Noob question lighting/venting

hello i am thinking of starting my first grow. But befor i do i have a few questions.

1. I will be growing an autoflowering strain so what type of lighting whould be best for a 20 plant max grow from start to fin. (cfl,mh,hps?)

2. should i vent the room or just have a couple of ocilating fans going? If so where do you vent to into another room or outside?

3. I dont understand electrics, like what to plug everything into. ballasts? wiring and such. lol all i know is you plug shit into a wall outlet and bam stuff works and such so please educate me man thx

Cheechburner said:

hello i am thinking of starting my first grow. But befor i do i have a few questions.

1. I will be growing an autoflowering strain so what type of lighting whould be best for a 20 plant max grow from start to fin. (cfl,mh,hps?)

2. should i vent the room or just have a couple of ocilating fans going? If so where do you vent to into another room or outside?

3. I dont understand electrics, like what to plug everything into. ballasts? wiring and such. lol all i know is you plug shit into a wall outlet and bam stuff works and such so please educate me man thx

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first thing you need is a good book,seeds,light,soil and your off

a book whould be nice but i know enough about everything except the questions i listed above.

and read it repeatedly, then you'll still just have to just go with it and get a little time under your belt. Don't sweat it, take notes, learn from your mistakes.

Cheechburner said:

hello i am thinking of starting my first grow. But befor i do i have a few questions.

1. I will be growing an autoflowering strain so what type of lighting whould be best for a 20 plant max grow from start to fin. (cfl,mh,hps?)

2. should i vent the room or just have a couple of ocilating fans going? If so where do you vent to into another room or outside?

3. I dont understand electrics, like what to plug everything into. ballasts? wiring and such. lol all i know is you plug shit into a wall outlet and bam stuff works and such so please educate me man thx

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-1. your going to want MH,or a shit load of CFLs or T5s(6500k). then switch your bulb to HPS,you can veg and flower with HPS but the HPS will make your plants stretch alot.
-2. your going to want to both vent and have fans in there.vent out to anywere,just get the hot old air out,if smell isnt a issue just vent into another room or w.e. by putting an inline exhaust that alone should be enough to draw fresh(fresher anyway) air in thru w.e cracks are in the space,door jams and such.
-3. well im no local 3 electrician myself,but i know that w.e you hav3e running should all be on surge strips,and never over load your lines, your average outlet is like 15 amps or somthing,so dont try and go over that. both my 250w ballast and my 1000w ballast pull 9.5 amps i believe. so w.e light u decide on you should be okay. goodluck

do you need a ballest for cfls
btw thanx for the helpful info TheFucknChrOnic

p.s get the bible..jorge cervantes, marijuana horticulture.. you will be more than pleased

Cheechburner said:

do you need a ballest for cfls

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no..they have self sustained ballasts..most of them anyway.

depending where you live anything over 2700 wat spike in your electricity could trigger an investigation

get that bible i have it itll tell u wat u need to know

for 20 plants your gonna need atleast one 1000watt HID light. MH is best for Veg and HPS is best for flowering. I have 14 plants under 1000watt HPS with 3 300 watt equivilant CFL's around the edges to give the plants on the outter edges of the HPS more light. digital ballasts are better than magnetic ballasts, they allow MH and HPS bulbs without needing conversion bulbs and they run alot cooler, more efficeint, and dont make any humming noise like magnetic ones do.

You deff need to vent. get a carbon filter and an exhaust fan that can remove all the air in the room in 1-5 minutes. If you use a carbon filter you can vent into another room if you want because it shouldnt smell at all, i vent to the outside. You also need fresh air to replace the air that is removed. I use a window a/c but you can do anything from keeping a door or window open to getting an intake fan. You should also get a oscillating fan to move air and cool the grow room. The air from the fan also helps makes your plant stems stronger.

As far as electrical stuff you need to figure out the amp draw for all the electronics your going to be running and then figure out what breaker they will be connected to. You dont want to run more than 80% of the amperage allowed per circuit breaker. Say you have a 1000 watt ballast that draws 8.8 amps and your exhaust fan that draws 1.1 amps plugged into the same outlet that is connected to a 15 amp breaker. Your drawing 9.9 amps which is less than 80% amperage allowed for that breaker safely, 12 amps is 80% on a 15amp breaker. So your gonna wanna run the rest of your stuff on a seperate breaker.

I use a repeat timer. I connect the a/c(air intake), exhaust fan(air output), and oscillating fan to the timer which is rated for 15 amps and its set to turn on every 10 minutes and run for 5 minutes. You can also get temp control modules that will automatically turn your intake, exhaust, and oscillating fan on when the room reaches a certain temp and it turns off when it reaches the set temp.

Hope this helps

I'm on my first grow but i've read 4 books on growing. A good book goes a long way.

4hydro.com is a great site to get everything mentioned at really good prices and they have really fast shipping. Ebay is a good place to find HID lights

thank you all for the help! I will deff take yah up on gettin some books you guys are right I should deff read up more
(depending where you live anything over 2700 wat spike in your electricity could trigger an investigation ) um ??? what lol

it was on a cannibis planet tv 3 1000 wat lights hid hps ..... your electric company might get curious and think there might be a problem and come check it out

its a great tv show go to cannibisplanettv.com

Cheechburner said:

thank you all for the help! I will deff take yah up on gettin some books you guys are right I should deff read up more
(depending where you live anything over 2700 wat spike in your electricity could trigger an investigation ) um ??? what lol

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ooh alright thx for the info

oh hey any idea how many plants id need to have a good supply of bud for personal med. use, smoking around a half oz a week. autoflowering strains im talking about. lol i mention a 20 plant max grow but that prob too much. again i havnt even grown befor or have started just trying to figure everything out befor i decide if im going to

GREEN000 said:

it was on a cannibis planet tv 3 1000 wat lights hid hps ..... your electric company might get curious and think there might be a problem and come check it out

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hey cool site thx man

hey how do i delete this thread ive pretty much gotton my anwers thank you for the help guys

deleting threads dont know sorry i wish i knew too lol