Some Quick First Timer Questions

Hello, I'm pretty much new here , I recently decided (2-3 days ago) to grow my own after always having trouble getting something to smoke... people not answering their phones, doors, getting much less than paid for (most of the time) etc, being from Europe you dont find it in the stores lol.

I'm planning to make a PC Grow because it's pretty stealthy, I already made the light blocker as well as a carbon filter (from DIY tutorials around the web) so I'm moving pretty quickly... and making a pretty good micro grow (carbon filters, temperature control whit some automatic fan controler, a good power suply inside etc) I will make a thread whit pictures/info when I finish the set up.

I'm thinking to grow some Autoflower palnts (first timer) .. and here comes my first question:

#1 What strain should I use for if I will be growing in such a small location (54cm /20,5cm /52cm)

I already read about stress training and settled for the green screen method if I remember correctly, I'm thinking to get two plants in the there.

#2 Should I use 1 flowerpot or two .... what should be a good size.. because as I said the space is limited.. ?

#3 I was thinking to go for CFL lights, 200W would be my choice is that to much light ? + making my own screen above the light to get more light towards the plants (I dont mind paying for electricity...)

P.S Sorry for my english.
P.S.S I'm really new so please be gentle
P.S.S.S I'm wishing all of you a great day and I;m happy to be here.

Have a good read in the Micro grow/Stealth section located in Indoor.

You may be able to copy someone elses grow.

You cannot have to much light..but light brings heat..

Crop king seeds sells a autoflower called dwarf low flyer, should really look into that strain. If I was growing in a pc that's probably what I would use.

Also what you could use and might take some figuring out but I would use a Tupperware dish in the bottom and short and long and wide dish you will have to drill holes in the bottom and light proof it but.... It will give you more area of dirt for your plant to grow in, without sacrificing height!

Like this one....

Lucky Luke said:

Have a good read in the Micro grow/Stealth section located in Indoor.

You may be able to copy someone elses grow.

You cannot have to much light..but light brings heat..

Click to expand...

Thanks, I will try to manage heat by having a good airflor and adding coolers and such.

johnmac240 said:

Also what you could use and might take some figuring out but I would use a Tupperware dish in the bottom and short and long and wide dish you will have to drill holes in the bottom and light proof it but.... It will give you more area of dirt for your plant to grow in, without sacrificing height!

Click to expand...

Thanks, I will try to find something like that around here.

Another quick question should I keep the ventilation on even in the resting hours, in the hours whit out light ?

Lucky Luke said:

You cannot have to much light.

Click to expand...

But you can have too much light intensity. AND heat... not ambient heat, radiant heat, as in the heat the bulb emits when you get close to it, regardless of over all circulation (yes, the radiant heat causes the ambient heat, but my point is at a close enough distance the heat has no chance to dissipate). These problems can either bleach or burn your plants.

He said his space is 54cm /20,5cm /52cm... that's (roughly) 2ftx1/2ftx2ft. Assuming the longest side is height (54cm, ~2 ft) and assuming the smaller container height of 6 inches... the plants each have only 18 inches from the top of the soil to the top of the box... we also need space for the bulb (3 inches?) and assuming a minimum distance from the bulb at 4 inches (I've honestly never used such a high watt CFL, so not sure on best distance... I've heard 3-4 for 26s and even 125s being ok, so let's use that) the plant has exactly all of 11 inches from the base of it's stem to the tops of its tops (at full growth).

As a reference http://hightimes.com/grow/growing-marijuana-big-in-small-spaces/ suggest a 250watt HID for 4 sq ft area... but make no mention of the height... his area is 1 sq ft... so even just looking at it that way 200 watt CFL still seems high.

Like the man said, research... get over to micro growing where there's tons of info and targeted experience... because my math's telling me that you have very narrow margins for error. Good Luck!

@thewanderingjack Thanks for your answer, you gave me some things to think about, tomorow I will go to a big second hand pc store near me and buy the largest case I can find (probably some old fujitsu/ibm vertical server case) so I can get as much head room as possible. Could you please direct me to the micro growing info you were saying.

I'm planning to stick whit CFL's for now.. but switch to 2 x 85W. The lights I was thinking to use were made for growing they claim you can get as far as 1.1 to 1.5 the light (Plasmalight V2.0 CFL 4U-85w) but I read something about the CFL's sweet spot where the plants get the most light "No closer the 6 inches no further than 10 inches That is the sweet spot of CFLs of all sizes. " but that info is from 2010 probably CFL's got better from then to now and I'm planning to find it and make a screen of green there, probably leaving only 2 - 3 inches plant -> light .. hopefully that will be fine

I'm having a pretty long jurney ahead of me.. and I'm looking forward to overcome every obstacle whit the help of good old google and the guys from this forum, I'm researching every day, I started building things like the light trap and the carbon filter as well as preparing a list for the proper dirt, fans strong enough to blow true the filter (120mm noctua industrial fan), fan controler so when I run 18-6 everything will run smoothly when I sleep and much more cool stuff to automate and make everything safe.

Curently I'm trying to figure out this tings:
Is Canna Terra Professional Plus 25L a good soil for autuflowers or not .. I dont have a lot of soil options here ...
Should I keep the ventilation on even in the resting hours, in the hours whit out light ?

P.S I'm going to start using inches from now on.

JackFlow said:

@thewanderingjack Thanks for your answer, you gave me some things to think about, tomorow I will go to a big second hand pc store near me and buy the largest case I can find (probably some old fujitsu/ibm vertical server case) so I can get as much head room as possible. Could you please direct me to the micro growing info you were saying.

I'm planning to stick whit CFL's for now.. but switch to 2 x 85W. The lights I was thinking to use were made for growing they claim you can get as far as 1.1 to 1.5 the light (Plasmalight V2.0 CFL 4U-85w) but I read something about the CFL's sweet spot where the plants get the most light "No closer the 6 inches no further than 10 inches That is the sweet spot of CFLs of all sizes. " but that info is from 2010 probably CFL's got better from then to now and I'm planning to find it and make a screen of green there, probably leaving only 2 - 3 inches plant -> light .. hopefully that will be fine

I'm having a pretty long jurney ahead of me.. and I'm looking forward to overcome every obstacle whit the help of good old google and the guys from this forum, I'm researching every day, I started building things like the light trap and the carbon filter as well as preparing a list for the proper dirt, fans strong enough to blow true the filter (120mm noctua industrial fan), fan controler so when I run 18-6 everything will run smoothly when I sleep and much more cool stuff to automate and make everything safe.

Curently I'm trying to figure out this tings:
Is Canna Terra Professional Plus 25L a good soil for autuflowers or not .. I dont have a lot of soil options here ...
Should I keep the ventilation on even in the resting hours, in the hours whit out light ?

P.S I'm going to start using inches from now on.

Click to expand...

https://www.rollitup.org/f/stealth-micro-cab-growing.125/

As for case option... there's literally sooo many... PC case is a great choice, having a lot of what you need already going on (vents, fan mounting for pc ans which are great to use for this)... a trunk, a night stand... let yourself figure out what the biggest thing you can reasonably do is... UNLESS ofcourse you are specifically going for a PC grow... they are pretty rad . I mean tiny is great... but the more room you can use the bigger the plant the nigher yields/the returns on investment... like proportionally higher. Also remember to account for your equipment, especially in a stealth set up, pretty much everything has to fit in the case with the plant. Sure, everything's smaller... but it's all in there.

CFLs are great... idk maybe not great... I mean they're not the best light for plants ever made or anything... I mean they will work very well. You probably don't need as much as you think either. I spouted 11 plants in two pots (6 in one and 5 in the other) using just a 23wat CFL... 27000k. I had the hood (cheap aluminium one that came with the clamp lamp) right down to the soil when I first plated, and raised it up slow as they sprouted and grew... it was a bit like a space bucket, since the hood was almost as big as the pot and I planted them pretty low. I vegged and started to flower 12 plants under a growing number of CFLs (24 total bulbs by the end, 2 per plant @ ~40 watts total (2x20) for about 480 watts total. While definitely under-lit, my plants suffered more from the cold temps (highs of 60s, lows of 50s) they suffered through that time, and are still pretty big, healthy and productive.

Jeez I almost forgot about the sweet spot! Yeah, that hasn't changed as far as I know... I mean CFLs are more efficient... but their intensity and spectrums haven't changed (or not much).

Don't know about the soil (I mean that brand)... I'm a "soil guy" but don't get into commercial soil formulations too much... I'm very traditional... or laid back maybe is better... if it's decent soil plants will grow... sometimes those scienced out soils wind up giving you more problems (nute burn... deficiency... etc). Do you think you can tell decent soil... like, walking out and about? (I know you may look funny, but yeah, go look at some dirt in the park and so on).

It comes in many different forms, but it has certain key properties you need to adapt to your situation: permeability maybe being the most important. The soil needs to be able to hold water (better than let say, sand)... but can't retain too much. Texture that will allow for root development (not too hard, not too soft) and um... yes, the actual medium part of soil as a medium... particulates that can retain the nutrients you are putting in there. These things are all kinda interdependent really... but I thought kinda breaking them out would help make sense.

By ventilation you mean exhaust? Um, maybe? if it's the only way your plants are getting air exchange (your exhaust pulling air out of the box makes the box pull air in from the room) then yeah... though you could/should lower it. If you have some other vent port where either air is pushed in or or can at least naturally exchange with the room around it... then no. Which reminds me... haha... you need air ports in as well as out... otherwise if you seal your box for stealth it wouldn't actually do anything when you tried to exhaust (well with a tight enough seal and a strong enough fan it would implode). Also remember that you won't have to worry about the smell until flowering, so you won't need the filter to start (which means you won't have to run your exhaust fan as high), just later on.

If by ventilation you mean a fan blowing on them... again, maybe... I often do. I have a very humid situation so that helps dissipate the moisture and keep the plants moving, preventing overlaps where moisture can accumulate either by perspiration from the plant at high temps or condensation in cold.

I like metric myself... grew up with it, it also makes sense. But I do live in the U.S. (as it seems most people on this forum do) so I've gotten accustomed to this weird WEIRD system (how long is a foot? My foot or your foot or an elephants foot?). Nutters.

@thewanderingjack Thanks for clearing out a few things for me. I'm going for the pc case because for now this is the best solution for the place and the country I live in, stealth is #1 and space is #2

Yes I am prepared for an intake I already made the light trap for it (photo: building the light trap), the intake will be a cooler that will blow air in, one 80mm fan (maybe I will add another one depending on the conditions inside), first I will try it out with the fan off (the intake part) and see how the temps and humidity are, if the temps and humidity are ok I will leave it this way until the bloom/late bloom period (i need to re-check that data lol) when you need less humidity but having such a small space I bet there will be a struggle to keep up whit the humidity.

I will also try to use a Rasbery pi or some sort of automated temparature/moist controler I was thinking something like : when the humidity is to high a ceiling fan should start and get more air out for example, trying to learn new things... have more room inside without programmable power sockets that can eat away space, but this part in the long run ...