If you could go back....

Hey All! I have spent countless hours on researching, taking notes, speaking to a couple other growers and printing out articles that I think will assist me in achieving great grows. I am ready to purchase all my equipment and am eager to get started but am in need of some help on buying the best equipment I can the first time around. We would like to yield an average of a pound per grow and understand there are many factors that will effect the final yield.
We will be growing in a room in a basement that has no windows at all, it is 10 inch thick concrete walls all the way around it and has a solid windowless door as its only entrance/exit point, and the room is 14x14. The temperature typically never goes above 70 F even when it's 100+ outside.

I was going to use two seperate grow tents, one 4x4 for mothers/clones vegging and one 6x4 for flowering but am open to suggestions(I do want to stick to using tents in the room).

We have a large budget and want to do it right, if you could go back and start out buying the best what would you purchase? We want to use soil as our grow medium. Would you use LED? MH and HPS? What strains do you feel grow best indoors and achieve the highest yields?

What would be your dream set up? Thanks in advance for any help you can offer me! When I get everything in and set up I will begin a grow journal with my first grow in my "dream grow room"!!
 

PattyWagon

Well-Known Member
In a 14 x 14. One 4 x 4 tent with a 400 watt his for mothers and clones. Two 600 watt hps lamps for flowering. A inline sucking the air through the lamps assuming you have air cooled reflectors. Withe mums in the tent the light cycles won't be disturbed. Go with a perpetual sea of green. But IMO that room is gunna have a hard time ventilating. Might want to focus your attention on that. But depending how long clone veg time, soil or hydro, co2 induction, etc... A pound is very much achievable in your available space.
 
Thanks. That's similar to what I'm thinking. Could you give me more detail? If you were doing this and could buy the best equipment that would last with minimal maintenance and that would help in achieving the best possible grows (of course with a lot of love and care from my partner and I). Which reflector hood does the best job? What brand of light gives the best output and lasts the longest? Etc
thanks
 

prebop

Active Member
Wow, you are asking for a lot of info. You just described my garden to a tee. I am in 5 gal pots however. I have 3 tents one for veg, one for flower and a dry/cure. I use secret jardin tents all are 4x8", 32 sq ft or approximately 225 cubic ft. I have no problem venting using a can fan that will turn the air over twice a minute. I also have two oscillating fans, one low and one blowing across the tops and bottoms of the plants. In the winter you will be fighting for heat so I use a speed control to maintain the amount of air vented outside. This can work to cool or heat your flower room as well as vent it. I have 2 600w hps in flower and a400w mh in veg. I am using cool tubes and don't like them, they work ok but are hard to clean during a grow. As far as the best of everything I haven't experimented enough to advise on this. I use the full line of AN and like the results (very expensive however) and an r/o filter. In veg I use age old products. I can get 4 or even cram 5 in flower at a time and average a little over 4 oz per plant.

Just a quick rundown, ask more and I will tell you.
 
Hey Prebop - thanks for the info. I was planning to use air flow hoods opposed to cool tubes. I know some people say hoods can have hot spots but I'll be checking on the plant daily and will maneuver as necessary to get even lighting on each plant the best I can. I was thinking of 2x 600 watt MH for the veg tent and 2x 600 watt HPS for the flower tent. Is it overkill? I see you're only using one 400 in your flower tent? And with what your yielding, WOW! How long are you keeping your plants in veg? In flower? Are you staggering plants or do you bring all 4-5 into flower at once? Are you supercropping? What strains do you have the most success with? Have you had any experience with LED's? With a 4x8 tent you can only fit 4 comfortably or 5 with cramming them a bit? I was thinking 8 would fit but I guess I could fit 8 but would pull them out of veg earlier and get a lower yield per plant but more plants so I guess it's kind of a wash (I'd rather care for 4-5 girls and give them the care they deserve opposed to watching almost double the amount). With your set up how much of an increase in your electricity bill did you see? I plan to switch my electric supplier as soon as I get going, it'll reduce my bill by 11.5% which will help. I also hope by switching to a new electric provider (I'm in a deregulated state) just as I start growing it won't be an obvious jump since they will have no data for me as a new customer. You stated you use the full line of AN, please clarify what AN is? Thanks in advance
 

prebop

Active Member
First let me correct myself, I had the lights backward. Yes I have a perpetual grow going, you can get a harvest almost every month doing It that way. Yield...hmmm some strains I can get 5 oz or better and some barely 3. One good thing about the cool tubes is space they take less than most so your plants can grow a little bigger without growing out the top of my tent. I don't supercrop I femm top when I switch to flower. How long, depends on the strain. In a tent I always have to keep from getting to big. Some stretch more than others however a good rule of thumb is they double in size in flower. Time for me is not an issue in veg, size is, when they reach about 22 to 25 inches I flip them. The amount of time in flower, first I check the strain guide next if I know the grower he will give you some good guidelines and finally when the trichomes are like I want them. Get a 420 scope from radio shack and check the archives of this forum and you will see what I mean. Eight in a 4x8....no way in five gal pots...bigger plants equals bigger yield. Less is more in this case. You will see....there are some things you have to find out for yourself. I will say this if you put 8 plants in a 32 sq ft area you had better be as nimble as a spider. My electricity is less than a hundred xtra a month. I shut down in the summer...if your basement is like mine you are going to have to pump some heat down there this winter depending on where you live.
AN is Advanced Nutrients. Most don't like them because they are so expensive.
 

Clown Baby

Well-Known Member
Lights: Dont use LEDs. Get either a 600w or 1000w hps system. A 1000w should easily get you 1lb, as long as you dont really screw up. With decent genetics, you can pull a lb with a 600w.

Ventilation: You also need to have a strategy for ventilation. If you can't get fresh air in there, consider using CO2. Although if you're new to this, air exchange with ventilation is probably going to be more forgiving.

Nutes: Dynagrow is a complete nutrient. They have all of your macros and micros. It will serve you as well as any other nutrient line, at a reasonable cost. For soil, I also like Biobizz and Botanicares pure blend pro. Just use base nutes when you're starting up. Don't get caught up on all the additives. If you want to add something extra, Kelp has a lot of vitamins and hormones in it, and is great for your plants. The "Hydro" brands would be something like Liquid Karma. You can also buy Maxicrop seaweed, which is $20/gallon.

Strains:I don't know if you have clones available. But if you buy seed packs, you might wanna try something more indica dominant. Nirvanas PPP was a good yielder for us, and the frostiest pheno I've ever come across. Pick some strains, buy a pack, and plant em all. Take a clone of everything (and label them!) before you put them into flower. After they flower, pick your favorite, and stick with that.


Keep it simple.
 

MrMeanGreen

Active Member
I am gonna start with a moan. You have read the books and asked the questions and yet your ask if you should use LED's compared to MH or HPS...... Hmmmm, are you sure you have researched?? Here my 2 peneth anyhow.

Nice space, don't spoil it with tents. Tent's serve a purpose but can be very restricting and a pain in the arse at times. A small partition wall to give you a veg area. Ya don't need alot of veg space if your doing a perpetual grow. whilst I don't use floro's, a couple of T5's to veg.

With that room I would go for an 8 week strain (tangerine or lemon) for your first grow, quite forgiving strains and good yielders. It will take some organising but I would go for a 4 plant, 2 weekly yield. So every 2 weeks, 4 plants in and 4 plants out. That space should easily sustain 16 plants and trust me, harvesting 16 plants at once is mind numbing. 4 every 2 weeks is managable not to mention a constant flow of fruit.

A sealed room with only 1 door, ideal for CO2, either that or a shit load (minimum 4) ducting going in and out of the room. You will still need in / out ducting to cool your lights.

Give you electrics alot of consideration, you have a blank canvas and wires everywhere are also a pain in the arse not to mention dangerours. Work out where everything is going to go and install elec sockets.

Get a water supply in there, it's no fun lugging bucket after bucket of water, weeks 7 & 8 I have to water every day, no fun with stairs and buckets.

A sealed room doesn't need a filter to extract but get one anyway. The smell builds up down there, ya don't need to vent outside but you can recycle the air bacjk into the space and channel back at your plants for circulation and stem strengthening. Go large and avoid cheap with the filter, high CFM and good carbon, also get a fan controller. A common problem is pulling more air across the filter than it can handle, the dirty air has to come into contact and interact with the carbon to work efficiently and if your pulling to much air through the smells are not affected. A conytroller lets you adjust the air flow to suite your filter.

Plan you lights and there positioning, keep your ducting to a minimum. Use double skin accoustic ducting as the single skin alloy stuff developes pin holes and allows dirty air into the cooling system and consequently you will expel unfiltered air. Get the highest cfm extractor you can buy and use 8 inch ducting, you need that heat from the bulbs out asap to prevent heat build up in the room. 4 x 600w should just be enough, 4 plants per light.

Well that's me for now, hope it helps.......
 
Wow, thanks for all the great info guys.
Im planning to run the electric next week (my friend is so busy and next week is the only week he has the time in the next 6 weeks). I have a panel that is only about 8 feet outside the room and has plenty of room to expand. Im going to go with 2x 600Watt HPS for flower and 2x 400Watt MH for veg and a T5 for clones. Plus 8inch fans for both tents, clip on oscillating fans, timers etc. Any advice on what I should have him run to the room? The house was just built 5 years ago and I made sure to have plenty of extra room in my circuit breaker and I want to ensure I don't risk popping a breaker that my lights are on! The electrician is a friend but I'm not explaining to him it's being run for growing, honestly he's such a prude he probably wouldn't do it! Lol. I have another friend who could do it but he's not a pro and is sloppy, especially compared to the prude who's work is absolutely pristine!!

My buddy said he will be more than happy to give me some Lemon Clones and he has tangerine seeds from Attitude that he bought recently and hasn't used yet so I'll purchase 5 from him. It was too much of a coincidence he had both so I'll take your advice!

I'll absolutely buy a carbon filter, can you recommend a really good one?

I have water covered, I had a big sink installed in the main basement that I can attach a hose to and fill my jugs. The grow area is a room off the back of my basement which is approx 40x20.

Anyone have an excellent recommendation on which MH/HPS lights/ballasts/cooled hoods to buy? I've seen so many opinions and I just want this set up to be the best it can possibly be from the start. I don't like buying junk hence why I've waited the extra time to begin to ensure I had enough cash to do it right.
 
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