New guy on the block

[natro.hydro]

So I am looking to start a whole room of the house that I am moving to into a grow room. I am looking to do this right but I have no idea what lights to use to get best yield, where to get said lights legitly(best way to buy without attracting attention?), what soil to use, what nutes to use, and most importantly where to get seeds, once again less attention the better. Thanks

 

[Saerimmner]

for ppl to answer this they will want more info like:
How much $$$$ you got to spend
Are you legal or not
room size
have you grown before
etc etc

 

[steverthebeaver81]

as well as what you are planning for your setup. Are you gonna be vegging in this same room, or another room? Are you goin soil or hydro? do you have any hydro shops where you live? what are your preferences as for lighting? Do you wanna run HID, LED, or flourescent? what about veg?

 

[natro.hydro]

I have about a $7,500 budget, not legal, the room i would be growing in is 11x12, never have grown b4, same room for vegetation, soil because there are no hydro shops,idk about the preferences for lighting, which ever will produce the most yield i guess.

 

[dudeoflife]

Excellent nutes, right here. Custom formulas, too, cheap prices for high volume. 1/2 that of major competitors, discreet shipping.

So far my goods have been well received on this here forum, and would be pleased to help.

Good luck!

 

[steverthebeaver81]

Well.... For your veg area you have some choices. You can build a room, seal it off and veg in part of that room, or buy a tent and use that as your veg area and have it isolated in your room. Either way, you need to make sure that your lights in your veg are not permeating into the dark cycle of your bloom. Or you could switch that and have bloom in a tent and veg in the room. OR, you could buy two tents and utilize one for bloom and one for veg. Or you could invest in a grow box. As for lighting, I would say you want to use HPS and probably some 600W. I would start out with two. I also recommend Lumatek ballasts or any other digital ballast with a super lumens style switch. The 600s will give you nice dense nugs and good light coverage. This is also dependant upon the space you end up using. Invest in a good charcoal filter to help cover the smell exhaust wise. For veg the lighting I use is t5s. They rock and dont use a lot of power and shine some light. The size of fixture to get again depends on the size of your veg area. Nutes is a personal preference thing. I like Humboldt Nutes, but I started with Technaflora. A couple friends use General Hydroponics. Just read up on what sounds good to you and what sounds the simplest or at least easiest for your situation. And lastly, get a grow guide or two. Lots of good beneficial info.

 

[toughwork]

im not sure what area you are in, but no hydro shops? damn, that sux... thats just about an all-in-one stop, for soil too. ummm try craigslist for "discreet" transactions man. just search ballast or grow... usually comes up with a bunch, or just purchase online... there are a couple sites i use. but yeah... hope it helps

 

[natro.hydro]

Thanks for the info, as far as the lights go is that something u can get at jungs or what would be a good manufacturer to use?

 

[natro.hydro]

What do you think are the chances of them noticing the electric bill for about 35 plants with 600 watt Hps as the bulbs, would i use the same lights for veg and bloom?

 

[brownbearclan]

^^^ Naw just don't be late on your bill and always pay it! You can run about 3 600W HPS for around $100 a month or less easy and that's including water and air pumps/fans. =)

You can get everything you need online if you don't have a hydro shop nearby. I've had good experiences with HTG supply and their prices are very reasonable. I'm also going to give Discount Hydro a shot here shortly. Then there's always Amazon and E-bay, just be careful of the super cheap junk on E-bay.

Here's what I would do with $7500 and that amount of space and still have more than half that $ left:

-3 or more 600W digital HPS light kits + ducting/hoses etc. to hook up all the cooling/carbon filter. (At least 1 for veg and at least 2 for flowering, some people like MH for veg better, I think it's a personal choice. I'm all about HPS all the way.)
-1 4-5 foot grow tent for the VEG area. (Unless you plan on building out a separate veg area in the room of course.)
-1 really nice carbon filter/fan setup.
-3 ebb and flow flood table setups (Maybe like a 2'x4' for the veg tent and then 2 of those or bigger for the flower area.) 1 for the veg tent 2 for flowering, 2 reservoirs again 1 for veg 1 for flowering using rockwool or clay pellets and baskets. (Or I'd do a CAP ebb and flow controller unit and buckets for the flowering part.)
-1 CO2 tank setup.
-All your testing tools, PH, PPM, etc.
-Good nutes: Humbolt Nutes, General Hydroponic, Dyna-gro, Canna, all are good nute lines, just don't feed into the hype of all the crazy additives too much. (I like to keep it simple so I'd probably do Dyna-gro's Grow + Bloom + Pro-tek with maybe some beneficial bacteria like Great White or something.)
-Good seeds/clones! I can't stress this enough don't waste your time on inferior genetics, it's just not worth it.
-Everything else that comes up, and there will be lots of it!

Now with that setup what I'd do is try and run about 24-48ish plants at a time and then stagger them so that I had a harvest once a month or so. So start like 12-24 depending on if they are fem seeds or not then after a month or so move them to the flowering area after culling males/taking clones if necessary and then rinse and repeat every 30 days. You could even double up the stagger so you have a harvest every 2 weeks. That can be tedious though, harvesting once a month I think is a cool setup. =)

 

[natro.hydro]

Thanks that info helps a lot, isnt that a hydro setup if you are using ebb and flow food tables doesnt? Im not really sure but you can seriously get all that for 7,500?

 

[brownbearclan]

Thanks that info helps a lot, isnt that a hydro setup if you are using ebb and flow food tables doesnt? Im not really sure but you can seriously get all that for 7,500?

Yeah for sure! You should check out Dadio's Flood and Drain table. This is the exact system I'll be building in 3 weeks to replace my soil +pots I was using. You can throw together a flood table setup for under $200.

Also check out Researchkitty's grow op to see the CAP ebb and flow bucket system she uses, it's a little more pricey but super sweet too!

Your biggest cost is going to be your lights, a good 600W digital HPS setup (ballast, cords, bulb, reflector) are gonna run anywhere from $200-400 each. Everything else isn't too bad, but tons of small costs that add up. =)

 

[natro.hydro]

well i hadnt really wanted to grow in hydro and stick to soil but i have looked at it and hydro really isnt much harder but you think a noob can pull off hydro?

 

[steverthebeaver81]

a noob can, just be careful and watch your shit. I would agree with everything brownbear said but i would just use all 3 of those 600s in bloom, all HPS and run flourescent in veg. Thats just a personal preference thing. and i would prolly recommend dirt. Ive done hydro and i personally perefer it, but dirt is a lot easier.

 

[brownbearclan]

Oops, yeah sorry about that, I forgot to ask if you were planning on dirt or hydro. I've done dirt and have chosen to switch to hydro now and do an ebb and flow flood table because of my bad back. I really can't carry around all that dirt anymore but I can pump water all day! The flood table setup is about as simple as you can get for hydro. Once a day you just check the reservoir's PH and PPM for nute concentrations then adjust accordingly. The water/air pumps and timers all the rest! Soil has less overall maintenance, I usually only had to water and check stuff every 2-3 days but I had a lot of problems with PH, bugs and other things I don't want to deal with anymore. Soil is a great learning curve for a first timer imo as it is very forgiving compared to hydro. Another medium that I have heard great things about but haven't tried is coco. I've heard of people starting with soil and then trying coco and sticking with it.

Anyway whatever you decide on good luck with it and keep asking questions! Peace. =)

 

[natro.hydro]

So i have been looking seriously at hydro, and one thing i have noticed is a lot of black trays for flood trays, wouldnt this be bad since black absorbs light, making heat which in turn would heat my water and possibly cook my roots a lil? another thing is i was looking at going to nirvana for seeds, havent heard as many bad things bout them as attitude, for strains i was looking at ak 48, master kush, blackberry (looks like wicked colored buds), new york power diesel, and white widow. I was just wondering if any of these were notorious hermies because i would like to try to lollipop one plant of each strain in my first grow and i heard this can cause hermies if the strain is prone to it and would like to avoid that and get a strain that doesnt hermie easily. Also i was looking at a 6x6 tent for flower and 4x4 for veg, should i just not dick around and get 2 6x6? also how many plants do you think i could fit in each tent with some breathing room for them,( i realize this ruins my plan of 3 600's but my entire grow plan kinda got switched when i decided to do hydro and i dont want to just afro engineer it together). Thanks for the help guys and gals.

 

[statictree]

thats alot 100 a month i pay like 60 a month for my normal bill.