3x3x5 Space..Need container size help and..

I will be growing in a 2'8"x2'8"x5'3" space. Used for flowering with 400hps + cooltube. 170cfm fan exhausting air from the cooltube.

What size containers should I use (square preferably)?

How many plants should in here?

What method of growing should I use?

Thanks for your answers guys, and if there is anyone that has a similar set up, let me know how yours went.

I could see anything from 4 plants to 9, 16, or maybe even 25. Depending on what method you want to use to grow. & I can't really help ya there as i haven't played around w/ different methods of growing.

So basically i guess i'm no help @ all, lol.

But I will say that I think you have a very nice light for your room & also good to see you've taken cooling into consideration. That's a great start!

Thanks for the post anyway, I was just soaking up so much information on RIU so I decided to give it a shot. The only things I need is containers, ph meter, and an inline fan. Not a lot considering the amt. of money dropped on this

400hps in my space is going to produce some heat, thats why I have the fan..but MAINLY so the plants can get a fresh supply of co2...air wont be stale, ect

Make a little screen and scrog four plants under it, in 3.5-gallon square white pots. I use three plants under my 400w light, but that's because the area under it isn't a square, but a longer rectangle. You can do an extra plant to make it a 2x2 grid in your square area. Figure on anywhere from 8-9 ounces to as many as 13-14 if all goes just great. Probably somewhere in between.

i am working on the same problem. i have a darkroom 80 that has the same dimensions. right now i am using a blubbler system and i really like it. but i don't have the versatility with it that i would like because it is a fixed size, 10 plant container... so i have no control over moving individuals now because their roots are all intertwined.

any idea how are you planning to grow? i am seriously thinking of just planting 4 plants next grow (all feminised ghs super silver haze) to save the wasted time with the males. and if all goes well with those super silvers, i plan on taking clones from them to attempt my first SOG and try to get as many single main colas growing in there as possible.

Bongulator - 4 Plants sounds good, and so does the yield! I was thinking about doing a scrog too, to maximize yield. Since 1/2 will be male vs 1/2 female, how many plants should I start vegging with? Before flowering they will be in 1gal pots to maximize space and figure out which are females.


mixin - The darkroom 80? Same as me. I was looking at the hydro way but opted for organic soil grow. Soil is more forgiving than hydro anyways. I WANT a continuous cycled grow so dont have to keep starting from seed.
Once my females are recognized then I will be cloning them to save wasted time.

So 4 3.5 gal square pots?

Which methods are prefered for growing a continual harvest? All I have is my tent as a grow area now which is going to either be ALL OF MY FIRST GROW/or just my flowering room, and looking to build a mother/clone box.

any and all suggestions are appreciated!!

^^^^^bump^^^^

Veg up 10 if you have that many seeds. Pretty decent odds of getting at least four females that way. Can try it with less too, of course, but then that lowers the odds of 4+ females.

You'll need a separate veg area after this crop. You could get another one of those tents and stuff it with six or eight CFLs and a cheap inline fan to ventilate. I built my own from scratch out of 2x4's and quarter inch oak panels and stuff. Tent is the cheaper route, by far. The tents just don't look very stealthy. (And my biggest problem with them is: I have cats, and cats love to claw the crap out of that exterior fabric on the tents.)

Here's a pic of my veg box. It's about 6.5' wide, 40" tall, 40" deep.

Great idea..+ rep for the info

I will need a clone area, and will probably construct it, just because I will not need all the height. Something like 3'x1'x3' or something in that range.

First grow i'm going with bag-seed regs. Seeds arent a problem since its reggie. I ordered some thc bomb seeds, there on the way, but ill save them for a couple months down the road.

Anyway I have 6 25watt 6500k pushing out 1600 lumens a piece. the twist kind.

What is the most efficient way I can use these lights, in my tent, for veg stage?

Theres a pic at the bottom of the cfls I got from wal-mart

You can get plug-to-bulb adapters and bulb splitters at Walmart, for like $1.50 each or something. Get four bulb splitters and four plug-to-bulb adapters, and two cheap extension cords. Attach them like in this picture and create two hangable 4-bulb fixtures for a rock-bottom price. Hang them as close to the plants as you can.

Look at the pic and see if you understand what I'm talking about.

The largest possible yield and quickest turn around will come from using as many tiny containers as you can (like 20oz plastic soda bottles with the tops cut off) crammed in as tight as they'll fit and going SOG not SCROG with single cola plants flowered at less than 8" or so.

But just grow out the seeds you got, all of them, to pick the best ladies to clone from. I'd just suggest for the first grow though that you avoid SCROG and just top them a few times to make them bushy little bitches. It will be better to have plants in pots you can remove to tend to, in case you need to flush or work on them for any other reason.

Heh, sorry the plants in that CFL pic look like crap. That was right after a 3-day power outage a few years ago, during the summer. The plants had no light for 72 hours, and the temps were 99 degrees every day. I was amazed those plants lived though all that. They even flowered all the way through okay, and it was excellent smoke too. Shows how tough cannabis plants can be!

Bongulator - I like the 4 figure setup you have going on there. Great pics too man..I did go to wal-mart, but was in a rush and got the wrong prongs. Theres a pic at the bottom of how I set mine up with what I had. Only 3/6 were used. Check out the pics n tell me what you think

OregonMeds - If I use cola bottles to SOG, wont I have to paint them black for the roots? and will the 6 cfls that I have be enough for all those plant? Sounds like a good idea nevertheless, because whatever is not male is getting put under the 400 watter. +rep for you2 man.

I have some pics at the bottom..I went out of town yest, got bored, set up my new tent and put 3 cfls over 2 bagseeds that were germed the night before lol..And a pic of my 400 watter

Can I get away with a whole bunch of 2liters for veggin?
If I flower when they are about 8", will they be strong enough for HPS?

As i've said before, I appreciate the fast, and accurate responses guys. Thanks n keep them comin!!
*smoke break*

im high. any1 have suggestions?

smoke another for me cause i cant smoke for another 2 months.
well i mean with your small setup and the fact that you are using bagseed at the moment i would try the bottle method so you can get the most out of it ya know. just veg em like he said till they are like 8 tall and then flower em.they will be able to handle the hps as long as the temps are controlled and you dont have the light to close. As with painting the bottles i have heard that yes you need to cover em up some way cause it can cause root damage.you can paint it but you could also jsut put like 6 of em in a small rubbermaid container and then just cover the rubbermaid container you set all the bottles in and it will cover it all ya know what i mean.if not i will try to explain better.
oh and as fo the 6 cfl's beeing enough that might be but if you got a 600w hps if it can fit a mh just use that if you got the bulb and it can fit both.if not youll need more cfl's in my opinion but thats if you plan on packing it full of bottles.6 might let it grow in veg but it might take longer.the more light the better you know.
hope i helped

i wonder how these would work with our DR 80's? Water Farm Module [464] - $39.42 : Pacific Coast Hydroponics, Premium Indoor Gardening Supplies



it would be great to have 4 separate bubbler systems all in the dr80. you could work with individual plants easier and they have that cool little water level deal. it would make maintenance so much easier to keep my plants happy. i am seriously considering 4 of these... they will fit perfectly

That would be a good idea but you also need the air pump for each of em and then its like 40 a piece so after 4 of em and the pumps thats kinda pricy but yeah could be worth it.i would upgrade to it if afterwards you see your setup works as is and then move up ya know. but with bagseed for a first grow and if oyur budget is tight than jsut go with something cheap.you will get situated with your grow area ya know.also with such things with the bubblers you need to be careful with temps as not to promote algae growth...but they are very good if you can drop the money on it.

You don't need to paint or cover the soda bottles, just cut the tops off and cut drainage holes in the bottom.

Here, see this grow on ICMag this is EXACTLY how to do it:
International Cannagraphic Magazine Forums - ***DrBud Takes CFL SOG to the Next Level***

Don't worry about not having enough light, check out that guys first SOG setup IN HIS SIG when he just used 5x 42w cfl's the same way.

you can get the whisper air pumps for like $10 at walmart so for 4 it would be around $40 bucks and they are super quiet. and as long as light doesn't pass through the buckets the algae shouldn't be a problem, especially if you empty each res every week and do a quick scrub and add all new water and nutes

bubblers are super easy to maintain, and having individual plants using their own little res would make things much easier to take care of i think

I was mainly talking to mystery101 with there problem. and as with covering the roots some people say to and some not to. my motto is always to much and never to little.rather safe than sorry specially when it comes to this in my opinion.
as with the buckets the people i talk to swear by soil and the buckets are good but they are some work with the cleaning and if the plants get big sometimes they can get to where they arnt managed well. but thats just what others have told me from experience. and soil is also the best thing to start off with as other methods can cause you to loose your crops much more easily and soil allows for more mistakes...thats just advice given to me though so.
but the buckets are good there jsut might be better ways to start but i dont know how many grows youve done ya know.lol
sorry i can type more than i think sometimes.lol.sorry bro.....