Girl in Paris needs advice

Hi everyone ,

I'm into my first indoor grow, being tired of paying ridicules prices for ... I've set up a growroom all by myself, although I'm a girl, hehehe....

Room : 9 x 3 ft, 6ft high
Light : 2 x 400 hps (not ventilated)
Air extraction 6.3 inch diameter / 320-800m2/hr + Prima carbon filter. Air in by the window and 15ft wooden zigzag conduct, passive. Out under the roof (made a hole in my ceiling..

I grow on 4 rockwooltrays (now still on the cubes) - 16 white widows, for the time nice and healthy at 4 inches, getting their first five-finger-leaves
Food :Hy-pro Hydro A+B, now at 1.2 Ec, Ph is perfekt

Here are my questions :
As I live in a small flat with thin walls is noise from fans and so on an issue. I considered using Clf lightning through the veggie phase.. If that is a good idea, how many and when should I switch to the Hps? I use one 400Hps now over the cubes, but my babies grow slowly I think... They are in the 3 week now (seedlings).
I'm out of cash for further investment (didn't even buy any weed for 3 weeks - HORROR) and need some suggestions how to get the whole thing more efficient....

If anyone has ideas please.....

With my best greeting from Paris
Zoe

Sounds like you have it under control, just give it some time. Seedlings lag a bit at first, but they will explode soon. CFL in veg is good if you're looking to save money on power, then you can switch to the 400w for bloom.

Best thing to do is read all the OMG threads to see what is happening and not let that happen to you.

hi panda, thank u for your post... Sorry to be such an amateur, but what are OMG threads ? And second, I don't mind about power consumption, get the bill only in september, but about gaining time... can't wait to roll up something ...

Since you still have to technically take cuttings and sex, you actually still have alot of time to go. While not ideal, if you want to speed things up, you can flip them all to 12/12 once they are to desired size and weed out the males as they show. Once you have all the females pegged, pick the strongest grower and bring her back to 24/0 light. You can take cuttings at any time from any of the girls, they will just be slower than normal to root.

If one of your girls finishes really strong and want to clone off her genetics, you can harvest her, and bring her back to veg again. It takes a long time, but you do want to try to get the best mother possible from your 12 seeds. The main issue with this method, is you can't pick a mother based on potency. Otherwise you have to let all plants grow a bit, root cuttings from all, and sex from there. Multiple weeks more delay.


You'll be able to grow out the fastest if you keep using the HIDs for veg, however you will probably want both of those for flower. Once you flip the lights, if you can afford it, grab a couple 100w 6500k CFLs to veg with. Not sure where the best places to find them are for you, 1000bulbs.com has these for like $20 USD each, other places I've seen them they are up to $50 each, but not sure how much it costs to get them overseas. You can do a bunch of the smaller wattage ones, but they have to be so close, its hard to get good coverage on alot of plants.

In regard to your noise worries, I wouldn't worry about the noise from one fan. When you attach to the filter it should cut off most of the noise.

CHECK OUT 12/12 FROM SEED THREAD could save you some time! https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/416589-12-12-seed-thread.html

Merci beaucoup to all of you... you're all amazing and helpful, can't believe it u all answer so quick...

hi .. thx for your reply... they are all girls, bought certified female seeds in amsterdam. but i want to start cloning, you are right ! i planned to chop their heads of at one stage, to make them bushy and use the cuts for clones. also did i plan to use one of them as a future motherplant, keep her in a closet with an clf 24hrs. when should i take her apart? Just before i put the bunch to bloom?
Greetings from Paris
Zoe

ZoeO said:

hi .. thx for your reply... they are all girls, bought certified female seeds in amsterdam. but i want to start cloning, you are right ! i planned to chop their heads of at one stage, to make them bushy and use the cuts for clones. also did i plan to use one of them as a future motherplant, keep her in a closet with an clf 24hrs. when should i take her apart? Just before i put the bunch to bloom?
Greetings from Paris
Zoe

Click to expand...

your answer is in the question ...yes

I've never heard of guaranteed female seeds. If u purchased feminized seeds that only implies a higher rate of females. You still have to sex them. In a dozen fem seeds u will prob still get a few males. If u want to just top and clone all your females that is a good plan. Label every plant and every clone by which plant it came from. When u get males in flower, kil the male and kill it's associated clone. Once u harvest u figure which plant did best and isolate that clone when it grows up to be your dedicated mother. She won't be your mother til 2 harvests later as you already have your next batch rooting/veging, but ultimately u want to have all your clones taken from the plant with the strongest genetics for all future grows.

hi again roidrage... sex them ? woz dat ? look out for males or females ? (sorry my english is just 'school-english')
your plan about how to clone und when is great... gonna do right that ! but i hope you're as wrong as possible about no guaranteed female, snifff, don't want any males (No offense, please)
Seriously,what is the average pourcentage with 'feminized' seeds ? The guy in the Growshop in Amsterdam said 99%, but of cause he's a salesman.
If it's 50% I strangle him...

roidrage152 said:

I've never heard of guaranteed female seeds. If u purchased feminized seeds that only implies a higher rate of females. You still have to sex them. In a dozen fem seeds u will prob still get a few males. If u want to just top and clone all your females that is a good plan. Label every plant and every clone by which plant it came from. When u get males in flower, kil the male and kill it's associated clone. Once u harvest u figure which plant did best and isolate that clone when it grows up to be your dedicated mother. She won't be your mother til 2 harvests later as you already have your next batch rooting/veging, but ultimately u want to have all your clones taken from the plant with the strongest genetics for all future grows.

Click to expand...

ive never had a fem seed turn out male...........

hey, hey thx for making me hope Del66666. i guess you all have different experiences, guys. i cross my fingers and spit over my shoulder !

There is one more point i'm confused about : i know the room should be at about 80 fahrenheit / 27 °celsium but right under the lamp it's much more than that... if i set the hp lamp at ,what?, 2-3 inches i'm scared to hell to burn the sweeties, reminds me of the sahara in the summer season or worse my toaster.... so i didn't dare approaching the lamp too close. i do have a light brise coming with a small fan but it makes me nervous still... can anyone reassure me ?

hps needs to be 12 inches or more if not using a cooltube................just test the heat with your hand..........if your hand is ok after a few mins then your plant shoiuld be fine....

Holy shit... guess i was lucky so far - had them at 6 inch since 5 days... just put them up to 12, oufffff !!!!!!!! anyway they look fine, so no damage done.
SAVE !!! 1000 thx for the info

ZoeO said:

Hi everyone ,

I'm into my first indoor grow, being tired of paying ridicules prices for ... I've set up a growroom all by myself, although I'm a girl, hehehe....

Room : 9 x 3 ft, 6ft high
Light : 2 x 400 hps (not ventilated)
Air extraction 6.3 inch diameter / 320-800m2/hr + Prima carbon filter. Air in by the window and 15ft wooden zigzag conduct, passive. Out under the roof (made a hole in my ceiling..

I grow on 4 rockwooltrays (now still on the cubes) - 16 white widows, for the time nice and healthy at 4 inches, getting their first five-finger-leaves
Food :Hy-pro Hydro A+B, now at 1.2 Ec, Ph is perfekt

Here are my questions :
As I live in a small flat with thin walls is noise from fans and so on an issue. I considered using Clf lightning through the veggie phase.. If that is a good idea, how many and when should I switch to the Hps? I use one 400Hps now over the cubes, but my babies grow slowly I think... They are in the 3 week now (seedlings).
I'm out of cash for further investment (didn't even buy any weed for 3 weeks - HORROR) and need some suggestions how to get the whole thing more efficient....

If anyone has ideas please.....

With my best greeting from Paris
Zoe

Click to expand...

I do CFL lighting during veggie, works great. i use a 2 light straight bulb CFL thing for the clones, and an 85w bulb for the plants in veg. i used an 85w CFL for flowering, but i switched to HPS cuz its just wayyyyy better and thats when it really really matters.

HPS should be used for flowering only, the orange light stimulates bud growth. during veggie state stay with white bulbs (metal halide for High intensity discharge). anything in the 5800-6500Kelvin range (of color),

i too am in a 1 bedroom apartment, so space is an issue, i have a shelving unit in the living room area with up to 18 clones on the bottom rack, and up to 8 plants veggin on the top rack. in my bedroom i have 2-4 flowering. (theres always 1 ready for harvest, 1 budding, 1 that just entered).

you want to boost yield? for cheap?
get white bulbs for vegging, as HPS is wrong, and its not cost effective (those electric bills add up)
Top all your plants (over and over). this way your 1 tall plant will end up as a short bush with many many tops.
Clone the tops that you cut off (stop buying seeds, and wasting the first week or two waiting for them to sprout, then growing them, then hoping they're female, and cutting down the ones that arent

ZoeO said:

Holy shit... guess i was lucky so far - had them at 6 inch since 5 days... just put them up to 12, oufffff !!!!!!!! anyway they look fine, so no damage done.
SAVE !!! 1000 thx for the info

Click to expand...

yea with CFLs, its ok to get really really close, the heat is low, and the light is low too. burning them wont happen really, ive woken up to the plants in veg being an inch from the bulb and no bad effects.
for HID you need to keep them away. also its important to know that if you move them away, the plant will stretch more, and keeping them closer will cause the plant to stay short and bushy. you need to find the balance between too close + hot and too far + stretchy. that really comes down to your ventilation system (heat reduction) and space limitations (do you have a tall ceiling? or wide, shorter area)

hi there nick... thx for your post. i like the concept with the cfl, but i never saw an 85w cfl in the hardware-shops here (Paris). is that some sort of cfl floodlight (spot) ?

Those high wattage cfls are usually only special order. And you need one that is self ballasted. (the plastic enclosure by the sockets on cfls are the ballast. You may or may not also need an adapter depending on if it is a mogul socket (same size the hps bulbs use). Some ppl swear by veging with hps, however I always got really bad stretching. I noticed it badly as quickly as 1-2 days. What was under a metal halide 1-2 inch nodes was crazy like 4-5 inch under hps If u can manage the heat maybe u can get yours closer.