sealed air cooled hood and makes a pretty big footprint.
i ran it in a 4x8 sealed room and it was plenty.

So if you had 7 ft of vertical space
minus 2ft hieght of flood table
minus 2ft light light clearence
U would have enough space for 3ft plants
 
I read quit a bit and spent a lot of hours doing research before I setup my closet. You can search "grow tech" for my post and find a lot of info. If I had to setup your tent I would go with a 400 watt switchable dual ballast and a cool tube hood. Place it in an area so you can exhaust the hot air directly outdoors. Add in a small can fan that can do at least 120 cfm. For lights I would use the eye hortilux blue (the MT400D/BUD/HTL that is 32000 lumens) for initial growth and fertilize with a 10-4-6 initial fert every other feeding and run the light for 12 hours a day. Then when the plant is mature and fruiting I would switch over to an eye-hortilux super hps bulb (LU400S/HTL/EN 55000 lumens) for fruiting and switch up my fert to a 4-8-10 fert and run that light for 10 hours a day.

I do a couple of additional things to help the plants grow better and stronger like add superthrive when the plant is young to help establish a better root system, I also have a thriving worm farm which allows me to brew worm tea and foliar feed (I use dutch master when foliar feeding) during the week i'm not fertilizing. Start off with the best soil you can afford and don't forget about Magnesium Sulfate and you should have plants bigger than your tent in no time. I had a little bit large room then you when I started off and because the plants grew so large I ended up with just 2 monsters that produced like crazy.
 
Long term efficiency, ie, through one crop, dictates the use of HID.
Any use of electricity done without knowing the characteristics of heat is dangerous., HID, fluorescent, LED and etc.
 
The last time I grew peppers indoors I did it without a tent in my basement. I used one 400W MH/HPS light with a switchable ballast. I can pretty much guarantee you that you will not be happy with the LED lighting. I have had friends that used them and were quite upset that they wasted so much money on them.

I grew six plants w/drip irrigation under that one light, and had a lot of success with them. I now grow all my peppers outside with Ebb and Flow.. I'm tired of spending the extra money on power consumption to grow peppers. Now during the winter months I don't have a whole lot of choice, but during the summer they go outside.

edit: While I'm thinking about it.. The problems associated with growing in a tent is heat. If you are using HID you will see temps hit 100+ degrees F.
 
I just purchased a tent off amazon.com for my aeroponic peppers. I can tell you honestly that it is one of the best, quality-made tents I've seen. My friend works at a hydroponic shop and said this would easily sell for $200+. If you are interested the link is below. 100% Mylar covering inside. There are 2 round vents and 2 flap vents at the bottom. Heavy-duty zippers and comes with bars to hang lights. Definitely a quality buy for me...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00283Q59M
 
I'd just like to throw out there that there's a HUGE range of types of LEDs out there. UFO fixtures are a joke and don't even have optics for each LED (unless ther'es some new version I havent seen), no wonder they cannot push light. Might be nice as a supplmental decorative light but otherwise its a piece of junk IMO.

You need to use Cree LEDs with total internal reflection optics, and then you can approach the brightness of HPS or T5 easily. Note that I'm not saying it's more efficient or better... usually such claims are way overblown and don't take into account what happens with scalability etc. But it's definitely possible to get a light that performs as well as an HPS using only LEDs. check out my thread if you want one example. I'm totally new to LEDs in hydro, but I've been using them on aquariums for years along with a large group of other entuisiasts, and they DO perform if you set them up right. Corals are just as demanding as plants in terms of lighting.

I am able to get over 2000 PAR out of 100 watts, albiet for a small footprint of maybe 1' x 2'. So IMO it performs in the same ballbank as a 250w MH light, but it's not quite there.


*edit* checked and it looks like recent UFO fixtures are a TAD better than when I checked years ago, but not much. They use 3w LEDs but still no optics, AFACT.
 
This video clearly shows what's up!!

My link

The UFO is barely even pushing 200 PAR in those measurements! That's disgusting! That's less light than outdoor full shade (ambient sky light).

Notice the fixture with individual optics performed WAY better than the 2nd best fixture and was measuring almost 900 par. Not too shabby but still not even close to HPS or MH or even my custom fixture thats only 100w.
 
Here's the LED light that was the highest performer in that youtube comparison.


My link

red-blue-leds-at120rb.jpg



It costs $1000 bucks and uses 120w. So it's way more expensive than making your own, and performs worse than my DIY 100w fixture. I can get those numbers when I dim mine to half. So I think crappy fixtures are honestly what has given LEDs such a bad name. There are WAY more opportunities for vendors to rip you off than with a very simple HPS, Reflector, Ballast combo!!

Not only are LED type important, but the actual BIN of the part matters, and the fixture manufacturers are usually bulk-buying average or below average bins.

There's a 50% efficiency difference between a Cree XR-E P2 and Q5 bin led My link

Cree binning goes up to R2 and sometimes higher which is REALLY bright. But when you buy a mass produced fixture, you probably get the P bins. Unless of course the product states otherwise, which I've yet to see except for some fixtures markted for corals.
 
hmm, so either people on this forum are not a big fan of LED's... or the ones who are all bought UFO fixtures and I offended them maybe?
 
To each their own- I think a lot has to do with everyone’s personal experience - Not everyone has an extra $1000 to drop on a "Wow, I wonder how that works system". Being conservatively adventurous we end up trying to sneak into something new for as inexpensive as possible. I do think in the next few years LED system will give the HID systems a run for their money. Especially on the front end, ie initial cost. Unfortunately the UFO LED’s looked promising but fell far short of expectations.

Everyone has a budget. I try to make my buying decisions based on value – I prefer frugal as opposed to cheap. But I am cheap - I still use CFL’s for rooting cuttings and clones. It works great for me. But then again that’s what great about THP.Com we can all learn from each other’s experiences and modify them to our own situation.
 
But my point is exaclty the opposite. The current gen "cheap" fixtures perform poorly and give the tech a bad name. The fixtures that actually perform well are the expensive ones(see the 1000 bucks for 120w example). A better performing fixture can be made by hand for about $250. True, it WILL get expensive if you are trying to do a massive build (as in over a hundred LEDs). It's not exactly as cheap as Metal Halide or HPS, but it's actually pretty darn close once you add up pendant, ballast, bulb replacements etc.


It's not my intention to bash or make any other lighting seem second rate. CFLs are awesome for what they do. I personally don't replace all my household lighting with them for various reasons (they haven't been as reliable as claimed), but they certainly do put out a lot of light for very cheap prices. I have succesfully used every lighting tech at some point.

The OP just asked if LEDs were feasible and it seemed like alot of people tried to poo poo the idea. Of course their suggestions are great, MH and HPS (or even T5 and CFL) are hard to beat for simplicity and proven track record. I am just trying to let you guys know that on other forums, there are TONS of folks who have been making VERY succesful fixtures on the cheap (namely at the ReefCentral DIY forums). People there post their prices paid and as often as not, actual PAR results, and later growth logs. It's so prolific now that making a better-than-commercial LED fixture is basically like baking cookies, just follow the recipie. Find somebody who already made a fixture about the same size/power you are looking to, see what it cost them, and adjust accordingly.

So I'll get off my soapbox. I just don't want people to write it off as being "too expensive" or "too risky to mess with". That's not really true, both of those issues are being overcome by the average Joe every day.
 
If im selling something I'm sure not doing a very good job... by telling people not to buy fixtures...lol. I'm trying to provide people information
 
I will definitively say: I have zero skin in this game. I do not sell LEDs, electronics, or anything relating to lighting, gardening or hydroponics.


My job is a video game artist. So the only thing I am a shill for is video games. BUY MORE GAMES! Did my subliminal message work?
 
Actually we do agree that the "crappy fixtures are honestly what has given LEDs such a bad name."

I live in Texas but do a lot of business in the Bay Area, Last month a friend took me to a small company that is doing LED R/D on Treasure Island (Between SF and Oakland) These lights are for commercial hydroponics operations. Yes they were expensive but when you take into the cost -vs- return they are more economical over a 3 year period. It was amazing the amount of light they were able to get out of these units. And once the manufacturing is up and running I am sure that will also target the prop 215 crowd and the indoor gardeners.

I know I was rambling in my last post, but I was only trying to point out that a lot of people still confuse “Price” and “Cost” when purchasing or buying an item. Price is the initial one time purchase price of the item - but Cost includes not only the purchase price but the lifetime operation of it.
 
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