First grow advice

[The Hemp Goddess]

No basement in the house saddly Theres a few decent closets I may be able to convert or if I can get him to use the spare bedroom. I'm full set on using HPS my friend on the other hand thinks different and says he doesn't want to deal with ballasts *sigh*.. since I'm not the one buying the lights I have no say in the lighting till I can save up a few pay checks and buy some HPS myself. The attic temp probs were one of my fears that looks like its coming true.

Kind of throwing a cog in the situation, later down the line next year I could grow in a spot out in the back yard if plants dont put out too much smell when growing outside and train it along the ground.

LOL--if your buddy wants any kind of decent bud, he is going to have to deal with ballasts. Where in the world did he get the idea that LEDs are good (LOL--don't tell me You Tube)? Doesn't he wonder why everybody isn't using them? LEDs combined with high heat will result in light airy bud. I have to say that I have never seen an LED grow anywhere that I was the least impressed with. You cannot count the videos on You Tube put up by people selling LEDs. I can guaranteed you that many (virtually all) of these are faked and you will never be able to come close to duplicating the results. Bottom line is that LED are okay for vegging, but really suck for flowering.

I have to say that I am inclined to agree with pcduck. It doesn't sound as if your roommate is going to be a good growing partner. You truly have to be realistic about things. We here would all just love it if there was a low energy, low heat indoor light source with no ballast that would grow killer bud............but there isn't. If LEDs worked, people would be using them, but they are not because they don't.

I have grown for many many years--your parents were probably still in grade school when I started growing. I have seen huge innovations in growing equipment. I am never one to pooh-paw new innovations in growing. LEDs may get there one day (although I think I have been saying that for 10 years), but they are not there yet. In addition, I really don't think they are close. LEDs have a lot of wonderful uses, growing pot just isn't one of them. You have to be smart enough to separate the hype from the fact and take all sources of information for what they are. People selling LEDs LIE about what they can and will do. For instance, there is no way that a 200W LED is going to provide the same light as a 600W HPS. Actually, a 200W LED does not provide as much light as a 150W HPS for growing purposes.

I would encourage you and your buddy to do a lot more research on lighting and what it takes to bring a plant to harvest. There is really a huge amount of time, energy, money, dedication, and love that goes into growing plants indoors. It is like a part-time job. With the price of bud, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

 

[The Silver Bullet Special]

Thanks for the detailed light explanation Hush and THG. Thanks to everyone else for the other input for letting me know how bad heat actually is to the plants in the attic.

I think once I have my partner read these posts he may change his mind as well as change his idea about the attic lol. Yes youtube was the selling point to my friend on the LEDs >.< hes kinda technically challeneged on how to use the internet let alone tell the difference between scams and "too good to be true" from real facts. So I think I'm going take pcduck's advice to do the grow by myself that way I'm not wasting my time and money. I have atleast two months before I want to attempt to set things up.

I will research in some lights and quality tents for the extra bedroom, also how to feed and amend soil (adding certain amounts of dolomite lime per pot and no clue how to much nutes and how often to feed soil I'm sure I'll find it somewhere here in the forum depths). To start I think I'm going to use Fox Farm's brand of soil (which one idk about yet). I'll slowly work into hydro once I get confident in soil and get a few harvests and cloning under my belt. I know people here on the forum like the T5 lights for veg growing so I'll look into those for a 4'x2' veg space. Is there a general rule fo thumb on how big the flower room should be; Ive read each plant needs anywhere from 1sq ft - 3sq ft.

My parents used to grow outdoors back in the 70's when they were my age but had some problems come up and just decided it would be safe to stop. Dad is curious about all this "new strain" stuff he only had what he called Thai(not sure if it was legit thai or not) and hasnt seen any thing of the new strains except form what I've shown him, he said it grew real tall and was an uppy high so I'm guessing he had a sativa.

 

[Hushpuppy]

I think you are making a good decision to not do the attic and go with a tent instead. The T5s are great for vegging for sure. The size of tent to get really depends on what you want to do as you can literally grow 6 micro plants in a 2'x4' area, or 4 medium plants, or 2 larger, or 2 in scrog(if you are in a low ceiling area). I have been growing in what I called a stealth cabinets grow. Each cabinet is 30" deep by 4' wide by 7' high. I got nearly 8oz out of the 2 cabinets on my last harvest. But by doing that I only get that every 8-10weeks. That was running 4 plants in each cabinet to about 4' tall.

If you want any help setting up your grow, I will be glad to help you individually or you can work it here on the open forum where you can have multiple opinions. There are plenty here who will be glad to help you set it up right.

 

[The Silver Bullet Special]

Great ,I appreciate it, and I will probably pm you with some ideas in the near future once I do some more homework on lighting and soils and stuff (might just wing a DWC at the same time since the room wont be in the attic to see which one I can manage a little bit better), I never realized how much there is to soil lol. But air cleaning will be the biggest thing but we can discuss that when the time comes.

 

[The Silver Bullet Special]

Quick T5 question I'm looking at the Hydrofarm FLP46UN 4ft 6lamp from plantlightinghydroponics.com its rated for 324W and 30k initial lumens for$139, do balasts come with this light fixture or will I have to buy them seperately?

 

[Hushpuppy]

Hey, yeah you can PM me no problem. I think you will find DWC about as easy as any type of grow can be. Personally I love growing in coco as it is most like soil which is easy to set either seedlings or clones and it holds nutrients well. It can also be used just like a soil grow or used in a hydroponic setup. I personally don't like growing in soil myself. Not that there is anything wrong with soil, just that I am a hands-on tinkerer and I like having total control over the grow, where in soil it is more of a type that you set them in after setting up the soil and then do nothing else but water unless you have problems.

That is a good light and I really like the company. They get stuff right and shipped out quick. I just ordered some 600w HPS bulbs and a 4" hurricane exaust fan for my clone and seedling cabinet from them. That light will be ideal for a 2'x4' veg tent (or closet). You can use that to start seedlings and veg your plants until they are ready to put into flowering. I have a buddy that uses the same area for vegging his plants and he has it split in half so that he has the vegging plants on the bottom and has a shelf with lower lighting for doing all his cloning. He has a 5'x5' room that he does a continual harvest in. So he is constantly pulling out plants and putting in new ones to flower. He usually vegges his plants to about 8" tall then puts them in flower so that they get no taller than 30" before harvesting.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

Quick T5 question I'm looking at the Hydrofarm FLP46UN 4ft 6lamp from plantlightinghydroponics.com its rated for 324W and 30k initial lumens for$139, do balasts come with this light fixture or will I have to buy them seperately?

On fluoro tube fixtures, the ballasts come built into the fixture. That light will really rock in a 2 x 4' space. I simply love T5s. I have not used MH to veg with since I discovered T5s. Get tubes in the 6500K range for vegging.

If you end up not growing in the attic and think you can keep a res cool enough, go ahead with a DWC. I did hydro for many many years. It is a bit more of a PITA than soil--I think pH and ppms are more critical in hydro as plants react very fast to whatever they are uptaking. I got tired of all the mixing of nutes and letting things set, and then pHing, and then letting things sit, checking again, adjusting, etc, etc. Constantly checking the pH and ppms. Getting my nute solution right would take 2-3 days

 

[The Silver Bullet Special]

Okay cool I think I will go with that light for vegging then, and I may just go with soil untill my state legalizes(if it ever does lol) so I dont have to worry too too much about the sensitivity of the plants and nutes while I work a regular job. Ill just have to worry about keeping a ph in the soil good and fungal/mite infestations (if any occur).

 

[stickywicked]

I too am a newbie...but not as new as you. Before u buy anything u must set up the enviroment. Lot's of planning. I too live in a warm climate, ( fl gulf coast) so I know a little about heat. Pot stops growing at 85 deg. You must keep the room around 79 deg, without an a/c, no way. For what I spent converting my small dryer space in the laundry room, I could have bought a tent. Which is just what I did.
Also while I'm handing out wisdom. Thank god I had a bag of trash seeds I've collected. It took me a couple of runs at getting my seedlings going, using rockwool is tricky if u don't know the tricks. It could have cost me a couple of hundred bucks.

 

[Budking]

Godess is right tell ur buddies that he might save power but in the end if u want sexy smokes the led just won't cut it period

 

[Budking]

Also on the AC subject, if it is going to be hot its not gonna work and if it dosent work ur all pissed because u just wasted a lot of time for nothing. To do is right u need ballasts and 5000lumens per square ft. Which an led will not provide. This being said u need ballast period. Soooo either cool the area or find another place . I'm not trying to be a ****. But being super let down after 4 month is worse.

 

[The Silver Bullet Special]

Sticky is mold a problem for you here in the gulf? This will be my first ever attempted grow but I've been workin on plans and trying to learn good methods for the past 3 months, I never knew exactly how hot the attic got here in the sunshine state but I've decided just to use the spare bed room where the temps can be a little more cooler. I'm probably going to run 2 carbon filters just for peace of mind with the laws being the strictest in the nation here.

I was browsing through some grow light supply shops online and found they have light dome covers that contain the heat pretty well to allow your ventilation to work better.

Budking, the main reason why my friend wanted to go with LEDs was to save power, not deal with ballasts (he think's they're more of a PITA but doesnt know much about them), and to lower heat.

That actually make me think of a question what do you guys use for ballasts digital ballasts or regular old magnetic coil-over ballasts?

Also do I want a bulb with a higher PAR rating as well with lumens; or is PAR just another way they rate the bulbs?

 

[The Silver Bullet Special]

And a buddy of mine appearently had blueberry seeds and he gifted 10 of them to me, so I'll use those to practice germing before I waste 3weeks of my time and failing with Attitude's once I get everything set up

 

[The Silver Bullet Special]

Another quick question is it easy to do a continuous harvest with scroging?

An idea would be to set my soil pots sitting in a tote and build a screen for two plants(but I plan 4-6 plants), similar to THG's little closet set up, just have the pvc screen sit in the tote so when they're ready to move I can pick up the whole screen, plant, and soil in the tote.

How big of holes should I have in the screen for scrog? And the totes would serve good to catch watering run off maybe? I've seen lots of different screen set ups just dont know which one looks better.

Flower room/tent will prob be 4'x4' with the 600W hps.

 

[Budking]

Yea good call on the 600 hps' they don't put off as much heat. I use magnetic or digit ballast which ever is cheaper to acquire. They both make my light turn on . Worrying what kind of ballast to get is over kill. I just put a small fan next to them and le#ve it on high pointed at them from a few in away. Works great kills all the heat.
I have gotten away with a 1000watt in a very small closet about 4x3 and ceiling height.
Hung a fan 1inch away from the bulb and attached it to the hood on the light. The bulb was not enclosed it just hung in mid air nothing but the reseptical and a piece of sheet metal over the top. Kept the fan on high when the light was on and solved all my problems with heat

Dude my best advice is keep thing simple and don't over think things. Chicken wire will work chain link fence will work. Soccor net would propably work. The plants will grow though about anything.

Also the guy that like the led lights. Ask him if he likes to smoke ?
If he says yea which is likely tthen tell him there's a good chance that in all his years of smoking that he has probably never smoke weed grown with an led. Lol I have used led panels for veging my clones lol.

 

[The Silver Bullet Special]

Yeah I'm just tryin to figure out all I can before I go into the grow so I have a little bit more than the basics learned.. after all I like quality bud just as much as the next guy thanks for the input!

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

LOL--I am not sure if it is possible for a new grower to over-think things. The better prepared you are, the more you know, the better the grow--and the fewer ill-advised purchases you have sitting in storage gathering dust.

There are several reasons that I prefer a digi ballast over a magnetic one. First of all, they will fire both MH and HPS bulbs. You can also get adjustable digis, which I like. My 600W will run at 4 different wattages--300W, 400W, 600W, and Super Lumens. Digitals are cooler and generally operate a bit cheaper. While you can disburse the heat from a magnetic ballast with a fan, it does nothing to remove the heat from the space.

Which brings us to ventilation. What are your plans for ventilation? It is almost as important as your lighting. I believe that you are going to need at least a 448 cfm centrifuge type exhaust fan (Vortex, Can, Eclipse, etc), a speed controller, and an oscillation fan. Get a large enough fan to handle a carbon filter. Plants require a continual supply of fresh air all the time the lights are on for proper photosynthesis. This means that old CO2 depleted air must be removed and fresh air brought in. Passive intakes and a decent exhaust fan will accomplish this. Negative pressure in your space will also help contain and control smells.

I do think you could make a scrog that you could move--I designed mine so that I could do this, but on a smaller scale. You might consider some of those inexpensive furniture dollies that you can get at Harbor Freight for cheap to facilitate moving things around

 

[Grower13]

This will help......

hxxp://www.amazon.com/Marijuana-Growers-Handbook-Complete-Cultivation/dp/0932551467/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1340047679&sr=1-1&keywords=marijuana+growers+handbook

 

[Menimeth]

I too am a newbie...but not as new as you. Before u buy anything u must set up the enviroment. Lot's of planning. I too live in a warm climate, ( fl gulf coast) so I know a little about heat. Pot stops growing at 85 deg. You must keep the room around 79 deg, without an a/c, no way. For what I spent converting my small dryer space in the laundry room, I could have bought a tent. Which is just what I did.
Also while I'm handing out wisdom. Thank god I had a bag of trash seeds I've collected. It took me a couple of runs at getting my seedlings going, using rockwool is tricky if u don't know the tricks. It could have cost me a couple of hundred bucks.

I have to disagree with your assement that pot stops growing at 85 degrees. Here in texas 85 degrees is the low at night, and the day can reach 100+ in the middle of the summer, and though higher temps are hard on the plants, they will still grow well into the 90s without too much stunting in size. I am not saying that you should attempt to grow in higher temps, just that higher temps are not always the plant killer some people lead you to believe. 78 is the ideal temp while lights are on, but some places in this country can not expect to acheve those temps consistantly throughout the summer months, so you do what you can with what you have. JMHO

 

[The Silver Bullet Special]

Now that I have a basic deminsions of my flower4'x4' and veg4'x2' rooms should the ventilation run together (from veg tent to flower tent then exhause or vice versa) or should they be run seperate? Should I have the exhaust push outside through a window or add a dryer vent in the room, up through the cieling into the attic(sure way to eliminate light leaks from the light vents, ) and just put a fan on one of the attic vents to keep the humid air movin out of the attic, OR just recirculate the air and have two scrubbers (one in the flower tent and one just outside the tent in the main room. My HPS will be in a air cooled hood. To make negative pressure do I just make the intake vent smaller than the exhaust so it builds that pressure?

Good fan to use? hxxp://plantlightinghydroponics.com/vortex-inch-449-cfm-high-power-inline-fan-p-353.html

Whats a good way to keep those pesky little mites from getting in the room as well if I have outside exhaust?

Lol sorry for the birrage of questions all at once >.<

Thanks! Grower13 I will check out that book too I have the "Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Frower's Bible" its been pretty helpful but not nearly as detailed as the info I've read on this forum but good basics.