My first 'real' grow

I have grown a bit in the past. Always under fluorescent tubes. I never had a good grow because of newbie mistakes, such as having the lights way to far from the plants, lack of ventilation, over watering, etc. This time, I did several weeks of research before I started.

My set-up:

My grow room is a closet, which measures 4x4x8. I separated it in two parts. The top is 4x4x5. This will be my budding area, and the bottom is 4x4x3, which will be my flowering area.

My plan was to make the bottom part a second budding area, but I don't think that will work. With my light, the container, and space between plant and light, the plant would only be able to grow to about 12 inches. I don't think that is really do-able, even with some topping and chosing clones from my smallest mother. I guess I will see. Perhaps with a 400w HPS or even a 250w HPS on the bottom, I could grow them a bit taller? Any suggestions on this?

The vegging area will be lit with a 250w MH light. I was going to go with 400w, but because I plan on starting clones and such in there, I wanted something that would be easy on the clones and not create a ton of heat. The top section for budding will be lit with a 600w HPS light.

The sections will both be vented into my attic and out a vent in the roof after the air is pushed through a 4" carbon/charcoal filter. I have two vents in the door, one on the bottom part of the bottom section, and one on the bottom part of the top section. I am going to attach a fan to both door vents and put it on a little thermostat so that when the closet gets to hot, the fan will kick on, pulling in cool air. In the summer the room with the grow closet will have an air conditioner, so the air will be cool that is being blown in. In the winter, the room stays about 65 to 70, so again, cool air can be pulled in if needed. I have some sheets of filter to put on the vent so that dust and such will be caught and not blown on my plants. In the winter I will put a small heater on a thermostat, too, to keep the room warm. I'm not sure if this will be needed in my vegging area, as the light will run 24/7, but on the top part it may be needed when the lights are out. A thought I had was to vent the bottom into the top to keep it warmer. That should work, as the top is vented, too. If the top gets to warm, the fan pulling in cool air will kick on. I'll probably try this at first and see how it works. It will also blow the plants around a bit, eliminating a fan. Any reason this wouldn't work? I could just do it in the winter, and when the warmer weather comes, get a duct splitter thing, and run it into the carbon filter, and out the vent in the roof.

I painted the closet white. I did a bit of a messy job painting, but I am sure my plants won't mind some paint drops and brush stroke marks.

My plants:

I am using some bag seeds that I kept from a few good bads of stuff I got. I don't know the strain or anything. After this grow I may order some PPP and something else from Nirvana. The seeds went into some moist paper towels on Sunday, January 18. When they sprout, they will go into two gallon planters with some Fox Farm organic soil. The plants will stay in two gallong containers durring the entire grow. Thursday afternoon I am going to the grow shop to get my MH light, containers, some nutes, and soil. Thursday evening I will have pictures up once I get my setup all running.



I probably won't update this every day, but I will try and update it several times per week. I will add pictures when something cool happens.

Comments and suggestions are welcome and encouraged. Thanks!

have you run one of the HPS lights in the space yet im using one 400w in my closet with ducting and i have to increase the fan CFM becouse of heat issues

robert 14617 said:

have you run one of the HPS lights in the space yet im using one 400w in my closet with ducting and i have to increase the fan CFM becouse of heat issues

Click to expand...

Not yet. What is the CFM of your fan?

I plan on using a 4" 170 CFM blower fan to pull air out of the budding area into the filter. I hope that is enough. Maybe i'll look into 6" fans which push 424 CFM.

And do you have a vent on the door that has a fan blowing in? I think that should help with heat.

more the better, im using a cool tube and its ducted out of the room through the wall i have an inline fan coming to replace the radio shack POS fan thats pulling the air through my cool tube now

robert 14617 said:

more the better, im using a cool tube and its ducted out of the room through the wall i have an inline fan coming to replace the radio shack POS fan thats pulling the air through my cool tube now

Click to expand...

I don't think heat will be a problem until May or so. I can make the room the closet is in as cool as I want it now, so the air being pulled in will be cool. In the summer, if I need to get some monster AC unit to keep the room at 60 deg, I can do that, too.

I guess i'll have to wait and see. Thanks for the input and good luck with your grow.

I guess I can use my closet for two budding areas. I'll put my plants into budding on the bottom and when the next batch is ready to bud, the bottoms can go to the top. Should be doable.

I ended up not getting to the grow shop on Thursday. I put more seeds in a moist paper towel to germinate as the ones I planned on planting on Thursday had sat to long. Saturday I got down to the local grow shop. I was going to go with a 250w MH for my vegging and mothers/clones, but after looking at that and the 400w light, and the price difference only being $3, I went with the 400w lamp. When I start cloning i'll set up a flourescent tube in my cloning area so my clones don't get cooked, and when they root i'll move them over to the MH.

I finally got around to taking a picture. Its nothing special at the moment. I have a vent in the door, and a 4" inline duct booster on the top of that section pulling air out and blowing it out a vent above the closet door. I need to get a real blower fan, because this one does not do a whole lot. It pulls some air out, but not a lot. My tempertures have stayed between 83 and 86, but 90% of the time they hover around 84. I am going to go to Walmart and get a very small fan to attatch to the closet door over the vent so cool air gets pulled in. And I also am going to get a small fan to blow at my lamp. With that, my tempertures should come down a bit. I'll also get some more duct and run the out duct closer to the light to pull off some of the heat.

I think I am going to go with a 400w HPS in a few weeks. After my first crop, I will go get the 600w HPS. At that point the 400w HPS will go on the bottom (where i'm vegging now) and i'll top my plants and do a small sea of green. On top where I have two more feet of room I will grow some normal plants. I will also build a 24"x24"x48" cabinet for my mothers/clones. I will need to figure something out so I can keep that small cabinet cool with a 400w MH in it. That shouldn't be to hard.

I was going to put my germinated seeds right into 1 gallon containers. I forgot to get them when I was at the grow shop. Walmart and Lowes did not have any cheap ones. Walmart had hardly any garden supply items. Lowes was a bit better. I ended up getting my soil there. I got some soil with the water retaining pellets and some minor fertilizer. I wanted plain soil, but that is hard to come by, and I didn't want to spend $20 a bag at the grow shop. I mixed three bags of soil with one bag of vermiculite. I know I should have spent the money for some real soil, but this should work alright. Next crop i'll stock up on some normal un-fertilized organic soil.

I'll get another picture up as soon as the plants pop out of the soil. I need to water these frequesntly because of the heat and small cups. I'm going to get those one gallon planters this week, and as soon as the plants are a few weeks old I am going to transplant them.

Thanks for reading, and any comments and suggestions are welcome!

cover those clear cups so light doesnt get to your roots.. Light+roots=bad.

Damn, I knew I shouldn't have got clear cups. Ok, i'll cover them up. Thanks.

np.. I had to put tape on mine so dont feel bad lol.

Yeah, I have some wall paper boarder about that height of the cup. I'm going to cover the cups in that.

No, I am going to go get some non-transparent cups and just slide the clear cup into one of them.

I think the 400w MH is a bit much to sprout germinated seeds with. It dries the soil in like 12 hours and I think I cooked my seeds. I am setting up a 48" double tube fluorescent shop fixture in the closet to use until my plants are a week old, then I will pull that out and turn the MH back on. I am going to go down to the basement in a little bit and rig something up to use for my clones. I am going to move the 400w MH over to the left, and hang something with two 24" fluorescent tubes on it on the right side to keep over my clones until they root, then they will be moved under the MH light.

Six of the ten cups now have the plant poking out of the soil a tiny bit. I put freshly germinated seeds in the four that did not sprout and added two more cups with germinated seeds. I'm hoping 8 survive this part. I moved my light over a bit to add room for my flourescent light for clones. This moved the light closer to my duct so the room now stays between 80 and 83. I emailed the shop I bought my light at to ask if I could use a 250w MH bulb in the light instead of the 400w. This would help with heat and then I may not have to use flourescents for clones. Hopefully they will get back to me soon. I will add another picture on Friday when I'm home.

All of my plants have now sprouted out of the soil. They have been out from 2 - 4 days. Some popped out before others. Attatched are a few pictures I snapped this morning.

I am going to be getting a new fan soon when I get my HPS light. I was wondering if I could get a 6" Canfan or Vortex, and put some 6" to 4" reducers on it? Would that kill my CFM? The 4" ones are only 170 CFM but the 6" are 400 CFM. I figured it would be reduced somewhat, but still higher than that of the 4" fan.

My tempertures are still ranging from 81 to 85 degrees. I hope it will come down when I get a better fan. This 4" inline booster is pretty much junk for pulling air. It works, but not very well. I should turn it off for a while and see if my tempertures even change. My humidity is pretty low, but I'm not going to do anything major about that. I might get a dish of water and set it out and see if it comes up slightly.

I need to think about my next grow area. I want to have two flowering areas. The area in the closet above what is shown in the picture will be for a SOG set up, and another area will be some normal sized plants. I am not sure if I want to build a cabinet or buy a grow tent.

Also, the grow shop I bought the 400w MH light from got back to me. Putting a smaller wattage bulb in it isn't safe. So, I might sell this one and buy a 250w one. Who knows...perhaps with better fans I can get this one cool.

looking good man, keep it up. =D

im on my second attempt of a first grow lol. you seem to be doing better then i did my first time

kellie420 said:

im on my second attempt of a first grow lol. you seem to be doing better then i did my first time

Click to expand...

I have grown a handful of times under some cheap fluorescent lighting. I made a lot of mistakes. Mainly bad locations (temp and humidity issues), no ventilation, and having the lights to far away. I did a ton of research before I started this one. I am actually spending money on proper equipment, too.

If this works out, I might go hydro down the road. My only problems right now are low humidity and I wish my temps were 5 to 10 degrees cooler...but its alright for now.

Good luck on your grow.

AJ Toker said:

I have grown a handful of times under some cheap fluorescent lighting. I made a lot of mistakes. Mainly bad locations (temp and humidity issues), no ventilation, and having the lights to far away. I did a ton of research before I started this one. I am actually spending money on proper equipment, too.

If this works out, I might go hydro down the road. My only problems right now are low humidity and I wish my temps were 5 to 10 degrees cooler...but its alright for now.

Good luck on your grow.

Click to expand...

ahh nice nice, yeah this my second time to try hydro, i have a little of those two same problems sometimes in my rooom, but i am adding another small Vent fan, and hopefully a humidifier sometime

Still holding in the low to mid 80's. I took another picture. Some of the plants are almost a week old now. I'll call today day 6 since the germinated seeds popped out of the soil.

This coming weekend i'm going to be getting some two gallon containers for them. Hopefully I don't kill any when I transplant.

nice yeah they look nice man, when are you plannin to transplant?