Well hello all. Well I've been thinking about growing weed, and I've been doing alot of research on what my options are. Well at first I thought about growing with CFLs but now that I look at the time it would take to set up I figure it will be alot easier for me to grow with an LED system. The reason I chose them is because I want to have two (5x4x6) grow tents I plan on building out of pvc plastic and panda plastic. I have a pretty large basement and I figure those will fit in the area I have cleared. One will be for veg and for my mothers/clones and the other for floweing. I thought about using a hps/hid but my basements not easily temperature controlled plus its just not in my budget right now. I've decided to use soil as my growing medium and ill be using fox farms for my nutes. I cant decide what led system to go with, I've really been looking at the mars hydro systems, and I was thinking about buying the ufo and using it for flower and getting one of the less expensive models under 250$ for veg my budget as far as both lights go is about 300$ I'm not really looking for a huge yield, just something to get me a little experience. I hear that there are sometimes nutrient deficiencies when using led and I was wondering what can I do to correct that incase it happens. Also I'm confused about what people mean when they say start with 1/4 nutrients or 1/2 strength nutrients, are they talking about as far as the recommended dose. For example if the chart says use 12 tsp per gal should I only use 6? Another question I have is what are your thoughts on miracle grow? Its the only thing I can find around here for potting soil. I wasn't planning on using it I know people say not to use it because it adds too much nitrogen during the flowering stage. Another thing I'm curious about is the NPK ratios on the outside of soil bags. I know they are for nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. But on many different products I see things like. 3-3-3, 24-15-10, 12-15-15. I'm just curios as to what numbers would be best for the plant as far as what are higher numbers compared to smaller numbers. I know when to have higer and lower npk levels but I have no idea what is high and low as far as growing medium goes. Any extra advice will be great but please try to explain things as best as you can, I'm really not the smartest person when it comes to growing plants. Thanks in advance.
Noob grower, first time even touching weed.
- Thread starter norbie0
- Start date
Diabolical666
Well-Known Member
Yes half or 1/4th the recommended dosage they mean. MG sucks pretty bad for a few reasons 1. its not pasturized soil (has bugs in it) 2. its too hot for weed plants generally. Are you able to order soil online? (amazon, ebay, hydro stores online) Best advice I can give you is read threw this site and look at grow journals etc.T His will give you some ideas on a set up etc
blowincherrypie
Well-Known Member
I would suggest you check out the LED section.. There area reasons most of us (people growing with LEDs) dont flower with cheap panels.
GrowinDad
Well-Known Member
I concur with cherrypie (I use a A51 SGS 160 as well, just got one of their 100W as well). If you want to start out inexpensive, go HID. This time of year in a basement the extra heat will probably be a plus.
For soil, my recommendation would be to mix your own and keep it with minimal nutes in it. I buy a cheap potting soil (no added nutes outside of the compost in it) and mix with peat moss, perlite, and vermiculite (all with no nutes so not MG brand). You want a soil that is nice and airy with good drainage. Realize that if you go with a nuted soil, you will not need to use nutes for some time, once you start to see deficiencies in the plant.
For veg, I bought a CFL hood and now have mostly Cree LED lights from Home Depot in it with a few CFL for heat. But for flower, I agree, you need a good LED.
As for deficiencies from LED, I haven't noticed. If there is, then I am not noticing outside of figuring the different needs of different6 strains. I am having what I think are some CA/MG issues, but it is my first grow with this strain.
For soil, my recommendation would be to mix your own and keep it with minimal nutes in it. I buy a cheap potting soil (no added nutes outside of the compost in it) and mix with peat moss, perlite, and vermiculite (all with no nutes so not MG brand). You want a soil that is nice and airy with good drainage. Realize that if you go with a nuted soil, you will not need to use nutes for some time, once you start to see deficiencies in the plant.
For veg, I bought a CFL hood and now have mostly Cree LED lights from Home Depot in it with a few CFL for heat. But for flower, I agree, you need a good LED.
As for deficiencies from LED, I haven't noticed. If there is, then I am not noticing outside of figuring the different needs of different6 strains. I am having what I think are some CA/MG issues, but it is my first grow with this strain.
If you don't have a recommended strength from someone who has used the nutrients, the the common practice is to start at half the label's recommended strength. You're right that it's confusing. Sometimes I confuse myself when dealing with qtr strength for late seedlings. I have to get it straight in my head that my full strength is half-strength, and qtr strength is 1/8 strength of the label.
After some time you'll get used to thinking in terms of ppms. My full strength (which is label half strength) is about 450-500ppm. Qtr strength (1/8 strength of the label) is 110-130ppm. When you think in those terms you can use ppms as a sanity check. I created a spreadsheet (<<link) to see the PPMs for products you might consider using. For example, if you were thinking of using MG but not sure how much to use, you could play with different amounts in the spreadsheet to see how much PPM you should expect.
There are other factors such as whether you're feeding purely synthetic nutrients or supplying some amount of organics to promote microbial activity in the soil. Synthetics seem to be used at higher ppms, more runoff (20-30%) each watering to flush unused nutrients out. Organics seem to contribute ppms as they are broken down by microbes, which means you'd feed lower ppms (if you're feeding synthetics and organics. Feeding entirely organic is a different thing altogether).
Get a ppm meter. You wouldn't think you'd need one if you're not in hydro. But, it comes in handy to test assumptions, sanity check, etc. It's also useful when dialing in your nutrients and soil. If you overfeed you'll get salt buildup which leads to acidification and nute lockout. Monitoring your runoff ppm (and ph) can show this trend occurring before the plant shows it to you. I have this meter. (<<link).
In your grow space you'll eventually want to consider hydro. That's less work. More of an assembly-line process, "economy of scale." (I think growing in dirt tastes better. But, hydro isn't bad.).
What you see on the bag is percentage of weight. If it's a 5lb bag of fertilizer and it contains 10% N, then you're buying 8 ounces of N. It's just a way to know what you're getting for your money, to compare products. At another level there is an implied ratio. 16-16-16 (all purpose) is NPK ratio 1-1-1. A flower formula of 4-12-8 is NPK ratio 1-3-2. It's the same ratio as another flower product that is 8-24-16, it's just that the latter is stronger. You're getting twice as much N, and you'd use half as much (notwithstanding whether it's derived from synthetic or organic sources, whether you feed for a lot of runoff, etc, as described above.).
Nutrients don't need to be complicated. Some people grow with All Purpose (1-1-1). Some feel 3-1-2 is good in veg, 1-3-2 in flower. Some commercial products (like GH Flora 3-part) use 2-1-3 in veg and 1-1.3-1.6 in flower. That's what the spreadsheet is handy for. If you can find a product's suggested feeding schedule you can workout the ratios and compare to other products, adjust the schedule of other products to be closer to the NPK ratio of a certain product, etc.
It's best to think in terms of ratios. Actual percent of strength is just for figuring out the cost of NPK per dollar.
You don't need glamorous cannabis-specific nutrients. Sometimes the "lineups" seem gimmicky. A lot of people use JR Peters Jacks Classic which is in the same price range as MG. I use Grow More Sea Grow (contains organic ingredients as well as synthetic). It's in that same range.
I'd recommend starting small. Just get 1-2 plants growing and learn from experience. If you want to start small with LED, Home Depot sells Cree "lightbulbs" which can grow. For your space you'd probably want larger more powerful panels. But, these bulbs would always be something you could use to supplement as sidelighting. Relatively inexpensive way to grow your first plant and be able to reuse the light as you go bigger. I wrote something about it here. (<<link)
Yeah I think I read somewhere that the LEDs cause the plants to function a different way causing CA/MG issues. Even on one of the reviews for one of the lights it said that.
Ok thanks that realm helps me out, and yes I'm able to order soil online.
If you're in dirt, be sure to amend 1-2 Tbsp/gal dolomite lime (not hydrated lime) into your soil. It's not a critical measure. Dolomite contains calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate. It will release into ca and mg when the soil acidifies, holding the soil's ph steady and providing ca/mg. Use dolomite of sand/powder texture, not pellets. The texture has a lot to do with how well it works, how long it takes to breakdown.
Sometimes people get bleaching from having the LEDs too close. I think this might contribute to the perception LEDs cause mg def. I can't say I've noticed much difference. But, I switched nutrients about the same time I switched from T5HO to LED. It seems like the older red/blue LEDs drove some aspects of photosynthesis harder and may have caused deficiencies if the plant wasn't fed more (and maybe more salt buildup, nute lockout when it was fed more but not watered for significant runoff). LEDs are going more white (full spectrum) now. That could reduce that problem.
whitebb2727
Well-Known Member
Might I suggest you do a cfl grow first and maybe one tent. Do 2-4 plants to start with. Keep it small, simple and cheap.
Its not for everyone and that is the most honesty you will hear.
If it happens to not be for you then you can walk away cheap. If it is for you, upgrade.
Your first grow is learning anyways.
All good advice so far.
Oh and get several cheap house plants to keep where you live, they are good learning tools to.
Its not for everyone and that is the most honesty you will hear.
If it happens to not be for you then you can walk away cheap. If it is for you, upgrade.
Your first grow is learning anyways.
All good advice so far.
Oh and get several cheap house plants to keep where you live, they are good learning tools to.
I wanted to do a cfl grow to begin with, i actually started setting up for a cfl grow but when i looked at how many lights i would be using it seemed too much like a fire hazard to me, i heard each plant needs like 10,000+ lumens, and the cheapest way for me to go would be the walmart great value box of lights thats got 12 bulbs i think for 24$ with 1600 lumens per bulb. I kind of want it to be semi stealthy.
PatchKid
Well-Known Member
Go with HID for tents that size or you'll either be
A.) Buying cheap lights that won't flower very well (veg is incredible)
or B.) Having to spend a shit ton of $$$$ on a real LED setup.
Ive used the vipar models and Mars II models. Mars IIs were crazy good in veg and decent in flower but I could've got twice the yield had I used HID.
I switched over to MH/HPS and won't look back at least until I can afford a black dog of California light works they're dope lol
A.) Buying cheap lights that won't flower very well (veg is incredible)
or B.) Having to spend a shit ton of $$$$ on a real LED setup.
Ive used the vipar models and Mars II models. Mars IIs were crazy good in veg and decent in flower but I could've got twice the yield had I used HID.
I switched over to MH/HPS and won't look back at least until I can afford a black dog of California light works they're dope lol
whitebb2727
Well-Known Member
If you setup up the cfls with some sense its no more a fire hazard than anything else.
well I decided to go with cfls, I bought a vanity light with 6 sockets, I put a y socket in each one and put a total of 12 bulbs and wired it to plug into a regular wall socket, left it plugged up for a while and there seems to be no problems with it. Now all I need are seeds soil and bites. At least that is all i think I need.
