I need to produce a specific amount, am I on the right track?

Hello all,
I've done a couple of very small grows so far, both in a mini fridge. Neither were mega harvests, nor did I expect them to be. I would like to try again, but this time I want to do it right.

I'm an mmj card holder, and I use a pretty set amount every month. Basically I go through just under a quarter a week, I figure I need a perpetual system that can net me about 1oz a month or more. It would be nice if I could produce more as I would have more material for making edibles and tincture.

The main reason I want to do this is because there are no dispensaries within 150 miles of my location, not to mention dispensaries seem to charge an awful lot. I would continue to go through my "guy," but he is a hassle to deal with as well, the only reason I put up with him is because he has some great bud for around 240 an oz.

Okay, enough of the back story, here is my plan.

I found a 6'Hx4'Wx1.5'D cabinet that I plan to convert in to a grow cab. I would just use a closet, but I don't want it to be obvious, and I want it to be modular in case I move.

I plan to divide it into two sections, a veg box and a flower box.

The Veg Box:
-T5 florescent lights
-Rubbermaid hydroponic system for two mothers and four vegging clones (something like this http://cgi.ebay.com/Chronic-Ponics-6-Plant-Deep-Water-Culture-System-/170596278472?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27b854a0c8)
-Second hydroponic system for starting new clones (http://cgi.ebay.com/CloneBucket-30-hydroponic-clone-seed-starting-machine-/200568927656?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item746b0013a4)

The Flower Box:
-400w HPS
-Another 6 plant Rubbermaid hydroponic system.

Ventilation:
-10 80mm computer fans mounted 5x2 at the top of the cabinet. The will draw air through two air ducts mounted in a light baffle (no light leeks) with inline carbon filters. One duct will draw air from the lights in the veg box and another will draw from the light in the flower box.
-Intake will be passive, but I plan to run the passive intake through a small cooler that I can place ice packs and dry ice in. There will be two ducts that lead from the cooler. One will go near the base of my plants in the flower box, and the other will be routed to the veg box near the clones.
-All ballasts will be mounted outside the cab on the back to reduce heat.

My questions:
-Does this sound like a setup capable of doing what I want it to do (produce an oz a month)?
-Would it be easier to use soil, or am I on the right track with hydroponic growing.
-Should I go for a smaller HPS bulb, or say one 150w HPS and one 100w MH?
-Does my ventilation sound adequate? Or should I do more? I can't have it be too loud, its going to be in my bedroom.

Any other suggestions? Is there anything I'm missing?

yermom said:

Sounds doable. I go through around the same amount per month and only grow 6 plants at a time. I use a slightly different setup but with the right strain, it should give you plenty.

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What is your lighting setup like?

i think it sounds like a good system, for my next grow i want to do hydroponics and am probably gonna get one like the ones in the links to ebay. hydroponics can produce a bigger and faster yeild... but i have no experience in the matter '^^ but to harvest a plant once a month it might take a bit of time to get the ball rolling but definately sounds do able.

krane said:

i think it sounds like a good system, for my next grow i want to do hydroponics and am probably gonna get one like the ones in the links to ebay. hydroponics can produce a bigger and faster yeild... but i have no experience in the matter '^^ but to harvest a plant once a month it might take a bit of time to get the ball rolling but definately sounds do able.

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Yeah I figure I won't see a harvest for six months. It could be sooner than that, but I doubt it. Plus it will take me a bit of time to put it all together. I figure it will pay off in the long run though. I'll spend about what I would spend on two months worth of bud on this set up (less really) and be able to have more bud at a much lower cost in the future.

Well you are missing 1 important thing about being 'prepetual'. To be prepetual you need to add a second flowering cab. Get yourself some genetics that flower for 7-9 weeks and start a new batch every 4 weeks (ish) you take clones from a mother about two weeks before the box is ready and they go into 12/12 as soon as the finished plants come out.

At that rate you can be harvesting twice as much weed by only adding 1 more cab. For ventilation, I would use a 4" or 6" Inductor fan that can be bought at any home improvement store and while your there pick up the parts you need to make your carbon filters

Remember to make your passive intake larger than your exhaust. Also the HPS should be fine. I use a 150w hps in an enclosed 18"x16"x40" cab with a 4" inductor fan and my temps stay at about 80F.

devero420 said:

Well you are missing 1 important thing about being 'prepetual'. To be prepetual you need to add a second flowering cab. Get yourself some genetics that flower for 7-9 weeks and start a new batch every 4 weeks (ish) you take clones from a mother about two weeks before the box is ready and they go into 12/12 as soon as the finished plants come out.

At that rate you can be harvesting twice as much weed by only adding 1 more cab. For ventilation, I would use a 4" or 6" Inductor fan that can be bought at any home improvement store and while your there pick up the parts you need to make your carbon filters

Remember to make your passive intake larger than your exhaust. Also the HPS should be fine. I use a 150w hps in an enclosed 18"x16"x40" cab with a 4" inductor fan and my temps stay at about 80F.

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I'm kind of confused. Why would I need two flowering cabs? Couldn't I just do it it in one where I'm vegging in my veg box and then rotating plants every two to four weeks into my flower box once I'm up an running?

My current plan is to have a single cab divided into two cabs. They will be totally light tight and independent from each other. My idea is that when the doors of the cab are oped you are presented with two compartments on top of each other, each are 3'Hx4'Wx1.4'D with their own doors so that they can be worked on separately.

Is that kind of what you mean and I just didn't explain it very well before?

Sounds good. Very similar to what I'm doing except I have two separate cabs with a clone room on top of my flower cab. Two things I would change with your plan are; do not route cold air to clones (clones root faster if kept warm) which is why my clone space is on top of my flower cab. And make your flower cab taller then your veg cab or you are going to run into problems when your plants start stretching in early flower. Other than that sounds great. The ice pack idea is alot harder then you think, I tried it and found it only lowered my temps by one or two degrees F so I stopped finding it a waste of time. Draw up some simple blue prints before you start but you seem to have everything pretty well figured. Good luck and happy growing.
Chillums

thegrownoob said:

I'm kind of confused. Why would I need two flowering cabs? Couldn't I just do it it in one where I'm vegging in my veg box and then rotating plants every two to four weeks into my flower box once I'm up an running?

My current plan is to have a single cab divided into two cabs. They will be totally light tight and independent from each other. My idea is that when the doors of the cab are oped you are presented with two compartments on top of each other, each are 3'Hx4'Wx1.4'D with their own doors so that they can be worked on separately.

Is that kind of what you mean and I just didn't explain it very well before?

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Ok we are almost talking about the same thing, you have the right idea, I am just trying to help you refine it while you are still in the discovery phase. If you add a third cab you can have mothers that you take cuttings from. My setup is like chillums except my cloning is above my mothers, then once the clones take root (about 2 weeks) they go straight into flowering without any further veg time check out this article written by the master also read this. I use a much smaller version of his setup, except that while he has 4 flowering stages I only have 2 flower stages meaning while he gets a harvest every 2 weeks, I get it once a month (making sense?), with your setup you will get it once every 2 months. Having 2 boxes flowering all the time will atleast allow a harvest every month (2 cabs running 8 week plants staggered 4 weeks apart) and as soon as a box is done they are replaced the same day with 4 rooted clones ready to go to 12/12. Also with a separate mother box you can have mothers from different strains so you can add some variety to your operation.

Your setup will work, it is essentially the same thing, but you will have to deal with veg time, also your plants spend 2wice as much time flowering than in veg so it doesnt make sense to break up your area 50% veg and 50% flower. Trust me, I started out with two as well.

I hope that explains things a little better.

devero420 said:

Ok we are almost talking about the same thing, you have the right idea, I am just trying to help you refine it while you are still in the discovery phase. If you add a third cab you can have mothers that you take cuttings from. My setup is like chillums except my cloning is above my mothers, then once the clones take root (about 2 weeks) they go straight into flowering without any further veg time check out this article written by the master also read this. I use a much smaller version of his setup, except that while he has 4 flowering stages I only have 2 flower stages meaning while he gets a harvest every 2 weeks, I get it once a month (making sense?), with your setup you will get it once every 2 months. Having 2 boxes flowering all the time will atleast allow a harvest every month (2 cabs running 8 week plants staggered 4 weeks apart) and as soon as a box is done they are replaced the same day with 4 rooted clones ready to go to 12/12. Also with a separate mother box you can have mothers from different strains so you can add some variety to your operation.

Your setup will work, it is essentially the same thing, but you will have to deal with veg time, also your plants spend 2wice as much time flowering than in veg so it doesnt make sense to break up your area 50% veg and 50% flower. Trust me, I started out with two as well.

I hope that explains things a little better.

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2nd flower room is only necessary if he wants to be using his veg room to its full potential pumping out clones like a mad man. It's actually probably better off with 1 flower room because you can just grow buttloads of clones but only flower your best clones and just toss the extras away.

Edit: Or sell the extra clones

You should be fine as long as you can control the heat in the cab. I smoke about the same and with 6 plants I'm pulling a small yeild of around 6 oz which is enough to last me 4 months and a few oz for my patient. If you do it perpetually with little to no veg you will definately have more than you consume, I hhave been starting from seed with a couple clones thrown in the mix.

Chillums said:

Sounds good. Very similar to what I'm doing except I have two separate cabs with a clone room on top of my flower cab. Two things I would change with your plan are; do not route cold air to clones (clones root faster if kept warm) which is why my clone space is on top of my flower cab. And make your flower cab taller then your veg cab or you are going to run into problems when your plants start stretching in early flower. Other than that sounds great. The ice pack idea is alot harder then you think, I tried it and found it only lowered my temps by one or two degrees F so I stopped finding it a waste of time. Draw up some simple blue prints before you start but you seem to have everything pretty well figured. Good luck and happy growing.
Chillums

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I personally have had luck using ice in confined spaces, plus I was also thinking I could use dry ice to boost co2 levels so it will serve two purposes. I figure it won't hurt to try it because I need to set up separate light tight air ducks anyway and this is a way to facilitate that.

devero420 said:

Ok we are almost talking about the same thing, you have the right idea, I am just trying to help you refine it while you are still in the discovery phase. If you add a third cab you can have mothers that you take cuttings from. My setup is like chillums except my cloning is above my mothers, then once the clones take root (about 2 weeks) they go straight into flowering without any further veg time check out this article written by the master also read this. I use a much smaller version of his setup, except that while he has 4 flowering stages I only have 2 flower stages meaning while he gets a harvest every 2 weeks, I get it once a month (making sense?), with your setup you will get it once every 2 months. Having 2 boxes flowering all the time will atleast allow a harvest every month (2 cabs running 8 week plants staggered 4 weeks apart) and as soon as a box is done they are replaced the same day with 4 rooted clones ready to go to 12/12. Also with a separate mother box you can have mothers from different strains so you can add some variety to your operation.

Your setup will work, it is essentially the same thing, but you will have to deal with veg time, also your plants spend 2wice as much time flowering than in veg so it doesnt make sense to break up your area 50% veg and 50% flower. Trust me, I started out with two as well.

I hope that explains things a little better.

Click to expand...

I get what you are saying there, but could I do the same thing by doing it all in the same room, staggering the start time for flowering by a couple of weeks per plant and just replace plants as they are harvested?

thegrownoob said:

I get what you are saying there, but could I do the same thing by doing it all in the same room, staggering the start time for flowering by a couple of weeks per plant and just replace plants as they are harvested?

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If you have the room that would absolutely work. I only have room for 4 clones in each flower box.

devero420 said:

If you have the room that would absolutely work. I only have room for 4 clones in each flower box.

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You could also just grow to capacity harvest all at once and just keep some of your bud curing instead of smoking it. As long as its stored properly it would have the same effect as a perpetual harvest.

ExDex1x1 said:

You could also just grow to capacity harvest all at once and just keep some of your bud curing instead of smoking it. As long as its stored properly it would have the same effect as a perpetual harvest.

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Thats true, I dont like keeping large amounts of buds around, I will just start smoking more. My main goal here is not to have to buy on the street so I smoke to my hearts content until my next batch is done, then I am free to cook (or 'donate') the leftovers while I start on the new batch.

devero420 said:

Thats true, I dont like keeping large amounts of buds around, I will just start smoking more. My main goal here is not to have to buy on the street so I smoke to my hearts content until my next batch is done, then I am free to cook (or 'donate') the leftovers while I start on the new batch.

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Lol yeah good ol' temptation of having fresh bud around. Single veg room single flower room and just rotate on a schedule would probably be the best route to go, but 2 flower rooms could be nice if you have the space/time/money/giveashittery to do that.

ExDex1x1 said:

Lol yeah good ol' temptation of having fresh bud around. Single veg room single flower room and just rotate on a schedule would probably be the best route to go, but 2 flower rooms could be nice if you have the space/time/money/giveashittery to do that.

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He he, yeah if I just grow it all in one go I will use it waaay faster.

Just a thought;

You only have about 0.5 sq. m, you may as well just a run 250W. I know you seem anti the idea of having extra bud around but if you just used all your area with one 250w you could realistically expect a good 6oz provided you don't mess anything up extremely major. That's a conservative value. That would give you 2oz per month for a 3 month turn around, which is easily achieved. You might smoke more but you'll have twice as much as you need

Otherwise I'd say get a 250w to flower under and CFL's to veg. 250 is ample for flower and if you have the whole flowering period to clone and veg (ie take clones a few days into flower, clone for say 2 weeks and veg til harvest) the slow growth rate under CFL's won't be an issue, 'cause you'll have weeks and weeks to get them bigger. And if they need an extra week under HID's before flicking the lights then it'll only add a week to the whole process.

Total set-up would be about 400w, you'd harvest every 8-9 weeks and you could easily keep your yield 'down' (first time I've thought about too much yield as a problem )

thegrownoob said:

What is your lighting setup like?

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Seedlings go under a 300w equivalent cfl, then move under a 1000w MH until flowering and than get a 1000w HPS. 24 hour cycle until flowering and then 20/4, for autoflowers that is. My onyx should put off 3ozs each.