Hi folks. I'm a true newbie. This is my first grow (from bag seed). I'm lucky because I have an ideal setup for growing--a full basement, only half of which is finished. So I have a 4'x4' Sun Hut set up in a dark corner of the unfinished part. We never go into that part of the basement at night, so I don't have to worry about light leaks. Right now I'm about two weeks into flowering.
I had 21 seeds, and I figured that since they were bag seed that maybe only half of them would germinate. Wrong! 20 of them germinated. Yikes! Then I thought that I'd lose some seedlings. Wrong! All 20 plants flourished. I kind of freaked out because my tent isn't big enough for that many plants. I didn't really want more than five or six plants. LOL I'm using a 400W HPS. I went back to my grow shop and got a light spreader. It seems to have worked pretty well because the plants are growing just fine. As soon as I was able to sex them, I was able to take seven plants out. Yeah, that's right. I have 13 girls! They're all in 3-gallon Smart Pots. I've added some CFLs around the edges just in case the spreader isn't getting enough light into all the corners. I started them flowering when they were only about 20" high, so I'm hoping they won't get too huge.
So far, so good. They're all flowering nicely and look pretty healthy.
I have a question I'm hoping you can help me with. I've been using my exhaust fan ever since I started flowering. My temperature and humidity are just about perfect all the time. But here's my problem. I'm having my knee replaced on Monday. After I get home from the hospital on Wednesday, I'm going to have a physical therapist coming to the house three times a week for two weeks. I'm running an ionizer downstairs, but I can still detect some odor upstairs (not a lot, but some). I think the air exchange from the furnace is probably pulling some of the odor upstairs, plus the tent is directly below the living room, where I'll probably be when the therapist comes over. I'm running a little experiment today; I turned off the exhaust fan, and I'm going to see how hot it gets in the tent without it. I have a fairly big oscillating fan in there, and I have a couple of the vents open, since I don't have to worry about light leaks. If the temperature stays in the safe range, will it hurt my girls not to exhaust the tent? How important is it to pull the air out? Do I dare go two weeks without the exhaust fan running? I won't be able to go downstairs for several weeks, so I can't just run down there and turn it off when he shows up. My hubby will be going downstairs daily to check on the plants, and when he's down there he'll be opening up both sides of the tent. So they'll be getting fresh air at least once a day that way, along with whatever air comes in through the flaps.
I figured I could burn a candle upstairs or something like that, as well, but if I'm not pulling air out of the tent, I don't think I'll need to worry as much about the odor. What do you think?
Thanks so much for your help and for this thread.