Not sure what I want to do/buy

[Eleo]

Incoming tl;dr:

I think I'd like to grow four plants at a time. I intend to grow different strains but keep them "in sync" as far as vegetation and flowering goes; i.e. they veg together and flower together.

First off I'd like to say I have tried to read a lot of tutorials on this site and others. It's just that there are some questions I haven't seen answered, or I've missed them, or need small clarifications on certain aspects.

Grow tent
I know this is relative to how large I want to grow the plants. I'm going for "good" yields (pretty vague I know), but - especially since this is my first grow - I don't want it to take a long time if I can avoid it. I was thinking a month vegetation before flowering, but possibly longer on future grows depending on the results. I've looked at 4x4x6.5-7 tents and realized that gives each plant more or less a square foot of horizontal space to itself. I don't know if this is big enough, particularly if I want to do longer vegetation. I also don't know if it's bad for plants to sort of bump into each other, if having the leaves overlap a bit is a bad thing. I could alternatively go for 6x6, but on the same token I don't want the tent to be too large.

The grow will be in the quite spacious basement so physical space is not an issue outside of the aesthetics of a big black rectangular prism sitting against the wall, but, on the other hand I see no reason to purchase something larger than what I need. Anyone have any advice on this?

I'm looking at techniques like topping and I plan to employ them if not the first time (at least one a test plant) then the second time around. I don't want the plants to be crowded, at least not if it's going to affect the overall stability of the grow.

I honestly don't know what to expect. Assuming the grow goes well and I get decent results (fingers crossed) I would hope to have at least a pound out of the four plants, if not more (the more the merrier)

Sorry if it's a stupid question. I am very bad at visualizing physical space, and have no idea how big the plants will be physically, relative to a 4x4 or 6x6 space.

Lights
I'm planning on alternating between MH and HPS based on growing stage. However, I don't know if for what I'm doing I should go with 400w or 600w. I was told 400 should be enough for four plants. Can anyone confirm this? Additionally, would 600w be in any way overkill? Would stronger lights be a good thing? I'm sure there's a theoretical point where the lighting is over the top. I'm trying to be adequate, but I want something that'll do a good job versus just getting the job done.

Medium
Since I am impatient, I'm going for speed. From what I've read, hydroponics or aeroponics is simply a faster (I hope that's not the kind of comment to create a shitstorm) medium versus dirt.

I looked at AeroGardens and they look like they'd limit the yield, although perhaps it doesn't matter if the turnaround time is fast... I probably wouldn't need a large space if I go this route, though, right?

I also see guys using systems where there's multiple plants in one bucket... This too seems to be limiting based on space (correct me if I'm wrong). Doesn't it also mean that all the plants thrive and suffer together? Say if my pH levels are whack, won't that essentially hinder/ruin multiple plants at once?

I also looked at building a 5gal bubble bucket. Not a big DIY guy and I have practically no experience constructing things, but I would imagine I'm intelligent enough to figure it out. The thing is when I add up all the parts for a DIY system like this https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/278582-lets-build-bubble-bucket.html the price isn't that big of an improvement in price over the Bucketeer, which makes me wonder why it's worth the trouble.

I guess this is something I can't have anyone answer for me directly. Any suggestions, given what I'm trying to do overall?

Seeds
I plan to "pick and mix" from Attitude. Should I purchase about as many as I need for the grow or is it smarter to have some spares? I was planning on for right now, just getting four seeds and hoping they all germinate, and if bad luck occurs there will be the freebie seed as a backup. Should I purchase way more than that? A couple more? Twice as many as plants I intend to grow?

Secondly, is it inadvisable to grow different strains simultaneously? From what I know, size and yield will vary from strain to strain, which is OK with me I guess, so long as it doesn't present any bigger issues, and so long as the plants don't vary in size so widely that it becomes impossible or difficult to keep them on the same schedule.



Overall, I'd like to grow four plants at a time on the same schedule, in a mylar grow tent, hydroponic medium most likely, using 400 or 600 watt MH/HPS, employ advanced techniques like topping to increase yield, and hopefully get a pound or more when all is said and done. Can anyone help me narrow down my equipment choices and methods?

Sorry for the long post Thanks in advance.

 

[thalboy]

Thanks for the good post.

I've looked at 4x4x6.5-7 tents and realized that gives each plant more or less a square foot of horizontal space to itself. I don't know if this is big enough, particularly if I want to do longer vegetation. I also don't know if it's bad for plants to sort of bump into each other, if having the leaves overlap a bit is a bad thing. I could alternatively go for 6x6, but on the same token I don't want the tent to be too large.

I would go with the 6 x 6 for flowering and the 4x4 tent for veg. Veg plants are much smaller than flowering plants, so you don't need as much veg room. I also don't think you can have too big of a tent. Chances are you'll have other things in your tent, not just plants, why not have room for them? I have a tent, and after hanging my huge reflector, ducting, exhaust fan, and circulating fan, I don't want to chance hanging the heavy scrubber so it sits on the floor, which is perfect for how I grow. You could also add climate controllers, CO2 tanks, air conditioning, dehumidifiers, humidifiers, etc.

I'm looking at techniques like topping and I plan to employ them if not the first time (at least one a test plant) then the second time around. I don't want the plants to be crowded, at least not if it's going to affect the overall stability of the grow.

I would not top this first go round because at this point you are just topping to top, not because you are sure it will have a positive impact. Some strains respond really favorable to topping, and instead of one large cola they will have 2, 4, or even more tops, each of them close to the size of the original. Other plants don't respond at all well to topping, and the extra weight on the bottom branches doesn't replace what you lost by cutting the main cola. If you are vegging the plants for a month you'll have time to clone them - which you should do for every plant you run. Try to run these as natural as you can the first time, and make any topping, pruning, or training adjustments on later grows.

I honestly don't know what to expect. Assuming the grow goes well and I get decent results (fingers crossed) I would hope to have at least a pound out of the four plants, if not more (the more the merrier)

I like your ambition, but IMO you are setting yourself up for disappointment. You are going to veg for a month from seed which means your plants are going to be relatively small. A four ounce plant is pretty damn big, and with 1 600w you are trying to get fairly close to 1 gpw, which is usually out of the range of first time growers, especially when you are growing four different strains.

I'm planning on alternating between MH and HPS based on growing stage. However, I don't know if for what I'm doing I should go with 400w or 600w. I was told 400 should be enough for four plants. Can anyone confirm this? Additionally, would 600w be in any way overkill? Would stronger lights be a good thing? I'm sure there's a theoretical point where the lighting is over the top. I'm trying to be adequate, but I want something that'll do a good job versus just getting the job done.

For veg go with a 400w MH or CMH bulb. I prefer the CMH bulbs myself.

For flowering you want the strongest light you can keep cool. 600w isn't going to be too much. At a minimum you want 50w of HID light per sq ft, and they can take up to 70w. A 600 can provide adequate lighting to 12 sq ft. If you decide to go to 1000w I would get 1 600w and 1 400w and run dual spectrum. I am doing an HPS/CMH dual spectrum grow and the plants love it. CMH bulbs supposedly give off more UV-B which stresses the plants to producing more trichomes and more THC.

If you go with 600w you are definitely getting a bulb that can do a good job, not just get the job done. Even with 1 600w I would still get the larger tent as you will be set for future expansion. Just grow under a 12 square foot area under the light and have the extra room on the outside.

Since I am impatient, I'm going for speed. From what I've read, hydroponics or aeroponics is simply a faster (I hope that's not the kind of comment to create a shitstorm) medium versus dirt.

I looked at AeroGardens and they look like they'd limit the yield, although perhaps it doesn't matter if the turnaround time is fast... I probably wouldn't need a large space if I go this route, though, right?

I also see guys using systems where there's multiple plants in one bucket... This too seems to be limiting based on space (correct me if I'm wrong). Doesn't it also mean that all the plants thrive and suffer together? Say if my pH levels are whack, won't that essentially hinder/ruin multiple plants at once?

I also looked at building a 5gal bubble bucket. Not a big DIY guy and I have practically no experience constructing things, but I would imagine I'm intelligent enough to figure it out. The thing is when I add up all the parts for a DIY system like this Lets build a bubble bucket the price isn't that big of an improvement in price over the Bucketeer, which makes me wonder why it's worth the trouble.

I guess this is something I can't have anyone answer for me directly. Any suggestions, given what I'm trying to do overall?

I'm biased because I'm a soil grower, but I think soil is the way to go. If you can do hydro/aero well than you will veg faster than soil and consequently yield more than soil. However, soil is much more forgiving than hydro. If you make a mistake measuring nutes, or pH, or you have an equipment failure your plants can die overnight. You have to really fuck something up in soil to kill the plant overnight, although it has been done.

My advice is to follow a soil recipe that is safe to use from veg through flower and only requires you to add water. There are a lot of good mixes. I use the moonshine mix, but I've heard good things about Subcool's Super Soil, LC's #1 and #2 mix, and blazeoneup's miracle gro based soil mix. I know people don't like miracle gro soil but it produces excellent results for him and other's who have run the mix as well.

I plan to "pick and mix" from Attitude. Should I purchase about as many as I need for the grow or is it smarter to have some spares? I was planning on for right now, just getting four seeds and hoping they all germinate, and if bad luck occurs there will be the freebie seed as a backup. Should I purchase way more than that? A couple more? Twice as many as plants I intend to grow?

I would get at least 16 seeds total. If you get standard seeds, which I prefer over feminized seeds, you have 50% chance of getting a female out of every seed. That doesn't mean that if you plant 4 seeds you'll get 2 females. You could get an unfortunate pack and end up with all males. I just read a post by Tom Hill about making seeds and how he created and germed about 10 packs of seeds. He got around 60% females from most of the packs, but one pack had 8 or 9 males in it - although another pack had the 2 best plants from the entire experiment, so luck swings both ways.

Anyway, what happens if you get a small number of seeds and end up with males? You could end up losing a lot of time on what is already a long process. Most new growers don't really understand how long this takes from start to finish.

Days 1-4? Germing seeds, this could go faster, could go slower, but we'll use 4 days as a conservative estimate.
4 weeks veg.
10 weeks flower - some are faster, some are slower. A lot of the supposed 8 week strains aren't 8 weeks, unless you start counting on the first day flowers form instead of 12/12. 10 weeks is a conservative figure.
7 days to hang dry.
21 days to cure.

So you are looking at about 18 or 18 weeks between popping the seed and getting to taste the earliest proper form of your product. Don't chance adding to the delay by skimping on seeds.

I think that if you ordered seeds and equipment now you'd be lucky to have everything setup, tested, and going in 2 weeks. I had to order parts from 3 different stores, 2 of them flubbed the order, and 1 was slow as balls. I think it took 18 total days to get my stuff.

Secondly, is it inadvisable to grow different strains simultaneously? From what I know, size and yield will vary from strain to strain, which is OK with me I guess, so long as it doesn't present any bigger issues, and so long as the plants don't vary in size so widely that it becomes impossible or difficult to keep them on the same schedule.

If you were growing for absolute biggest yield you would find the biggest producing plant you could, clone it 4 times, and grow that. Because the plants are genetic copies of each other they will all have, more or less, the same growth rate, flowering time, and nutrient need, although not all clones are equal, and some clones root better than others.

Since you are going for a cannaseur take on the matter I wouldn't worry about growing multiple strains, although you will have to pay extra attention.

Different strains, and different phenos of the same strain, will have different growth rates, flowering times, and nutrient needs. If you are doing hydro you'll want to keep them in individual containers, do not feed them from the same reservoir. You've probably read that when growing in hydro, or with synthetic nutes in soil, you'll want to flush the plant before harvesting to improve the taste and smoke. If you have four different strains, all with different needs, that will be very hard to do.

You may not need or want to veg all the plants for a month. During the first 2 to 3 weeks of flower, sometimes longer, your plants will go through "the stretch". This is a rapid period of growth where the plant can double, triple, or more in size. Pure indicas may not stretch much at all, so you need to veg them to two or three feet to get a big yield off of them. Sativas can stretch immensely, so vegging a pure sativa for a month could quickly outgrow the height of most indoor spaces.

Doing multiple strains isn't a problem; it just requires a little more care and attention to detail. It seems like you've done a lot of research which is a great sign.

 

[Eleo]

Thanks for the good post.

Thanks for your quick reply!

I would go with the 6 x 6 for flowering and the 4x4 tent for veg. Veg plants are much smaller than flowering plants, so you don't need as much veg room. I also don't think you can have too big of a tent. Chances are you'll have other things in your tent, not just plants, why not have room for them? I have a tent, and after hanging my huge reflector, ducting, exhaust fan, and circulating fan, I don't want to chance hanging the heavy scrubber so it sits on the floor, which is perfect for how I grow. You could also add climate controllers, CO2 tanks, air conditioning, dehumidifiers, humidifiers, etc.

Good point, I hadn't even thought of it that way. I was just imagining for pots on the floor with a light above them. Forgot to factor in other stuff that will probably come up.

That said, unless you are advising otherwise, I'm going to guess it just makes more sense to get the bigger tent for both veg and flowering. ?

I would not top this first go round because at this point you are just topping to top, not because you are sure it will have a positive impact. Some strains respond really favorable to topping, and instead of one large cola they will have 2, 4, or even more tops, each of them close to the size of the original. Other plants don't respond at all well to topping, and the extra weight on the bottom branches doesn't replace what you lost by cutting the main cola. If you are vegging the plants for a month you'll have time to clone them - which you should do for every plant you run. Try to run these as natural as you can the first time, and make any topping, pruning, or training adjustments on later grows.

You're right. I see topping/fimming and I'm like "hmm even bigger yields huh" and I didn't even realize it was a YMMV-by-plant sort of thing.

I like your ambition, but IMO you are setting yourself up for disappointment. You are going to veg for a month from seed which means your plants are going to be relatively small. A four ounce plant is pretty damn big, and with 1 600w you are trying to get fairly close to 1 gpw, which is usually out of the range of first time growers, especially when you are growing four different strains.

I have high hopes, but I honestly have no idea what to expect since I've never done this before. My expectations will probably shift better/worse/neutral as the grow goes (well, duh).

You say 1GPW is hard to attain; I'm wondering: how come? Is it because I'm bound to screw up?

Here's a question that I'm sure will have a fuzzy answer, what would be a more realistic expectation of myself? A quarter? A half?

I'm willing to veg longer if that's what it takes. I'd like to get the plants to be as large as the tent allows.

I guess it's prudent to not have high expectations, or count chickens before they hatch. But, I feel like I should be setting some kind of semi-tangible goal for myself, so I can personally assess my progress at least vaguely.

For veg go with a 400w MH or CMH bulb. I prefer the CMH bulbs myself.

For flowering you want the strongest light you can keep cool. 600w isn't going to be too much. At a minimum you want 50w of HID light per sq ft, and they can take up to 70w. A 600 can provide adequate lighting to 12 sq ft. If you decide to go to 1000w I would get 1 600w and 1 400w and run dual spectrum. I am doing an HPS/CMH dual spectrum grow and the plants love it. CMH bulbs supposedly give off more UV-B which stresses the plants to producing more trichomes and more THC.

If you go with 600w you are definitely getting a bulb that can do a good job, not just get the job done. Even with 1 600w I would still get the larger tent as you will be set for future expansion. Just grow under a 12 square foot area under the light and have the extra room on the outside.

Never even heard of CMH; I'll look into that.

So with the two lights combined do you run them simultaneously during both veg and flowering? Does this require two ballasts as well?

I'm biased because I'm a soil grower, but I think soil is the way to go. If you can do hydro/aero well than you will veg faster than soil and consequently yield more than soil. However, soil is much more forgiving than hydro. If you make a mistake measuring nutes, or pH, or you have an equipment failure your plants can die overnight. You have to really fuck something up in soil to kill the plant overnight, although it has been done.

My advice is to follow a soil recipe that is safe to use from veg through flower and only requires you to add water. There are a lot of good mixes. I use the moonshine mix, but I've heard good things about Subcool's Super Soil, LC's #1 and #2 mix, and blazeoneup's miracle gro based soil mix. I know people don't like miracle gro soil but it produces excellent results for him and other's who have run the mix as well.

OK you may have me convinced to go soil...

I would get at least 16 seeds total. If you get standard seeds, which I prefer over feminized seeds, you have 50% chance of getting a female out of every seed. That doesn't mean that if you plant 4 seeds you'll get 2 females. You could get an unfortunate pack and end up with all males. I just read a post by Tom Hill about making seeds and how he created and germed about 10 packs of seeds. He got around 60% females from most of the packs, but one pack had 8 or 9 males in it - although another pack had the 2 best plants from the entire experiment, so luck swings both ways.

I was looking at feminized seeds. Why do you advise regular over feminized? The thing about Attitude's Pick and Mix is that it seems like most of their single seeds are feminized. The alternative is to get 10-pack regulars for $$$, if I want to grow four different strains it'll be way more expensive that way, and I'd kind of have to plant them all, or, alternatively, play the odds to make sure I got a female.

If you were growing for absolute biggest yield you would find the biggest producing plant you could, clone it 4 times, and grow that. Because the plants are genetic copies of each other they will all have, more or less, the same growth rate, flowering time, and nutrient need, although not all clones are equal, and some clones root better than others.

Since you are going for a cannaseur take on the matter I wouldn't worry about growing multiple strains, although you will have to pay extra attention.

Different strains, and different phenos of the same strain, will have different growth rates, flowering times, and nutrient needs. If you are doing hydro you'll want to keep them in individual containers, do not feed them from the same reservoir. You've probably read that when growing in hydro, or with synthetic nutes in soil, you'll want to flush the plant before harvesting to improve the taste and smoke. If you have four different strains, all with different needs, that will be very hard to do.

You may not need or want to veg all the plants for a month. During the first 2 to 3 weeks of flower, sometimes longer, your plants will go through "the stretch". This is a rapid period of growth where the plant can double, triple, or more in size. Pure indicas may not stretch much at all, so you need to veg them to two or three feet to get a big yield off of them. Sativas can stretch immensely, so vegging a pure sativa for a month could quickly outgrow the height of most indoor spaces.

Doing multiple strains isn't a problem; it just requires a little more care and attention to detail. It seems like you've done a lot of research which is a great sign.

Good to know. Don't know if that makes me want to do one strain at a time or not, but it's definitely food for thought.

Thanks for the informative post, bro!

 

[thalboy]

That said, unless you are advising otherwise, I'm going to guess it just makes more sense to get the bigger tent for both veg and flowering. ?

If money isn't a concern than by all means get the bigger tent. If you are on a fixed income than get the larger tent for flowering and the smaller tent for veg, and use the money you saved by getting the smaller tent to improve a different part of your growing.

I have high hopes, but I honestly have no idea what to expect since I've never done this before. My expectations will probably shift better/worse/neutral as the grow goes (well, duh).

You say 1GPW is hard to attain; I'm wondering: how come? Is it because I'm bound to screw up?

Here's a question that I'm sure will have a fuzzy answer, what would be a more realistic expectation of myself? A quarter? A half?

I'm willing to veg longer if that's what it takes. I'd like to get the plants to be as large as the tent allows.

I guess it's prudent to not have high expectations, or count chickens before they hatch. But, I feel like I should be setting some kind of semi-tangible goal for myself, so I can personally assess my progress at least vaguely.

I agree that goals are important, but I think you are setting yourself up for failure with those expectations. Some plants will not be able to get to 4 ounces indoor under any reasonable circumstances. But why does that matter? If you are a cash cropper its a good idea to measure in GPW because weight is all you care about. You are growing for personal use, why not shoot for quality per watt? It would be much better to have 8 or 10 ounces of great herb than 16 ounces or more of adequate herb. If you wanted to go for weight you should get a cash cropping strain like chronic, big bud, critical mass, etc. Not to say you can't find some good phenos in those beans, just that they typically aren't thought of as cannaseur strains.

I think you should stick to your plan of vegging for a month and then flower them out. Unless you are an extremely heavy smoker those will yield way more than enough to last you through a second grow cycle. Its during that second grow cycle that you should begin to shoot for an increase in weight. For the first grow just concentrate on getting the highest quality.

Right now I'm growing blackberry and banana kush. I bought the two clones on the same day and the same size. They were vegged under the same light, grown in the same soil, and the same pots. As of today they are on day 28 of flowering. The blackberry is close to 3 1/2 feet tall, and looks like she will yield 3 to 4 ounces. The banana kush is probably 20 inches tall and looks like she'll give an ounce. Its hard to maximize production when growing multiple strains and trying to maximize quality.

Never even heard of CMH; I'll look into that.

So with the two lights combined do you run them simultaneously during both veg and flowering? Does this require two ballasts as well?

I used the for veg until I had plants large enough to flower, now I run both for flower and LEDs for veg. It does require two ballasts. I went with the Growzilla reflector because its a 6 inch aircooled hood that supports two bulbs.

OK you may have me convinced to go soil...

I think you should. You can buy a batch of soil for $80 or less and then its just add water. I think that was the best decision I made during my first grow. I'm not trying to start shit with hydro people either, as I'm sure there are a lot of extremely talented growers who produce amazing bud with hydro, but if you could smell the sweetness and earthiness that comes off my buds now you wouldn't look back.

I was looking at feminized seeds. Why do you advise regular over feminized? The thing about Attitude's Pick and Mix is that it seems like most of their single seeds are feminized. The alternative is to get 10-pack regulars for $$$, if I want to grow four different strains it'll be way more expensive that way, and I'd kind of have to plant them all, or, alternatively, play the odds to make sure I got a female.

I'm not fond of buying seeds from a plant that has been stressed into hermie for one. Feminized seeds shouldn't be bred either, which probably isn't a big deal now, but in the future it might be. You could have these plants for years and who knows what you'll want to do with them. You wouldn't have to plant them all either, just 8 or 10 seeds. I also think you are much more likely to find a true keeper with standard beans. Feminized seeds are popular and lots of people like them. I'm sure they will still grow excellent plants for you.

Good to know. Don't know if that makes me want to do one strain at a time or not, but it's definitely food for thought.

Thanks for the informative post, bro!

If you end up going with soil try multiple strains. Its way more fun than smoking one or two strains for months on end.

 

[Eleo]

I used the for veg until I had plants large enough to flower, now I run both for flower and LEDs for veg. It does require two ballasts. I went with the Growzilla reflector because its a 6 inch aircooled hood that supports two bulbs.

Sorry, this is a bit confusing because you left a word out... With a 400W CMH and a 600W HPS you used what for veg and what for flowering? Do I use the CMH for veg and then switch on the HPS in addition to the CMH when I'm ready to flower? Or...?

As I'm narrowing down what I want to buy, I found out that CMH don't work with digital ballasts. I don't know exactly what 400w ballast to get. Can you tell me what you have and if you like it? I see "ballast kits" and frankly this picture scares the crap out of me. Looks very janky and rigged up, although the low price makes me want to go for it.

 

[thalboy]

Sorry for the confusing post.

For flowering I have a tent with a Growzilla Reflector. The Growzilla holds any two combination of HID bulbs up to two 1000 watt bulbs. I have one 400w CMH and one 600wHPS in the reflector. Each bulb requires an HPS ballast.

This is my first run at my new area so I used my flowering tent to veg with for about 5 weeks. I ran the mixed spectrum and I liked the results more than I do with just one 1000w MH bulb.

When I got an appropriate number of plants vegged to the right height I started flowering in the tent and moved the other half to an LED veg area in a closet.

The flowering plants are loving the mixed spectrum.

I got the Sunlight Supply 400w magnetic core ballast. It hass worked great.

 

[Eleo]

OK, I see. I guess my question is, with just the two lights, one CMH and one HPS, what should I do for veg/flowering? I won't have two tents, at least not at first, and can't really afford anymore lights right now. Should I just veg under CMH and switch on the HPS and 12/12 timing for flowering? Or should I get a MH specifically for veg and then switch to the the CMH+HPS combo? What would you suggest? Sorry if I'm bugging you

 

[thalboy]

No problem at all.

If your budget allows for one CMH and one HPS then you should run the CMH in veg and the HPS in flowering. I would suggest keeping a perpetual garden as it makes life a bit easier. You can keep clones around so you don't lose genetics. You can experiment with different pruning and training techniques in veg, and you can veg plants longer.

 

[Canon]

Too burnt to answer right now,,,, later (for opinion).

 

[Eleo]

No problem at all.

If your budget allows for one CMH and one HPS then you should run the CMH in veg and the HPS in flowering. I would suggest keeping a perpetual garden as it makes life a bit easier. You can keep clones around so you don't lose genetics. You can experiment with different pruning and training techniques in veg, and you can veg plants longer.

You say you run the CMH and HPS together under your Growzilla, yet in my case you're saying I should run one or the other depending on veg/flower? I'm a little bit confused.

 

[Eleo]

I ended up purchasing a used Growzilla for $167 from eBay. The seller is including a 400W MH and a 1000W HPS for free.

I think I still intend to purchase a 400W CMH.

Originally I planned to purchase a 600W HPS as thalboy suggested. To save money, I could hold on to the lights that come with the reflector, but that would mean a dual-spectrum setup would be a total of 1400W. I imagine in a 76x76x76 growspace, the heat output will probably be massive. Is this a bad idea?

 

[skiweeds]

go to htgsupply.com and get a kit. i highly recommend using HID lighting. it will cost you but if done right, i guarantee you will be amazed at your results.

 

[gobbly]

You say you run the CMH and HPS together under your Growzilla, yet in my case you're saying I should run one or the other depending on veg/flower? I'm a little bit confused.

think what he means is if you can run them together, do it, if you can't run them together, then hps for flower, and mh for veg.

 

[thalboy]

think what he means is if you can run them together, do it, if you can't run them together, then hps for flower, and mh for veg.

Bingo! That's exactly what you should do.

Nice work on the Growzilla with lighting. That is a really good price.

 

[thalboy]

I ended up purchasing a used Growzilla for $167 from eBay. The seller is including a 400W MH and a 1000W HPS for free.

I think I still intend to purchase a 400W CMH.

Originally I planned to purchase a 600W HPS as thalboy suggested. To save money, I could hold on to the lights that come with the reflector, but that would mean a dual-spectrum setup would be a total of 1400W. I imagine in a 76x76x76 growspace, the heat output will probably be massive. Is this a bad idea?

You can keep that cool, but you'll need to exhaust the heat from the lights out of the room and likely run air conditioning. Run as much lighting as you can keep cool.

 

[Eleo]

You can keep that cool, but you'll need to exhaust the heat from the lights out of the room and likely run air conditioning. Run as much lighting as you can keep cool.

Man I was really hoping to keep AC out of the equation... Seems like it would be a lot of overhead in the electrical department. You have a 1000W setup with your Growzilla, do you use AC or operate with the 4" flanges on the side?

 

[dadio161]

I ended up purchasing a used Growzilla for $167 from eBay. The seller is including a 400W MH and a 1000W HPS for free.

I think I still intend to purchase a 400W CMH.

Originally I planned to purchase a 600W HPS as thalboy suggested. To save money, I could hold on to the lights that come with the reflector, but that would mean a dual-spectrum setup would be a total of 1400W. I imagine in a 76x76x76 growspace, the heat output will probably be massive. Is this a bad idea?

You said the seller is including a 400W MH and a 1000W HPS for free . Are these bulbs or ballasts ? If these are bulbs , you are not done spending . You will need to purchase a ballast for each bulb.

 

[Eleo]

They're just bulbs.

 

[thalboy]

Man I was really hoping to keep AC out of the equation... Seems like it would be a lot of overhead in the electrical department. You have a 1000W setup with your Growzilla, do you use AC or operate with the 4" flanges on the side?

My Growzilla has 6" vents, which I have hooked to a 463cfm exhaust fan. I have some trouble with tents because I can't vent the heat outside of the grow space right now, so I use AC and keep the temps from 78 to 82, which is acceptable to me.

If you can exhaust the hot air out of the room you'll being doing well. Even so you may need some form of cooling. Those 1000w bulbs will put out about 700w or so of heat.

 

[thalboy]

They're just bulbs.

That still saves some good money though, and even if they are end of life they can get you by for the first cycle or so.