First Time Grow 4 x 1000w Soil

Hello all have been reading like crazy lately trying to learn. Great site and great ideas everywhere! Just thought I would post up my roommates and my first grow. I will try to be as descriptive as possible and include lots of photos. There are photos posted here but also we have a full album we will update as often as possible. I will also try to label everything as best I can. The link to the album is: http://picasaweb.google.com/seanwins...ui5MbjtJroxgE#

Our Room
The room we are using is a 19' by 23' garage. 3 of the 4 walls are insulated and sheet rocked. The garage door does not have insulation for this grow. We moved in and bug bombed it then cleaned the floors, ceiling, and walls. After that we placed panda on all walls but not the ceiling. All holes were sealed with foam sealant and we have a pretty good seal.

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Our Location
We are located in a hill type location that does get snow. We just moved here but I think it gets as cold as 30F outside during the winter. So Heating will probably be important for us.

Strains
We have the following strains:
Blue Dream X 12
Grand Daddy Purps X 4
Lavender X 4
Strawberry Cough X 2
Blueberry x 1
Trainwreck x 9

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So the blue dream came from a craigslist 215 guy (Nice guy great clones! $5 each). The GDP, Lav, and SC's came from a dispensary in Redding which delivered to me over 1.5 hours away! Awesome guys. The Blueberry came from another dispensary.

The trainwrecks are garbage bag seeds we pulled out of a bag of outdoor Humboldt bud. It came from a old lady who has been growing for years (so she says). The buds were nice and big and super stoney. She called it "Grannys Old Fashion" since she has been growing it since the 70's (not like the 70's weed ive seen pictures of...). Anyways we planted them as a joke kinda because we were going to set up the room in a couple weeks and we had them. Once they sprouted they looked great and grew fast. They are 3 to 4 weeks old now and I think we will keep all the females and see.

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Our Lights
4 x 1000w XtraSun 120/240 MH HPS Ballasts
4 x 1000w XtraSun Hoods 8"
2 x 1000w MH Bulbs
4 x 1000w HPS Bulbs

To Cool The Lights
We have 8 " Ducting that has the inlet at the top of the garage with a filter cut to size. The ducting runs through all 4 lights and has air sucking through it by a Hydro Farm 8" 725CFM fan blowing out the back laundry hole. We have had the ducting break sooo many times it is extremely frustrating. If you have any hints on this please let us know.

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Cooling/Heating
Right now we have a 7,500 BTU air conditioner that also has a built in dehumidifier. This is cooling the room to a max of 85F so far but that is with only 2 MH bulbs going. I am at snow level and it is cooling now quite a bit.

We don't have a heater yet but are looking at purchasing a 15,000 BTU one soon. Temps have not gone lower than 66F with the lights out.

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Soil
We picked up some Royal Gold Medo Mix which is a coco mix I guess? Unfortunately we bought this before doing any research. I think I would have gone with a FF or Sunshine #4 in hindsight. Anyways our plants are sitting in 5 Gallon buckets.

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Nutrients
So we picked up some Metrop which is a holland company (I believe) and I do not think it is legal in CA. Anyways it was $325 for a full set flower and veg. For vegging it has MR-1, Amino Root, and Cal Green. For Flowering MR-2 and Amino Bloom.

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Sprays/Additives
We use the typical Stuff used when needed and one maybe unique thing?
Neem Oil (used 3 times in vegging preemptive/leaf shine)
Ph Up (used when needed)
Ph Down (used when needed)
Xtreme Gardening CalCab (Calcium Carbonats Foliar Spray) - Used twice and seen good growth.

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Clones
We have clones we took when we topped our plants in a dome with rapid rooters in them. We used the cloning gel but I think we could have done a better job. Its been about 10-12 days and they haven't rooted yet. We have done some reading and I think we will move to a ez-cloner or build one our self next time. Also we were feeding 1/2 nutes instead of way less to just 7.0 water.

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Size/Other Info
The size varries but currently the blue dreams are around 18-20 inches, the GDP at 14-16 inches, lavender 12-15 inches, Trainwreck 9-15 inches. The SC and BB are around 20-24 inches.

We would like to start flowering soon. We will be placing 6-8 plants under each 1000w trying to keep the sativas and indicas together for height purposes. We won't be upgrading size as 5 gallons should be enough for us. We would like to be close to 1gram/watt.

Questions We Have
1. What ducting do you use and how does it hold up strength wise. We have had many issues with hydrofarm ducting and one other kind. These things rip everywhere for us.

2. If we are running 6 plants under each light when should we start flowering to be most effective? We have plenty of height to grow plants up to 6' without any problem. We would like to pull as close to 1g/1w as possible and are willing to veg a little longer if we need to in order to get those results.

3. Do you flush before switching to flowering? If so how long?

4. Our humidity raised up to 65% due to the first rain up here. It is dropping slightly now however caused a slight droop in our plants. Is there any way to drop humidity without buying a spendy dehumidifier?

5. If you were in our space with our materials is there anything you would do differently? Is there something we should be doing we aren't? Any other help would be great and most appreciated.

Originally Posted by The.Smokerator

Venting and Grow Room efficiency ( get your Ducts in a row)
Looking Good Dude!!! Great setup....As far as the ducting....just go to home depot in the appliance section and pick up some dryer ducting...I just got some for around 10 bucks...probably more for your size room though. Also, you really shouldn't run the ducting through all your lights together...They should be seperated in order to reduce the heat coming in from the last light...feel me. There is a Post by Subcool that I think is a MUST READ..IMO...Especially with a nice setup like yours and it being your first grow. Heat should not even be an issue in a garage in the winter/snow season.(Even though...hey its Cali I bet your electric bills going to be a bich...think green dude...try and create a vent system that is efficient enough to compensate for no A/C. And lastly, I would squeeze more plants under each light...6 is cool...but those are thouie's man...6 plants insults thier character I grew 20 under 1....I would seperatate the room and start a perpetual cycle....have one room just for Vegging...and another just for flowering...hell....I'd even give the Mamma's thier own room too. See what I mean...I dont know about 2 pounds a WEEK...But you could def get a good cycle goin. All it takes is Black plastic("light proof")"Homeade "curtains...they sell them at Home Depot. Otherwise your harvests will be far apart...while the way i just said will always have plants waiting to be flowered...I must be high...this was a long reply haha

As far as our venting, we have a 725 CFM in-line fan that is doing a wonderful job of cooling all of the lights. I know that if they were in a line they would be cooled better but we simply don't need any better until we get more lights.

I totally understand that we need more than 6 plants under each but we don't have enough plants. Lol

For the separate rooms for flowering, vegging, and mothers, that is a good idea we just dont have time and money to setup the other rooms. That might be something we do in the future but definitely not on this grow.

UPDATE:
We started our 1 day flush today along with flowering about 1 hour ago. Can't even explain how excited we are!