i would recommend fox farm ocean forest or humboldt for soil. its best to use a metal halide for veg, but you can use a high pressure sodium and it will work just find. you dont really need a ph meter. my entire first grow i got away without one, although if you decide to really get into it, you will def want to get one. i would start off using the fox farm nutes. the ones i use are big bloom, tiger bloom, and grow big. for the first couple weeks you should just need water. tap is usually fine however personally i go to walmart and use the culligan machine for reverse osmosis water. its under $2 for 5 gallons. put a moist paper towel in a zip lock bag and spread some seeds out. place the bag in an area of complete darkness. i prefer an old board game up in a closet(by placing it high up in a room you get a slight temp increase since heat rises). you want to make sure this spot is warm enough, like about 80°F a little under should be ok. in 2-5 days the seeds should sprout. place the seeds in small cups like 1/2 inch below soil, anything will do really but i prefer Styrofoam since they're easy to peel apart if needed. couple days and your plants should be comming up. always make sure the soil is kept moist and if using a HID light make sure its farther away than normal cause you dont want it to dry up. also a lot of light isnt needed at this point. after about a week in the cup, your roots will probably have trouble expanding so its time to transplant into small pots. be prepared, cause from this point on, especially with your 600 watter, your plants are going to explode with growth. this stage of growth is known as the vegetative state. i also like to add about 1-2 tbsp of big bloom per gallon of water. also during the vegatative stage, i keep my light running 24/7, no timer. it is much faster. others will tell you to do 18/6 and that works, but 24/7 is faster and you will get less spacing between nodes. it wont take long like maybe a week or so before the roots run out of room again, so you will want to get bigger pots again. i dont recommend starting off in big pots like i did my first grow. its much more efficient to slowly increase pot size. otherwise you have a lot of excess soil just sitting especially at the bottom of the pot. its wet and promoting mold growth. another thing you may want to do is get some neem oil. i like to make a strong mixture of it and spray just the surface of my soil. dont get it on the plant leaves cause if its too strong it will kill them. the reason i use neem is because it helps deter insects, and its great to prevent mold. every once in a while i water my plant and add a very weak solution of neem to help deter insects and stop mold through out the entire soil. but make sure its not too strong or it can kill the plant. once your plants get a few leaf sets which they probably did back in the smaller pots, use like 1 tsp per gallon of grow big. as your plants get bigger, you can add more. some strains also eat heavier than others. when your plants are big and healthy you want to put your your light on a timer. 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark. this is known as your flowering cycle. during the dark make sure no light can get through. you want complete darkness or it can stress your plant. in about 10 days after being under 12/12 you should notice pistols and hairs forming between the nodes of the plants. now you have to wait about 6-12 weeks and chop down when they look ready. you want your trichromes or crystals to be a milky white color and also just starting to turn amber. by this time most of your hairs should also be reddish brown. also during your flowering you want to use the tiger bloom nutrients instead of the grow big. i use the big bloom through out the entire cycle and eventually build up to about 4 tbsp per gallon. there really is no exact standard to doing things. a lot of it you make your own personal twist. read a LOT on this site and you will learn. you will make mistakes but dont worry, everyone does and its how you learn. what i told you is just pretty much the basics. they're right when they say there are over 1000 variables. with 600 watts you should be in excellent shape. just get some good soil and start off very light on the nutrients, especially the tiger bloom if you decide to go with fox farm. think of your first grow as more of a learning experiment. then on your 2nd grow you will pretty much have a lot better understanding on what to do. also you want a fan inside for circulation. this slightly increases the CO2 your plants get and makes the stems stronger. also you will want an exhaust fan because that light will produce a lot of heat. you want your room temp kept from about 65-85. the best is to get a hood for your light with a glass cover. the reason for this is to keep most of the heat out of the tent, and provide your plants with constant fresh air. the hood has 2 ports. 1 to suck air into the hood. if your worried about smell, you hook up a carbon filter here. the other port sucks air out of the hood. you hook this up to an exhaust fan. you want to make sure you have a very strong heavy duty exhaust with a lot of CFMs. i use this one
http://htgsupply.com/Product-GrowBright-4in-High-Velocity-Inline-Fan.asp about $100. i DO NOT recommend the smaller ones like this
http://htgsupply.com/Product-4in-Inline-Duct-Fan.asp they are most used as duct boosters but dont worry about that right now. heres a little diagram of how my setup is with my exhaust. hope this helps. anymore questions just ask an i or someone else will be happy to assist you! its quite an expensive hobby but fun as fuck. best of luck bro!
