First grow!! 4x4x6 indoor LED.

First and foremost, HAPPY HOLIDAYS to all my celebrating brothers and sisters!!!
As we surpass my favorite holiday and near legalization date, I’m starting to gear up!

Like the title says, this is my first grow! Actually, the truth is I tried a CFL grow once, 15 years ago, but had to harvest before it was ready, way before, so I never completed the grow. I've been planning this grow for a few weeks now (since legality), and I'm about to start germinating some beans!!. I’d like to share my journal/progress with you all if you’ll have me.

I think I will be germinating 3 beans to start. If I can get all 3 to germinate, I will obviously be planting all 3. For my beans, I placed an order for 12(and received 4 free) with multiversebeans. The order came quickly, and came with 2 hand written notes thanking me for my purchase. It was very nice.

If you’re unable to see the pics below for some reason, the beans I ordered are all Feminized photoperiod beans. I have 3 of each: GG#4, Cinderella 99, Critical Widow, and G13. They also sent “Large berry” and “Gummibears”. I think those are both auto fem, but the Large berry doesn’t give any info, and I can’t find anything about it really. I think I'll start by germinating 2 Cindy99's and 1 Critical Widow.



I’ve 3D printed a germination station, and will be placing it on the plant heating pad (all pictured below). I’ve tested it out, and the pad is able to warm the inside of the box and its reservoir of water. I don’t have a handheld thermometer, or one small enough to fit in there, so I haven’t tested the actual temperature yet, but it’s warm without being close to hot. I’ll just be using moist paper towels since I successfully germinated 3/3 seeds in my first grow attempt that way. Check out the germination station below. I will be taking extra precaution to keep it in the dark.



I’ve decided to go with a 4x4x6 tent, with a 400w Sonlipo SPF4000. I’m taking a bit of a risk here on this LED, but it’s about half the price of similar “name brand” L.E.D.s. Based on what I’ve read and advice I’ve received, and as far as I can tell, I think it has everything I need. It even has switches specifically for veg and bloom, to change the spectrum of the lights being used. Anyway, finishing off the basic setup is a iPower 6 Inch (395 CFM) inline fan with a prefiltered carbon filter. I’ll be adding all the small stuff shortly, like a fan, thermometer, small cabinet…. A bunch of things I cant think of at the moment without going and looking at it, lol.


Oh yea, and I’m going with foxfarms ocean forest soil, which I know can be risky on seedlings and brand new plants, but I’ve read a bit and found a good tutorial on here that I believe will help me be successful. Ill be starting other nutes probably later on, in veg, surely in bloom.


Anyway, here’s some pics of the basic setup:


Being that the tent is only 6 feet tall, and the lights and fan take off another 2 feet or so, Im thinking of implementing a SCROG grow with some of these beans, as I believe some can get fairly tall. I may experiment with some LST stuff again as well with these free seeds when I get around to it.


Thanks for taking the time to read, and well I’m sorry I don’t have any plant pics yet, but I’m so excited to get started. I’m also kinda hoping that you guys will see these pics and tell me if it’s a horrible light, or if I have something setup wrong, or even how I can just improve my setup, before I actually get to the caring of plants.


Thanks again everyone!

Best of luck.

Can't wait to see the journey

Good luck for sure. Just a quick question. Is your tent in an uninsulated shed? Just curious as the temperature in that space would more or less fluctuate with outside temperatures then. Would make it more difficult to regulate the environment inside the tent for the plants. I have no idea what your climate is where you live.

Nugnewbie said:

Good luck for sure. Just a quick question. Is your tent in an uninsulated shed? Just curious as the temperature in that space would more or less fluctuate with outside temperatures then. Would make it more difficult to regulate the environment inside the tent for the plants. I have no idea what your climate is where you live.

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It's in an uninsulated attic. My furnace is in my attic and my house is 1 floor, so it stays about 60-65 degrees F through the winter. Beyond that, with the furnace and venting all right there, tapping in for a small tent/room up there wouldnt be too much of an issue. I'll probably have to do that for Summer, when Im actually worried about too much heat.

Ok, so you are going to run LED with a lung room (the room the tent is in) that sits about 60-65 degrees. That means you will need to run a heater as your target temperature while running LED is in the low 80 degree range with lights on.

Nugnewbie said:

Ok, so you are going to run LED ....

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That is a good point. I was considering that, but wasnt sure how hot it'll get with the LEDs since Ive never used them. I imagine its not a ton of heat. If it really gets too cold, and I cant get the temp up, I have a spare MH light I can just light up in the attic LOL! jkjk.

Im going to run a test and monitor the temp for about 24 hours to see how it fluctuates inside of the tent on these colder days. Do you have any recommendations on tent safe space heaters?

I use a similar model to this:

I put a piece of black tape over the on/off switch to eliminate light for "lights off". Some heaters have heating elements that glow red when they are on. The oil filled radiator doesn't have anything that glows other than the on/off switch.

Awesome, Thank you. I did see that specific radiator when I went searching after your initial comment heh. There's just so many different kinds on amazon that I had no idea where to start. Thanks again!

in veg you dont need the carbon filter , nice setup

Hello everyone! Long time no update!

So, I got off to a rough start. I started germination with the 2 C99 and 1 Critical Widow. The heating pad I was originally using did not have a thermometer, so I couldnt tell exactly how hot it was getting inside of the germination box. When I got a thermometer (about 3 days in), it read at 96°F and counting... I figured Id fried them, but I set the temp and gave them a few more days before starting new beans. After a couple of days and no germ, I decided to change it up.

Ended up going much simpler, using 2 bamboo disposable type of plates as my germination box. This time opting for my final 2 Critical Widow and 1 C99. 3 days in and we had germination on all 3! I gave it an extra day for the root to break out some more, as well as test my tents heating environment. Heres a couple quick shots of the germ and method:



I got all 3 transplanted today, and have my setup in full operation! The tent maintains a temp between 77-84 depending on time of the day/if the heaters full blast. Humidity varies but is sticking 50%+ for now (65% at this moment). I will be grabbing a small humidifier to run sometimes as well.

Im excited to see if/how well they grow, or if I completely hosed them somehow already lol.