advice for small grow needed

Hi,

I know this question has been discussed many times, but I would beg your indulgence for my particular situation.

I am really struggling to decide whether to go soil or hydro.

My grow will be a 3' by 3' flowering area with a separate vegging area. My intention is to get sufficient quantities for personal use only.

While the increased growth rate of a hydro setup is attractive, I wonder if I really need that for my growing goals.

I intend to use either a 600W or 1000w watt HPS for the flowering area, and I would expect that much light would help yields in soil. I also intend to do a SCROG.

I am intrigued with the "science" of hydro but really need some input to decide if it's overkill for a small personal grow.

Thanks

Hey Bill,
well 1st off dont go with a 1000W hps if u only have a 3X3 grow room. It will produce WAY to much heat and fry the ladies in such a small area. personally i would go with the 400w hps. They put out ruffly 50,000lumens. I went by this when constructing my grow area between 1,500 - 3,000 lumens per ft when vegging. and for flowering 5,000 or more lumens per foot is recommended. u said u have a separate vegging area. You should invest in come flouro tubes or some cfl's. Cfl's work great as they DONT need a ballast of any kind and can be bought at walmart. for a 3x3 area 6-10 cfl's @ 26W each would be plenty of vegging light and very cost efficient. The SCROG is a great idea for your limited space. As far as hydro, NO its not too extreme for a small grow. I have seem many COMPLETE hydro kits minus the nutes for $30 -40 and house up to 10 plants. But if your a new grower. You may want to experiment around with soil before you invest in a hydro setup. Hydro is very costly for nutes, meters, PH testing not to mention they require so much more care. constant testing of PH, refilling the tank weekly. Hope this helped you out. Any more Q's just shout em out. Best of luck

And here is a statement which may lead to debate. Bio grown (If done right) Taste way better than hydro.

A 400w would be sufficient for that kind of space dude. Soil growin is much easier and the bud has a better taste imo. Peace

with a 3x3' space, i would use a 600w, as you are getting nearly double the lumen production from only 200 extra watts. this works out to 10555.55 lumens per square foot or 66.66 watts per square foot. fyi, the sun on a bright sunny day puts off about 10,000 lumens per square foot.

yeah I knew the 1000w was too much but do intend to have mondo ventilation.

this says something about my age, but I did one soil grow under a 1000W MH in 1979 YES, 1979!

I am a chemist by vocation, so I think I can handle the details of the hydro, I just don't know if I want to be "chained" to it.

a lot of my renewed interest is because of a family member with MS so I am interested in medicinal use.

GW pharmaceuticals just anouced a long term study on neuropathic pain with "sativex" which the U.S. won't look at because it will prove some myths untrue.

I just thought too that flushing a SCROG would be a lot easier with a hydro setup than soil after all the plants material is intertwined in the screen.

I'm at least gonna go with the 600Wand use a 275 CFM exhaust fan.

Yes I had intended to go with CFL's for the veg.

Thanks again

Personally I would go hydro - but that's just me. I think it is actually easier than soil - plus you can leave town for up to a week or so and not have to worry about watering your plants... when I grew in soil, it seemed that (especially late in flowering) I was watering them everyday if not every other day... with hydro if you have a big enough resevoir you just set it and forget it, top it off once a week and change it every 2 weeks, until the very end, then you need to stay on top of it and check on it alot, but still seems like less work than watering 10 or more seperate pots.

But if you are new, it really isn't a bad idea to get a few soil grows under your belt before you set off on the water based medium trail...

$0.02 -