Beginning A Lifelong Quest For Perfection.

So, i recently moved into my own house, after a life of being held back, i plan to start growing my own weed in the hope of one day becoming great, but, I understand, everbody has to start somewhere. I have done alot of research, but everything i read seems to give a different idea of what is 'the best'. So, I am reaching out to all members of RIU for any advice or suggestions you may have to make my journey that much easier. Starting with a few questions (which i'm sure will turn into more than a few once I begin..)

I plan to plant 5 Nirvana White Rhino seeds for my first try, I though about doing 5 of another strand aswell, but as it is my first attempt, i'll keep it small. I will be doing it in my closet which is approx 3-4' deep and 6-7' long. Have i got enough space for this many plants? I am under the impression that White Rhino's don't grow very bushy, and vertical space is not a problem. If there isn't enough space, and I were to plant only, say, 3 of my seeds, how long could i keep the other 2 seeds for before I would HAVE to plant them?

I will be painting my closet with white paint, because it seems like the most appropriate option, I have read that tinfoil reflection can burn the plant and am not willing to risk this, and mylar is quite a pain to obtain in the country I live, for some reason very few retailers stock any mylar, and the ones that do charge accordingly. Money isn't a problem, but is it worth spending the extra moolah, or am I just as well off with paint?

Onto lights. So I understand that CFL's aren't the best lights available, but do the trick, and when worked properly do the trick well, but I havent really done much of my own research (I will before i go ahead with my grow) but was wondering what sort of wattage bulbs are required, and how many I need. I can easily rig up a system to lift the lights as the plants get taller and plan to have them no more than 2 inches above the plats at the start of the grow. If CFL's arent the way to go I was wondering if fluroesent bulbs would work, as I have a supply of these on hand, I dont imagine they will be as effictive, but would they be suitable to put in the closet aswell to fill in any dark spots instead of purchasing more bulbs? Also, will having a mixed variety of bulbs (e.g. 10 CFL's and 4 fluro's) impact the growth of my baby? I was also curios about LED lights, i'm not very technical, and have no understanding of lumens/lux etc. but, since LED's emit a rather bright light, would they be suitable to use for my grow? And I could just adjust the amount of bulbs according to how much wattage I would be using anyway.
One of my more important issues will be the light shedule, I don't even know where to begin with this, i though about 16/8 to begin with, then give it more sleep gradually but i'm not sure if this will be ok, and what to flower it with, as I have heard that 12/12 isn't as effective as it's made out to be, however I would LOVE for someone to prove that wrong, it would make my day lol. But seriously, can I get a few variations of good light shedules that people have used, for how long, and when you've switched.

Soil, in my country, there are literally hundreds of different soil types available at very competetive prices, why, I am unsure of, but if it will help me, I dont really care But could someone please advise me on what 'ingredients' to look for in my soil when purchasing it. Specifics would make it alot easier please.

Ventilation for my closet is what I believe is going to be the hardest thing, I thought about drilling several 6" holes in the door about the height of the plants, as i have about 5 fans that would fit in prefectly, however, this would give me the problem of light polution, so a roof vent might be my only option. Or, would the fans work the same if the door was seald and they were inside (no holes) pointed at the plants and higher up to keep the air moving. I will open the closet up for short periods of time during my girls 'daylight' hours to let fresh air in and water etc.

Which brings me to my next point, watering. I have read alot, and EVERYBODY has a different opinion on watering shedules, so as much advice as possible would be brilliant, and i'll just compile it, and try my own things to see what works best. Also, how often should I be flushing the plant?

Onto nutes, this is where I get confused more than anything else. What kind of N-P-K ratio should I be using if i start adding nutes after 2 weeks and what kind of dilution ratio should I be using with it? I found a product called rootblast, that you are ment to feed to your plant when its 3 days old for about a week, it allegedly makes the roots grow at twice the normal speed, but i'm curious, at what expense? So if anyone has tried this, can you please adivse me on whether or not it's a product worth investing in, other if it will do more harm than good to my girls.

I realise this is a bit of a fuckin' novel, and I can find all the info i'm asking for elsewhere, but it would be excellent to have all the info available to me for future reference and secondly I have read full 3-4 page articles and gotten nothing of worth out of them, so even if you could link me to a page that answers some of my questions it would be much appreciated.

Happy tokin everybody

First off, you're FINE with white paint. Use "flat" paint if you can, it will reflect the most light.

Secondly, when it comes to water this is the best pertaining thread (In my humble opinion).

As far as nutes go, I use Fox farm trio (Really simple. Comes in a three pack with directions, just 1/2 the dosage it says and you're golden).

Besides that man, good luck! Be sure to keep us updated on any grows you do!

man, with that type of interest in this hobby i believe you can be one of the greats. and we all start somewhere.
first things first, if your serious you need to buy some books on marijuana specific cultivation. i personally have two versions of jorge cervantes, indoor marijuana cultivation. and his guerrilla growing. and an ask ed along with a stack of high times 3 feet high. and have read thru every once at least ten times. not only are these packed with more info by people who do this for a living then you will ever find on forums, but they make great on hand reference guides. definitely the best investment you will make

as far as seeds. i bought my first crop of northern lights from nirvana and was very very happy. i used them again about 3 years later and was somewhat dissapointed, most likely because i bought the same strain and it just wasnt the same. white rhino is a potent white strain, i grew one cutting of it from a friend, it stayed smaller than the rest of my plants and was pretty bushy if i recall, though i dont know the breeder who supplied the plant that produced the cutting, also the clone was cut from mid stalk so it was likely to branch more than seeds.
with seeds if you plant 10 seeds, in perfect conditions one out of ten will be male, but since your new assume half will be male, so thats five seeds left for flowers. out of those five some will be great and some will be small, and you can count on ending up with about 3 strong plants that you can mother.

FLAT white paint is the way to go, its simple and easy. mylar is difficult to hang, makes noise as the fans hit it, collects dust because of static charge and loses reflective spots. flat white paint reflects almost as much light as mylar anyway

as far as lights
for seedlings and clones you can use T5 flourecent lighting, really you can use any flourecent to grow but they dont give fast growth

CFL lights are just above tube flourecent in my opinion generally lights burn in two temperatures 6500k which is blue, a cooler burning light that mimics the spring sun best used for vegging. and a 2500k which is orange, a warmer burning light best for flowering. these ratings are usually on the box but can be hard to find
any cfl can work but the more wattage the better growth, but at the same time more heat and the farther a plant must be from the light, most cfls can be placed inches from plants.

HID High intensity discharge lights are pretty much a standard in production growrooms. you will likely end up using one of these lights if you are serious about growing most growers use 400w 600w or 1000w hid lights, these lights are usually at higher wattage and lumen output and produce the proper spectrum for cannabis growth
cannabis prefers around 10,000 lumens of light to grow productively. there are two major HIDs used in growrooms
-MH metal halide- blue spectrum light for vegitive growth
-HPS high pressure sodium- perfect for flowering, although having only the orange spectrum has been said to cause stretching, some growers use combination MH and HPS for flowering

unfortunately i dont have much experience with LED lights so any comments would be speculation

as far as soil i use "Subcools Supersoil" mix and water with only water, this is a mix i found in a "west coast cannabis" medical marijuana magazine, it has also been featured in high times and works well , google it. i also hear good things about fox farm soil and nutes.

ventilation is best achived by cutting two holes. one at the base of the plants for intake and one near the lights to exhuast hot stale air. you need a fan that can exhuast all the air in your grow room in five minutes. fans are rated in cfm (cubic feet per minute) just compare the fan rating to the volume (length x with x height) of your grow room.

best to water plants as needed if you give them too much water they suffocate and drown, too little and the sensitive hairs on roots dry and die. stick your finger in the soil down to the first knuckle, if you feel moisture your fine, if its dry then water your plant till water comes out the holes in the bottom of the pot. try to get the whole pot evenly moist as dry pockets in your soil wont grow roots.
small seedlings however need the soil to stay evenly moist throughout the medium, but not at all soggy. when plants are young they usually only have a single taproot that can easily dry out and kill the plant, or become waterlogged and lead to damping off, or other cultural problems

good luck man, and pass any knowledge you gain on to the next person, hopefully you do become a conniossuer grade grower

First off, thanks heaps for the replys. They will help me alot when my time comes to begin growing
Mkay, i'm thinking about ordering 'Jorge Cervantes - Indoor Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor Bible' to start with, and buying my first issue of high times (the start of a lifelong collection I imagine )

With the lights.. (I changed my mind and only want to do 4 to start, I would be happy with 1 good plant to begin ) If I were to buy 4 x 250w HPS lights that are approx 10" long each to have above the plants, and 6 small CFL bulbs to put between and around, do you think this would do the trick for the whole grow? Or would I be better to get some HID's straight up, and use them right through the grow? Its quite convinient that you said flat white paint, as I have an unused bucket in my garage I did a small amount of research into soil, but to no avail, I pretty much re-read what I already know. However, I though (briefly) about using peat as a medium, where I live it is used ALOT in vege gardens, tobacco growth, and native horticulture, but that doesnt mean it will work, therefore, i'm going to do my own experiment, and have 1 of my girls planted in peat, and the rest in a foxfarm soil, in which I am yet to decide on. Also, how hot do HID's get? Not exactly, but do they get hot enough that i'll have to have them away from the girls?

Thank-you so, so much for the link to the water article, it answered everything I need to know, and I learned some interesting stuff about a seeminly, plain and boring substance. I think that i'll just boil my water for feeding, and mixing with nutes, and flush with bought still water. Thanks for the knuckle method of checking, one of the things I was worried about is because it's my first grow i wouldn't be able to judge well enough if the soil was to wet or dry, also, could I ask for some opinions on germiantion, I have read a few methods, like leaving the seeds in water and stirring, warming water, soaking the seeds and then putting in paper towels and keeping warm, damp paper towels in plates, the list goes on, but I was just curios about what methods have worked BEST for people, if they have failed more than once, or do so regularly, i'm not keen lol.

With fans, would it be more efficient to have some small fans aimed at the girls, and a large on at the lights for exhaust? I have plenty of different sized fans, so if they arent working properly I can just switch them around untill I get a setup that works.

I wont start growing untill I am confident I can do a good job, so sadly could be a month or two before I begin. But I will definatly be sharing my experiences/experience with any other members of RIU who want some help. This site has given me so much info that I will gladly give back when I have some more knowledge under my belt. I know I cant learn everything from reading, and it will be harder to do than it is to read about, but i'm always up for a challenge

Thanks again guys, so, so much.

Happy tokin

hey stoner buddies...i read ed's book rosenthal is his last name...books available on amazon.
i get some seeds from g13 labs and attitude. i'm trying different things in the hope i hit on something incredible and then i'll clone the shit out of it.
i'm seriously thinking of buying a couple of t5 badboys. they come in different sizes. i want a 16 tube one.
as far as soil subcool rocks. i get worm castings sent to my house. it's great shit.

thanks for the like kronic

as far as lights i had my grow set up with my mothers under 125w 6500k cfls, my clones under 4 ft T5 flourecents, 40 vegging plants under two 400watt metal halides and 40 flowering females under 4 1000watt high pressure sodiums. it took some know how to wire them all up but worked well for my medical production crop. i have used cfl lights for an entire grow, and have started seedlings with a 400w Metal Halide, really it should rely on the size of your grow, and the size of your wallet. yes HID lights produce a bunch of heat and require adaquate ventilation to make plants grow well, generally you cant put a 1000watt HPS in a small closet because of the heat it will produce, if heat is a factor cfl lights may be the way to go in smaller grows (though they limit yeilds to moderate)
with heat a good rule of thumb is to place your hand just above the tops of your plants, feel the heat from the light, if it feels uncomfortable then its too hot, depending on the light size you should keep HIDs 12 to 36 inches away from plants. this can be counter productive because light output in lumens decreases by one square each foot away from the bulb. imagine (simplified for explanatory purposes) a 400w MH produces 16 lumens at the bulb, if you move one foot away it only produces 4 lumens (output = (square root of lumens at bulb) x distance in feet), and so on for each foot away.
so a light will only be effective at a certain range depending on wattage, a 600w light wont effectively illuminate a five foot tall plant, only the top buds would recive light.

for germinating seedlings i have good success letting seeds sit in a glass of water till they sink ( this lets moisture break through and begin the germination proccess within 1 day of starting seeds)
next i place them in a very moist paper towel then put the wet paper towel in a plastic baggy so they dont dry out.
once a day i open the bag and let the little rootlet breath as i examine the taproot
once the taproot is an inch or so long or the seedling leaves are sprouting i plant the rootlet just below the soil line and water thoroughly, the seedling usually sprouts the next day
from start to sprout this method has close to 100% germination in about 4 days

with fans its a good idea to have one smaller occilating fan blowing on the base of the plants, you dont really need an intake fan but you can have one as long as its not as big as your exhuast fan, one exhuast fan is all you need aside from an ocilating fan for circulation. try to buy an inline fan or squirrel cage fan, any fan that is easily hooked to ducting so you can direct the air, have the begining of the exhuast duct next to the light and vent air out of the box or even outside.
i have two copies of the indoor bible, the current one has many pictures and illistrations to outline the point.
good luck again kronic

Thanks guys.
Is Ed's book worth purchasing? Like, does it have information that will help me right from the word go?

Thanks for the info on the lights man, it's going to help alot. Is it possible to have to many lights if I have good ventilation? And will it stun the growth if I have different types of bulbs lighting them e.g. one HID a few CFL's and two HPS bulbs? Or would I be better off with one type of bulb?

Thanks for the germination advice but just for clarification, do I leave the seed in for 1 day, or untill the seed sinks to the bottom, sorry, thought I had better check lol. I'm going to order the bible, and start my own journal when I start growing, so that i know exactly what methods/setups work for me, and so I can share them with the cannabis world

Would an extractor fan in the roof, plus one small occilating fan like you suggested and one larger fan aimed higher, to where the hotter air will be, work for a closet setup? Because I have an extractor for a bathroom, and the 'know how' to install it, so it might be an option, if it would be worth the effort.

Yup it does. The only thing is I dont agree with how he cures his weed. I use simonDs' method which I can dig up...wait
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=156237
There it is

Hey whats up Kronic, im a beginning grower as well. I've recently started a grow journal and first cab build, i'll let you know if you go with HPS be sure your have PLENTY of air flow in and out as this was a problem of mine that i could of avoided if i had prepared better in the beginning, you may even want to look into 6 inch duct boosters or inline fans, that way you can pump air in and exhaust your grow area using vent hosing. You can actually order these online for fairly cheap, walmart has the inline booster fans for 20 bucks, its in the Marine section made by Attwood
As far as germination theres several methods, in the end i chose to plant my in a ph balanced grodan growcube, placed inside a ziplock bag with a half inch left open in the lid, have it sitting on top of the xbox for some light warmth underneath, the interior looks nice and humid.
As far as Nutes, im going with the Toke-N-Grow stuff, it comes in pre-portioned bags, 1 per 5 gallons of water, they have a chart to help you order exactly what you need, each one of my 3 1/2 gal buckets holds around 2.2 gals of water, i ordered enough nutes for start to finish for under 40 bucks, and it gives me enough to do 2 plants.
Best of luck to ya buddy, have a feeling you will do great down the road. Can't wait till u post some bud porn!

Thanks guys, my internet shat it's pants and I only got it fixed about 2 hours ago, unhappy customer >.< lol. Yeah, Hank, if I go for the HPS system, I most likely won't do a closet grow, ill just use my spare room, and have a few small grows seperate around the room. That way I can stop it from getting too hot too fast, and can have a ventilation system in the room, instead of having to piss around with one in a closet lol. Im gonna go big on nutes, this isnt going to be my only grow, so im gonna buy a few different types of nutes and try them in the different plants to see what works best with the method im using, that way next time I can get the best possible yield and nicest/skunkiest bud possible. Thanks for dropping by, ill keep my eye on your journal looking forward to the bud porn

Chur for the curing method, it is by far, the best looking method of curing weed I have seen, and I have read ALOT lol. But, like everything, theres bound to be better, more effective ones out there for me to discover from trying new things.

Thanks again guys

Happy tokin

My current grow had a light schedule of 16/8 before scaling back to 12/12 over a 2 week period. I find nothing wrong with my girls relaxing and getting a little fat, I don't discriminate against husky ladies.

hey pal, two things that i dont think have been said yet (my apologies if i missed them), first LED lights are nice to veg, but i personally haven't seen them out produce HPS. also, as far as knowing when to water, pick up the pots/buckets before and after you water, and that way you will learn the weights of wet soil and dry soil. also, when the plant is thirsty the leaves will all start to look weak and droopy. a big mistake rookies make is over watering, this method will help you avoid that. if you cant find SubCools soil, look for fox farm ocean forest, it's a great starter soil.

and learn about PH, get a digital PH reader, and PH up & down. you will need it, i promise you.

lights, play with them, if possible, look up the home region of the plant and try to mimic its cycles. DJ Short points out in his book that most equatorial sativas have a veg cycle in nature closer to 13.5/10.5 than 18/6 or 24/0, he also points out that the flowering cycle for the same plant would be closer to 11/13 than 12/12. play around with the times, you may learn or discover something that will change how all farmers grow forever

GoodLuck!
JC