1st grow, indoor tent in soil. Few beginner questions

get a bigger tent

You'll for sure want a bigger tent. Check out my thread and you'll see a couple different sizes. 1x1x2 isn't very big IMO. My smaller tent is 2'x4'.

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I run a 38" x 38" x 72", so, it's a little bigger than 3 foot square and 6 foot tall, it' the same size as the one you want to run. I pull about 4 zips a month out of this little tent, under a 1000w, in a VERY cool underground basement.

600w is PERFECT for what you want to do.

PS(lose the soil, run DWC hydroponics, it's easy as hell)

PS. PONY UP FOR A PROPER PH METER. ( I can't express how important this is, outside of light, your PH meter is probably the most important tool in your arsenal. Get the one from Hanna that measures PH, EC, and TDS.) This alone will help eliminate most of your noob mistakes.

right, its all dow to personal oppinion, if you want to get a couple grows under your belt, have a quick and big yeild then i would suggest sweet tooth auto, with yeilds upto 200g per plant done in your time frame it is perfect for the beginer grower, very easy to look after and you could get maybe 3 in your space, with soil i would say bio bizz all mix, im using it now and has great reviews, for nutes (with soil mentioned) keep it simple, bio bizz bio grow and bio bloom, dont ph ur water the soil will buffer it, if you gcan then do get a 600w, be careful with bulb as a finger print could reduce life of the bulb, with 3 sweet tooth auto in 4 months u could have upto 600g, sound good? and with such low levels of experience needed i think you will be very happy, go for 12 inch pots, would you consider autos?

ohh, and i live in the uk it is NOT legal to grow mj here genrally all products are deliverd discreetly and even if they are not no one is allowed to assume you are growing mj, it is legal to have everything, even the seeds, the illegal part is putting the seed in the soil, just remember, do not have scales, no pictures of previous grows, if ever caught it is for personal use (never a lie here) and just incase you expand your branches say you had 50 plants, you say i dont want to grow continuously so i grew a years supply, i am expecting a ounce off each plant, i smoke a ounce a week, now we know we are getting alot more off each plant, but play it stupid, if you read into laws surrounding weed(i really have read) there is no stated ammount that is classed for intent to supply, so as long as you have a cover story you could have a mother fu**ing ton and just say its a 10 year supply, make sure there is evedence of use tho, i was parranoid once, not any more

Yea sound advice from furious get at least one small grow under your belt.im currently doing my first grow and found out short and sharp that it's not as easy as it sounds loads of variables but one thing I will tell u is that it is one of the most enjoyable and engrossing things I have ever done in my life totally hooked man sure u will b to best of luck bud.

hey greenhouse thanks for following me yea growing is highly addictive lool, starting out on your first grow is the most daunting thing in the world, you find yourself checking your girls every 10 mins, constantly checking all the levels all the time and always making the mistake of taking a tester, then another, then another, then a head ache and realising you are not high, half your buds are gone, you have stressed the shit out of your mj, and eventually end up with a hermie, lool that was just me i guess, just remember to be patient, and only take a tester about 2 weeks from harvest and DO NOT SMOKE FAN LEAVES!!! within the next couple days im going to start a sweet tooth auto journal so i will post a url here to take a look, im going to be using soil/nutes mentioned in my above posts but under cfl's, just need to find out id the seed will be ok going straight into final pots as bio bizz all mix is a bit hot.

Ok first things first the light. If you can afford it, go with a lumatek 600w ballast,
It will give you the option of running 400w and 600w bulbs.(mh and hps). I would try to avoid the old style mag ballasts, there's so many reasons to go digital.

Grow tent I would try to get one a little bigger it will help with yield and more important
Help keep temps down, I'm not sure what state your in but I run my hydro during the day
Because its winter so no temp problems, also I can lower temp during night period to help
Bring out the purple in some genetics.

Soil don't bother with......most growers I know mostly run rockwool.
I myself run 75% perlite 25% vermiculite along with simple nutes such as Dutch master gold one. Feed daily make sure there's plenty of run off, and you can't go wrong.
No other additives, no ph meter, no ppm meter. Keep it simple less to overthink and fuckup.

One more thing I wouldn't bother with mh bulbs, it's just another unneeded cost.
You can veg under hps no problem......

Thanks for the post and great info, really appreciated.

As for a bigger tent.. the space I am going to put it in does not really have much room for anything bigger. It is a laundry and I am actually a little concerned i will fit what I already have chosen.. I am sure after a grow or two I will want something bigger but would have to plan further down the track for that.. plus I am pretty stretched on the budget for all this.

I have heard a few suggestions that i should have a digital ballast, which again seems a bit more expensive but maybe I can find a 2nd hand one. I see a lumantek 600W on ebay..

Furious, thanks for the strain suggestions I am hoping to buy seeds in the next few days so have noted your recommendations.

Thanks for the kind words and advice guys! Hope to buy the seeds and gear in next few days.

Well you have come to the right place for knowledge and experience, so many extremely knowledgeable people on this site that are always very helpful!! I wish u all the best of luck with your 1st grow dude!!

Welcome to RIU!

Looks like you are set and have done your homework.... now all there is to do now is grow!

As far as your questions, that is totally up to you. People do it either way... depends on the time you have the ability to get in the room and tend to your girls. Night time is cooler to run lights, so you are correct in your thinking.

I keep an oscillating fan on 24 hours a day. Depending on the grow, I will also keep my inline fan running, have a variable control and this helps with the temps. I also will not run the air through my carbon filter until I need to mask the smell.

Hope this helps. God luck and keep us posted!

Cheers

hi, again. no worries we are all here to help and learn, definetly go for a digital, i know how it feels for a stretched budget, but it will really be worth while, and mentioning sweet tooth auto got my blood flowing, i grabbed a 3 pack earlyer and am going to start a grow journal on riu in the next few hours, depending on how long untill you grow you may get a sneek peek , using cfl's tho so your first grow will probibly blow this one out the water loool, will post url when i start it.

3 months in and I just can't get any decent growth in soil in my tent until this last week.
On to my 3rd round of seedlings, but they all kept dying at about 5cm high. Yellow leaves, then they dry out and wilt. Tried more watering, less watering, letting them go without for periods, Tried LED, Tried MH. MH is a bit better as I think the heat helps (none of the pro LED people tell you lack of heat may actually be a PROBLEM).. the extra heat and adding more air flow in the last week has seen my best results but it still so damn slow and uninspiring. My mate has the same strain, tent, lights and soil (except he mixed through his compost whereas all I could do was put it on top of the seedling potting mix I used) and he has amazing plants he just put to flower, I started a month before him and I got nothing but climbing power bills to show for it.
The soil seems crap but my mate says 'it's a living soil, its fine' he gave me some home made compost to put on the top of my potted soils but it's still not doing anything except now I seem to have a lot of creatures in my soil..
I dunno do I just keep going, with just water? Doesn't feel right to not be giving the plants anything but water. Do I add nutes at some point, is that why they keep dying? My mate just watered and later on used 'thrive' powder and his compost, thats it.
All I am trying to do now is get the fundamentals right, and I'm slowly starting to see some growth more like what I've read it should be when I worry about these

Keep the temp between 20-25 degree Celsius (SF2000 LED wasn't warm enough so got a 400W batwing MH) - TICK
Keep the air flow and fresh air into tent constant (wasn't doing this before, just had a internal blow fan that wasn't getting new air in / old air old) - TICK
Keep the Humidity above 70% - seem to struggle with this, so have just got a humidifier with hygrometer for the tent, coming in a few days

Apart from that, how much do I need to worry about the ph of my water going in to the soil? Half people say check it, but I don't know if I got a crap ph meter but everything I test (tank water or tap) seems high - tank water 8.5 and tap water high 7's - I think I probably need some ph down.

If after ph and humidity is ticked and it's still struggling, I'm thinking of trying a coco attempt.. but thankfully this latest soil attempt has been improving.