Help, First Time Indoor Grow: Single Plant

Hello,
This is my first time growing and I'm only going to be growing 1 plant. I have the option of starting off with a clone or a seed. I plan on starting with a clone.

This will be an indoor grow done in soil and done in a cabinet. The measurements of the space are 2' wide 4' tall and can be up to 4' long. I plan on using: fluorescent bulbs, fans, and carbon filter. Nutrients/grow and soil will be provided.

Now onto the questions.
1. How many fans should I use and what size? I was planning on using 2x fans for ventilation, 1 pulling in air, 1 for exhaust, and then 2x fans blowing on the plant.

2. What type of bulbs do I use and how many?

3. For my first grow should I just grow straight up or low stress?

Thanks, suggestions welcomed.

1. Well the fans really depend on how your lighting. If you are going to use CFL then you only need one fan just to circulate the air really, with HID though you will need that 4 fan setup.

2. You have two options CFl or HID
CFL- its cheaper, and for one plant this is a good option. However, your yield will be lower and you're going to need a lot of them, especially when you start flowering.
HID- Preferred by most growers. These are more powerful and will give you great yields, especially if you use both types of lighting (Metal Halide for Veg, High Pressure Sodium for flowering), but these are expensive, require their own ballast just to use the light, and they output a lot of heat. For one plant you could use a 250 watt, plus when you decide to grow more, you can do 2-3 plants with a 250 watt.

If you do CFL make sure to use daylight and cool white for vegetative, and use warm white for flowering.

3.For your first grow I reccomend just doing it the regular way, especially with CFL

Well, if you want to get the most out of that one plant, you should add as many lights as you can. For example....four 65 watt CFLs would do a really good job maximizing one plant, and better yet, a 6 bulb T5 across the top with CFLs surrounding the plant, would do even better. Same with LST, FIM, topping, etc...the more budsites it has, the more yield you'll have, and if you don't top, FIM, etc....the plant won't produce as much because you'll run out of room for upward growth earlier than if they were trained.


For the exhaust, two 4" fans should be okay for intake and exhaust, and some about the same size would work fine for blowing across the plants. Actually, one small oscillitaing fan would work great for that, as long as you can find one small enough, so that they're not in a constant tornado.LOL

If I can should I opt for LED lights instead of fluorescent?

if i were you ild go forr a 400watt hps light and run a cmh bulb in it 1 its good for the whole grow 2 once u get started growing ur going to want to expand back when i started it wasnt long b4 i had a pile of cfl collecting dust

^Agreed, it's better to go with the best setup you can afford to run, because you're going to wish you did, in the future. I think alot of people start out trying to get away with using fluoros, only to switch to HID in the future. It's only logical to want to replace the weak links, once you get everything else straightened out, for example.....once a grower has their setup running smoothly, correct PH, watering/feeding schedule, environment, etc....they automatically wish they had the best light to take advantage of all their hard work, and maximize their yield. It's like building a race car and running 87 octane instead of premium. Sure it'll run okay, but, it'll run alot better with premium fuel, maximizing it's performance.

jawbrodt said:

^Agreed, it's better to go with the best setup you can afford to run, because you're going to wish you did, in the future. I think alot of people start out trying to get away with using fluoros, only to switch to HID in the future. It's only logical to want to replace the weak links, once you get everything else straightened out, for example.....once a grower has their setup running smoothly, correct PH, watering/feeding schedule, environment, etc....they automatically wish they had the best light to take advantage of all their hard work, and maximize their yield. It's like building a race car and running 87 octane instead of premium. Sure it'll run okay, but, it'll run alot better with premium fuel, maximizing it's performance.

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My sentiments exactly. My first grow was also one plant, and I tried to use cfls the whole way through. I ended up having to buy more and more lighting as the plant grew bigger. The plant ended up turning hermie, and yielding very little.
In the end its cheaper and more effective to get a decent HID light, get a dual spectrum too- MH/HPS. If you can't afford it now, then wait till you can, or consider an outdoor grow.