Kush Guy's First Grow

Welcome to my first grow, I am new to this and have used the information on RollItUp as my primary source of information and have learned in the past few weeks of reading that this is a great place to learn.

Thanks to everone's posts that I read to get this far.

Hopefully someone can learn something from what I have done, either what to do or what not to do. If you have questions or comments, I would love to hear them, I may not agree or take your advise but I would love to discuss it.

Post a question in the regular grow forum and message me so others can learn, or just private message me, I willl get back to you.

I am growing a yet undetermined strain of Kush, it is supposed to be clones from an original mother for some Kush we had months back. I was able to obtain two clones (my mums) through a friend. So we'll hope it is as advertised. Maybe we'll play guess that kush later...

I am growing SOG method in soil (Sunshine #4) using GH nutes, SuperThrive (foliar and feeding) and Rev Osmosis water for everything.

The Mother and Kids Cupboard

I have added pictures of my mothers/kids cupboard. I have the mums downstairs and the kids upstairs, three 150 watt 4100K CFLs for the mums, likely overkill for two mums but room for a third I think.

Upstairs I have the kids under the light from an aerogarden. Killed the aerogarden plan, clones werent doing anything after 10 days (please dont hate on me for the AG, I suspect it was me not the AG). Moved onto rockwool on a heatmat as I read and learned more (cloning prodcess courtesy of Al B Fuct, definitely the man with a master plan and some great advise)

Both sets of lights run 24x7. After hours of reading, I found no hard consensus on dark time for the mothers or clones. So I am going with more is better for now.

I re-cut and moved the clones from the Aero into here a week ago, just cause I wanted to see if any of them might survive and I had the space but have added new taller clones from the mums this weekend.

The clones are in a "modified" rubbermaid container from walmart, I have cut up and added a dome to the top of my clones, to give them more humidity and room to grow. I am going to see how this round goes and possibly build a plexi-glass enclosure with a reptile mister inside to keep the humidity up, very dry where I live 15%-20% outside the box, ~50% inside.

I have two 80mm fans in the top and bottom, including a cutout below it covered with mesh to keep bugs out and let fresh air in. The top two are AC fans from Radio Shack and the bottom two are DC computer fans from a computer shop. The AC fans are much stronger and circulate far more air. And only $15 each, I recomment them over the PC fans.

I also have two "Febreeze" air fresheners inside, they are just a little fan with an Active Carbon Filter, it seems to keep the smell down, an ionizer fan outside the box helps too. The top and bottom also have a little 4" fan inside to keep air circulating.

Average temperature in the bottom is about 26 degrees and the top is about 30 because of the heat mat.

So that is the mums and kids home, nice little locked cabinet, keeps most of the light in, its stored in the basement beside the freezer behind a locked door so no one will happen across it.

I have included pics of the clones. AG refugees on the left and new fresh clones on the right. Also a pic of each mum, hacked and chopped, I spent lots of time looking at as many pictures before and after cloning as I could to learn how, still just guessing and trying things out. They are recovering well so I am not too worried till I learn more through experience.

Next up, the yet unused Flowering Room...

The Flowering Room

I have a 36" x 27" grow area, with at least 4' high, I can drop the raised floor and gain another 20" if necessary. The room is completely sealed except for an air vent and electrical wires running through the wall. Including sealed around the door with weather stripping and silicone around the vents, light fixture, piping etc.

I have a 250 Watt HPS, which I have learned is likely a little on the low side and I will likely upgrade to 600 Watts before I start flowering. Anyone have any input on this idea?

I built a batwing (as per Al B Fuct's design) out of two flat sheets of furnace duct, a flat piece of steel for ridgidity, a couple of metal hooks, some chain and a $10 desk fan. A little electrical tape on the edges and some white BBQ paint on the inside. The fan helps to keep air moving around the light, not sure if it will help but it was $2 in bolts to make it work, so we'll see.

The ballast is run through the wall into the server room beside it, less heat in the grow room is good. There is also a 4" pipe through the wall with a vent fan to suck air from the 18 degree air conditioned server room into the grow room. Drops the air temp about 5 degrees with this vent turned on 24x7. Cool air is circulated by the metal fan below the vent in the picture.

On the roof there is a $30 bathroom fan on a repeat timer, generally runs 15 minutes every hour. This fan vents outside the room, beside the mother/clones cabinet and is filtered through 6 layers of Active Carbon. No smell should come out of that vent, but I wont know for sure till the room is full of clones.

Testing out the heating etc, I have found 27 during 12 hours of light and 22 in 12 hours of dark, so I think I am good in that respect. I am planning on using GH nutes and SuperThrive. I am also looking at trying to rig up an automatic watering system so that I dont have to have someone come and water the kids when I am out of town.

I am growing SOG style in 5" pots once I have some clones root and can be transfered over. I'll keep posting as I have something new to post.

If anyone has any suggestions or questions, feel free to ask, I have read lots but definitely dont know everything. But I can McGyver up some sh!t with duck tape and bailing wire...

The Kush Guy