Closets grow, need feedback/advice!

Hello everyone, I'm a new registered member of the forum as well as new to growing! I've been reading a couple books about growing and lurking on the forums. I think i've got most of the basics covered but still have a lot of questions so here it goes. Please share your opinion on everything you think could help me!


My available growing space is as follow: a closet of 23"x50"x8' and one of 23"x60"x8'


The main goal is pretty much to use the flower closet to it's full growing potential. But i want to use LED panels though to use less power and emit less heat. I also don't want to place to stink when the occasional visitors come by. I kind of have no budget but am willing to do DIY stuff to pay less. I want the grow to be pretty much stealthy. Ill figure out a way to block doors and that will be enough it there is no light/smell coming out of there.


So can i just use a DIY fan and carbon filter in each closet and have it set so it has negative pression as intake from bottom of the doors and try to get it out from the little available space on top of the doors? Is that feasable/efficient?


I plan on using blue and white LEDs for the veg room and the red, blue and white for flower room (the custom spectrums suposedly available through top LED growing website. The one on the veg closet hanging from +/- 18 in from the top of the plant opened 24h/day. The ones in flower closet hanging +/- 36 in opened 12h/day.


I dont really know which method i should use to grow as LST/SCROG/Top the plants and let them grow?? Have not much idea on what to use to use full potential LED panels grow in my space.


The idea is to have a mother or 2 in clone/vege room later on and reduce the plants numbers in there.
And maybe have 4 plants in the flower room?


Hot and humid summers and cold winters here. I use 2 windows A/C-deshumidifier during summer usually, one that is in the room where flower closet it. I usually keep both rooms 21.5 degrees Celcius during winter and +/- 23.5 degrees Celcius during summer. Should i insulate both closets to help keep the heat inside since its only LEDs? Or maybe use a couple CFLs to help over the clone area (since it would be a little out of the LEDs range so they dont burn) for both lightning and heat. Since i think it's suposed to be kept at 27-32 degrees Celcius to grow good? And try to keep humidity to a bit under 40%? Haven't read the humidity control sections yet either but i guess it ain't that hard.


Do i need to use a CO2 exhale bag during both stages?


Suggested to use a strong flower booster when switching to flowering stage also right?


A lot of random written stuff and questions all mixed up lol but hope you can help!


Thanks a lot!

EDIT: Also forgot to say i think i would go with organic, seems to be the good choice and simple compared to hydro and such. Would probably try experiencing with an aero cloner later on or so but whatever. I need to have the basics really figured out to start buying what i need and then ill adjust as needed. Mostly as far as ventilation and how many plants on each closet and any special method of growing?

Wow, that's a lot of variables, and things to consider. Since you are new to growing, I would recommend doing things as simple as you can at first. Make sure you got lights that work, air that flows properly, and soil that works. You might find that something goes wrong, and your plants don't make it long enough to stink.
Set up one closet at a time, If it works, do the other. by the time you get the other finished, then work on blooming, while cloning. Once you get a rhythm going, then work on advanced techniques.
The key to growing is patience. Take it slow, and learn from mistakes, as you will make some. Chances are a beginner is not going to have a sea of green with dual mothers, and lots of healthy clones, all while being uber stealthy on the first grow.
I wish you luck, though.

From what I hear low powered leds are really only good as supplemental light. You need to hit the 180 watt or so Mark, and penetration unless you have an led with 3 watt or above led bulbs may be a problem with 8 feet of height. A 600 watt HPS really only penetrates and covers about 3 feet in every direction so even then you're probably going to have to aim for about half of your closet height. Also because you don't have that much width or depth it would be hard to veg out for very long unless your chopping off the outwards growth as it grows. Just some info from my experience.

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And I do use an led right now but it's a 330 watt bloom light and I haven't used it without running an hps next to it.

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And I realized your width is actually decent. I would plan on several smaller plants rather than a couple big ones. And you'll be good.

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Thanks for the feedback. I planned on using the Mars II LED grow lights from topledgrowlights. Was thinking about a 400w with the blue & whites in veg/clone room, so maybe i could only order that 400w first and get the clone/vege room set up first (with maybe 1 or 2 CFL to be over the clones (or place the clones with fluorescent lights on a shelf over the light if its any better than having them under the LED/CFL). And could use 2 x 400w or 2 x 700w with the red,blue,whites in the flower room. Would that setup be good or the ratio of lights from vege/flower is not good, maybe need more or less in any of them? I really don't wanna use HIDs.

When you say several small plants, how many would that be? i only really need space for the ventilation really which i haven't decided exactly how i will setup, so there's 8' of height available minus the 3' needed for LEDs, guess i could grow em up to about 4'.

Ventilation is my biggest question right now though i think. Also since both closets are side by side maybe i could do some sort of ventilation setup that involves both of them instead of doing 2 separates? I need the setup to be silent also! or at least that i can lower when people come so that it becomes silent for a couple hours.

At the moment from what ive read i think id prevent air from coming or escaping from both sides of the doors and half of the bottom of the doors so that it becomes a passive intake from one half of the opening doors only. have a fan screwed to the wall or hanging there on the top part of the closet attached to a charcoal filter and try to use some sort of homemade converter to get the air coming out from the filter and drive out from the top of the doors. that means a 30" by 1/2" exit..

Edit: I also think that doing more grows during the year with less yield is better than doing less with bigger yields since im beginning to grow and i will make errors like stated above lol. But still trying to get the most i can form the closets since i'll be moving stuff from there and it's gonna suck a little to have all my clothing elsewhere lol.

leds.still won't penetrate 4 feet and a.4 foot tall plant can easily be 4 feet wide, which you don't have room for, even sativa strains that grow more up than out will be too wide at 4 get for your closet.I was thinking more 15 to 20 1 to 2 foot tall plants, plus you have to account for the pots under them. I have a four and a half foot tall blue dream right now that is taking up more than half of my 3x5x8 tent on its own it's about 3.5 feet in diameter, so it's actually taking up more space than I wanted it to or planned for lol. I was hoping it would go tall rather than wide but not what happened. Also with leds it's better to have an even canopy close to the light than a couple tops that get fat next to the light and the rest popcorn imo.

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Also a 300 watt rated led will only be pulling 150 to 180 watts of power as the bulbs only put out 50 to 65 percent of their rated power so that they have their crazy long lifetime.

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There is a guy on here who wrote a very detailed ventilation thread.
https://www.rollitup.org/grow-room-design-setup/778527-ventilation-101-lets-make-sticky.html
you should check that out.

Yea i guess i went crazy with the 4 big plants thinking i could get em tall. I'll aim for more smaller plants, actually it's gonna be dictated by the lights i choose.

I was thinking about buying lights from the TopLedGrowlight website, those Mars II LEDs seems to be fairly popular and doing good from what i read in GrassCity forums. I would need advice on which to pick and how many though? Also if you contact the sales rep they offer custom lights spectrum for vege and flower.

My rooms are 2'x 4'x 8' for clone/vege room and 2'x 5'x 8' for flower room. I thought about getting 1x Mars II 400w (80pcs*5watt) (Draw Power:170~200W) for vege/clone and 2x Mars II 700w (140pcs*5watt) (Draw Power:300W~380W). Thats just from reading GC forums again, seeking for feedback on that. Suposedly the penetration is good on these.

As for canopy not at the same height, just need to boost the smaller ones with whatever you want under the pots.

As for the ventilation thanks for the link, must admit i didn't read it all when i first saw it. I think i'll use separate fans and carbon scrubber for each room, a decent CFM fan with 6" duct and scrubber should do it. If i got it right i preferably have to use duct from the bottom where my passive intake is gonna be and have the fun up top with the carbon scrubber attached to it. Now i haven't searched much about that but can we use some other duct/converter directly attached to the scrubber to exhaust the air from the small space over the doors?

And for the method of grow i'll use i still dont know but thats not really a priority at all, still have lots of time to pick one.

True that i probably wanted to do that too big for a first time i'll try the best i can none the less but keep it mostly basic where i can. Organic soil instead of tons of nutes, no hydroponic, no aero cloner, etc.

Thanks a lot for your feedback already, it's already served me well but still have a lot to learn!