Mercy on a frustrated Newbie and second attempt to grow.

Morning everyone,

I am hoping that I can get some pin point advice on getting a grow tent together and start growing and make it successful and not a complete waste and failure that it was last year with a roommate. I can reuse alot of the equipment and some I either bought or am buying, but I want to get advise from those that know better. I have looked at alot of guides and DIY articles and they all have ALOT of information, so much I think im overloaded on info.

First I have a tent:

From bar to bar measurement its 33W x 18D x 60H. I have other pics, but this should be the gist of it. It does have side and top vent holes.

The fan is this:

Simple 4" inline fan. May be too powerful, but going to buy a speed control for it as well to control noise and speed.


For the grow containers, I wanted to go with these:
http://shop.modularhydro.com/DankDaddy-Compact-HydroSoil-System-Quad-Bundle-DankDHydroSoilSystemQuadBund.htm

I was impressed with their 2012 best equipment award in high times and I wanted something better then soil but not as hard as hydro (roommate tried hydro and failed badly).


For lights, I have read that you need 2700 and 6500 Kelvin bulbs and that you need 1-2 of each bulb for each plant.
My plan was to use a DIY reflector like this:

But mount it vertically and have one on either side in tent. With 4 holes in each deflector and using one Y adapter in each hole that will give me 1 of each bulb type in each hole (ie eight 2700K and eight 6500K CFL bulbs). Since their CFL, i should not have to be overly concerned with heat and burning of plants.

The carbon filter is just a simple inline off ebay. I am concerned if the carbon filter will be enough for 3-4 plants. This is going into a unused room and I am the only one that lives at the house but there are friends that are not in to the 420 lifestyle, plus there is carpet in the room. Will a basic carbon filter handle the smell coming out?


What suggestions can you give on soil? Please understand that I live I see mostly farm land for 1/2 my drive to work. So whatever you suggest, please have it common enough that I can get it at walmart or lowes or menards or at a local plant nursery. Don't want need to order soil and pay ton for shipping for dirt. I assume since its soil, its alot more forgiving then hydro, so plant food should not be anything special, but if you have suggestions, please suggest.


My intention is to grow autos. Quick grow and small footprint. Assume most autos do not grow tall and with and with the tent 60 inches and the pots taking 7 inches that is still 4.5 feet of vertical growth. Should be plenty for most of the autos out there and if they get too tall I can always top them if required


Im sure that im missing something or that there are several people just shaking their head thinking what a dumbass I am, but I ask cause I have questions and hopefully my willingness to get it right outweighs my ignorance. If you have tips or a better way or suggestion, please post. My main intention is not to drop $$$ in a huge setup. Want something simple, small, and manageable. I do not want it on the cheap, but I don't want to drop $500+ more on top of what I already have either. So maybe 2 notches above cheap.

Thanks in advance for any help.

-elrodvoss

I personally use miracle grow..
I would suggest a miracle grow brand perlite hempy style grow..using miracle grow bloom booster
Or a mix, I like 50:50, of their African violet soil and perlite. Or their organic if you don't want nute balls.. . I find my plants to want a little more mag and I'll add Epson to my water occasionally or I'll add molasses, if the plant needs what comes wit that....:that's pretty much all you need to do for a good harvest and really cheap

I don't use a carbon filter or any sort of odor protection and I have many more plants than you..I find its about environment and somewhat genetics. My live bud smells only if your next to it but that's it. It will stink up the place after cure and taste fantastic but while growing unless they're hot or stressed mine don't smell much..

Gordo here, Looks good. For soil, I use common materials from the stores. A bag of composted manure, a bag of potting soil, and a bag of perlite/peat moss mix, all that is mixed in a plastic storage bin. I grow in soil in 3 gallon fabric grow bags. The Dank Daddy containers seem pricey at $148 but it does have the air injection feature. I wonder how that works? Anyway, the plants can double in size when you switch from veg to flower (some say height increases by 50%) so that's how I regulate final plant height. For nutes, I use half the recommended amount and also a little Mag/Cal (half teaspoon/gallon water.) And every other watering is just plain water. For lights I use 150 W mini sunbursts, they give a wide spectrum of K numbers and 15,000 lumens each. They throw a lot of heat, but it is winter and that is not an issue for now. No doubt, this summer I will need ventilation. I am a new grower and I'm using bagseed to practice before ordering seeds from a breeder. Good Luck.

Dont use Miracle grow its too potent. mostly a hydro grower but Ive had good success with brands called black gold and fox farm for my soil mother plants. also mixed my own with recipes found online that worked fine. just error on the safe side when it comes to any kind of feeding nutrients or high potency soil you can easily over do it and burn your plants and thats a common prob for beginners. cant speak on the carbon filters. consider scrogging if you wanna keep the grow height down and maximize watts/sq. ft.

Honestly though if you really wanna produce any kind of good bud and a good amount of it, your gonna have to get HID lighting, ie, metal halide and high pressure sodium. with that comes heat, but youve got the inline fan so youd just need an air cooled hood for the lamp to take care of the heat. itd still be a big expense but cfls just arent gonna cut it allllll the way through flower. your buds will end up mostly crystalline leaf.

For $200 you can buy a 250w mh magnetic ballast kit with reflector and bulb.

If you're set on cfl, then save your money and don't buy any fixtures at all. Heat up the cfl where the ballast is located with a hair dryer and split it apart. There will be a red and black wire inside. From the socket and wire 16 of those babies in parallel.

Carbon filter should cover smells. Just make sure your fan cfm is lower than what the filter is rated for. So it has a chance to scrub it. I am sure someone will chime in on local sourced nutes. Even if you are rural, their is online ordering and just make sure they do stealth shipping. If you have the money go with an hid light, your end results will be much better and less complicated stringing a bunch of cfls together everywhere. Even though i have seen awesome cfl grows.

Ohh when looking for fans bigger is always better and use a fan speed controller to dial it in. Good luck!

Thanks for the advice. Its good to get some pin point answers. Ive still ify on soil, but ill dig through and see what I can make of it. I'm just hoping that soil is more forgiving. I know that HID is the way to go with with only a 5 foot grow tent, I am honestly not looking for explosive growth just get my feet wet so im trying to keep it still functional but not drop a lot of $$$ into something that may or may not work. (i know weird eh). One of the other reasons is that I do have it in the spare bed room that also runs my Bitcoin system and while that is not a huge power draw, it is on 24/7 and the light will be 20/4 and all on same circuit. I know that it could handle it, but rather go smaller for now.

Like I stated I want to stick with autos for the quick grow (60-90 days). In my mind, if I had 4 plants and I got 3 oz out of each one, I would be satisfied. The hardest part is finding a auto that is mostly Sativa, as most are hybrids or Indica. So far the only strains that is mostly sativa are:

Sativa Jock Horror
Ministry Of Cannabis Auto White Widow

Im sure there are others, that was just a quick 30 sec look. The widow could be good as a starter. Heard it from time to time. Know old roommate wanted white widow or some strain of that.
The site says it can product up to 100g indoors which is 3.5oz which would fit what im looking for.

I hope this is not a huge fail again like last year. but I hope that I can post some progress. Going to order the rest of my supplies tonight or tomorrow.

Any more advice, throw it forward. Thanks.

CokeyoDrips said:

For $200 you can buy a 250w mh magnetic ballast kit with reflector and bulb.

Click to expand...

After looking at the math, do you have a suggestion for the above with a vent-able reflector?

It would cost me about $140-150 just for the bulbs for CFL. Would a 250W system be enough for 4 Auto plants in a 33W x 18D x 60H grow tent?

Personally I would use a 400 for that space if you want to grow more than 2 plants and have good yield you are looking for. Cfl won't get you 3 oz per plant unless you had a lot of light and perfect growing conditions. Soil is a good way to start and is more forgiving. Same with autos but research and find a good strain. Autos may be faster but don't typically produce as much or as potent so find one that does. Your fan is fine for your space and get a vent able hood. Sun systems makes a good little 250 hps. You may still want to supplement with cfl

qwizoking said:

I personally use miracle grow..
I would suggest a miracle grow brand perlite hempy style grow..using miracle grow bloom booster
Or a mix, I like 50:50, of their African violet soil and perlite. Or their organic if you don't want nute balls.. . I find my plants to want a little more mag and I'll add Epson to my water occasionally or I'll add molasses, if the plant needs what comes wit that....:that's pretty much all you need to do for a good harvest and really cheap

I don't use a carbon filter or any sort of odor protection and I have many more plants than you..I find its about environment and somewhat genetics. My live bud smells only if your next to it but that's it. It will stink up the place after cure and taste fantastic but while growing unless they're hot or stressed mine don't smell much..

Click to expand...

miracle grow works in a pinch.... my problem with it is one it makes ur buds taste chemmy, and two it creates leafy ass flower clusters or buds because they contain way too much nitrogen

buddy

BlackGold........2 cups of perelite per gallon of soil .......this stuff is good u can find most gardening shops
Fox Farms Ocean Forrest.............just pot and plant best stuff (u might have to order since it is mostly marketed to weed growers)
the all time best soil in the world is Sunshine Mix #4............cost a shit load but all time top weed growing soil

soil is organic...they have fungi and micrbos in the soil that help the plant and the roots
to make sure this keeps working for u need a organic feed line (look up GO BOX on amazon) this is all organic and has a feed plan for u to fallow on the side i personal got 1 oz off it using cfls and 4 oz off it using HID

u will need 1 ml and 3 ml pippettes this is to mix the feed up in a gallon of water (what ever is not used that day is tossed out it does not keep untill your next water)

Again thanks. Got more items ordered. Still need light.

From suggestions, im looking at a 250w light or better, but from suggestions I would like to get one that vent-able. Ive seen the basic tube ones and also the better ones. I don't really have a preference just something that will work.

Im looking for around $200-$250. Already have a old light timer, but if the kit includes it, that is fine. My only real request is that it can be vented so I dont have to upgrade that in the future if I go bigger.

Please include links with your suggestions.

Again, thank you for everyones help.

-Elrodvoss

elrodvoss said:

Thanks for the advice. Its good to get some pin point answers. Ive still ify on soil, but ill dig through and see what I can make of it. I'm just hoping that soil is more forgiving. I know that HID is the way to go with with only a 5 foot grow tent, I am honestly not looking for explosive growth just get my feet wet so im trying to keep it still functional but not drop a lot of $$$ into something that may or may not work. (i know weird eh). One of the other reasons is that I do have it in the spare bed room that also runs my Bitcoin system and while that is not a huge power draw, it is on 24/7 and the light will be 20/4 and all on same circuit. I know that it could handle it, but rather go smaller for now.

Like I stated I want to stick with autos for the quick grow (60-90 days). In my mind, if I had 4 plants and I got 3 oz out of each one, I would be satisfied. The hardest part is finding a auto that is mostly Sativa, as most are hybrids or Indica. So far the only strains that is mostly sativa are:

Sativa Jock Horror
Ministry Of Cannabis Auto White Widow

Im sure there are others, that was just a quick 30 sec look. The widow could be good as a starter. Heard it from time to time. Know old roommate wanted white widow or some strain of that.
The site says it can product up to 100g indoors which is 3.5oz which would fit what im looking for.

I hope this is not a huge fail again like last year. but I hope that I can post some progress. Going to order the rest of my supplies tonight or tomorrow.

Any more advice, throw it forward. Thanks.

Click to expand...

soil will always be more forgiving thats the great thing about it

and in my opinion you really dont want alot of the 2700k lights on during the veg time

is there any reason you want to stay away from indicas? for a smaller tent like that the sativas are going to grow very tall and not fill out as much but its all a matter of opinion

also agree that miracle grow isnt really that good, i grow in coco/perlite mix 50 / 50
i use a T5 setup and it works awesome i have a 4ft 8bulb fixture and my girls love it!! currently growing 5 OG kush #18 just put them into flower and they are looking very good

i like the T5's bc they are cheap to use and provide a good light footprint and are cheap on the wallet

i knw that they ssy that the hps/mh are always the way to go but for what i got they work amazing

http://www.htgsupply.com/Product-SlimStar-4-Foot-8-Lamp-High-Output-T5-Fluorescento

this would work well?

I agree with those who advice proven growing methods like:

HID instead of CFL's, regular or fem strains instead of autos. Stay away from fancy, overrated, unproven and ridiculously priced "miracle containers" spend it on stuff proven to work. 3-5 gal pots or hempy buckets instead.

Why struggle trying to rediscover America?

elrodvoss said:

http://www.htgsupply.com/Product-SlimStar-4-Foot-8-Lamp-High-Output-T5-Fluorescento

this would work well?

Click to expand...

i run the 4ft 8bulb T5 and i love it! the heat is so much easier to control and the lights rock, (cheap on the electric bill as well!) i know everyone out there says hps/mh but ill say first hand the T5's rock and if your only doing a few plants the T5's are all that you need. and i use coco soil and that works very well, have alot of play room with it cant fuck up so easy as with hydro

T5's you can just bang them with the light so close to the plant with out burning it these are only 4 weeks veg'ed just put them into flower with my T5's they are so compacted and bushy its crazy not lengthy at all!!! i have 5 of these babies under that one T5 and they just love the light cant wait to see their progress during flower, so will T5's work for you id say yes but hey its all about what you want to do but for a small tent like your thinking id go with the T5 less heat cheaper to run and you dont have to worry about keeping light far enough away so as not to burn them you can keep the light 2-6" away from the tops

hey good luck bro
peace with the green

i also use ph perfect technology grow bloom micro 3 part system for nutes and they seem to work very very well

take a look at the T5 club and look on page 52 at post #513 and that should let you know what t5's are capable of