almost ready to start need advice on a few things first

2

2EyedCyclops

Member
hello everyone this is my first post.
im about to start a small indoor grow and I need advice on a few things.
I have a good amount of experience growing outdoors, I've grown a half dozen plants out in the sun every summer for almost 10 years now. All my outdoor has been complete organic grown directly in the earth, no nutes, no soil and training. I have also done 2 single plant indoor grows under cfls with just basic Walmart soil no nutes and lst.

so now that that's out there lets get to the new setup.
I just received my seeds today, 5 crop king fem auto northern lights.


I have a 400w mh light and a few days ago I ordered this hps off ebay
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/400-watt-400w-Dimmable-HPS-MH-Grow-Light-System-Set-Kit-/150656047425?var=&hash=item2313ccd941:m:meCKX_bY5GM1KYDSSkeQDgw

tomorrow im going to build a room inside my garage. its just going to basicly be a wooden box size yet to be determined.

I also have a few just regular desk fans I will be using.

as of now I need to figure out what size of pots I should get. I was thinking 3 to 5 gallons depending on whats available (most garden stores don't really have much stock in November)
what I should use for soil, there isn't any places around me to buy like brand name soil or anything.
and how big I should build my room? I was thinking 4'x4'x6' or maybe 6'x6'x6'

I would also like to use some nutes to try and get the best yield I can, I've never used nutes before so that's a whole new subject to me.

anyways im going to germinate the seeds in a few days when the room is made and I have my soil. then I plan to use the mh light I have until my hps gets here which shouldn't be more then 10 days or so.

any advice would be good. this is my first attempt at using hid lights and using autos.
I will make make a journal once all the pieces start to come together
 
Dumme

Dumme

Well-Known Member
To each his own on the nutrients. Ask yourself, "do I want organic"? I would make the room as tall as you can. DIY is good because room size can always be changed as you grow bigger. GL, man.
 
2

2EyedCyclops

Member
I think I want to use nutes. I'm not really a weed Connoisseur so if my smoke had been given nutes at some point it wont bother me. I've just never used them before because you know, its easy to only water plants. this grow im trying to get the best yield I can.

the room will be kind of permanent. im going to frame it the same way you would if you were building a house and then covering it with ply wood. so when its built it will be hard to expand it.
 
2

2EyedCyclops

Member
how tall do these autos get? I cant really find much info on them. if the plant gets 3 feet tall and the pot is 2 feet tall I might need to make the room more like 8 feet tall instead of 6.
 
Dumme

Dumme

Well-Known Member
2EyedCyclops said:
how tall do these autos get? I cant really find much info on them. if the plant gets 3 feet tall and the pot is 2 feet tall I might need to make the room more like 8 feet tall instead of 6.
Click to expand...
It's not about plant height. Its all about the heat! Go as tall as you can on the room.
 
innerG

innerG

Well-Known Member
Make it as high as the ceiling if you can. The more empty space for heat to rise to, the better.

More air volume will help keep humidity down when you water, also.
 
2

2EyedCyclops

Member
I was just out looking in the garage. I have an auto door opener that hangs from the roof and has a rail running the length of the garage that the door slides on when it opens. I think its about 7 feet high so that would be the limit. I have more then enough space in my laundry room to do it but I think I will make It work in the garage because its not heated and that should help keep the temp down in the grow room.
 
2

2EyedCyclops

Member
just had a thought, if my garage has never been heated and all of a sudden it gets warm it might be a red flag for any heat signature equipment that might be flying over. that's just a paranoid thought. i don't think i have anything to worry about.
 
Dumme

Dumme

Well-Known Member
So, youre only using as storage and a grow? No car? Why not take out the auto-light on ceiling, block the light in the windows and grow without any walls? No construction needed
 
2

2EyedCyclops

Member
my truck is to tall to fit through the door so ya just storage and i have a workbench and whatnot in there. i thought about just growing in there without walls. but it gets like really cold here in the winter and i don't think my lights would heat the entire garage. i could be wrong about this but i was thinking having the plants contained in an area just big enough for them might help keep the light on the plants and not just lighting up the garage.
 
2

2EyedCyclops

Member
I've decided im going to use my laundry room. the rooms 12x16 and central in the house so the heat from the light can be used to help heat the house. since it will disperse throughout the house the house should stay its normal temp i just wont need to have the thermostat turned up as high.
 
2

2EyedCyclops

Member
anyone have any links for what kind of soil to use? from what I've read i want just plain soil without added nuitrients and that i should add perlite to it. my options for soil are basicly just what wallmart sells. they have a few dozen different kinds. lots of them say they have peat moss in them and some say contain manure and they have a few type of miracle grow brand soil and already has miracle grow in it.
so basicly just need to know what i do and don't want in the soil so i know what to look for on the packages tomorrow when i go to get it.
 
S

St1kybudz

Well-Known Member
So brother if your making a space to fit your lights it depends on, t h e watts of the lights. I can give you photos of the pages the info is taken from and site my sources not just give you an opinion but I will also give you my opinion based on my own personal experience. With all that said I have a few questions. Are you going to run one metal halide 400 watts and one 400 watt high pressure sodium or are you going to run the 400 watt metal halide with a 400 watt hps conversion bulb? Now for the advice. a single 400 watt metal halide is barely enough to light a 3'6x3'6x7 tent and you can max out the hight potential of any 400 watt light with a grow area that tall I started over 25 in my tent under a 400 watt mh last summer with poor results though most literature says it is sufficient I presume they mean bare minimum. My research says that in EU it is common for them to run 1 metal halide and 1 high pressure sodium both being 400 watts this presumably gives you better spectrum coverage and if you do your own research you will find that hps bulbs emit little to no waves of the uv spectrum and metal halide emit uv rays as long as they are not in a hood with a glass cover because this cover reflects the uv rays back into the hood further research will result in you finding that uv rays increase potency with that said a 400 watt light with the initial lumens of 3500-5500 will emit a mere 600-1200 lumens at 90 cm from the bulb so this helps you figure your hight now for the air circulation it is accepted that you need to exchange the air in the grow room with fresh air 3 times an hour. As far as your grow medium it's all about how much control you want over ph ec and nutrient uptake hydro offers emediate control because you control the nute solution exactly soil offers a little less control because it already has nutrients in itself I use peat mixed with Vermiculite and perlite and I add dolomite lime to stabilize the ph and I use this because I can buy it all at Lowe's and mix 3x3 cu feet for less than 30$ it is considered a soilesss mix because it has a nutrient value of 0 other thsn the miniscule amounts of calcium and magnesium the plants can get from the added lime with that said if you plant in a soilless mix you must water ND fert religiously unless you use time release formulated nutes if you have any more questions I look forward to assisting the roll it up community
 
2

2EyedCyclops

Member
St1kybudz said:
So brother if your making a space to fit your lights it depends on, t h e watts of the lights. I can give you photos of the pages the info is taken from and site my sources not just give you an opinion but I will also give you my opinion based on my own personal experience. With all that said I have a few questions. Are you going to run one metal halide 400 watts and one 400 watt high pressure sodium or are you going to run the 400 watt metal halide with a 400 watt hps conversion bulb? Now for the advice. a single 400 watt metal halide is barely enough to light a 3'6x3'6x7 tent and you can max out the hight potential of any 400 watt light with a grow area that tall I started over 25 in my tent under a 400 watt mh last summer with poor results though most literature says it is sufficient I presume they mean bare minimum. My research says that in EU it is common for them to run 1 metal halide and 1 high pressure sodium both being 400 watts this presumably gives you better spectrum coverage and if you do your own research you will find that hps bulbs emit little to no waves of the uv spectrum and metal halide emit uv rays as long as they are not in a hood with a glass cover because this cover reflects the uv rays back into the hood further research will result in you finding that uv rays increase potency with that said a 400 watt light with the initial lumens of 3500-5500 will emit a mere 600-1200 lumens at 90 cm from the bulb so this helps you figure your hight now for the air circulation it is accepted that you need to exchange the air in the grow room with fresh air 3 times an hour. As far as your grow medium it's all about how much control you want over ph ec and nutrient uptake hydro offers emediate control because you control the nute solution exactly soil offers a little less control because it already has nutrients in itself I use peat mixed with Vermiculite and perlite and I add dolomite lime to stabilize the ph and I use this because I can buy it all at Lowe's and mix 3x3 cu feet for less than 30$ it is considered a soilesss mix because it has a nutrient value of 0 other thsn the miniscule amounts of calcium and magnesium the plants can get from the added lime with that said if you plant in a soilless mix you must water ND fert religiously unless you use time release formulated nutes if you have any more questions I look forward to assisting the roll it up community
Click to expand...

from the research ive done it seams that MH lights are good for veg and HPS is good for flowering. i already ordered the 400 watt system from ebay that i linked. the ballast will work with hps and mh, i plan to use hps. i already have a 400w mh hood with a ballast built in so im going to use that until the hps i order arrives. Then i plan on using just the HPS after it arrives. the box im building is getting built around how much floor space i will need for 4 plants. im now thinking 4'x4' will be big enough. as for height i just don't want to make it to short and end up with the light to close to the plants towards the end of there life. i heard with an hps you want the light like 3 feet away from the plants?? is this true? when you said 3500-5500 lumens im pretty sure you ment 35000-55000? that's what ive seen online they produce. ive also read that you want 10,000 lumens per square foot so that should be good for a 4x4 area??
as for the soil i kind of want to get something i don't need to add nutes to but i could if i decided to later on. i want something pre packaged ready to go but i will add perlite if i don't find something with it already. no where here has like fox farm or any of the other brand names I've seen people say to use so when i read to soil packages what do i want it to say it contains? and is there anything some soils have that i don't want?
thanks for the input, this will be a total learning experience for me as im new to using hid lights and ive never grown an auto flowering strain before.
 
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