First grow - bag seed x8 - CFL - 4x4x4 cab or 3x3x3

the 23 watts are listed at 1900 lumens each. so thats 34200 lumens currently. supposedly.

just checked the temp. it is at 86 and dropping! wicked happy! THANKS GASTANKER and MATTTHEBRUTE! all it needed was another set of intakes. can always add the more powerful fan later on, and also the thermocube plug in thermostat if needed. and the speed controller. I'm going to be almost doubling the wattage when i add more cfls (if i add more...) for flower, so probably will have to upgrade the fan then. we shall see. in the meantime the lil ladies (hopefully) are growing like wild!

ok so i may be convinced to get a brandy new 400, 600, or 1000 watt grow light. they all come with a MH and HPS bulb. is the digital ballast worth it or are magnetic ones fine? for the box i have now, what could i put inside it max? would obv have to have its own venting, not a problem was planning on getting the inline fan anyway.

looking at around $300 for a light. in for a penny, in for a pound. or fuck it, just take all my money. lol.

eventually get a grow tent too. or stick with the cab???

someone read how much I've spent on cfls and yell at me please. lol.

haha man, i didnt mean for you to feel stupid. really the CFL will be good to use later on if you do get a tent you can utilize your grow box and the tent and have a veg cab and a flower cab.

right now i wouldnt run more than a 400W HID light in there but you can always do what i was going to do and get a 1000w with diamble ballast down to 400W and will have the bigger light for later if you want to use it. if not just go with a 400w light, i dont know what size tent you would ultimatly end up bying so you may want to consider that. if your tent is going to be too small for the 1000w but big enough for a 600w then get the 600w with dimable down to 400w cuz a 600w is a bit big for your current setup.

this all depends on your $$ situation too, if you can afford it the HID light will be a better light, but you should be able to finish growing with what you have right now and still be happy with your outcome, up to you..

as for magnetic vs electronic i dont know to be honest.

Don't feel stupid for going CFL to start. $200 got you 600w which can easily grow an ounce a week in your 3x3x3 box - an absolutely great deal. My favorite part about CFLs is that you can always use for a great veg and when your bulbs blow in your house you are always stocked - the bulbs themselves will always go to use.

If you do go with an HID I would recommend a 400w or 600w dimmable digital ballast. I think 600w is the most you could get away with in a 3x3x3 and with it dimmable you can always run it at 400w if the heat is too much. 400w dimmable really shouldn't have any problems with heat and can still yield you quite a bit.

Crazy how cheap grow kits are getting. If you do choose to upgrade this is what I would recommend:

Budget line (make sure to select an aircooled sealed hood):
400w http://www.ebay.com/itm/400w-400-watt-HPS-MH-Grow-Light-System-Set-Premium-Kit-Dimm-Green-House-iPower-/160683199645?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item6b1c7931a8
600w http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160658543505

Quality:
Ballast: http://www.urbansunshine.com/digital-ballasts
Hood: http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200692118392

I would suggest at least a grow with just CFLs - get use to growing before having to worry about equipment/heat issues (HID equipment/heat issues).

radeonDEUS said:

the 23 watts are listed at 1900 lumens each. so thats 34200 lumens currently. supposedly.

Click to expand...

Light is logarithmic. You can have 77 of those bulbs at 1990 lumens each (1990x77=146,300) and they're still not going to make as much light as a single 1000 watt HPS Hortilux rated at 145,000 lumens. It's the same as sound. Say you have some big speakers and amps pushing 100db of sound. If you add twice the amount of amps and speakers you're not going to have 200db of sound. I'm sure the logarithms of sound and light use totally different equations but the same theory applies.

thanks noman yeah i kinda figured there was a cutoff point. i def wana get a sick hood now. lol. get that ballast thats select a wattage so i can upgrade as i want. def wana eventually have a big tent or room. how big an area does a 1000 watt cover? like whats the max tent size? I'm feeling ambitious. lol.

gastanker, thanks man its awesome to hear that i could potentially get an ounce a week! lol so how exactly would i end up doing that? lol...like doing a mother chamber and cloning? then lst'ing and topping and scrogging and SoG'ing and sticking my penis in the soil and lol WHAT!?!? hahaha...

matt, yeah thats true, the cfls will always have SOME useful capacity. i dig the idea of using one cab for veg and one for flower.

so how big a tent can a 1000 handle? i seriously could have an entire bedroom sized room, not HUGE mind you, but big, to set up as i please...thinking about trying a DWC hydro grow next. i can dig the whole water pumping action setup being an avid aquascaper (I'm queer i know lol) so i think i could set up my own rig fairly easily...thinking of a 4 pot setup to start.

Hey bro, I run 2 400W bulbs in a 4x4x78 grow rent, works real well....

thanks enzo! yeah I'm just dreaming at this point. have to get at least a full grow under my belt first. then gotta drop what, 6 or 7 bills on a tent and 2 hoods? i will have the fan...lol...i may upgrade the lighting in this cab though.

scroll down a tad on this thread and look at my post - https://www.rollitup.org/stealth-micro-cab-growing/492230-ounce-month-how-realistic.html

A 1000w light covers between a 4x4 and a 5x5 area. You can run a 1kW in a 4x4 tent but it gets hot and air control is difficult, I would recommend a 5x5 tent or a larger room just just to make it easier on yourself.

ok sick. lol so how do i do a rotation? i mean as of now i just have the 9 plants...3 of which are juvenile comparatively. by next pic update these lil guys are about the size that urs look in that post when u said u start flowering at that stage. i assumed that cause mine are really pretty short that they need to veg for longer...but they do have like 4 or 5 sets of nodes already, like half an inch apart...

so gastanker how could i continue on so i can harvest an ounce a week? i assume u mean, in my case, for 9 weeks until there are no more plants? i guess I'm confused how you mean...

god of graphics card,

With all due respect...and you know I mean it, Your "grow brain" is going a mile a minute.

Maybe it's the indica taking....Oh, and you would never buy a tent...you would build one like "pimp my tent".

ie....I am VERY happy with my tent, but I have flaps and ducts that I will never use 'cause this is my own medicine and my environment wtf I'm baked.........

Ok I'm sorry...I'm growtarded !!!!!

first grow

lol gersman niiiicceee...i think my problem, is that my buddy, is outta town. til the 3rd. I've been hitting fucking rez and keif, which is nice, but not as like my only smoke. my brain is NONfried. nongood. going too quickly. the harder i think, the faster my plants grow, right? lol.

yeah i hear ya. slow it down. enjoy myself, and the process. i think thats what you meant, lol..not exactly the most coherent post I've ever read, but damn do i love it lol.

actually, i do have a question. do i feed every time? i mean i haven't straight watered since i started feeding at half strength.

p.s. sick grow gersman. thats your first grow?

I'm too baked to give you a great answer right now...remember I said let them tell you what they need ! In an ideal soil grow the answer is wean them up, don't overdo it, and watch the green grow.

I started with a dog crate, HID, and Mylar. LOL

To have a perpetual you would either need access to lots of seeds, cheap clones, or have a tiny veg cab. It can be tiny tiny - I used a 1x1x1.5' cupboard with ~50w of CFL for mine.

The idea is to take some cuttings of your current plants or start some new seeds. When your first plants are around four weeks from harvest pop two new plants into the flower box. Two weeks later pop another two plants. At harvest of your first plants pop in another two plants. At this point you have two plants 4 weeks into flower, two plants two weeks into flower, and two plants just entering flower. If you keep this pattern up and harvest at 8 weeks you'll harvest two plants every two weeks and pop another two plants into flower.

The way I maintained my perpetual while keeping a tiny cab was a mixture of plants from seeds and taking a clone per plant right before popping them into flower. If you take a clone per plant right before putting it into flower you can actually maintain a huge number of different strains while not having to worry about room for mothers and having high plant counts.

Perpetual is really nice imo because you can generally have many more plants in flower at the same time due to them being in different stages. A fully flowering small plant takes up ~ 1'x1' so in a 3x3 area that is 9 fully flowering plants. A plant two weeks into flower takes up ~6"x6" so instead of 9 plants in full flower you could have 7 in full flower and 8 two weeks in - almost twice the number of plants in flower at the same time. If all your plants flower for the same amount of time and yield the same then the only other factor determining yield is how many plants you can flower in a given time in which case a perpetual is by far the most efficient.

ok. if i follow, and forgive me if i don't, its late and...yeah...lol...what you're saying is i definitely need another space. one for germ/sprout/veg and one for flower. or some combination. i happen to have a lil baggie full of albeit bagseed but theres 75 of them, all seem viable, and all from the same source as my current plants, which have at the very least a high rate of living. i think only like 3 of the 12 seeds i have tried to grow have failed to sprout. so i can def do whatever i need. i want to try breeding at some point, like when i get farther than i am now lol.

i can germinate and sprout seeds no problem. i think i am getting veg stage down too. its flowering i haven't experienced yet. i think what i want to do is turn my current cab into a mother/veg cab and set up a flowering cab or tent. given all that i have learned so far, and where i am at now and want to go, i think this makes the most sense. the beautiful part is, that i am realizing this as i type it. what an idea! i have a space opening up, i could do what i need to to fund at the very least a replica of the cab i have now except with a HID light for flower. would it be better to get a tent? idk...great ideas though. fucking LOVE this forum.

radeonDEUS said:

ok. if i follow, and forgive me if i don't, its late and...yeah...lol...what you're saying is i definitely need another space. one for germ/sprout/veg and one for flower. or some combination. i happen to have a lil baggie full of albeit bagseed but theres 75 of them, all seem viable, and all from the same source as my current plants, which have at the very least a high rate of living. i think only like 3 of the 12 seeds i have tried to grow have failed to sprout. so i can def do whatever i need. i want to try breeding at some point, like when i get farther than i am now lol.

i can germinate and sprout seeds no problem. i think i am getting veg stage down too. its flowering i haven't experienced yet. i think what i want to do is turn my current cab into a mother/veg cab and set up a flowering cab or tent. given all that i have learned so far, and where i am at now and want to go, i think this makes the most sense. the beautiful part is, that i am realizing this as i type it. what an idea! i have a space opening up, i could do what i need to to fund at the very least a replica of the cab i have now except with a HID light for flower. would it be better to get a tent? idk...great ideas though. fucking LOVE this forum.

Click to expand...

you can always just make a second cab but make it 3x3x6 or 5x5x6 for a flower cab and keep the cab you have now as a veg cab. there is nothing wrong with building your own cab and they work just fine. the problem is with some people (like me) it becomes more expensive to build a cab than to just buy one because i fuck shit up too often and have to buy additional stuff, or i buy something thinking it will work and it dosent so i have to buy something else.

if building a cab is going to save you money then i would suggest doing that as you seem to be pretty handy with that shit just make your next cab taller so you can grow bigger plants and have more vertical room to work with wich is a huge plus when working with a 1000w HID light.

lol i shouldn't post inebriated. make claims of things that are a lil beyond my station. lol. yeah i will def make another cab, when i can afford to buy a HID light. not for a while in other words. PROBABLY not before the current crop flowers. anyway i appreciate all the thought and advice guys.