Hi Guys
I've got some questions, as a first time grower and would be very grateful if anyone could give me advice:
I am looking to grow just one plant at a time, (in Coco) as it is only for personal use.
I ordered a tent online 60x60x140, i went for a small one because of space constraints and when i went to my local hydro shop the guy there told me, i was pretty much wasting my time and that size tent was only good for propagation, not the whole grow. He then came back with a £500 shopping list of the "minimum" i would need to get any good results. it goes without saying im sceptical of his advice (!), especially given i have friends who have good good results without spending nearly that much.
what im looking for is a few ounces of nice quality weed, from a hobbit auto-flowering strain (i also have some northern lights seeds, but thought the smaller plant might be better given the small tent and the fact its autoflowering, would make the whole process quicker and easier.)
I was planning on buying one of these: 200w DUAL Spectrum CFL reflector hydroponics grow light
and one of these: In Line Duct Fan Mounted Extractor Fan Hydroponics Grow Room , with a 4" diameter and airflow of 250 m/3 hr
i realise there are other small costs like duct work and plant food to take into account, but i was hoping (for this grow at least) to avoid any other major outlays.
i know about the temperature and that i will have to monitor that too.
what i want to know is; am i kidding myself/wasting my time? will the dual spectrum light be powerful enough and suffice for both growing and budding? is the tent big enough for one plant (whole grow)? and is the fan im looking at sufficient for the job?
ps if you think i can get away with the above, what light/dark cycle should i use for the grow? i was told 22hrs light/2hrs dark.....
Thanks in advance for any help
If you're looking for a couple of ounces you're gonna need a more powerful light. Why not look into a 150-250 watt HPS? The electric cost for a 250 watt isn't very much, especially when you consider how much more you'll yield with it. In fact, if your grow is set up properly a QP or even a half pound seems like it would be possible with a 250watt. I did the math for you, with a 250 watt vegging for 18/6 it'll cost you $38 a month. For a 12/12 flower cycle it'll only cost you $25 a month, and this is assuming you're in tier 4 getting charged 0.27 so it'll likely be cheaper than that! The other nice thing about a 150-250 watt bulb is it doesn't generate nearly as much heat as the 400-1000 watt bulbs, getting a grow properly set up to handle heat takes time and these bulbs are small enough to where you can take things nice and slow.
As for what your hydro store guy said, he's full of shit, only go back to buy things you have to because it's a total scam. I make my own nutes via compost tea so when I go in I get exactly what I need and nothing more. Every now and then the guys will try upselling me on something but they know that I know a good amount about organics already and that I'm small time. In fact, they've given a lot of good advice, but this is because I'm the guy who only buys guanos and cheap things like that. I don't buy chemicals or any of their products, most things can be bought on Craigslist for very cheap. Many growers will get discourages after failing once and will sell back all of their grow stuff just to try to make some money back, I've come up on 2 1000 watt hoods, bulbs, ballasts as well as two inline fans and a 250 watt switchable hood for $300 flat. All of that stuff retail would have cost me at LEAST double, if not more. So check craigslist for the things you need.
As for what you need, that 500 pounds figure is completely insane. I built a 10ftx6ft grow room for two 1000 watt hoods, one inline fan for the exhaust and another tiny 4 inch fan bringing fresh air in from outside. The total cost of this set up was $350, I spent $100 retail for the fan on amazon but everything else was craigslist. Combine that with $100 in wood and my grow cost me $350, or ~220 pounds. As for what the guy said about the tent, he's full of shit. That's a 5x5sqft tent that is almost 12 fucking feet tall. That tent is literally the perfect size to throw a 1000 watter in, a 1000 watt covers a 5x5sqft area.. the same area that your tent is!
If I may, allow me to give you a new and cheaper checklist as here's what I would personally do with that grow. The first thing I would do is set that tent up and get yourself a temp/humidity gauge (cost like $10) and a 1000 watt light if you can afford it. Then get yourself a powerful inline fan (at least 400CFM, more wouldn't hurt though) that can suck the hot air right out from the hood before it can collect and turn into heat in your grow room. The reason you aren't putting plants in yet is because you want to first test how hot the tent gets and make sure your temps are 100% perfect so the plants are never stressed. Once you have your temps set up properly you'll be all set to get the plants in there! Again, might I recommend 4 plants in 7 gallon pots under a SCROG? This would give you the best yield possible in a 5x5 space, while also giving you just enough room to prune and water. Here's your new checklist since you already got your tent coming in.
- Light set up. You'll need a hood with duct holes the same size that your inline fan is. You'll also need a bulb and ballast. Retail this will cost you between 100-300 bucks depending on the size (250-1000). However if you browse craigslist you can easily find a 1000 watt set up for $100 flat.
- Inline fan. This will control your ventilation, get one to suite your needs. If you have a 250-400 watt you'll likely need no more than 400cfms in a fan, if you have a larger bulb you might want to look into the 720CFM inline fan on Amazon. Haven't had heat problems since I got the thing. These fans will cost you $50-100 retail, but again check craigslist
- Ducting. Needs to be the size of the holes in your tent, hood, and inline fans. Don't stress if they're all different sizes, you can go down to your local hardware store and get converter pieces to change a 6 inch hole into an 8 inch hole. Just try your best to avoid this as it will make your ventilation less efficient. Ducting will run you around $20 assuming you don't need any of the converter pieces, they're 5-10 bucks a pop.
Aside from those three things I listed, all you need are pots and nutrients. Look into the geopot, they're amazing and I would highly recommend them. They are worth every penny my man! As for the medium, coco is a great start and is my favorite too because it's so damn forgiving! However, let me recommend you get at least some soil to mix with the coco. This way your coco has a little bit of whatever soil you put in too! I like doing 1/2 bag Fox Farm Ocean Forest, 1/2 bag Fox Farm Happy Frog, and 1 coco block. This has yet to fail me, and again, it's so forgiving! If you want to make things even cheaper and better for you, look into making compost teas and subcool's supersoil. I grow using the supersoil/coco mix as medium and the compost teas for nutes to supplement the super soil. The result is a much much cheaper grow because I'm not paying up the ass for chemicals :/ And again, 22 hrs light and 2 hours dark seems kind of odd. Did that jackass tell you that too? I'm starting to really not like this guy lol.
People are split between two parties with veg time, 24-0 and 18-6. Some people say that the plants need the dark period and I tend to agree with them on that, plus you're saving 6 hours a day in electricity
The good news here is that you aren't kidding yourself, but this is going to take a lot of hard work and research to make happen properly. Start learning everything you can about the plant, Ed Rosenthal has a great book that's filled with nothing but great information and I would highly recommend it. Just keep coming on here and asking questions and do tons of research. Guys at hydro stores only care about making money, so not only will they sell you expensive shit that you don't even need but sometimes they'll even give you bad advice so that you'll mess the grow up and need to come back and buy more crap. Sorry about the huge wall of text man, I'm just not the kind of guy to give out vague answers because those don't really help anyone right?
