CFL requirements in veg/mother/clone room

Hi everyone, first post and hoping to have a nice little setup going. I just ordered my seeds from the attitude and hope to be growing in less than 2 weeks.

First question my veg box is 4' wide, 2' deep 3' tall. I plan to place a 16 site cloner, 2-3 mothers and 16 vegging plants in here. i have a seperate flowing box where i hope to keep 16 budding plants under a 400w hps.

For the mothers/clone box how many lumens are ideal? I was planning on putting about 8 43 watt cfls on power strips. What is the best way to calculate what the lighting requirements will be for the vegging plants?? i know its higher for flowering which is why i will move them to the HPS box. But i am looking for the ideal wattage/lumens requirements for these plants because I am ordering my supplies now.

Second question is about ventilation, this is a semi-stealth grow so i intend to order a couple PC fans to handle the air exchange. I calculate the box to be 24 cubic feet. How often should the air exchange in this veg room? should i get a 50 cfm (2 times per minute) or a 100 cfm (4 times per minute) T

Thanks alot!

any insight would be helpful. many thanks.

For veg I would recommend around 5000 lumens of cfl per sq foot, or about 60-70 watts.

Air exchange should be even higher imo. Personally I would double up on the 100cfm fans, put them side by side, or on opposite ends of your box for exhaust...and run passive intakes. Make sure your passive intakes are 2x the size of your exhaust...like if your exhaust fan is 4"x4" then make your passive intake "hole" about 4"x8"...in most cases intake fans are not neccesary. Also if you plan on running any type of carbon filter you should increase your cfm about another 50% to accomodate the loss in cfm from pushing/pulling through a scrubber. Get a fan controller and go a lil overboard with the cfm, you can always just turn them down to adjust the flow, as well as the noise.

cool?

ok, so when i begin to clone my new plants. i plan to veg them under cfl for about 2 weeks (in the auto cloner) and then immediatly put them in a flowering room for 12/12 under 400w HPS. what should the nute regiment be? do i go for bloom despite the fact they are still growing and now blooming right away or should i give them grow formula even though they are on a 12/12?

also, is passive intake okay for my 4x4 flowering area? what is the ideal CFM for this box? (4x4x4=64ft^3)

what should the nute regiment be?

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I'm assuming you're using aero or hydro of some sort, the amounts or schedule of nutes is really strain/system dependant. I would start at 1/4 str nutes after they come out of the cloner and start showing growth again, then up the amount of nutes by small increaments every few day till you see some burn and you'll know their limit.(not sure if htat's what you were asking)

I'm no expert on hydro, but personally I use veg formula the first weeks of flower then I slowly exchange veg nutes for flower nutes ... like in a 9 week flower cycle I would start with full veg nutes for 3 weeks, then mix half veg half bloom nutes for the next 3, then full bloom nutes for the last 3 weeks. Again this is very strain dependant and some strains get weened(sp) off the veg nutes in the first week or 2. My reason behind giving veg nutes at the beginnning of flower is to make sure they have enough N and some other micros to last throughout flower and they won't yellow too early before harvest. I've seen alot of the "pros" on here using veg/bloom nutes in a similar fashion and it works well. and like I said the 3 week/3week/3week thing is just a generic estimate to make it easier to explain. You want your plants to begin yellowing a few weeks before harvest...and (imo)most fan leaves should be fully yellow by harvest, this is the plant using up all the nitrogen and make for a better/faster final flush. It can take a few grows/harvests to figure out what the best regimine for your particular strain is.

Passive intake is usually the best way to go, 2 exhaust fans will be far more efficient that using one as intake and one as exhaust. The only reason for active intake is if you're pulling your intake through a small amount of surface area or if you're drawing it through some ducting or something. I'm more of an expert in smaller systems though... maybe someone else can chime in on the cfm question, or maybe ask in the grow room design area for better responces. A very rough guess would be 3x to 5x air exchange per minute...so for 64 cubic feet...maybe around 200cfm? get a second opinion for sure though on that

thanks so much. you have been very helpful. i am actually going to be planting in soil because this is my first grow ever. once i have a set of clones i plan to grow them in a cloner (about 2 weeks) and then plant them into a 12/12 cycle in my 400 hps setup and try to go for a SOG type harvest schedule. does that sound okay? i got the idea from someone who is using that schedule but i believe they are running an aeroponic setup... does that still work out for a soil grow?

ah, well soil would be quite different depending on the soil you are using, and how long it will last before you have to add nutes. You said you plan on vegging in your cloner for 2 weeks...what kind of cloner(aero/soil)? as soon as clones in hydro produce roots and start new growth they need some light nutes..maybe 1/4 strength..then build it up as they grow. If the clones are rooted in soil then they should be good to go for a month or so before you have to supplement some bloom nutes. Don't transplant to soil then immediately switch to 12/12 though..the roots won't develop hardly at all during flower...once your plants enter 12/12 they should have a well developed root stystem and the roots shouldn't be expected to grow hardly at all since the plant is focusing it's energy on flowering, where as in veg the plant was focusing on leaf and root growth basically.

its an aero cloner, how long should wait on the nutes until after i transplant into soil, how long should they remain in soil and veg before switching to 12/12? i know its dependant on soil and strain, but basic guidlines would be nice. thanks again for your help, it looks like some of the previous advice i was getting was for a full hydro setup.

How soon you should add nutes depends on how much is mixed into your soil and how much your particular strain needs, I'd guess just regular old soil should be good for at least a month of growth before you'll start seeing deficencies such as lower leaves turning yellow ( N ). You kind have to play it by ear or eye rather...keep an eye out for those deficiancies and start to supplement with light doses of bloom formula when you see them. Soil is really important by the way..not just any old garden soil will work, most garden soils are designs for flowers and are quite acidic, or have time release nutes in them, and weed won't do too well in them. I'm not saying all basic walmart type soils are crap..there's some decent stuff I guess, but you'd be better of getting some foxfarm or something. I don't know what you're using, I'm just saying


I'd say as soon as you see about 4 inches of roots popping on your clones pull them out and put them in soil...keep the soil moist (not wet) right around the stem..basically just try to get the area where the roots are slightly moist...but keep the surrounding soil somewhat dry to encourage root development..I usually pour like a tablespoon of water right at the base of the stem (I go from aero to soil myself). If your soil "room" has low humidity you might want to dome them for the first few days as well, until they start to "take" to the soil. If they go limp then they most likely need more water, if they're "bouncy" or have a kinda spring to them, then they are doing good.

I let mine get a few solid roots to the bottom of the container, but I use clear containers..exactally for the purpose of being able to see how well they are developing, though alot of people tell me it's bad ... usually takes them about 2-3 weeks to develop a nice enough root system that I don't think it will affect yields. but that also depends on the size of your containers...I use about a liter of soil and it varies between 1.5 - 3 weeks to see a nice root system, and by then they should be bout a foot tall. I think I could save alot of time by cloning directly in soil rather than aero..but I'm kinda scared..aero cloning is sooo easy lol.