And So It Begins.

Just got done placing my first order of grow gear for my veg room. Right now I have been vegging in my closet under4' tubes. I will have the veg area done by sunday or monday and ready for the new gear to come in. Here is what I got from HTGSUPPLY.

ORDER INFORMATION
====================================
Product: HTGSupply 400 watt Metal Halide Grow Light
CoolTube Reflector + $70.00
HTG Supply 400 watt MH Bulb
No Timer
No Spare MH bulb
Sunrise Hi-Low Reflector Hangers + $9.95
Standard Warranty

Price: $199.40
Quantity: 1
Total Price: $199.40

Product: 6" Inline Duct Fan
!
Price: $24.95
Quantity: 4
Total Price: $99.80

Product: Growbright 6 Inch Clip-On Fan

Price: $19.95
Quantity: 4
Total Pric! e: $79.80

Sub Total: $379.00
Shipping: $38.34
Sales Tax: $ 0.00
TOTAL: $417.34

Happy smokin and good luck to me and all other new peeps

Sweet, its so much fun to plan and implement new things isn't it?

Very nice to see so much devoted to air movement/handling.....we look forward to pics

Oh god you aren't kidding. I don't even play video games anymore. Just researching and researching. I love planing and playing with projects. This is going to be my funnest winter project to date. once I got my basement area where my grow room re parged(concrete waterproof coating) and then a layer of tar foundation coating, I took final measurements and spent the last 4 days drawing my final plans. I made scale templates of different size trays, lights, and other things to play around with how I was going to do my layout. I'll have an official pics page (grow journal) that will cover my entire process hopefully monday.

Ya, I plan on having an inline fan at an input from the outside that will branch off into a wye. 1 port will go to the veg and 1 to the flowering. Each of my two lights will have an additional fan inline right before the light. These 2 branches will then converge back to one exit port. I'll run mock ups when I get the fans . I may just only use 3. Or Have a a larger vortex fan on the last exit stage as it will be going up from the basement to attic level. I'm going to hopefully rent or buy cheaply one of those air volume and pressure testers that are used on doors and windows to measure air flow.

I wont even build or finish prepping the flower area until I know what the environment is doing. Right now my temps in the basement is 50 degrees. WHen I have the framing done plus the insulation in the framing, I'm hoping to raise it 5-10 degrees. I'll do lots of tests on temp humidity when I have the lights up. For now I'll just hang the MH light and veg the plants here to get them out of my closet upstairs. I'll just hand water them until My tanks are ready. Since this is a total custom job and I'm only limited to 6' height, I'm making my own tanks out of timber , water membrane, and then tile.

I just keep reading and staring at my girls here in the closet. They are screaming to move on up...to the east side, becasue they are finally goign to get a piece of that pie.....They been through hell and back over the last 16 weeks or so. I've almost killed 3 of them a half dozen of times in many different ways. Can't wait to give them a deserving place to relaxe and grow.

Nice to hear some home work being done, newbi's take note, give a liitle thought, get a BIG return.

If only college was this fun. I would have studied more and made better grades. =) Thanks for the replies guys. I was sort of geeking last night when I wrote all of this.

It's good to see a comprehensive list of equipment from someone who has obviously done quite a bit of research on the subject rather than buying a load of crap and asking why they didn't get 6lbs from their single-cfl grown twig...
Although that cooltube reflector could be costing you lumens, as the light will be passing through the glass up to three times before it reaches the plants, which diffuses the light. IMHO a batwing or dutch barn reflector works better with a cooltube as the light is reflected past the glass rather than through it.
All the best with your grow mate.

aye, I'm going to add a batwing on it. I'm going to have my exhaust ports going through that area. So i'm going to wait to see how much area on the exit I take up before ordering my aluminum. That way I can order the pieces to spec once I know their dimmensions better.

I'm not one of those as I'm sure have posted on this site: " I have 500 dollars, what do I do?!?!?!"
Although I do have a fixed budget to start out with, I'm trying not to go all out. But to invest reasonablly. And gradually build up. I also look at it as a growing lesson too. Since I will be at some loss without a batwing at first, it will be nice to compare as I upgrade down the road. (along with future upgrades)

Should have some framing done and some pics posted by monday. Not sure how much I'll get done tomorrow with football on, but we'll see. The parging of the foundation helped with the water big time. I coated the ext walls with foundation coating, and will do some plastic water proofing too. Then when spring time comes and I address the real issues of water , I can at least rest assure that no water will attack the op this winter.

It's been exciting thus far, and I haven't even really did anything yet. My starting plants are about 15 inches. But I'm finiding when planing on a budget, there is a lot of give in take. For instance, when originally thinking this out, I thought for sure I was going to do radiant heating tile flooring in there. Right now I think the floor and conrete and possible tile will store a lot of that heat from the lamps to give off when lights are off. Who knows though. I'll do highs and lows once I have the framing done , and insulation up with lights in there to test. Thanks again for reading and the posts.

Well here is what i have done so far.
I re-parged the interior walls. I had some water infiltration.
After parging, I tried using some tar based foundation coating. This is usually done on ext foundation walls, but I thought I would give it a whirl. I think it's going to help, but damn is that shit messy. I put some plastic down over the ground and partially on the wall to help with any water coming up. I don't imagine they have a vapor barrier under neath as they would on a new home foundation/slab. This house is about 80 years old. It was built by the original owner, but was poorly built. all the shit in there is out of square and all jacked up. So my framing is sub par than I would normally do on new construction or a remodel, but me doing a solo job, and doing this mess in a couple of hours to keep low key. (I'm not in full stealth yet) I wanted to get all of the loud work out of the way as soon as possible.

So here are some pics of where I am currently. The room is an old coal room. I have to climb in what used to be the old shovel chute. I'm going to frame around that opening and make a lockable hatch. From the outside, I'm going to have something covering the hatch so I can have some good stealth going on. I really don't have much too worry about save for neighbors peering down in the windows to maybe see me doing some shit down there. Number 1 problem is a visiting mother who is nosy as shit and loves doing my dishes for me when I'm not home. The tapestry should throw her off, but a lock will keep her out. Other than that I should be good to go.

Below pics.
1.) outside of hatch opening.
2.) Mother Area Elevation.
3.) The cloning corner.
4.) interior shot of hatch. Watch your balls coming in!

Reference plan pics below.

how do i add more than 4 pics to a post?
I wanted to add captions.

On this round. Couple more pics of the framing. You can see the tar looks messy as does the over lap of the vapor barrier, but I'm not sweating it. The wall framing is actually holding up the barrier. The tape (which sucks and doesn't hold very well) is just a temp kind of thing. Also I have a shot of my blueprint showing the vegging area on the left. Also I'll have my clone area in a custom cab to bottom left as you come in. And then the flower area is front and center.

I also have the over lay of how I'll map my light venting.

Below pics.
1.) Flowering area and storage corner of the room. I had to reinforce this area with 2 feet of concrete and a steel beam after some num nut decided to push a back hoe into my stairs from the outside.
2.) The reinforced wall. man is that tar covering messy. I'll have some shelving units here with some cabinets on this wall to store nutes. Possbly a bud dryer on that wall too. Who knows.
3.) Blueprint showing grow area.
4.) Light venting overlay print.

Things are looking good, I like the space.

Here is a pic of the elevations. It shows the elevations of the mother area. It will have a custom tank as will the flower area. It will be based off something VV is doing. My 400 watt MH light will be here tomorrow morning. So can't wait to size that up. I'm going custom with all of this because I only have 6 feet height on the ceiling which will get smaller once I do flooring and wall coverings.

Also is a full isometric view of the room. You can see each of the areas including full storage on the bottom left hand side. I'll prolly jsut do some wire shelves and then build some cabs for it down the road.

Also here is a pic of the girls from around 9-24. This is how it all got started. Then here are the girls hiding in my closet tonight looking slutty and dirty, but still taking all the abuse I give them. They are waiting patiently for me to get them into their new home.

So this week I want to get the hatch finished. Then run the new wiring. A note for some of you cats out there. I almost spent 2 grand to upgrade to a larger 200 amp panel. Fuck that. My solution. Use the 220 and 115 from the washer and dryer panel. I don't have one! So I'm going to pull those breakers off and run new lines on those spots. That gives me 3 lines to dedicate to the room, although I only plan on doing 2. Once I get the hatch done and wiring, I'll get some insolation in there and start gathering my environmental data. Right now it's been in the 40s here and snowing out side. My room right now is about 50 to 55 degrees. Once I gather data, then I'll start my venting, and humidy solutions. As well as a final decisson on whether or not to have radiant heat flooring.

Again as always, feedback, questions, comments, always welcome.
For the record you can see that my priorities are research, studying, more research, and getting the environment right first. Sure the girls are fussing about their current living standards, but I think the patience will have large payouts in the long run.

Below Pics.

1.) Top: Mother area elevation. Bottom: Storage cabinet elevation.
2.) Iso View of mother closet and flower table.
3.) Full reverse iso view of grow room. Lights and venting omitted for clarity.
4.) young girls chillin from 9-24
5.) Beat up bitches waiting at the depot waiting to get shipped to their new home.

Old in the Way said:

Things are looking good, I like the space.

Click to expand...

Thanks man!

holy shit! I just got my 400W MH light!
I turned it on to have a look. I've never handled one of these things before.

I plug it in. It gives a little buzzz humm, then sparks up. Then quiets down. The light is on. And is kind of bluish. holy shit! So I'm thinking it's not that bright is this normal. now 2 minutes later it is getting brighter and brigheter and wont stop getting brighter! Holy shit! It looks like the sun in here! I feel like clark at christmas time!

~~Updated 12-14-08~~

Well I got my room wired. I added 2 circuits. Each one is gfci protected. I added 2 flush work lights in the main room at the end of the run and 1 for the veg room.

The past 2 weeks of working in the room. It's been a good steady 50 degrees in here. This week I'll add insulation and start pathing vents. My main thing is working on the hatch too. I have a make shift heavy tarp on the outside with a couple of towels on the inside. I have favorable angles in the basement as it's very hard to see into that hatch area unless you are standing outside the basement windows bending over and trying to look in.

Wiring was a lot of fun although nerve racking. With it being so cold, the wires were very stiff as were my tabs on the housings. My hands and knubs took a beating. I cleaned up and brought the sluts down to visit. They were taking a beating. I swear I got the ugliest bitches on all of RIU. I will take any bets on my beat up torn down hoes. They will be helping me though on my environmental testing. So little do they know that even though they were bashing their heads in my closet upstairs, they will now endure experimental environmental modification. Some may not be strong enough to survive the next couple of weeks. If any may leave us, it will be for a greater cause.

Now that I have the room semi functional, I'm shifting my train of thought as to get the clone box done first. My goal is to get a sog on hydroponics and soilless media. With this being said. I need to get some clones up and running and pre sexed so that I can replace the mothers that are now in soil into their new media. Of course this is all subject to change.

I may go without wall coverings as I add gear to the room. this is so I can lay them out where they will hang onto walls and ceilings as ultimately i want my room to look clean. For example the can lights I wanted because I only have 6 feet. if there is anything hanging down, I can't imagine how many times I'll hit my head. The other thing I'm playing around in my head is the custom bat wing for the mom area. not sure how I want that yet. as you can see especially on the pics that I don't have a good light spread yet. Although they are loving it. Their smashed tops from the closet are already starting to open up to all this room they have.

Questions, comments, concerns, jokes, laughter, etc.. of course are always welcome.

below are the latest pics after the update. These should be self explanatory.

~~Update 12-24-08 ~~

Well not too much exciting since last update. Just wanted to say good holidays to everyone~

I got some insulation in the cavities. That has kept the heat around 60-65 Above the light is 70 degrees. I re aranged my clip fans to circulate the air better. So bottom to top of the plants ahve been staying around the 60 degrees (remember pre MH light and without insulation, the room was around 50 degrees). Even though this is colder than what I plan on having, I want to do things step by step to see the results of everything. For those in the mid west and other areas fighting the weather. My basement fixes have held up. My basement pipes about froze and I had water penetration in other areas of the basement. The grow room was not effected. Also my plants are looking happier even from the closet to here despite a bit colder temps. They are drinking more which for me is a very good sign. They have gone from 3-4 day feeding to being hungry evenly every other day. I'll be finishing my hatch door the next few days. Plus making my next order from HTG. I'll do doing the clone box next then the mom res tanks. I want to get these babies switched over and cloned and on to hydro next.
Take care! And thanks for stopping by.

~~ Update 01-02-08 ~~

I'm just going to vent some steam here. So I ordered my latest bunch of goodies and toys and those arrived today. (see list below) Woot! However, I get an email from stealth hydro.com and they tell me they are out of the meters I ordered. UGGGGGH! They tell me this only after I emailed them to bug them about my order as I ordered it last week. So they charge my card and tell me they can give me a store credit or refund. I'm like, of course give me a refund! I'm not pissed that I have to buy my meters somewhere else now. It's just the fact that I don't have any more money for the meters until I get my refund. Shitty day!
This sucks, because my girls are going to be hungry here tomorrow (as a reminder going under the MH light in the grow room compared to the closet has cut the feeding schedule in half. They went from watering every 4 days to every other day. It's a good thing to see these bitches hungry) I was just hoping to have a nice PH balanced water for them to munch on. They have been suffering from wrong PH since day 1 and are anxiously awaiting to be saved.

On the bright side, the T-5 lights for my clone box are sweet as hell. I wasn't expecting the T-5s to be so bright, but they are rockin! They are also really tiny in size. I thought they would just like the regular T12s.

Here is my latest order from HTG that came in today.

GrowBright 4" Inline Fan & Carbon Filter Combo
1 $139.95 $139.95 Rockwool / Stonewool 1" Cubes - 45 pack
1 $8.50 $8.50 Mondi Humidity Dome
1 $5.95 $5.95 Standard Nursery Flat Tray
1 $1.25 $1.25 Hydrofarm Heat Mat Thermostat
1 $32.95 $32.95 Hydrofarm Seedling Heat Mat - 9" x 19.5"
1 $24.95 $24.95 Clonex Rooting Compound - 100 mL
1 $21.95 $21.95 Hydroton 50 liter bag
1 $36.95 $36.95 GrowBright 2 Foot 4 Lamp High Output T5 With Choice of Bulbs
4 Grow (6400K) Spectrum Bulbs
No Spare T5 bulbs
1 $119.95 $119.95 pH UP by General Hydroponics 1qt
1 $10.95 $10.95 pH DOWN by General Hydroponics 1qt
1 $10.95 $10.95 SENSI - 2 Part Formula - Sensi Grow Part A&B
Size: 4 Liter 1 $60.72 $60.72 Dual Outlet Digital Timer w/ Battery BackUp
1 $24.95 $24.95 Subtotal: $499.97
The plan is still the same. Get the clone box up which will start this weekend. Get the exhaust installed. ( I really don't even need cool tubes at this point yet, the basement is keeping cool enough the way it is.) This of course is subject to change depending on what the temps are etc.

Sorry for no new pics yet. I've been busy slacking this week over the holidays. I'm really taking my time on this room. I want it to be the best I can possibly do, so I want to make sure I really think ahead on all of my work. (Hmm. I just noticed my spell checker thing not working on fire fox anymore. sorry for all the typos)

If all goes well this week, I'll have some pics of a clone box and more of the room. Can't wait to get the room drywalled. It's driving me nuts.

I'll leave this wishing good blessings for all. Thanks for stopping by. Through a thought or two towards me if you can, because I'm really pinching pennys getting this rom done until I get full time work again.

My lesson to share on this post would be to really know your basic math stuff. As far as it comes to computing fans and volume sizes to determine CFM values. I ended up saving 80 dollars on getting the 4 inch carbon fan setup as opposed to the larger one which was far too much for my room size. Another thing I would share is patience. It's so tempting to just dump some ph down in my watering can and feed them tomorrow, but alas, I'm going to wait til I get the meter and do it right. I think I will get some paper testers though tomorrow lowes so I can at least do a better watering than I have been.

laters!

~~ Flams ~~

~~ Update 1/10/08 ~~

Nothing too exciting going on. Still collecting environmental data. Right now the biggest problem is humidity. i do my readings about 4 or 5 times a day and keep them in a log book. I finally added a peak thermostat, but for some reason though it isn't showing the high low. I think I need to have the remote setup for it to display that.

Out door temps have been from 0 - 30 degrees the past few weeks. In my basement, it's been from 30-50 degrees.
In the op for the past week of officially recording: Avg Temp/ RH 75 degrees 28%. This is without active venting control. No ceiling insulation yet, and no cool tubes. Only the 1 400 Watt MH. My light cycle is 18/6 on my moms ('m not sold on the 24/7 lighting cycle yet. I've used both so far. Don't see a difference any) Light out temps have been about -10 degrees. Lowest humidity reading was 16%. Plan of attack for this week is to get humidifier (I am using a small vicks vaporizer thing. That sort of helps but not much)

I got my pots in this week. I washed and sterilized my clay pellets and filled up a mock 1 tray lay out to see how they are going to be set up. When I was playing with them in the sink I noticed my pots starting to float and tip and spill out. Any advice on this? Please visiting this link if you have any ideas on how to weight my pot down. I'm going to review al's thread. he uses mostly rock wool so I'm not sure if my answer is in there or not.

https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/149291-floating-clay-pellets.html

My flower trays (4 total) as shown in before pics and also below in my mock up will be 18" by 18". I plan on starting with super roots air pots. I did a bit of research on these things and talked to the distributes in California at great length. Since I have a bit of size limitations, I figured I would give these guys a try.

http://www.superoots.com/

Thanks for stopping by

~~ Flams ~~

~~ Update 1/17/08 ~~

Well, it's been about -5 degrees here all week. I think -15 yesterday. It's been unbearable to get work done lately. The girls are taking a beating while I try to work in there. My portable heater isn't working so well, so it's been mid to high 60s under the light. So I can't really move them around and put them in a safe spot to work in as they will get too cold. So I have to work in short spurts. I have 3 layers of clothing in on in the garage and It's tough being out there longer than 15 minutes cutting wood etc.

I did get my exhaust set up and mounted. I'll paint it and set it level down the road. Right now, it's functional. I built a box that will combine the lighting cool tube vents to the exhaust. So instead of scrubbing now, I'm replacing air now. With everything turned on, I have a nice negative pressure already. The towels covering the hatch are being sucked into the room. What's cool is that I still have not done the rest of my sealing. Plus when I add the sheet rock, that should make it even tighter. From above I can feel the air being pushed out really well. The pressure is a lot greater than my furnace is putting out of my vents.

Another note is that when connecting the hose for the exhaust, my temp dropped about 5 degrees. This was expected and intended. Summer times I feel this room is going to be really easy to manage the environment. This I'm confident in.

I have the cutting lists finished with semi final dimensions for the clone box which defiantly will be my next step. I need to buy another heater for the garage so I can paint and build the box. I'm hoping to start on this Monday.

PICS:
1&2 - Pics of my 4 inch exhaust mounted and functional. Right now it's running full time since I have been working in there. I'll add the thermostats and things down the road.

+rep .. sorry man. i couldnt read all of your posts.... smokin a blunt. ukukuk

but dam. if your op. comes out half as good as your plans. you will have some dank dank shit on your hands. def. hop your running a perpetual garden. the setup looks perfect.....

one question though... how tall are those babies under the 4' fluro's?????