The 4x4 Grow Tent Club

[TorturedSoul]

So I have my 3x3x5 tent all sealed up except for a computer fan on the top.
Temp is @70. I'm running a 300W full spectrum LED
Idk why people have problems with temps in their tents. Mine is in my basement and I'm in MA. It was in the 50's last night!

Often - IMHO - it's because people are trying to keep their lights-on temperatures too low. Cannabis can process/use relatively huge amounts of light-energy... IF the temperatures are warm enough, lol. I wouldn't (willingly) go over 86°F or 87°F without CO₂ supplementation. And, admittedly, there are lots of strains that are better grown at slightly lower temperatures. But my guess is if a cannabis plant seems to be much healthier at, for example, 70°F than at 80°F - it's a clear symptom of insufficient light. (Err... defined as meaning significantly less light than the plant can process - a person will, of course, still be able to harvest something.)

Your tent is nine square feet in area. It is being lit by a "300W full spectrum LED." Even if that panel is consuming 300 watts, that's pretty low - only ~33 watts per square foot. And most "300W" panels aren't actually consuming/using nearly that much wattage. If your plants seem to not do as well at 80°F than at 70°F, try adding another LED panel.

Personally, I'd love to stick a grow tent in my basement. But the ceiling is low and, somewhat more importantly, on a good day about as much water flows through my basement as passes any given point in the average creek :rolleyes3 . It appears that whoever built the house thought that digging a basement directly over a <BLEEPing> spring was something other than the height of stupidity. I've seen lots of sump pump pits, most of which appear to be for pumping out water that flows into them from above. Mine, OtOH, lol, is "open" (not made of concrete) so that it can pump out the water that is coming UP before it bursts the basement floor (err... again). The pump runs approximately every 15 minutes (and it's a large pit) year-round. Four years ago, we didn't have rain for something like 42 days straight during Summer - my pump only ran every 25 or 30 minutes towards the end of that, lol.

One of these days, if my water usage ever rises substantially above my town's "minimum bill," I'll figure out a way to at least flush my toilet with that water....

 

[TheFertilizer]

Often - IMHO - it's because people are trying to keep their lights-on temperatures too low. Cannabis can process/use relatively huge amounts of light-energy... IF the temperatures are warm enough, lol. I wouldn't (willingly) go over 86°F or 87°F without CO₂ supplementation. And, admittedly, there are lots of strains that are better grown at slightly lower temperatures. But my guess is if a cannabis plant seems to be much healthier at, for example, 70°F than at 80°F - it's a clear symptom of insufficient light. (Err... defined as meaning significantly less light than the plant can process - a person will, of course, still be able to harvest something.)

Your tent is nine square feet in area. It is being lit by a "300W full spectrum LED." Even if that panel is consuming 300 watts, that's pretty low - only ~33 watts per square foot. And most "300W" panels aren't actually consuming/using nearly that much wattage. If your plants seem to not do as well at 80°F than at 70°F, try adding another LED panel.

Personally, I'd love to stick a grow tent in my basement. But the ceiling is low and, somewhat more importantly, on a good day about as much water flows through my basement as passes any given point in the average creek :rolleyes3 . It appears that whoever built the house thought that digging a basement directly over a <BLEEPing> spring was something other than the height of stupidity. I've seen lots of sump pump pits, most of which appear to be for pumping out water that flows into them from above. Mine, OtOH, lol, is "open" (not made of concrete) so that it can pump out the water that is coming UP before it bursts the basement floor (err... again). The pump runs approximately every 15 minutes (and it's a large pit) year-round. Four years ago, we didn't have rain for something like 42 days straight during Summer - my pump only ran every 25 or 30 minutes towards the end of that, lol.

One of these days, if my water usage ever rises substantially above my town's "minimum bill," I'll figure out a way to at least flush my toilet with that water....

Sounds like a perfect setup for an ebb and flow tray

Does the watts per square foot rule really work for LED?

I don't know, but I have been reading about growing for like 3 times as long as I have actually grown, and I do remember back in 2004'ish when the more powerful lights weren't as popular, the average watts-per-square-foot "minimum" was a lot lower. Back then they were suggesting 30 per square foot as optimal, now you hear people saying "Never drop below 50," so I don't know how much value there is in following that guideline.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Does the watts per square foot rule really work for LED?

Sure. The numbers might be different. And it's important to remember that there's a huge range in quality amongst all the various LED products. Even discounting the fact that a lot of companies tend to misrepresent (or minimize) the actual power output of their products and, instead, advertise them based on the so-called "class" (1 watt, 2 watt, 3 watt, 5 watt, etc.) of the individual LEDs, multiplied by the total number of them... A lot of the products are cheap junk from the PRC (and, I suppose, possibly elsewhere).

It appears that the "sweet spot" for lighting one's grow room with COBs is one COB per square foot, all running at 50 watts per. That's too rich for my blood no matter how you look at it, lol. But it'd grow some fine buds...

I do remember back in 2004'ish when the more powerful lights weren't as popular, the average watts-per-square-foot "minimum" was a lot lower. Back then they were suggesting 30 per square foot as optimal

Funny, I don't remember reading/hearing that at all in 2004 (or earlier). I do recall that 30 watts per ft.² of HID lighting was the suggested minimum for the vegetative phase. 50 watts of HID lighting per was the recommended minimum for flowering at least as far back as the mid-1990s, IIRC.

Insufficient light won't kill one's chance at a harvest. In the '90s, at one point, I was using some 400-watt and 430-watt HPS setups (one per grow space), and the square footage varied but was higher than recommended for the amounts of light. I still harvested. And if you look at total yield, the weight was there - but it consisted of a lot of airy buds instead of fewer but denser ones. <SHRUGS> And each person should attempt to tailor everything to his/her specific environment. For example, if using "the recommended" amount of light in a given space produces more heat than the gardener can easily remove, the buds could still be airy - and there might not be so many, lol.

And it recently occurred to me why/how a lot of people growing auto-flowering strains with less than the recommended amount of lighting still seem to have decent harvests - if the amount of light is lower, but that light is being produced ~50% more hours each day... It might still be enough to satisfy cannabis' DLI requirements for light. So perhaps "people who don't have enough light" should be added to the list of groups/situations that can benefit from growing such strains?

 

[TheFertilizer]

Sure. The numbers might be different. And it's important to remember that there's a huge range in quality amongst all the various LED products. Even discounting the fact that a lot of companies tend to misrepresent (or minimize) the actual power output of their products and, instead, advertise them based on the so-called "class" (1 watt, 2 watt, 3 watt, 5 watt, etc.) of the individual LEDs, multiplied by the total number of them... A lot of the products are cheap junk from the PRC (and, I suppose, possibly elsewhere).

It appears that the "sweet spot" for lighting one's grow room with COBs is one COB per square foot, all running at 50 watts per. That's too rich for my blood no matter how you look at it, lol. But it'd grow some fine buds...



Funny, I don't remember reading/hearing that at all in 2004 (or earlier). I do recall that 30 watts per ft.² of HID lighting was the suggested minimum for the vegetative phase. 50 watts of HID lighting per was the recommended minimum for flowering at least as far back as the mid-1990s, IIRC.

Insufficient light won't kill one's chance at a harvest. In the '90s, at one point, I was using some 400-watt and 430-watt HPS setups (one per grow space), and the square footage varied but was higher than recommended for the amounts of light. I still harvested. And if you look at total yield, the weight was there - but it consisted of a lot of airy buds instead of fewer but denser ones. <SHRUGS> And each person should attempt to tailor everything to his/her specific environment. For example, if using "the recommended" amount of light in a given space produces more heat than the gardener can easily remove, the buds could still be airy - and there might not be so many, lol.

And it recently occurred to me why/how a lot of people growing auto-flowering strains with less than the recommended amount of lighting still seem to have decent harvests - if the amount of light is lower, but that light is being produced ~50% more hours each day... It might still be enough to satisfy cannabis' DLI requirements for light. So perhaps "people who don't have enough light" should be added to the list of groups/situations that can benefit from growing such strains?

Yeah you might be on to something there with the more light hours. I run my T5s 24 hours for veg versus an 18/6 schedule since it's 25% more light overall.

You're probably right, I don't remember that far back clearly, but I remember 400 watts being a lot more popular. Could have just been the site/locale, it was overgrow and there was a lot of dutch growers. Pretty much where I learned to grow 10 years before I ever put a seed in the ground They also were a lot more avid about training with scrogs.

Yeah limitations are limitations. I have to keep it to a 400 W actual draw because the electricity in my apartment sucks and I blow fuses a lot. The whole thing is ran off a 30 amp glass fuse, like the 70s style ones. Add the 200 W for my T5 veg light and 100w for the exhaust fan and my total grow space draw is about 700w.

Speaking of LEDs, was looking at a Platinum 450 lately to replace my 400 W HPS, but I just can't really afford that kind of light. $500 is not really expensive for a lot of people who enjoy this hobby, and certainly not professionals, but for a 4x4 grower just trying to grow his own medicine supply it's all about what you can manage. It's tempting to justify a purchase of a light like that, but unless it tripled my yields I would be unhappy. That's a risky gambit, and then in the end you're left with a light you gotta resale for $200 less at best.

Anyway, those are my lighting woes, but I've had two 160 gram harvests off my 400 W HPS in my 4x4 tent and it's not really lasted for how much I need but you can't argue that it saves money. Buying it from the "dispensaries" (which are all rec shops now) it would cost more for my harvest than it would for that LED light... But not by much!

I'm hoping to make up for it with training and scrogging, I haven't really topped as much as I could have during veg in previous grows either. I top/FIM'd once last grow, and not at all the time before that.


I did have the idea to run 3 Mars 300 LEDs in there but someone told me that would get hot real fast.

 

[508Squid]

They are doing very well. I had them in my flower room up until I got the tent. This is my 2nd grow with that light. The 1st I ran 4 plants in my 4x4 with it from veg to flower. This run I have 2 separate grow areas. So I put the 300 in the veg tent and picked up a 1200W LED for the flower room. I hate giving name brands. The tent is @70 degrees and the flower room is at 81 degrees. Outside temp (outside of the house) is @60 atm. I had to heat the room on the 1st run. Damn NE winter's! Lol
This grow is going So Much better!! I've been improving on just about everything thanks to this app, you all and *whispers (YouTube) lol
My basement sump almost never has any water in it. Well, except for the run off I dump down there. Dehumidifier keeps the basement at 50RH.
So 70 isn't too low for them? I don't think so. IMHO They seem fine. And I can always kill the computer fan if I want to heat it up more.

 

[TorturedSoul]

I've had two 160 gram harvests off my 400 W HPS in my 4x4 tent

Err, I assume those were separate harvests and you aren't meaning two plants grown at the same time? That's .4 gram per watt.

I'm hoping to make up for it with training and scrogging, I haven't really topped as much as I could have during veg in previous grows either. I top/FIM'd once last grow, and not at all the time before that.

I'm not a fan of topping a cannabis plant to promote branching, but whatever works for you.

IMHO, with 400 watts' worth of HPS, you'd increase your yield noticeably by shrinking your grow space a good bit. A little bit of variation... whether an increase or decrease will improve yield is situational and depends on many things - but @ 25 watts per square foot, there's no way you're getting the most out of that light if it's at a height that'll throw light across all 16 square feet (or even most of them). Figure out a space half that (give or take), with walls that are painted the brightest white you can find, and I'll guess that you should be able to harvest... IDK, maybe .6 gram per watt running the same strain/phenotype and using the same method as you did in those other two grows. The bright walls should reflect the light better than the grow tent material - and, since they'll be closer to the light source, that reflected light will be stronger. That inverse square light law (that, as the light's distance is halved, the intensity is squared (not doubled) - and the reverse is also true) doesn't just apply to the height above the canopy - if a plant is too far away off to the side... <SHRUGS> .

Additionally, you'd have a smaller space to have to deal with and (depending on the style of your grow, et cetera) maybe have less plants to have to feed and water. Now that's just a guess, based on nothing other than your current grow space, your light, and the fact that you've consistently (well, at least in two grows) harvested .4 g/w. So I could be off - it might be that you only improve 25% and end up getting .5 g/w (or, to put it another way, almost 3 more ounces from the combined total of those two 160 gram harvests). And if those two harvests were nothing but lucky flukes, lol, who knows. But, assuming that those grows weren't flukes, you'd definitely see some level of improvement - and that's with your monthly electrical usage being more or less identical to what it is now.

Sticking with the same strain(s)/phenotype(s) for multiple grows and changing only one thing per grow in order to find out what works best for YOU will also tend to help, because you'll be able to more fully learn the strain(s) and its/their requirements.

Remember that bulbs degrade significantly before the human eye/brain ever notices a decrease in the overall light output. That's just a general statement, of course - but if you're trying to learn and improve your grows, not remembering that a bulb has some hours on it and its performance has decreased slightly (or, depending on the number of hours it has been used, a lot) can cause a grower to mistakenly think a change hasn't been a positive one - or even think that it has been a negative - when that wasn't the case.

Chasing grams per watt numbers... For people with money, lol, not getting the yield one wants can be solved by buying more lights and other equipment. For poor folks, this goal isn't about bragging rights, it's about trying to maximize things because significant upgrades - or significantly higher electrical burdens - just aren't possible.

I did have the idea to run 3 Mars 300 LEDs in there but someone told me that would get hot real fast.

Well, since they're only 132-watt devices, you'd be looking at about the same total wattage, lol - so gross heat production inside the tent ought to be in the same neighborhood. Although... I assume you keep your ballast outside of the tent, and if you've got a good quality air-cooled reflector, ventilate it separately from your tent's general air space (and perhaps go so far as to use insulated duct for the exhaust side and cover your reflector in one of those insulated covers that are available for many air-cooled HID reflectors... then, yes, your 400-watt HPS setup would be dumping much less heat into your grow room than the three blurples would.

 

[DirtBagg]

Got my new light in yesterday!! Spent some time this weekend setting up my carbon filter and run off system, almost done having everything set up. Just waiting on 2 2' T5 HO single bulb lamps and some specialized UVA/B bulbs to come in so I can set those up, and just need to build my net.

Big shout out to our sponsor Techman(SunPlus), in my limited time so far this light seems phenominal for the current price, seems like it'll have no problems flowering a 4'x4' tent.

In the below pic light is @36", I'm pulling 900-1000 umol/s at the top of the plants, and in the furthest section of the tent I was only able to find a couple spots that dipped to about 200-250 so far, the majority of the outer perimiter was still puling 400-500 umol/s, so I'm very pleased with my findings so far.

Same tent I have

I think 4x7 apollo

 

[GodOfPot]

Don't even know the make of mine lol, it's 4'x4'x6.5'

 

[TheFertilizer]

Err, I assume those were separate harvests and you aren't meaning two plants grown at the same time? That's .4 gram per watt.



I'm not a fan of topping a cannabis plant to promote branching, but whatever works for you.

IMHO, with 400 watts' worth of HPS, you'd increase your yield noticeably by shrinking your grow space a good bit. A little bit of variation... whether an increase or decrease will improve yield is situational and depends on many things - but @ 25 watts per square foot, there's no way you're getting the most out of that light if it's at a height that'll throw light across all 16 square feet (or even most of them). Figure out a space half that (give or take), with walls that are painted the brightest white you can find, and I'll guess that you should be able to harvest... IDK, maybe .6 gram per watt running the same strain/phenotype and using the same method as you did in those other two grows. The bright walls should reflect the light better than the grow tent material - and, since they'll be closer to the light source, that reflected light will be stronger. That inverse square light law (that, as the light's distance is halved, the intensity is squared (not doubled) - and the reverse is also true) doesn't just apply to the height above the canopy - if a plant is too far away off to the side... <SHRUGS> .

Additionally, you'd have a smaller space to have to deal with and (depending on the style of your grow, et cetera) maybe have less plants to have to feed and water. Now that's just a guess, based on nothing other than your current grow space, your light, and the fact that you've consistently (well, at least in two grows) harvested .4 g/w. So I could be off - it might be that you only improve 25% and end up getting .5 g/w (or, to put it another way, almost 3 more ounces from the combined total of those two 160 gram harvests). And if those two harvests were nothing but lucky flukes, lol, who knows. But, assuming that those grows weren't flukes, you'd definitely see some level of improvement - and that's with your monthly electrical usage being more or less identical to what it is now.

Sticking with the same strain(s)/phenotype(s) for multiple grows and changing only one thing per grow in order to find out what works best for YOU will also tend to help, because you'll be able to more fully learn the strain(s) and its/their requirements.

Remember that bulbs degrade significantly before the human eye/brain ever notices a decrease in the overall light output. That's just a general statement, of course - but if you're trying to learn and improve your grows, not remembering that a bulb has some hours on it and its performance has decreased slightly (or, depending on the number of hours it has been used, a lot) can cause a grower to mistakenly think a change hasn't been a positive one - or even think that it has been a negative - when that wasn't the case.

Chasing grams per watt numbers... For people with money, lol, not getting the yield one wants can be solved by buying more lights and other equipment. For poor folks, this goal isn't about bragging rights, it's about trying to maximize things because significant upgrades - or significantly higher electrical burdens - just aren't possible.



Well, since they're only 132-watt devices, you'd be looking at about the same total wattage, lol - so gross heat production inside the tent ought to be in the same neighborhood. Although... I assume you keep your ballast outside of the tent, and if you've got a good quality air-cooled reflector, ventilate it separately from your tent's general air space (and perhaps go so far as to use insulated duct for the exhaust side and cover your reflector in one of those insulated covers that are available for many air-cooled HID reflectors... then, yes, your 400-watt HPS setup would be dumping much less heat into your grow room than the three blurples would.

Yeah I think there's a lot of other factors going on besides the light. Plus I have already had the experience of one HPS going out, I do need to think about replacing this one, it basically has had two cycles on it--plus was just a hydro-store special. But yeah I got 160 grams off 5 plants in 3 gallon buckets the first time, then 160 off 4 plants in 5 gallon buckets the second. Well and then there was a crop I killed somehow in between. So I think there's definitely more limiting factors than the light haha *cough*me*cough*

I think it could be a genetic thing because pretty much all the strains I've grown have been bagseed. The first time was Platinum Girl Scout Cookies and Blackberry Kush, and the second was just Blackberry Kush, but I think the Blackberry Kush was a totally different phenotype the second time because the buds were real airy. The cookies was feminized from a buddy whose buddy made them, and literally were stored in a sandwich baggy in his kitchen drawer, so who knows if they were really that great genetically. I'm hoping I have better luck with this ACE Panama x Malawi strain.

I thought about getting a smaller tent for flowering too but I don't know if I really wanna go through all the hassle of setting one up again, plus I sometimes find the extra room in a 4x4 to come in handy to get my big fat ass in there and around the plants lol In fact I wanted to get about a 3x3 screen to put in there to scrog with so I can get around the sides, not to mention room for a fan. I'd probably only be able to flower 3. Plus the waste of a tent, etc, etc. I don't know I'm just reluctant. Especially if it just turns out to be something else holding me back.

Probably doesn't help I keep switching nutrients and soils and stuff too. I went from General Hydro and Fox Farms, to EarthJuice, and yesterday I mixed up a super-soil to use to get away from the bottled stuff. Happy Frog has perpetually given me purple stems and read a little high on the pH on the runoff so I wonder if it could be a contributor.

And yeah I deal with heat issues too so the 400 W is in a air-cooled reflector. Recent heat waves even forced me to dim it to 200 W because it was heating up the rest of the house too much. So it sounds like the LEDs would make that worse... And also more like a smaller space will be the only "Throw money at it" solution to have guaranteed improvement.

 

[LB07]

Just jumped into the 4x4 club.

 

[Calvados]

Just jumped into the 4x4 club.

Looking good . What are you growing? Do you have an extractor?

 

[LB07]

Looking good . What are you growing? Do you have an extractor?

First Grow Attempt! LEDs Coco Canna Nutes!

First Grow Attempt! LEDs Coco Canna Nutes!

My grow! Check it out .

 

[508Squid]

I did a nice trimming on Tuesday.
She's already filled back in nicely!

 

[Gimik]

Hey everybody quick question...

So I'm a week or two away from flipping to flower and im having issues with keeping my humidity down. It usually hovers around 62% when i have the tent fully unzipped however when I seal it up completely during the time the lights are off humidity levels jump up to 80%+. I know this is wayyy to high but I've been letting it be during veg, however, I know i need to get levels down to 40-45% by the time i flip to flower.

I'm in need of a dehumidifier but I dont know what size I will need. I was in my hydroponics store yesterday and the only dehumidifers they had were 50liters that cost $250!! I seriously doubt I'll need anything nearly that big for my 4x4 tent. Can anybody suggest a good dehumidifier that will help my situation out?

Much Love!

 

[gr865]

Hey guys I'm just here to show you my new setup in my 4 by 4 tent. I'm approaching week 4 of vegetation from seed.
Decided to go with a new light this time around instead of the LED. I'm running the Sun System with a Philips 315 LEC bulb. This light seems like it's going to be nice!

I am running stacked 315s in my 4x4 vertical grow, I really like them.

 

[Cornfield Gro]

Hey guys I'm just here to show you my new setup in my 4 by 4 tent. I'm approaching week 4 of vegetation from seed.
Decided to go with a new light this time around instead of the LED. I'm running the Sun System with a Philips 315 LEC bulb. This light seems like it's going to be nice!

I am running stacked 315s in my 4x4 vertical grow, I really like them.

How's the temps with 2?

 

[TorturedSoul]

im having issues with keeping my humidity down. It usually hovers around 62% when i have the tent fully unzipped however when I seal it up completely during the time the lights are off humidity levels jump up to 80%+.

You're not shutting your exhaust fan off at night, are you? If so, try leaving it running - or at least adjust its timer so that it comes on for 15 minutes each hour.

I was in my hydroponics store yesterday and the only dehumidifers they had were 50liters that cost $250!

Going to a gardening store to shop for dehumidifiers strikes me as comparable to going to the new car dealership to shop for tires (or spark plugs). Don't you have any department stores in your town, lol?

 

[508Squid]

Finally started my 1st journal.
Please stop by and check it out.
Thanks.

Growing In MA 2nd Grow

 

[gr865]

Hey guys I'm just here to show you my new setup in my 4 by 4 tent. I'm approaching week 4 of vegetation from seed.
Decided to go with a new light this time around instead of the LED. I'm running the Sun System with a Philips 315 LEC bulb. This light seems like it's going to be nice!
How's the temps with 2?

GR

Well I have only run this one run with them but it was a summer run, max temp during flower 82 degrees, min was 73 degrees.
Again I run vert with a bottom fan and a adjustable 6" exhaust fan.
I have run a single 315W and a SS400 LED in the tent in a horizontal grow and had no heat problems with that grow.

GR
Can message you the link to my grow. Can't do it here, will get in trouble. LOL

 

[508Squid]

My tent dipped down to 65° over night so I had to shut the computer fan off. So currently there is no ventilation in my tent. Idk if this tent is going to work for me. I don't want these plants getting too cold. Maybe a heating mat?