Noob grower

Hey guys, I've been lurking the forums for a while now and finally decided to make an account. So I'll cut straight to the chase! i have 1 grow under my belt from last year. I grew 2 clones (they were a gift) outdoors in a tropical climate. They grew very nicely but unfortunately hermied up. Since then I've moved to Europe. I may be getting a new apartment later on this year and if I do I would like to start my 2nd grow. After much research I been wanting to go with:

2 dwc buckets from power grow systems (dunno if I should do the 6" or 10"?)
4x4 grow tent (haven't picked the brand yet)
2 Mars hydro 144 reflector series lights
earth juice sugar peak system
Strain I been thinking was blue dream, northern lights or something else- something good for noobs, and gets great results for quality and quantity
Lastly, how many fans do I need? 1 exhaust fan hooked up to a carbon filter (is ducting necessary?), but how many more fans needed to push air around? Also I think I'll just have passive intake, no inline fan
And how does one set all this up safely as far as electricity hazards go?

Btw, I would love to scrog this

Thanks everyone!!

Dlowsky said:

Hey guys, I've been lurking the forums for a while now and finally decided to make an account. So I'll cut straight to the chase! i have 1 grow under my belt from last year. I grew 2 clones (they were a gift) outdoors in a tropical climate. They grew very nicely but unfortunately hermied up. Since then I've moved to Europe. I may be getting a new apartment later on this year and if I do I would like to start my 2nd grow. After much research I been wanting to go with:

2 dwc buckets from power grow systems (dunno if I should do the 6" or 10"?)
4x4 grow tent (haven't picked the brand yet)
2 Mars hydro 144 reflector series lights
earth juice sugar peak system
Strain I been thinking was blue dream, northern lights or something else- something good for noobs, and gets great results for quality and quantity
Lastly, how many fans do I need? 1 exhaust fan hooked up to a carbon filter (is ducting necessary?), but how many more fans needed to push air around? Also I think I'll just have passive intake, no inline fan
And how does one set all this up safely as far as electricity hazards go?

Btw, I would love to scrog this

Thanks everyone!!

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First off don't waste your money on any dwc grow systems. Just buy two black buckets, two net pot lids, air hosing, 4 air stones and two or one air pump/s. Drill two holes in the buckets, not the lid but in the side of the bucket like an inch from the top rim. Put air stones in bottom of buckets and connect air stones to hoses and run hoses thru those holes and to your air pumps and/or air pump. Probably cost ya like $50 and you won't risk getting some shitty air pump you'll have to replace anyway. That's what I did when I started, live and learn. For thoughts on an air pump, I run a 60GPH Tetra Whisper air pump(only $13) for one 5 gal bucket, quiet as all hell, the pump that came with the "grow system" that I first bought could be heard from 20 miles away the fucker was so loud. You could probably run the 100GPH model(only $1 and just run a connector so that the two hoses split at the end to your two air stones, run one hose to each bucket.

Idk anything about LED's so can't help there.

As for fans, it all depends on how much heat your light is producing, as mentioned idk what that LED is gunna produce heat wise but prolly still a good bit. Next it depends on the temperature of the air you are bringing into your tent.

At least you will want 1 exhaust fan hooked to a carbon filter. With mine ducting was necessary because mine did not attached to each other and I needed to run the ducting out the hole in the tent. I run with passive intake but I have cold air outside my tent so no reason to force air in to quickly.

Thanks for the helpful advice!
I'll give it a shot at the DIY dwc buckets, what do you do as far as maintenance and cleaning goes for the buckets? Especially if it's a scrog set up?
I checked out your 1 plant grow journal, and I took a lot of the advice over at growweedeasy as well. Looking to put that scrog tutorial into action

As far as LEDs go, they are supposed to be vastly improved year by year and they produce a fraction of the heat and electricity as hps/mh do.

How does one go about safely setting everything up? I don't want any electrical hazards or wall sockets blowing out lol.

Lastly yea I was gonna run an exhaust fan and carbon filter at the least but, idk if I need one or two oscillating fans for air current to create a breeze. One above the leaf canopy and one below, thoughts?

I wanna try to keep it as simple as possible and avoid having too many unnecessary components

Dlowsky said:

Thanks for the helpful advice!
I'll give it a shot at the DIY dwc buckets, what do you do as far as maintenance and cleaning goes for the buckets? Especially if it's a scrog set up?
I checked out your 1 plant grow journal, and I took a lot of the advice over at growweedeasy as well. Looking to put that scrog tutorial into action

As far as LEDs go, they are supposed to be vastly improved year by year and they produce a fraction of the heat and electricity as hps/mh do.

How does one go about safely setting everything up? I don't want any electrical hazards or wall sockets blowing out lol.

Lastly yea I was gonna run an exhaust fan and carbon filter at the least but, idk if I need one or two oscillating fans for air current to create a breeze. One above the leaf canopy and one below, thoughts?

I wanna try to keep it as simple as possible and avoid having too many unnecessary components

Click to expand...

Welcome. As for cleaning, you can run it a whole grow with just topping off and/or pumping out and refilling water. I prefer not to while i can, i empty and spray bucket quick with water during veg before roots are huge, nets attached and it becomes to much of a hassle. Then i just pump out little remaining water after it drinks most and refill. After a grow clean it good.

Just don't run over like 1500 watts per wall outlet, as most can at least carry that, i dont know jack shit about electricity but when i was worried about the same thing i looked that up and am following that. Breaker would probably just safety off at overload anyway though. Someone can correct me if i'm wrong. Other than that just read the labels on shit and know how many watts your running through what and don't overload a power strip. Make sure you don't mess with water over plugs either since your doing hydro.

Get two fans, i run two at the top of my canopy, one blows across bulb and other blows across tops. I could even run another at the bottom but my passive intake comes from bottom so i figure that keeps air moving down there.

Whats the air temp that will be coming into the tent?

I haven't seen what the apartment looks like yet, I'll know more within the coming months, but the outside temp in the summer will be in the 70s and 80s, and then get cooler all the way down into the 40s and 30s in the winter. But I mean there's GOTTA be climate control in the apartment I'm sure. What lights do you use? I'm adamant on going LED and Mars hydro seems the best for the price imo but I see so many different opinions on LEDs and between different brands and whatnot.

Dlowsky said:

I haven't seen what the apartment looks like yet, I'll know more within the coming months, but the outside temp in the summer will be in the 70s and 80s, and then get cooler all the way down into the 40s and 30s in the winter. But I mean there's GOTTA be climate control in the apartment I'm sure. What lights do you use? I'm adamant on going LED and Mars hydro seems the best for the price imo but I see so many different opinions on LEDs and between different brands and whatnot.

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Ohkay, yeah you should have something to control temps, even if it's just window AC units, it'd be worth buying one for just the room its gunna be in if there ain't one already.

I run a 600w HPS in a 3x3x7 tent with one 5 gal dwc bucket, the one plant fills the whole tent. I have it in my basement tho so i have cold temps to bring into my tent so i just use passive intake and one 4" fan and carbon filter. I started with a 250w, went to a 400w and just got the 600w yesterday because i saw that I could handle the temps.

Yeah with LED's still being kinda newish to the growing world I just skipped over them since the beginning, ton more info available on HID's. I like that they aren't as hot though, thats what sucks about HID's, i'd say find the LED section of RIU and talk to some guys there. I actually started with CFL's a year ago and did two CFL grows and now my current grow is the first one under HID lighting.

Awesome! What were your yields and quality under the CFLs? What strain? I saw your thread! Looks like your following LBHs tutorial to a T. my first grow was outdoors in soil pots and I didn't do any plant training so it was pretty straightforward , did you scrog your first two grows as well? A lot of the inspiration I have for this setup comes from those grow journals over at growweedeasy

Dlowsky said:

Awesome! What were your yields and quality under the CFLs? What strain? I saw your thread! Looks like your following LBHs tutorial to a T. my first grow was outdoors in soil pots and I didn't do any plant training so it was pretty straightforward , did you scrog your first two grows as well? A lot of the inspiration I have for this setup comes from those grow journals over at growweedeasy

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I ran a random bagseed for my first grow(picture with rubber glove on) and it was good quality for being bagseed, pulled 3 ounces under 168W of CFL. Then I ran Blue Mystic by Nirvana(other pic), it yielded like 7 grams less but was some frosty as all hell shit and fantastic smoke. Both grows had no training at all, just let them grow out all natural with a 1 month veg, I was too worried about getting in over my head, just wanted to start slow. But after training this one I realized I should have been doing it since the beginning, it's so straight forward, just don't over think anything when growing.

Yeah this grow I topped at the point LBH mentions and didn't top again but just LST'd the shit outta it and used the scrog net to help. I'm gunna have one hell of a yield, I can hopefully pull anywhere from 8-12oz off this current one.

helllllll yea that 2nd one looks nice! You running blue mystic on this one as well? 8-12oz will be sick that's what I'm looking to do per plant for the next one but eh, gotta get the popcorn run outta the way. I found a thread about LEDs but can't find a reliable answer yet cause everyone is going back and forth about what is best. I'll be following your grow from now on, interested to see what happens

Dlowsky said:

helllllll yea that 2nd one looks nice! You running blue mystic on this one as well? 8-12oz will be sick that's what I'm looking to do per plant for the next one but eh, gotta get the popcorn run outta the way. I found a thread about LEDs but can't find a reliable answer yet cause everyone is going back and forth about what is best. I'll be following your grow from now on, interested to see what happens

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I got blue mystic and northerlights in flower right now both wonderful strains

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Awesome man! Yea I been thinking about doing northern lights, I suppose it's good for beginners. What's your setup like?

Dlowsky said:

helllllll yea that 2nd one looks nice! You running blue mystic on this one as well? 8-12oz will be sick that's what I'm looking to do per plant for the next one but eh, gotta get the popcorn run outta the way. I found a thread about LEDs but can't find a reliable answer yet cause everyone is going back and forth about what is best. I'll be following your grow from now on, interested to see what happens

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Yeah it's awesome, i got 4 more fem seeds of it too so will def grow again. Running Original Amnesia right now, it was actually a freebie with my seed order. Hell yeah i can't wait till harvest time, gunna be awesome going from CFL's to this 600w.

420monster said:

I got blue mystic and northerlights in flower right now both wonderful strains

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Nice man, I love how frosty blue mystic is, great bag appeal!

Dlowsky said:

Awesome man! Yea I been thinking about doing northern lights, I suppose it's good for beginners. What's your setup like?

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At the moment 1 600w hps in a 5x5 with t5 side lighting vegged for 2 months 5 gallon air pots 3 nl 4 bm 2 freebies haven't showed sex yet it's 1 week today of flower but I got apricot og and green demon from jaws sprouting right now they will be under 2 600w and some t5 sides

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