Gettting my grow ready for my first grow op

Hey all! I'm just trying to get my room ready and have an idea of how it will operate(getting the avg temp and putting everything in place) before i get my clones. I am mainly starting this post for similar reasons trying to assimilate and hoping to get some ideas and support thrown at me, so any help will be greatly appreciated.

P.S.
I have only put one day of setup into this so far so there is no need to trash me...unless you just want to

welcome to riu and indoor growing. the toughest part of indoor growing is getting enough of the right type of light while keeping temperatures under 75 f. everything else is pretty easy. good luck. check out the first two links in my signature below to get some good info on growing.

Ok so I am going to get the fox farm tiger bloom closer to when I need it (near flowering) . The 5-gallon bucket at the bottom of the second picture is my standing water(I'm going to get a couple more) so that Water I use will always have some evap time. The light is HPS I'm not sure how many watts,I think 1000. I have a fan for some air circulation. The single plant in there now is L.A. Confidential, it's my experiment plant and I am alittle worried. When I set the room up I put the plant in there and now some lower leaves, that were beautiful when it was just getting sunlight, are turning yellow. You should know that there were some higher yellow leaves before but i trimmed them off. I'll get a close-up of the plant up soon. This is my first girl ever and my first hydro growing ever!

P.S.
I'm only growing 6 plants

Thank you desertrat! Ya my biggest KNOWN problem right now is my temps getting to low between 59-77 F !?! I don't know what to do besides maybe build a removable box to surround it with.

59 is a little low on temp.....no chance of getting a heater in there or something?

harrisonmccloud said:

Thank you desertrat! Ya my biggest KNOWN problem right now is my temps getting to low between 59-77 F !?! I don't know what to do besides maybe build a removable box to surround it with.

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down as far as 60 f during dark and up to 75 f under the lights is the range you want. it's usually tougher to cool the room with big hps lights than it is an issue to heat. a really small space heater will keep your temps up to 60 but it takes a lot more than a household fan to cool a room with a 1000 watt light. this is extreme because i live in the desert, but here is my ventilation for a 600 watt light:


it includes 3 industrial fans, a portable a/c and about 30 feet of insulated ducting.

True you should feel lucky you only have to heat a room and not cool it....

That's hardcore, let me bounce this off of you. I mentioned this in the live chat and got kind-of mixed reviews. I know that a lot of CO2 generators are just regulated propane flames. I've thought about setting up a propane lantern and running it at night so that I could both increase temp(maybe) and generate alittle CO2. Now I've always heard that lanterns release carbon-monoxide not dioxide, but at the grow supply store the lady plainly told me that those $400 units really just burn propane or acouple other fuels that are similar.

i know CO2 generators are expensive because of the digi gauges they have

if i were to use a heater are there plug in thermostats like there are light timers?

harrisonmccloud said:

I've thought about setting up a propane lantern and running it at night so that I could both increase temp(maybe) and generate alittle CO2. Now I've always heard that lanterns release carbon-monoxide not dioxide, but at the grow supply store the lady plainly told me that those $400 units really just burn propane or acouple other fuels that are similar.

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burners produce mainly co2 with a little carbon monoxide. but the plants don't use the co2 during dark, and adding a bunch of co2 without controlling concentrations is not going to help and could hurt your grow.

harrisonmccloud said:

i know CO2 generators are expensive because of the digi gauges they have

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you buy them separately but yes, the monitor/controllers alone start at 300 bucks, the generator is around 400 bucks.

harrisonmccloud said:

if i were to use a heater are there plug in thermostats like there are light timers?

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yes, or get a heater with it's own thermostat.

I wouldn't use a propane lantern but thats just me. It just seems like to much of a fire risk but idk maybe I'm just being prude or something. It seems like overkill when you could just throw a little space heater in there and warm the room up prob.
How big is the space neways?

Thanks a lot guys thats just what I needed to hear, and I definitely believe you because I pretty much thought the same things. lol

Hey here are those pics of the experimental plant

here are some more pics of that first plant its starting to look a lot better and its grown a lot since its been under the light

The spider is my little volunteer body-guard which is pretty cool! My plant is looking pretty good she's been growing a little bit, but as you can see my leaves are turned down they have been pretty much the whole time I've had the plant... I'm not giving her any nutes so that is the only problem I can think of ,but I'm afraid I'll burn her because she is in potting soil. Also I have to get her a bigger pot her roots have been circling the bottom of the cup for about a week and a half! Anyway enjoy some new pics.

looks like you may be giving your plants a little too much water

Thanks desert I'll try less water and post the results.

yw. think about repotting also

I just re-potted my plant in a big ol' pot and dropped it off with the guy who is gonna watch her while I'm out of town. She was looking really good for a couple of days, but not today leaves were all droopy and loosing some of the green around the edges. I think the bigger pot was the only real issue. Now she is rehabilitating on vacation and when I get back and post some new pics hopefully we'll all be pleasantly surprised.