OK, 1st grow. Need some Advice

Hey, guys. First time growing and first post. Just started and Im in need of advice on a few things.

Let me explain my situation. My roommate and I decided (originally for fun) to do a grow. We've got 8 fem. white widow going. 5 are a little over 2 weeks and 3 are about a week behind. The pics are the older ones.

So we werent too serious at first and didnt do our homework. We planted in miracle bloom cont. release and started with a 4ft fl about a ft above for about a week. Later realizing our mistake, we got a couple more and moved the lights very close. They are growing ok now, but as you can see, they are tall for their age(4-6in) and have a flimsy stalk. The younger 3 are better.

Here is where we need some advice: We are actually trying to hide this from 2 other roomates that live in the house. Because of this, we plan to move them into the attic as soon as we upgrade lighting in the next day or so. Question is, what should we use? We are thinking either a 250 hps/mh with 4-6 cfls or a 400 hps/mh. BUT 1 problem is money, we are pretty broke college students that are now laid off our jobs. AND we are worried about the heat in the attic. We cant do any big ventilation or cooling other than fans, nor can we afford it. It also will be pretty hot up there by the time theyre done (early june in NV). Also, we will only be able to check them every day or so, so is fire hazzard a pretty big issue with HIDs? Should we go a different direction?

Also, will our neighbors or roomies smell this coming from the attic durring flowering? If so, what do you suggest for smell other than expensive carbon filtering?

Lastly, should we do anything about the long skinny stalks? And what about nutes, since they are in cont. release soil?

I realize I'm asking quite a few q's here but I've read a lot and cant seem to find any definitive answers. Just dont want to skew it up!

Thanks for the help!

If you're worried about fire hazards and too much heat, go full CFL. But on the other hand, since you have 8 plants, that would require a lot of CFLs, which would require a lot of money, and you said you,re pretty much broke. So, the way I see it, you should go with a 400W MH, and have one rotating fan blowing the hot air away from the plants. The fan should also blow at the plants, which will help with the thin stalk problem, as the air circulation will strenghten the stems.

About the smell: 8 plants during flowering will produce an intense smell... Besides carbon filtering I really have no idea how you could get rid of the smell. Since money is the issue, don't buy carbon filters, you can make really great carbon filters for a couple of dollars. Just check the DIY section and I'm sure you'll find something that works for you.

I can't really say anything about nutes, though, since I have zero experience with them. Hopefully, someone more experienced will see the thread and offer you some opinions.

Dude you have to overcome a lot of obstacles.
My advise is to use a closet you can put a lock on. Use ONA block for the smell. If they start to topple over support them with shishkebob skewers and loose twisty ties. If you must use the attic use CFL, although HID would give a better result. Also use a small fan. This will help, but I doubt the plants will survive any temp over 100 deg. I know attics can get hotter than that. As for nutes, if you have slow release just water em plenty. I have supplemented in the past with 1/4 strengh fox farm grow big.
Good luck

Also....DON'T TELL ANYONE ABOUT YOUR GROW!

Thanks. Yeah, keeping it pretty quiet. The only real closet space available is about 3.5ft x 4.5ft. but its a sliding door. might have to see if I can do something there...

For 8 plants I would say get the 400W HPS (they can do veg stage and then when it comes to the all important flowering stage you will have the best light type available for big nugs).

Get a fan blowing onto the HPS, a fan blowing on the plants, and if you want a fan blowing inbetween the plants and lights. (these could cause quite a bit of noise, which is something to think about considering your trying to be stealth)

8 plants is going to honk, i dont know if an ONA block will control it lol.

student grows are the best haha thats what im doing at the moment, except ive got money to spend!

how much noise do the HPS make?

No noise, just light, heat and a bigger electricity bill. The fans are what can make noise, depending on what fans you have.

You do have your work cut out for you.As was said above,help your leggy plants with some support.
The choice of lights is up to you.You will have a good grow with either set up.A combination of cfl's and hps or just hps will get the job done.
With you putting your grow in a attic, you have to now think of how you will cool it.That will be your biggest problem.The heat in most attics is 30-40 degrees higher than the outside temp.I was working on my A/C duct one summer,it was 80 degrees outside and 130 in the attic.
My ballast does not make any noise.And fire is always possible when dealing with anything that puts out alot of heat,like a ballast.
I have some plants that are a little over 2 months old,and i have been smelling them outside my house for a month now.You will have to deal with the smell from the start.
Good luck,OPH.

thanks for the reply. How do you have yours set up? I wanna say our attic is pretty sealed from the house but has a few vent to outside.

solution: 1-2 powerbars on seperate outlets. and a flipping ton of CFL lamps. plus a fan for good measure. ive done something similar but in a cab. find the biggest/cheapest CFLS you can find. and raid your house for all the lamps that would go unnoticed. plug those suckers into the powerbars and you should be set just adjust to their height

tdiddy said:

thanks for the reply. How do you have yours set up? I wanna say our attic is pretty sealed from the house but has a few vent to outside.

Click to expand...

I have mine set up in a grow tent i made in a back bedroom.I have sealed the bedroom door from the outside and still smell weed all through the house.I live in the country and have no neighbors so i do not worry about the smell.My plants are in the back of the house,about 70 ft from the front door.I have a very well sealed house,with the only vent to the outside,the kitchen vent.The only time the vent is on is when someone is cooking.I have had freinds come over on several occations and comment on how strong the smell is.OPH

OPH
Wow! ok so I'm gonna have to do something about the smell for sure. Ive seen some of the home made carbon filter instructions, my only concern is the price of actually pumping air through them. Any cheap suggestions?

Szech
I dont know much about power bars. Where can I get them and at what kind of price? Also, how many cfls are you recomending if all 8 stay healthy? We plan on flowering at about 12in to keep the final height around 3ft or less.

would it work if you just put the plant by itself in the attic...?? w/o any light source...cause it sounds like the heat will cover the rest...but then again it does need some type of lighting...

power bars you can find all over the place. smaller ones like that u might use to plug in all the components for a stereo system. ie, a tv, speakers, dvdplayer: that sort of deal you can find lets say at walmart or even better a hardware store for a more resilient one. these small power bars cost no more then 10bucks a piece, and come with usually 6 outlets on each. their can handle a max of 15amps. so carful to add up your equipment to handle this.
on another side. you can also find industrial powerbars, much bigger, more outlets, and can handle more amps. the prices can vary but around my stores sell them for around 30-45 bucks for a 10 outlet model or better. what i suggested was to grab some of these and run them of dif outlets in your house. if your no good ar wiring, just use an extension cable running from lets say a bedroom outlet, up to your attic, then your powerbars get plugged into these. keep each powerstrip on its own seperate outlet in your house, dont want to bust a fuse and cause ppl to wonder wtf just blew up or shorted out. then im saying get together some cfls, cheap and easy. of course the bigger the better. from there you can either use each one in a lamp and point it at your plants. or if you take your time, you can build yourself an adjustable light ceiling of sorts. eg; 2 by 4's running along the tops of your plants and at intervals. each interval has a light fixture where u can screw in singular or multiple cfls.
to answer your question on how many lights to run. thats tricky. with CFLS not being as bright at HID lamps, you will need alot to cover a larger space. you can search through the rollitup.org grow faq. and find out some helpfull hints on light distribution/intensity and the like. i myself have 3 clfs covering one plant extensivly. but in a larger garden, plants will share the light as it is spread out. people say at least 100 actual watts of cfl per plant/square foot. but this number gets deranged as more plants are added, space increases and that whole sharing bit kiks in. im not sure if a CFL grow will be the best option for you guys, if all plants stay healthy and are female. but on a budget it can do the trik. a little tidbit tho, dont expect a massive plant to come quickly with cfls. they take time as all things do but as a cheap solution to expensive HPS setups it works fine for lots of people. you should also check out a bubbler setup. and if you have the time swing by this great site.http://www.htgsupply.com/ they have alot of great stuff and some "starter kits" to take a look at.

hope this answers some questions. probably raises more but o well. its 230 am and im bored so.

The thing about the power bars (surge protectors)/(Power strips) is that most of them are rated for 15amps (1000-1500 watts). Read to make sure. But one thing is that It does NOT matter if you have 4 power bars attached to 4 different outlets in a room if the whole room is still on the same circuit!!!! Its the same thing as plugging everything in one power bar.

If you are going over the breaker capacity of 80% of the circuit (which is 1440 watts on a average homes room circuit) (15A), make sure to use a heavy duty extension cord from another circuit to supply the other wattage. If you go over the allotted wattage/amps you can trip the breaker or even burn the house down in a worst case scenario.

If youre going over 1440 watts, Here is how you check what is wired to what.
Goto your main panel. Flip all the circuits in the OFF position (They should be labeled (Heater), (Living Room) (Etc...)).
Take a light or something, and plug it in starting from room 1. Go back and flip that coresponding breaker to the ON position. SEE if it turns on. Repeat steps for ALL outlets in the house and write down what goes into what. Now look at the breaker on the panel, it should say how many AMPS its rated for. Divide that by 80% and thats how many AMPS you should use for those outlets (usually 15a), remember more than 1 outlet can be wired into one circuit breaker, so see if the light turns on and see what breaker goes to what outlet. Usually there is only 1 circuit breaker for one room. So the master bedroom should have 1 15amp circuit, guest bedroom have 1 15amp circuit, dryer has 30-50amps, oven has 30-50 amps, etc...

Once you have all the outlets marked, remember you can only put 80% of the maximum capacity of its amperage or else it will trip. So, A 15 amp circuit can handle 1440 watts. So remember that.

So in laymans terms; If everything in your setup requires more than 1440 watts, do run an extension cord from another circuit in the house (a different breaker, ie. From the guest bedroom) and run it into the grow. Make sure the extention cord is rated for 15amps or higher. You can run a 14AWG (Wire Gauge) as well, all the power strips should have 14AWG in them.


Also be sure to take care of the smell issue, especially if youre close to neighbors. Onagel will work with a couple of not that strong smelling plants, not sure about yours though, Ive seen a bucket where a fan circulates the ona around and it made the room smell of "onas neutral" scent (very particular smell, but atleast its not weed). Or use what most people use and get a Vaportek, those things work real well, more better than ona, but is also very pricey. Google Vaportek. I would suggest you run a cab/mini room or seal off the attic and run a carbon filter with fan through there though. Hurry and take care of the odor situation NOW before you are running around everywhere in a frantic to kill the smell when its too late. Ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure bro. Hope it turns out well for you

Thanks for the advice. Im considering cfls now but im actually a little confused. I know I can use 42w spirals in a standard medium base but am I right that the 105 or 150w such as ecoplus cant be used in those? I would go with those if I could but seems a little expensive to have to buy anything but the bulbs. they list as $75 but it says case qt 6 so im assuming thats for 6?

Im also wondering if I could rig a small room up there out of plywood or somthing and use a standard household fan jimmy-rigged to blow air in a hole or tube in one side and out another hole in the other side. Then maybe put a bunch of ona in the outgoing hole/tube, ore a home made carbon filter there. what do you think?

Hps are very effecient to run more efficent and cheaper than flourescent whoever says racks up a bill go tell someone else I know for a fact in minnesota to power 1 400watt hps light cost 6.73$ per month wannaknow how I know I have a 400 wat security light at my cabin that is hps for 1 month. 12hrs on 12 off. A little less than 7 bucks if you run up an electric bill its stupidity I started growing using 3 metal halide light 400 watts a piece. I lowered my electric bill be smart turn power off other places so you can go undetected by the power company

Also go to the local menards or home depot or lowes and get what they call a "in-line" duct fan works awesome