Grow Room Planning, Help Needed

[GroKing]

After months of thinking it through I've decided to do some growing, I've taken some pictures of my potential growroom and taken some measurements. It would be a great help if I could get some tips and recommendations of equipment to use, I've looked into growing a lot over the past 2 years but experience is worth more then knowledge sometimes. The main thing I am struggling with is, what system I should use to grow my plants and how many would i be able to comfortably fit in the space I have.

Hydroponics or soil? I'm not up for using coco.

I've made a little diagram on paint that shows the measurements of the little closet.

I want to use cfl's, probably a 125w blue spectrum for vegetative growth and a 125w red spectrum for flowering, but I'm open to suggestions. I've picked these due to price.

I've got a good idea of what nutrients to use if I was to grow hydroponically but any recommendations for soil..

One issue I have that I'm not sure how to work around is the fact that I have pipes that cannot be moved that lift 40in from the ground, you can see this in the picture. I was wondering whether to build a shelf above the pipes or work around them and just cover them in mylar or something reflective?

O and btw I know it's dirty but that's going to be taken care of asap, I just didn't want to work on it to find out it's quite useless.

Btw the 4x4in hole you see in the diagram is the 2nd picture, that hole leads directly outside to the back of my house.

Sorry if I'm asking for a lot but it's due to my growroom I can't fit the NFT system I wanted to and I'm quite keen on this space as it can be well insulated and has good ventilation.

 

[stopcallingmedude]

ok, first things first, your grow medium. i'm a soil grower so i would recommend that. my reasoning behind this is you only have 2 ft x 2 ft of grow space and a hydroponics system (i have found) needs a little bit more room than that.

i'm guessing you could probably only fit 2 - 3 plants in that space. go with predominantly sativa genetics, that was you can get the most out of the almost eight feet of high you have working to your advantage. that may require some light adjustments on your part. i've never used cfl's, so i'll let someone else comment on that.

throw that shit in some 5 gallon containers, get some fox farm ocean's harvest, vermiculite, bat guano (high nitrogen for veg, high phosphorus for flower). i would recommend earth juice nutrients. it's all organic and hard to nute burn if you are a beginner.

don't knock coco, it's good stuff. just put some as a one inch layer on top of your soil. cuts down on evaporation and help root growth. the coco acts as a buffer between the soil and you when you water and decreases soil compaction.

oh yeah, the last thing, that hole you have to the back of your house is great. set up an exhaust fan in their and do a passive intake system. you'll need to make a hole somewhere else in your grow room to accomodate that.

hope that helps. heyoooooooooo!

 

[stumps]

you could set up a killer bubbler system in that area. Just a thought.

 

[GroKing]

thanks for the replies guys
getting a sativa plant sounds like a great idea since I do have a massive space height-wise, didn't think of that for some reason lol. I'm probably going to use soil and than move onto hydroponics later on, I'm just hoping to get some results since this will be my first ever grow.

I'll give the coco thing a try, probably order some along with the soil and nutes.
I'll look into ordering some soil in the next couple days and cleaning that litle closet out tomorrow afternoon.

my attic is right above that closet, would it be wise to make the other hole there, in the corner? cause there's already a hole there I think I could use which I was before considering to block up, i'll post a picture tomorrow.

can anyone recommend me anything that reflects well that isn't too costly? atm i'm considering just painting the whole room mat white..

thanks for all the help!!

 

[stumps]

I'm using the black gold coco blend. seems to be working well. I'll post a pic when they wake up.

 

[GroKing]

I'm using the black gold coco blend. seems to be working well. I'll post a pic when they wake up.

I'm really interested in getting some but the difficulty I'm having is that I live in the UK and I can't find it... Considering using some standard potting soil for my first grow, or maybe some http://www.growell.co.uk/p/1304/Bio-Bizz-All-Mix-Soil.html
what do people think? I just can't get my hands on decent soil.. the product claims that "It contains an effective blend of soil (20%), compost (35%), worm castings (10%) and Perlite (30%) as well as a special 'pre-mix' (5%) of biologically active organic ingredients that have been fermented for a month to create a potent mixture"

would you say the percentage of each ingredient is sufficient to grow a good plant? (alongside the right amount of nutrients, light etc.)

thinking to get a 50 litres of the all mix.

 

[stumps]

i would get a stanard potting soil. mix with about a 1/3 pearlight. cheep and easy. And it will work thats what I started with. good luck.

 

[stumps]

don't know about price but you can get just about anything from the net.

 

[stumps]

here are pic's of the coco blend grow. this is bag seed and the one you see with bud was a auto flower about 35 days in the rest are day ten of 12/12. the pic of the cups is about 5 weeks ago

 

[GroKing]

i would get a stanard potting soil. mix with about a 1/3 pearlight. cheep and easy. And it will work thats what I started with. good luck.

that sounds great, any amount of money i can save at the moment will be a great help.. I've recently gotten some standard potting soil anyway so that saves me a lot of money which will probably go towards some reflective sheets, hopefully a few metres of some white/black/white.

I painted my walls white today and half way through I realise they're a waste of time and reflective sheets will be moe rewarding.

I'm thinking to get vermiculite too, would you recommend it? and how would i mix it with the perlite and soil?

I'm gettin a 10litre bag of perlite and 5 litre bag of vermiculite, i'm only planning to have 2 plants, sound good?

 

[stumps]

3 parts soil 2 parts perlite and 1 part vermiculite. should work. I didn't see the reason for the verm. I just use perlite add 1/3 perlite to your soil. If the potting soil has any nutes in it be carefull not to over water.
If your going to go with cfl's don't worry to much about the walls. my veg area has painted walls it's a off white works fine.

 

[stumps]

this is the current grow.

View attachment 393130

 

[GroKing]

this is the current grow.

View attachment 393130

looking sweeeet..
you using mylar?

 

[stumps]

no mylar yet just cheap space blankets from the outdoor store. bout 2.00 U.S. will get mylar for the next grow I hope. lol found it hard to take pic's in the new flower room. I have to move stuff around to get pic's and they still suck.