Auto Flowering Start up

So ive recently decided to start growing some auto flowering bud, this is my first grow so i need as much info as possible!

Yo son, I already have a plant ready for you to grow. My friend is putting it back in veg now and I'll be able to bring it to you maybe friday or maybe next week, I have to see what my plans are. In order to prepare to grow sir, you need to find a spot, you need to get in your car and head to a grow shop where you will need to acquire a decent medium and fertilizer. What is your budget? How much room do you have to grow? What are your goals for growing? How much have you read thus far? How much room do you have to raise the electrical use? Read a lot before I give you this plant though.

Hey FB, what are your basic plans for a grow? Everything you can tell us will help answer any questions you may have. Why do you want to go with autos? TGM makes it sound like you're getting a photoperiod plant but you say you want an auto, which will you be going with? Read through the grow faq and learn your way around before you go asking for info. Provide info when you ask questions, there are a lot of people here who can be amazing resources for you, but you gotta put in the effort too. Best of luck with planning your first grow.

Don't worry Farris, Kawizzr is a friend of mine.

oh yea thats totally cool and i was planning on using auto because my space is limited and i feel it would be easier for my first grow, and it also takes less time to grow which is a plus. ive been doing a good amount of research daily i am more then willing to put in the effort. this will be a great hobby for myself. i dont want a big operation either, mainly for personal use but getting some money on the side isnt bad either. thats also why auto caught my eye since they average 25-30 grams a plant if done properly that is. ide be growing hopefully 5 plants in my space. ill be using soil obviously my budget is about 400 bucks at this point, obviously the most expensive things to buy are gonna be the lights, i figured id use 3 lights? not exactly sure on that front but im gonna cover the grow space with mylar for maximum light absorption. i can use power fine but i dont want to use any more then i have to. my main concerns are air filtration in the space i have set up, i figure id run some air duct tubing from the grow spot to my window for fresh air. my area isnt nearly ideal, ill post pics of it soon. thanks for the assistance though i am very appreciative! i tried to cover most of what you asked, let me know what you think, you guys know more then i do, any advice/corrections are more then welcome.

and sorry for the lack of any info in the first post, i wanted to create the thread to have a consistent medium to talk in, i just wanted to get it up there first.

You provided a good deal of info so far, couple of things that will influence the type of grow available to you will be the dimensions of the area to work with (in a closet, cabinet, pc case, etc) along with how stealthy it need to be. A vent to the window works if stealth isn't important, but in some cases a carbon scrubber and/or ona gel may be more appropriate. You have a decent amount of start up money, enough to put together a nice basic set up and buy seeds if you don't already have some available. Going with autos may work well for you, but even 5 autos will require a decent amount of space and lights. You say power isn't that big of a deal for you, but keep in mind that with the number of plants you have stated it will require a decently powerful light or several smaller ones. In either case, exhausting hot air will be necessary along with air circulation inside. Both of these will require additional power, though not nearly as much as your lights. Soil is probably a good choice for first grow, it is much more forgiving and IMHO easier to work with. For a limited space another thing you could look into is training one or two photoperiod plants to stay low in height, and could give you the same yield as a greater number of autos. Also, using photoperiod plants will save you a bit on power as they only require 18/6 lighting for the first few weeks (veg).

so at its highest its right at 3 feet, its quite annoying that it couldnt just be a rectangular space but if this wont work for anything which is questionable, then i have one other option which is my closet where i hang my shirts, obviously i would move them to another location but there is more vertical space and less horizontal space in there. and honestly with the pictures ive shown you, what would you recommend me do? auto's or photoperiod? and i was planning on using soil anyway so thats good.and if my little space would actually work then i would deff have to use a couple smaller lights just because of the hight limitations

oh and dont mind how dirty the space is, my brother is to blame for the paintball marks/trash, im going to wipe down and clean the whole area before anything gets started

Looking at your space I will make some suggestions.

1) look into lowryder, you don't have a ton of head room and they will prolly give you the best bang for your buck.

2) Only grow 2 at a time, that way this will leave you separate room to start another grow halfway through your first flowering. Either way you are going to kick yourself by not having two separate growing chambers for clones and what not.

3) CFL's will probably work fairly well, esp if you used the pitched roof to place some mylar. You could really get some shine going. I think a proper lamp may make it extremely hot.


Didn't read if you were going water or dirt.

I'd prolly go water due to this looking like an upstairs grow, oh and less weird looks from neighbors when dragging dirt all around.

i dont need to worry about neighbors, i live in the woods, everyone keeps to themselves, and hydro just isnt practical for my situation at this time, considering my limited cash flow and zero experience. and thats what autoflowers are, lowryder is the original dank autoflower, but i was looking into automatic white russian because ive read its very tolerant and easier to grow then others. and with autoflowers theres no point in cloning since the clone will be the same age as the mother. but the staggering of my grow times would be a good idea to have a more constant flow of plant

-You have a choice in the lights, an HPS set up, probly a 150W or several large cfls (maybe some 105s).
-I'd go with soil or soilless medium, hydro is a pretty hard and somewhat expensive endeavor, especially for a new grower.
-Read up as much as you can about LST (low stress training) as this will be an indispensable technique. It would help keep your plant lower and increase the efficiency of your lights. I'd also say that if you do choose to go with a photoperiod dependent plant like the one I was planning on giving you, you'd only veg it for a short while.
-Try and find out quickly if you would like the plant because my buddy needs to know whether to reveg it or not.

With the height restrictions you have, an HPS would likely not be your best bet, especially with the shape of that area. However, you could very easily set up a couple of CFLs (I prefer to use 27 and 42w bulbs unlike TGM) both above and around a couple of plants in that space. Ventilation may be a bit of an issue unless you could cut into one of those walls and exhaust directly into there? Otherwise I'd say have one fan circulating air inside and one fan blowing air out, using negative pressure to bring air in. With autos you could start one every two weeks and be fine with small CFLs as you can move them around the plants instead of moving the plants around them.

nah im good on the plant. thanks for offering tho! and yea im pro just gonna get a couple cfls and mylar and grow some nice small plants

If you want some mylar, I have some extra.

the beauty of auto's is you do not need a second chamber you can run all the auto's at any age in the same chamber - you are also right about the cloning - no need really you can get a sog going in the same space

i agree with the space you have its probably best not to use HPS - some of the new CFL's are really making huge strides - i just got myself a 300w 8u dual spectrum CFL and the lamp is a beast - according to manufac its pushing roughly 18,000 lumens - just remember if you go CFL you need to keep these very close to the bud a couple inches - as long as you have a decent airflow they will be fine

i've been following this chap for awhile now and from the results he seems to know what he's talking about

http://www.youtube.com/user/DrAutoflower

he's also very friendly and will answer any questions you have.

he's using HPS but is going to be having a grow off with an LED and a CFL user they're all using short stuffs russian rocket fuel for the comp

i've just got a couple of auto's from short stuff and they've just popped looking strong already

i would love some mylar thank you sir. and im checking out the youtuber right now thanks, those cfls sound perfect and it wont be a problem keeping them close so im good.

mantiszn said:

i agree with the space you have its probably best not to use HPS - some of the new CFL's are really making huge strides - i just got myself a 300w 8u dual spectrum CFL and the lamp is a beast - according to manufac its pushing roughly 18,000 lumens - just remember if you go CFL you need to keep these very close to the bud a couple inches - as long as you have a decent airflow they will be fine

i've just got a couple of auto's from short stuff and they've just popped looking strong already

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I'm using both CFLs and HPS currently, and like each for different uses, but what would be the point in him getting a 300w CFL? I know that it will have a much higher lumen rating than lower wattage bulbs, but it concentrates all of that light into a smaller area. By using several smaller bulbs which together add up to 300w you could spread out the light coverage much more evenly and probably result in a higher total light output (I said light and not lumen because I really don't want to get into that argument). I know the large wattage CFLs have a place, in pc case grows I see them as a very viable option, but I do not understand how one large CFL bulb will do him much good in his space.

Also, a 150w HPS would give him around 16000 lumens and a 250w far more, so why use a 300w CFL? Larger CFLs are generally much less efficient than the smaller ones, not sure what kind you have so I cannot say this is always true. But a bulb that size will still give off a fair bit of heat I'm guessing, so at that point wouldn't it be better to use a 150w HPS and save money in energy costs? A 150w HPS generally uses 165w, meaning that 15w is directly lost as heat radiating from the ballast, much of the remaining heat is from having a reflector around the bulb and not having adequate ventilation. This can be easily avoided by using a remote ballast, increasing ventilation, or if necessary hanging the bulb naked. I do not see how a 300w CFL will put out less heat than a smaller HPS. If I missed something or misunderstand something please correct me, this is just how I learned it and am not saying this is 100% fact.

KawiZZR said:

but what would be the point in him getting a 300w CFL? ...... but I do not understand how one large CFL bulb will do him much good in his space.

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If you actually read what I wrote I never once told him to go buy 1 single 300w cfl - I simply said that I have just got 1 - what i didn't mention was my other cfl globes that are running with this...

KawiZZR said:

But a bulb that size will still give off a fair bit of heat I'm guessing, so at that point wouldn't it be better to use a 150w HPS and save money in energy costs? A 150w HPS generally uses 165w, meaning that 15w is directly lost as heat radiating from the ballast, much of the remaining heat is from having a reflector around the bulb and not having adequate ventilation. This can be easily avoided by using a remote ballast, increasing ventilation, or if necessary hanging the bulb naked. I do not see how a 300w CFL will put out less heat than a smaller HPS. If I missed something or misunderstand something please correct me, this is just how I learned it and am not saying this is 100% fact.

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my 300w cfl is in a reflector and after running for 18+ hours i can still touch it - it's only warm..

mantiszn said:

If you actually read what I wrote I never once told him to go buy 1 single 300w cfl - I simply said that I have just got 1 - what i didn't mention was my other cfl globes that are running with this...

my 300w cfl is in a reflector and after running for 18+ hours i can still touch it - it's only warm..

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I know you didn't say for him to get one, I didn't mean what I said to come across that way. I more wasn't sure why that was relevant when it doesn't seem like something he could use effectively in that space. Just curious, what is the actual wattage drawn by the your 300w and how many total watts of CFLs are you running?

Haha I can touch my 150w HPS while it's on and it'll be (very) warm too, doesn't make either of those things a good idea to do.