LED grow room DWC. Advice please

Hello all! Finally have the time and money to put together a nice grow room, and since here in beautiful Cali it is legal it makes it more intriguing. Like it says in the title, this will be a 4Wx8Lx6H but would like to split in half to have 2 crops at the same time meaning I will start with 2 plants, bring them through veg, then start a new grow in the next room. At first I wanted to have a veg room and then a flower room, but I also want to SCROG and figured that moving a plant in SCROG from Room to room would not be ideal. I have had good results growing outdoor and now want to get the control of growing indoor. Planning on using the DWC method on 2x 5 gallon buckets in each side( 2 for veg, 2 for flower) growing for personal stash. I am building this room out of wood. Reason as to why I don't just buy a tent? I have kids and it needs to be locked, And not so obvious as to a tent. If they see a tent, they will definitely be curious. Here are specs on what I am planning to buy as far as hardware.

• 2x 600w viparspectra reflector series (one for veg, one for flower)
• Apollo horticulture 6" fan
• Apollo horticulture 6" carbon filter x2
• Terra bloom 6" inline duct fan
• 32w air pump with (2x)4x2 air stones for each bucket. Plan to run all 8 air stones with one pump.
• 6" net pots
• Hydroton
• Rockwool
• 2 timers for lights
• Temp monitor for each room
• pH and ppm meters
• General hydroponics 3 part nutes, pH up/down

So now for the questions...

• I want to be able to have some space for a mother if I ever find a strain I totally love! And also small seedlings. Should and can I make my veg room a bit bigger than my flower room?
• Any ideas or tips on my air circulation setup idea? I just kind of went with some common sense. The idea of the inline duct fan is to help pull air from second room through the carbon filter.

Those are just a few questions I have off the top of my head. But please please! Help me out and let me know of flaws or opinions you guys have about it. I have attached a couple drawings I did on showing the layout of the room. Room will be built inside my garage, and the exhaust will be going out of the side to the outside of the house. inside of the room will be sealed with some sort of silicone on all creases or sheetrock and lined with mylar. Still have about 3 weeks till I start putting up walls, so I want to start ordering things by next week. Everything I'm getting through Amazon. There is a local hydroponics store near my house but I figure all their stuff is much more expensive. Plus who doesn't love amazon prime?

Thanks in advance!
-RB

Red- Apollo 6 inch fan
Yellow- Apollo carbon filters
Blue- Terra bloom 6 inch duct fan
Orange- open air inlet

Capture1. my original design. But then decided to go bigger and change a few things but the air circulation will stay the same.
Capture. the final as far as framework and dimensions.

You will want better lighting than vipar spectra 600w. They wont be enough to light up each space if its 4x4 each. You would probably need two of those lights per 4x4 area. I know that's not what the advert says but its not accurate.

You can have your veg room bigger than your flower room. But you may not need to.

You might have problems with the air extraction the way I'm seeing it. You have a fan and filter on the right, that fan is going to pull through your filter and push air through a duct toward your other fan, this will mean your filter on the left room might not work since your providing air to your fan on the left it doesn't need to suck through your filter. There wont be enough suction or negative pressure. So one room (on right) will be properly ventilated and temps ok, the room on the left wont be.
It would be better to have the connections after both fans. So each filter is connected to a fan sucking, then both fans blow into a small piece of duct and then into a Y shaped duct splitter and out.
Does that make sense?

As for mothers, you don't have to keep a mother, you can just take cuttings from plants before you flower them. Sometimes its safer to keep a mother (in case your clones don't take)

Yeah i second what Corey said. Vipars are ok for vegging but no good for flowering imo.

i would go for 3 * 400 watt led in that space, and also the 400 watt led generally don't have fans on so super quit.
can get a little closer to the plant, and over all with 3 led panels you get a better light spread. Happy days.

have a great day

coreywebster said:

You will want better lighting than vipar spectra 600w.

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That.

Those things are complete shit. One of those wont even bring a single plant to anywhere near it's full potential, let alone 2 plants.

coreywebster said:

You will want better lighting than vipar spectra 600w. They wont be enough to light up each space if its 4x4 each. You would probably need two of those lights per 4x4 area. I know that's not what the advert says but its not accurate.

You can have your veg room bigger than your flower room. But you may not need to.

You might have problems with the air extraction the way I'm seeing it. You have a fan and filter on the right, that fan is going to pull through your filter and push air through a duct toward your other fan, this will mean your filter on the left room might not work since your providing air to your fan on the left it doesn't need to suck through your filter. There wont be enough suction or negative pressure. So one room (on right) will be properly ventilated and temps ok, the room on the left wont be.
It would be better to have the connections after both fans. So each filter is connected to a fan sucking, then both fans blow into a small piece of duct and then into a Y shaped duct splitter and out.
Does that make sense?

As for mothers, you don't have to keep a mother, you can just take cuttings from plants before you flower them. Sometimes its safer to keep a mother (in case your clones don't take)

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info! I will add a second fan after the filter on the left side to make the circulation better. After doing some research I started looking into COB leds, Any suggestions in those? What would be a good choice for a 4x4?

Price max for lights for both rooms can't be over 1k...if possible

There are TONS of threads on that. Be wary of the advice you take. There are a couple people on here than can walk you through building your own...give this thread time and I'm sure one of them will show up eventually.

For my dollar though, it's VERY, VERY hard to beat a Timber. They're pricey, but they are rock fucking solid. http://timbergrowlights.com/

If you're not absolutely adamant about LED/COB, you can get a very nice 600 watt HPS that will KILL a 4 x 4 area for 250 bucks.

Fair advice.

I would give a 2x2 space for cloning and mothering both can work in same space same light.
Regarding lighting either go with what makes you happy or start looking at diy options. Consider all led lighting creates heat including passive or active or both you must schedule heat removal for all ights. Relative humidity must be kept below 60% for all electronics for longevity or else electronics fail incl drivers switches diodes etc

TacoMac said:

There are TONS of threads on that. Be wary of the advice you take. There are a couple people on here than can walk you through building your own...give this thread time and I'm sure one of them will show up eventually.

For my dollar though, it's VERY, VERY hard to beat a Timber. They're pricey, but they are rock fucking solid.

If you're not absolutely adamant about LED/COB, you can get a very nice 600 watt HPS that will KILL a 4 x 4 area for 250 bucks.

Click to expand...

The whole idea for me using LED was initially to save on power consumption as well as heat issues.. but heat still seems to be an issue with the COB? For those timber lights, which model would be minimum for my space?

rbenza03 said:

Price max for lights for both rooms can't be over 1k...if possible

Click to expand...

Probably best to look into DIY cobs. Stay clear of "cob grow lights on amazon" its another minefield of missinformation.

DIY gets you the best bang for your buck with that budget in mind.
You can check out growmau5 on youtube and look for his early vids, there is a seven part series all about the basics.
I could talk you through it but im bound to miss some info out and he's pretty good at explaining what you need.
Just bare in mind they are a few years old so prices are out of date and there are more economical COB chips to choose from now.

Another good route would be 2x 260w kits( per room) or 2 hlg 600s ( one per room) from horticultural lighting group, but that would come to more like $1200-$1300 which is over your budget.
You can also look at DIY with boards or strips to make your own version of.
As TacoMac said there are a lot of threads for DIYing in the led section.
Timber lights are damn good too, not sure on pricing for your area but check out thier website.

In regards to your above comment with heat. You can with the right set up drop your wattage by a 3rd. So a good 400w COB can replace a 600w HPS. Thats how you reduce the heat without having less light.

So I have decided to go with 2X 5X Citizen CLU048-1212 80 CRI with a HLG 185H-C1400B (one per each room). going with DIY. still looking for all the other parts such as heatsinks, and framing options. I'm guessing reflectors are a must also? since I'm only running 2 plants per room I figure my actual canopy room is about a 3X3 at most.

Any input or advice on going with these COBs? Thanks for the information on growmau5 also, its a really great series on DIY cobs.

coreywebster said:

Probably best to look into DIY cobs. Stay clear of "cob grow lights on amazon" its another minefield of missinformation.

DIY gets you the best bang for your buck with that budget in mind.
You can check out growmau5 on youtube and look for his early vids, there is a seven part series all about the basics.
I could talk you through it but im bound to miss some info out and he's pretty good at explaining what you need.
Just bare in mind they are a few years old so prices are out of date and there are more economical COB chips to choose from now.

Another good route would be 2x 260w kits( per room) or 2 hlg 600s ( one per room) from horticultural lighting group, but that would come to more like $1200-$1300 which is over your budget.
You can also look at DIY with boards or strips to make your own version of.
As TacoMac said there are a lot of threads for DIYing in the led section.
Timber lights are damn good too, not sure on pricing for your area but check out thier website.

In regards to your above comment with heat. You can with the right set up drop your wattage by a 3rd. So a good 400w COB can replace a 600w HPS. Thats how you reduce the heat without having less light.

Click to expand...

rbenza03 said:

So I have decided to go with 2X 5X Citizen CLU048-1212 80 CRI with a HLG 185H-C1400B (one per each room). going with DIY. still looking for all the other parts such as heatsinks, and framing options. I'm guessing reflectors are a must also? since I'm only running 2 plants per room I figure my actual canopy room is about a 3X3 at most.

Any input or advice on going with these COBs? Thanks for the information on growmau5 also, its a really great series on DIY cobs.

Click to expand...

You wouldn't be able to fit 5x 1212s on that driver. The driver runs 200w and 5 of those cobs will run at 254w, also its out of the voltage range too, that driver can take between 71v and 143v. Those cobs at that current will come to 180v ish.

You could run 3x 1212s on that driver but wouldn't be enough light. You could run 4x 1212s on a hlg185h-c1050 but again not enough light.
You would have to double up per room to get plenty of light. 2 drivers and 6 cobs, 3 per driver. for each 3x3 space.

Reflectors are not a must, its an optional extra and better suited for builds which use 1 cob per square foot to concentrate the light more. With less cobs you would get better light spread without reflectors or lenses.
Holders are definitely a good option.
120mm pin heat sink should do for 1212s, doesn't hurt to go a bit bigger if you want.

CobKits.com has all the parts you need. Kingbrite on Alibaba also does, but by the time you've paid shipping and import duty your probably not saving anything.
You can also ask cobkits on here to double check your order and make sure you have everything you need.

It might be worth looking at different cobs too, the Luminus cxm22s are supposed to be one of the best value for money and on par with the cree cxbs but cheaper. I don't know much about them but you can always ask cob kits.

coreywebster said:

You wouldn't be able to fit 5x 1212s on that driver. The driver runs 200w and 5 of those cobs will run at 254w, also its out of the voltage range too, that driver can take between 71v and 143v. Those cobs at that current will come to 180v ish.

You could run 3x 1212s on that driver but wouldn't be enough light. You could run 4x 1212s on a hlg185h-c1050 but again not enough light.
You would have to double up per room to get plenty of light. 2 drivers and 6 cobs, 3 per driver. for each 3x3 space.

Reflectors are not a must, its an optional extra and better suited for builds which use 1 cob per square foot to concentrate the light more. With less cobs you would get better light spread without reflectors or lenses.
Holders are definitely a good option.
120mm pin heat sink should do for 1212s, doesn't hurt to go a bit bigger if you want.

Co has all the parts you need. Kingbrite on Alibaba also does, but by the time you've paid shipping and import duty your probably not saving anything.
You can also ask cobkits on here to double check your order and make sure you have everything you need.

Click to expand...

So there is no way to run 5 cobs off one driver? At 1400Ma of course? Would really like to just be able to run off 2. And how much money would I really be saving if I go DIY? I saw some nice 6 vero29 cob kits from rapid led for about 540. They seem to be running 6 cobs on the hlg320h-c1400 driver.

rbenza03 said:

So there is no way to run 5 cobs off one driver? I saw some nice 6 vero29 cob kits from rapid led for about 540. They seem to be running 6 cobs on the hlg320h-c1400 driver.

Click to expand...

Just not on the hlg185h-c1400.
The hlg320 is much bigger and can take more voltage. Its great for 6x vero29, or 4 x 50v cob like luminus cxm22s or citizen 1818s or 1825s.

You could just get a 260w or 320w Quantum board kit for much less than that Rapid led 6 vero kit. Or for slightly more than the vero kit get a ready made 400w vero29 light from timber grow lights.
http://timbergrowlights.com/model-4vs/

coreywebster said:

Just not on the hlg185h-c1400.
The hlg320 is much bigger and can take more voltage. Its great for 6x vero29, or 4 x 50v cob like luminus cxm22s or citizen 1818s or 1825s.

You could just get a 260w or 320w Quantum board kit for much less than that Rapid led 6 vero kit. Or for slightly more than the vero kit get a ready made 400w vero29 light from timber grow lights.
http://timbergrowlights.com/model-4vs/

Click to expand...

Allright! After another day or reading.. I think I'm going to pull the trigger and buy 2 of the HGL 260w led kit, one for each room. Thank you all so much for all the advice.. now that I have my lighting figured out.. my next question would be DWC or RDWC? Any experiences or advice as to which is better? Remember I'm only growing about 2 plants per room. Maybe 3 later on depending on how the spacing is.. rooms are 4x4 but only plan to have a 3x3 canopy.

DWC? I have many successful DWC grows, BUT, it is not without efficiency issues.

Converting to an outboard rez is easy-peasy, which allows you to check pH and EC daily and top off as needed. These issues become much more problematic after veg

The second pump is for flooming, it replaces air stones which introduce CO2 into the water, increasing pH

rbenza03 said:

Allright! After another day or reading.. I think I'm going to pull the trigger and buy 2 of the HGL 260w led kit, one for each room. Thank you all so much for all the advice.. now that I have my lighting figured out.. my next question would be DWC or RDWC? Any experiences or advice as to which is better? Remember I'm only growing about 2 plants per room. Maybe 3 later on depending on how the spacing is.. rooms are 4x4 but only plan to have a 3x3 canopy.

Click to expand...

No problem and good choice.

I cant help with the DWC vs RDWC I'm afraid, I grow coco DTW and my hydro experience is limited to NFT and Flood and drain.