Sativied
Well-Known Member
Didn't want to say dummies, or noobs and beginners would be to normal for rollitup... And yes, closet or tent. And yes, this is actually somewhat of a serious post, first one anyway.
Requirements:
- Space, 1square meter (little over 3x3feet) is assumed throughout this post. At least 6 feet high.
- A light source, 600w HPS is assumed throughout this post. Obviously need a timer, not some crappy cheap thing that will burn through after a while (a classic cause for fire).
- An exhaust / extraction fan and an exit point (e.g. window in the room the closet is in). The exhaust should be roughly 1cubic meter per hour (convert on google to cfm) per HPS-watt. So 600m3/h.
- A carbon filter (to keep the grow in the closet), should match the exhaust, couple of hundred more or less is fine.
- Electricity, water (don't mix)
- Soil with low amount of nutrients. Soil is not something most people got in their backyard. That's dirt. Buy (or get) some decent soil. Something clean. Add 5% perlite to reduce the risk of overwatering.
- Plant nutrients. Anything that's complete and clean will do, whether it's all purpose plant 'food' or something marketed as cannabis specific. Base nutrients only. If you're spending more than $30 on the first 1-bulb run you're wasting money. Put that money towards a good exhaust, like one with a thermostat.
- Thermometer and humidity meter. Keep temps roughly between 77 and 84 during lights on, and 62 and 70 during light off). Unless the temp of the air in the room the closet is in is far lower or higher those ranges will be largely automatic/plug and play with the above setup. Humidity should be around 40-60, low end during flowering, high end during veg. There's plenty of CO2 in the air indoors, don't suck in rainy/cold air from outside, blow the humid air from the closet outside and keep your home dry.
- Couple of small/medium size oscillating fans.
- Ducting.
- Reflective material for the walls.
- If your tap water comes out ph 7 or higher, or high ppm (let's say 300+) get some nitric acid for ph down and bring it down to 6.2-6.5 (5.8 to 7.0 will still work, so just roughly).
Step 1. Add reflective material to the walls (on the inside of the closet), something mylar (no tinfoil unless you're in a cold area) or paint them white too, if you do, include the ceiling too.
Step 2. Hang the hps light (with decent reflector) in the closet, set the timer to 18 hours light on, 6 off. Throughout the grow make sure there's 20-24" between the light and the top of the plant. With the HPS off and a light in the room the closet is in on, go into the closet, wait several minutes for your eyes to adjust, and make sure there are no major light leaks. If you can see your own hands before your eyes it's too light.
Step 3. Attach the carbon filter to the exhaust, hang them both in the closet near the top. Attach exhaust exit to a hole near the top or in the ceiling of the closet. On the outside of closet attach ducting and make sure it blows out the room the closet is in, in humid climates make sure that's outdoor.
Step 4. Create an intake hole near the bottom, and at the opposite end of the carbon filter. The size of the intake should be half the size of the exit, roughly, that will make sure no odors will leak from the closet. Open the door and hang a blanket in front of it, it should bulge a little bit inwards. Extend the intake on the outside of the closet with either a box with a small maze in it, or a piece of non-transparant and non-reflective ducting (to prevent a major light leak).
Step 5 Attach the fan(s) and have it blow in between the plants and hps. Not at the plants directly on full power, unless it's hot and humid. The point is to make the air move a little, CO2 depletes fast only in the areas close to a leaves. Ideally the fan disturbs the path the air takes from intake to carbon filter.
Step 6. Fill 4-9 pots with soil, the less plants, the larger the pots. Use as large as you can while still allowing some airflow between the pots. Place the pots in the closet, under the light.
Step 7. Plant clones, seedlings (germinated and vegged under T8, T5, CFL, LED), or seeds in the pots.
Step 8. Add water occasionally, and in case of seedlings or clones, add a low amount of nutes (quarter of recommended doses of popular nutrients marketed for cannabis).
Step 9. Wait (veg, keep light schedule on 18/6) till the canopy covers roughly 2/3 of the space (weeks not months), or for long flowering sativas even less, and then change the light schedule to 12/12. Continue using veg nutes, about half the recommended doses.
Step 10. Roughly 10-20 days later, the plants will stop growing taller and instead produce flowers. If you're using a veg-flower two part nute product, start using the flower nutes. Don't exceed the recommended doses, start at 1/2 and build up slowly. A little to little won't cost you anything, a little too much can fuck it up for the rest of the run (can't fix burned leaves). If they start getting too yellow too fast make sure you haven't given too much (if so water only for a few days or week even if they get worse and then give some veg nutes)
Step 11. Don't do anything stupid like overwatering or using additives (use 1/4 of recommended if you really have to use PK-whatever, and lower the base nutes, and see comment about yellow leaves in previous step)
Step 12. Roughly 8 to 11 weeks (or much longer for some sativa-dom straits) when it no longer produces fresh white pistils and the plant starts drinking far less (and shows others signs of being ready, as you can find in these forums) chop the plant down, remove the large leaves and bad leaves and hang it upside down, let the lights off but the exhaust on (possibly dimmed) and a week or two later, get high.
The above will unless you're lucky not lead to the best results you can achieve. It's also not meant to be complete.. though there's not much more to it.
They are the essentials and stripped from idealism. A tried and true method used by tens of thousands of growers who pulled 0.7-1.0gpw (about a pound) their first run. In hot, cold, dry and humid seasons. Unless mentioned otherwise and apart from a few exceptions none of it is really optional. Obviously you can use a 400w hps or mh or you can go for LED if that want to be like that. Don't go cheap on the exhaust, don't grow trees unless you have a limited plant count, don't buy the cheapest HPS crap bulb underperforming 10% or more and and then add boosters and crap to the soil to get 5% more (multi-stupid).
If you have any questions, it's not one of those threads, it's more an organized rant... /rant.
Requirements:
- Space, 1square meter (little over 3x3feet) is assumed throughout this post. At least 6 feet high.
- A light source, 600w HPS is assumed throughout this post. Obviously need a timer, not some crappy cheap thing that will burn through after a while (a classic cause for fire).
- An exhaust / extraction fan and an exit point (e.g. window in the room the closet is in). The exhaust should be roughly 1cubic meter per hour (convert on google to cfm) per HPS-watt. So 600m3/h.
- A carbon filter (to keep the grow in the closet), should match the exhaust, couple of hundred more or less is fine.
- Electricity, water (don't mix)
- Soil with low amount of nutrients. Soil is not something most people got in their backyard. That's dirt. Buy (or get) some decent soil. Something clean. Add 5% perlite to reduce the risk of overwatering.
- Plant nutrients. Anything that's complete and clean will do, whether it's all purpose plant 'food' or something marketed as cannabis specific. Base nutrients only. If you're spending more than $30 on the first 1-bulb run you're wasting money. Put that money towards a good exhaust, like one with a thermostat.
- Thermometer and humidity meter. Keep temps roughly between 77 and 84 during lights on, and 62 and 70 during light off). Unless the temp of the air in the room the closet is in is far lower or higher those ranges will be largely automatic/plug and play with the above setup. Humidity should be around 40-60, low end during flowering, high end during veg. There's plenty of CO2 in the air indoors, don't suck in rainy/cold air from outside, blow the humid air from the closet outside and keep your home dry.
- Couple of small/medium size oscillating fans.
- Ducting.
- Reflective material for the walls.
- If your tap water comes out ph 7 or higher, or high ppm (let's say 300+) get some nitric acid for ph down and bring it down to 6.2-6.5 (5.8 to 7.0 will still work, so just roughly).
Step 1. Add reflective material to the walls (on the inside of the closet), something mylar (no tinfoil unless you're in a cold area) or paint them white too, if you do, include the ceiling too.
Step 2. Hang the hps light (with decent reflector) in the closet, set the timer to 18 hours light on, 6 off. Throughout the grow make sure there's 20-24" between the light and the top of the plant. With the HPS off and a light in the room the closet is in on, go into the closet, wait several minutes for your eyes to adjust, and make sure there are no major light leaks. If you can see your own hands before your eyes it's too light.
Step 3. Attach the carbon filter to the exhaust, hang them both in the closet near the top. Attach exhaust exit to a hole near the top or in the ceiling of the closet. On the outside of closet attach ducting and make sure it blows out the room the closet is in, in humid climates make sure that's outdoor.
Step 4. Create an intake hole near the bottom, and at the opposite end of the carbon filter. The size of the intake should be half the size of the exit, roughly, that will make sure no odors will leak from the closet. Open the door and hang a blanket in front of it, it should bulge a little bit inwards. Extend the intake on the outside of the closet with either a box with a small maze in it, or a piece of non-transparant and non-reflective ducting (to prevent a major light leak).
Step 5 Attach the fan(s) and have it blow in between the plants and hps. Not at the plants directly on full power, unless it's hot and humid. The point is to make the air move a little, CO2 depletes fast only in the areas close to a leaves. Ideally the fan disturbs the path the air takes from intake to carbon filter.
Step 6. Fill 4-9 pots with soil, the less plants, the larger the pots. Use as large as you can while still allowing some airflow between the pots. Place the pots in the closet, under the light.
Step 7. Plant clones, seedlings (germinated and vegged under T8, T5, CFL, LED), or seeds in the pots.
Step 8. Add water occasionally, and in case of seedlings or clones, add a low amount of nutes (quarter of recommended doses of popular nutrients marketed for cannabis).
Step 9. Wait (veg, keep light schedule on 18/6) till the canopy covers roughly 2/3 of the space (weeks not months), or for long flowering sativas even less, and then change the light schedule to 12/12. Continue using veg nutes, about half the recommended doses.
Step 10. Roughly 10-20 days later, the plants will stop growing taller and instead produce flowers. If you're using a veg-flower two part nute product, start using the flower nutes. Don't exceed the recommended doses, start at 1/2 and build up slowly. A little to little won't cost you anything, a little too much can fuck it up for the rest of the run (can't fix burned leaves). If they start getting too yellow too fast make sure you haven't given too much (if so water only for a few days or week even if they get worse and then give some veg nutes)
Step 11. Don't do anything stupid like overwatering or using additives (use 1/4 of recommended if you really have to use PK-whatever, and lower the base nutes, and see comment about yellow leaves in previous step)
Step 12. Roughly 8 to 11 weeks (or much longer for some sativa-dom straits) when it no longer produces fresh white pistils and the plant starts drinking far less (and shows others signs of being ready, as you can find in these forums) chop the plant down, remove the large leaves and bad leaves and hang it upside down, let the lights off but the exhaust on (possibly dimmed) and a week or two later, get high.
The above will unless you're lucky not lead to the best results you can achieve. It's also not meant to be complete.. though there's not much more to it.
They are the essentials and stripped from idealism. A tried and true method used by tens of thousands of growers who pulled 0.7-1.0gpw (about a pound) their first run. In hot, cold, dry and humid seasons. Unless mentioned otherwise and apart from a few exceptions none of it is really optional. Obviously you can use a 400w hps or mh or you can go for LED if that want to be like that. Don't go cheap on the exhaust, don't grow trees unless you have a limited plant count, don't buy the cheapest HPS crap bulb underperforming 10% or more and and then add boosters and crap to the soil to get 5% more (multi-stupid).
If you have any questions, it's not one of those threads, it's more an organized rant... /rant.
