Feedback on my first time setup

Hi all,

I'd take the time to look up all these answers myself, as I'm sure they're on here, but I unfortunately have a bit of a deadline.

I'm looking to set up a small hydro grow, which will allow me to grow about six plants in a semi-continous cycle. My questions are:

1. How much space will I require for six plants, plus one mother? I have alot of leeway here, but I was thinking my approximately 2x4ft closet would hold a mother+light comfortably.

2. What sort of wattage and what price am I looking at here? I was thinking a 400w HPS, with a 250w MH for the mother room. Clones, if I go that way, will be done with proper CFLs, which I will worry about later. Also, can I just plug these lights into a wall outlet, or am I going to have to learn to rewire things?

3. My initial plan was for a simple wick system hydro setup. However, I've heard they don't actually work that well, and it's much easier to simply use soil. Can I really just cut some holes in a container, put some cloth through it, and set it over my nutrients, or it much more complicated than that?

4. The room I have in mind is poorly insulated, with no real ventilation. Will my lights put off enough heat to keep the plants alive in the winter (the room will likely reach around 5 degrees celsius without any additional work. Will a fan provide enough airflow for this small amount of plants?

These are my major questions at the moment. My first seeds came up ALOT quicker than I expected, and I'm currently trying to manage with a pair of 40something watt CFL desk lamps about half an inch above my sprouts, and mud in dixie cups for growing medium. Any feed back and advice would be hella appreciated as I will likely lose two plants if I'm left to my own devices.

Edit: In regards to my strain, I am growing from ancient bag seeds and have no idea what I have yet. Once my setup is set up, I'm planning to try some new Acupulco Gold from Barney's Farm. If anyone has an opinion on it, please share.

Question 1 - You can grow 100 plants in 2 sqaure meters and you can grow one plant in 4 square meters. It has nothing to do with how much space is required is a matter of how you want to grow ! You will need somewhere with a different lighting schedule to raise a mother, this means two areas to grow in dependent on how long you veg for (less bigger plants or more smaller ones) you may need another area for big vegging too,

Question 2 - CFLs are the best for clones IMO Metal halides are much better as soon as you pass clone/seedling stage. I currently use a 250 blue cfl for vegging clones and my mother but I am going to change it out for a small T5 for cuttings and a 250 halide for the rest. For flowering 6 plants go with 600's you might as well and they are the most efficient lumen per watt. If your gonna grow you might as well grow y'know what I mean ? HID lights usually come as part of a kit with a ballast (plugs into wall), A reflector (plugs into ballast) and a bulb ( Screws into reflector). I recommend the air cooled versions that require inline fans to keep temperatures under control and save yourself a massive headache.

Question 3 - Hydro requires PH and EC testing gear. So to some extent does soil growing. I grow soil because I value the flavour and taste of soil over the heavier hitting and faster growing hydro. I Still use both EC and PH measurements and I suggest you do too. At the very least get some PH drops. Use soil its forgiving. Go real easy with nutrients you hardly need any. Only feed a hungry plant not a healthy one. Trust me on this.

Question 4 - HID lights generate lots of heat, if its going to be cold get a temperature controller for your exhaust it will slow down when the temps are low. I doubt you will need heating.

Go and get some good quality soil. Not MG or something from a garden centre something recommended and fit for purpose. Canna terra, House and garden, Bio bizz, Gold Label something real nice. Add some perlite (20%) and put it in the biggest pots you can find. Water with the correct PH water for the nutrients you are using (6.5-6.8 for organics and 6.2-6.5 for mineral but always consult the bottle) and feed only when they are hungry. In a 10 litre pot your plants wont need feeding until they have had a month of veg and 2 or 3 weeks of flower with good soil.

Get a Small 6500k CFL or a decent light on those things or a windowsill, keep them warm with decent light and good soil, they will be fine.

Always keep plants on the dry side. Water when they are really dry ( I water when they ask me - droop a little) and water to runoff (so plenty comes out the bottom of the pot (about 30%). This keeps the soil clear of salt build up when you start feeding and is a good habit to get into.

Never let the pots sit in water for extended periods of time. Empty the trays if they do not dry up soon after feeding.

Hope this helps.

But seriously that many questions and you need to do some more reading before you are really successful.

Good luck to you. Follow these simple guidelines and you will be OK ! Few grows time you might even be good.

Just my stoned ramble, Take it or leave it

Mouse

PS you will most likely need an inline fan for extraction attached to a carbon filter for smell.

Mouse out !

Thanks for the input! Definately a huge help, this is my first time growing anything indoors that you can't just leave in front of a window. I fortunately have a decade's worth of seeds to play around with if need be.

Crack like 3 a week You'll learn fast that way

Mouse

You really dont need much space for a mother plant or vegging. The mother can be kept quite small and vegging only needs to take the plant up to 8" - 12". I do all mine on a shelf 2' wide 18" high.

How big you veg your plants has a lot to do with how you run your setup , see Mouse's comments above.

I use CFL's for vegging. They are easy to work with and very flexible. A 250W MH is a popular choice too.

I'm confused about your setup. Is your main grow cab 2'x4' ?? Are you planning to keep the mother in the grow cab? What will you do during flowering?

I would not recommend Acapulco Gold for a first or second grow. Choose a nice bushy, robust Indica. Sativa's are quite a bit more difficult to manage, plus they take a lot longer to finish.

In first grows it's often a question of the plant being able to finish before the grower kills it by inept cultivation. The faster the better. I recommend a fast autoflower Indica.

The 2x4 space is where I would imagine my mother would remain in vegetative growth, though if I do a rotating crop it will potentially be used to flower six plants at a time, with veg happening elsewhere. I plan on starting out by growing one crop at a time, so I assume one other large space would work for both flowering and vegitative growth. I hadn't really put alot of serious consideration into CFLs as I'd read MH were the standard, but will have to look into them.

I've considered buying a few "Fast Devil" (I believe they are called) seeds should I manage to kill off all my mystery plants. I know I could grow something that simple without too many problems, but I don't know anyone who's smoked it firsthand and have some potency concerns.

If I do order seeds, is it worth paying nearly double the price for feminized ones?

Ah ok, that's clearer. How big is your main grow space? Having a small dedicated veg space along with a larger cab devoted to flowering will make your set up much more versatile and efficient.

Most of the plant's growth occurs during the stretch which is the initial phase of flowering that happens when you put the plant under a 12/12 schedule. At that time the plant, depending on the strain, will increase its size from anywhere between 1.5x to 3x the size it was during flowering. This is one reason why Sativas are more difficult, they really stretch tall. This is also why you dont need to veg a plant much past 8" tall for a closet grow. How much headroom do you have in your closet? You need to allow 18" for the light and clearance below it and another 1' for the pot. The remainder will be your growing height.

For flowering I strongly urge an HID light. A 400W MH is an excellent choice and will easily produce 6oz of kickass dope every harvest. You may be able to double that after a few grows.

For vegging it's less critical. I prefer the CFLs because you can build up your lighting system in small increments. A 250W MH is a popular choice but it means everything has to work under a single light. Both systems will work well and both cost about the same in the end, so don't sweat it. Do what seems most convenient to you.

In reading threads on this forum, try to figure out whether people are arguing about something critical, (if you fuck this up you get no dope ) and when they are arguing about whats good/better/best where all choices will work well enough. Strangely in these arguments, the less there is at stake, the more heated they become

Autos have come a long way. They still suffer from lack of respect because of their humble origins, the Ruderalis plant and some are indeed mediocre or crappy. But there are some great easy to grow strains now. I just harvested some Greenomatics (Greenhouse seeds) 67 days after planting the seeds! I chose them as a sort of plan B. I wanted something in a hurry so I figured, any dope is better than none and in the meantime my photoperiod plants (the real stuff) can be making progress. I changed my mind after harvesting the GMatics. That is a great smoke. I am going to plant more as soon as I can.

Low temps are easy to deal with, just put in a small electric heater. Depending on your climate and the size of your closet, a 400W may give you heat problems in the summer. You probably dont need anything right away since cool weather is approaching, but next summer you probably will have to think about ventilation and cooling.

I have a 600W HPS in a 5'x3' x 8' high closet and in the summer, I have to use AC to keep the temps down.

Start out slow. Get an easy to grow fast Indica strain to start with. It may not be your dream weed but it will be a lot better than a failed crop of something exotic and tricky to grow. Start out with just a few plants. There's a lot to keep up with the first few times and the number of plants you have to deal with makes a big difference. I suggest 3-6. After a couple of times you are in the groove and it takes a lot less work. Try to avoid a stress fest which is what a lot of first timers manage to do to themselves by being too ambitious. There will be plenty of time to improve and develop your grow op.

I don't have a measuring tape available, but the closet is about seven feet high, which should in theory be more than enough space. I could maybe set up two shelves in there, and use it strictly for veg....

So, I would possibly be better off veg with a pair of 125w CFLs (or something similar), than a single 250w HPS, because they can be more easily adjust, and put off less heat? SHould I also consider a pair of 250wMHs over a single 400w?

I am hoping to eventually get approximately 12 oz. worth of good quality bud every four months or so (though 6 would thrill me, haha), which from my understanding is equvilant to 6 or so well grown, medium sized plants. Is it maybe more realistic to plan out smaller crops, slightly more frequently?

What was your harvest weight on the Greenomatics? Any other good, easy plants anyone can recommend beyond Lowryders and the like?

I know this is alot of noob questions, but definately I appreciate all the answers!

zvuv why are you not in my thread

Mouse

Height sounds good. Another ft of width would be nice. A 400W is idealy suited to a 3'x3' sq canopy but it will work well in your closet. 2x250W would probably be a more efficient setup but I dont think it's worth the extra trouble. What you might do is add some supplemenatary cfls on the ends of the 4' stretch.

The rule of thumb when flowering under HID lamps is: Anyone on can do 1/2gm per watt. Experienced growers can do as much as 1gm per watt. The Ganja Gods get 1.25 gm per watt.

If you are running a separate veg cab, then you can pull a full harvest from your flower cab every two months, or harvest one or two plants every few weeks depending on how you schedule things. That's 36 ozs of kickass dope every year. If you are growing just for your household this should be a generous supply. I just heard about people who smoke 1oz per day!!! So I cant be sure how much people consume. But those were med patients in a lot of pain.

With cfls, the best watts per buck are the 23W bulbs. I use about 4 per plant and get nice tight growth. A four pack is $15. The expensive high powered fluoros are needed for flowering. For vegging and even early flower, you dont need the same muscle as you do when the plants finally start setting buds. This post has a couple of pix of my setup as an example.

I would def recommend the Greenomatics to any first grower. They were tough, robust,grew fast and the smoke is a great Indica high. Their yield is not great. I got 3+ oz from two plants in 3ga pots under my 600W HPS. Yield is important but it's not everything. Especially if you are running a closet grow for private use in which case, you have little trouble supplying your needs.

I would grow two different strains. Perhaps two of each? If you do go for an autoflower strain, research it well. Autoflowers are a new thing and some of the strains are very flakey. I have an Oil autoflower in my closet, affectionately known as The Bitch, that was supposed to go seed to harvest in 65days. It's been three months and she still wont flower! Some autos are very solid but there is a lot of crap out there too.

Whatever you go with, research it well. Choice of strain makes big difference. Also, don't cheap out. Stick with a top notch breeder. It's not just the strain, it's the breeder and the strain together. Like wine, not all cabernets are equal. It may seem extravagant to pay $15 for a single seed when you can get the 'same strain' from another breeder for $3 but it's a small price to pay for a big difference in quality. That one seed might produce 3ozs of dope. What's an extra $12 when you consider the value of the harvest?

mouse said:

zvuv why are you not in my thread

Mouse

Click to expand...

"Never Ending Quest for the Best" ?

I'm checking it out now, thanks.

Here's a link to my Greenomatic smoke report. My sig has the grow thread.

Having a nosy

Priz said:

Hi all,

I'd take the time to look up all these answers myself, as I'm sure they're on here, but I unfortunately have a bit of a deadline.

I'm looking to set up a small hydro grow, which will allow me to grow about six plants in a semi-continous cycle. My questions are:

1. How much space will I require for six plants, plus one mother? I have alot of leeway here, but I was thinking my approximately 2x4ft closet would hold a mother+light comfortably.

2. What sort of wattage and what price am I looking at here? I was thinking a 400w HPS, with a 250w MH for the mother room. Clones, if I go that way, will be done with proper CFLs, which I will worry about later. Also, can I just plug these lights into a wall outlet, or am I going to have to learn to rewire things?

3. My initial plan was for a simple wick system hydro setup. However, I've heard they don't actually work that well, and it's much easier to simply use soil. Can I really just cut some holes in a container, put some cloth through it, and set it over my nutrients, or it much more complicated than that?

4. The room I have in mind is poorly insulated, with no real ventilation. Will my lights put off enough heat to keep the plants alive in the winter (the room will likely reach around 5 degrees celsius without any additional work. Will a fan provide enough airflow for this small amount of plants?

These are my major questions at the moment. My first seeds came up ALOT quicker than I expected, and I'm currently trying to manage with a pair of 40something watt CFL desk lamps about half an inch above my sprouts, and mud in dixie cups for growing medium. Any feed back and advice would be hella appreciated as I will likely lose two plants if I'm left to my own devices.

Edit: In regards to my strain, I am growing from ancient bag seeds and have no idea what I have yet. Once my setup is set up, I'm planning to try some new Acupulco Gold from Barney's Farm. If anyone has an opinion on it, please share.

Click to expand...

I think Mouse and Zvuv have it nicely covered. But if you need anymore help, don't hesitate to ask. Sorry I couldn't respond sooner, we were away for the day....

Thanks a heap for all the help guys, I think I am indeed fairly set to go.

This is the company I'm using, who are local and have a good rep. http://www.auroralighting.ca/lighting.html

I have decided after a bit of pricing to go with the 600w HPS for flowering, with a 400w MH veg light for now, as high-grade CFLs are ridiculously expensive locally. Veg will be set up in my closet for now, with flowering taking up most of the rest of the room.

On a related note, will light from a TV adversely affect my flowering? Should I be constructing a solid barrier between my "spare room", and the garden in the corner, or will my current plan of using multiple blackout curtains to isolate the garden work?

I will be growing in good old dirt, using strictly bag seeds untill I can successfully maintain a continuous, six plant flowing crop. I'll use five gallon buckets, drilled for drainage, and the soil (Mix #4, mostly spaghum moss, with perlite,) available from the local hydro shop for now. In theory I shouldn't have to play around with soil too much as it's already supposed to be "optimized" for this sort of thing.

I'll definately post some updates and pics when everything is all set up.

600W in your space seems like a lot. You will have trouble controling the heat. Even a 400W MH is about twice as much as you need for that. I suggest the 250W MH for the whole grow. It's cheap and if after a grow or two or three you feel you can up the wattage you can use the 250W for vegging.

Don't get hung up on the HPS/MH issue. They both work very well for all phases of the plant's life, and the differences in performance or comparatively small.

You need complete and utter darkness when you are in 12/12. Having the TV on during dark hours will screw up your plants big time. That's one issue that's critical.

If you start out with autos, you wont have to deal with lightproofing right away. You probably have enough to do as it is.