First Grow, Tent, 400W, DWC, NL Fem

Hello. It's my first grow of any kind. I'm growing in a 36x20x62 tent (hopefully it doesn't offgas and kill my plants). I've chosen White Label's Feminized Northern Lights seeds. I chose the fem'd seeds because I'm only growing 2 plants and I'll be growing them through harvest and then starting over from seed again and I want to minimize the chances of getting males.



For lighting I'm using a 400w MH Conversion for veg and 400w HPS for flowering in a htgsupply 'euro' air cooled reflector.

Using Advanced nutrients micro, grow, bloom nutes.

I constructed 2 bubble buckets in 5 gallon black buckets.



Started 3 seeds in moist paper towels in sandwich bags and 2 had already cracked and established strong taproots, so i put them in rockwool i'd soaked in water overnight and put the rockwool in my netpots with saran wrap over the top to hold humidity.

I'm just using tap water with a base ppm using my meter of around 200. I mixed a quarter strength batch of nutrients according to the instruction on the bottle and used ph down to get the ph to 5.8 bringing the ppm up to around 320.

It only took one night and I woke up to this:



As of right now this is where I'm at with this one:



The other one however, is looking a little awkward so far:



So anybody have any comments? I'm a newb, but i'm smart and I've read a lot so lemme know what you guys think.

well its up and running. I give you that. You might be wasting resources at this stage in the game by running that light for germination stage.

MichiganCaregiver said:

well its up and running. I give you that. You might be wasting resources at this stage in the game by running that light for germination stage.

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As far as I know, once the first two fan leaves form (which they have) it is no longer in the germination stage, but is a seedling and capable of conducting photosynthesis, therefore not 'wasting' the light. Anybody?

Does anybody think i can put the lights a bit closer? with my hand right over the seedling it doesn't feel hot, but i'm not sure if the younger plants are too sensitive to the light.

depending on your costs and ability to change your plans. You'd be would be better off to veg those plans under a different type of light. It will save you on power. However if you are simply planning to keep it to this one time, then you are fine I guess.

why would i be better off using a different type of light? I can afford to use hid's and the higher lumen output can't be bad. I could see using a different type of light if i was looking to conserve costs, but i'm not. plus if i decide to scale up i have a little room to grow with my 400w.

I have a 110w T5 lamp as well, but I bought the mh/hps instead.

Simply saying your plant can only use so much light at the moment.. no need to waste the high power till later down the road.

please only see it as giving advise not criticism

im not seeing it as criticism or getting upset. I just don't understand why, assuming i only had the light i'm using, it would make economic sense to go purchase an entirely new light. a 400w lamp costs me about a dollar a day to run. a new lower power fluorescent lamp runs approx. $100. Even if i don't need the 400w right at this moment, I will in about 2-3 weeks. So it's either run my 400w at $1/day for 3 weeks for $21 or buy a whole new lamp at $100 to only use for a couple weeks and only save about $.60 marginally per day?

Obviously in my situation, already having a T5, this wouldn't be too hard, but i'd rather get my plants use to the high output of my MH now rather than switch to a low wattage lamp and then shock them later on.

I know you're just trying to help, but your logic doesn't make sense.

Looking at the money for extra in power costs a cycle times however many times you do a full grow you might see cost savings benefits and over time it would save you. Indeed short term it would be more expensive. ROI always takes time.

I am very interested to watch your grow. Congrats on the first grow tent.

thanks for watching.

by the way, I will be covering up the rockwool with more hydroton to prevent algae after the main stem establishes itself a little bit more.

Well I subscribed.

Can't wait for this.

How much has your set up cost you so far?

Including nutes?

purplekitty7772008 said:

Well I subscribed.

Can't wait for this.

How much has your set up cost you so far?

Including nutes?

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Thanks for stopping in.

Lets see:

Beans - 5 pack White Label NL Fem - $60

Bubble Buckets - ~$40
Tent - $100
Lamp w/ ballast and air cooled reflector - $220
464cfm (i know it's overkill) inline fan w/ carbon scrubber - $200
fan speed controller to calm above beast - $24
189cfm blower for intake - $80
Advanced nutrients 3 pack - $40
ph and tds pens - $50
other misc stuff - ~100

So all together getting close to a grand, but I've tried to make sure almost everything i've bought can be re used if i ever scale up (besides the tent of course)

on another note, this little girl does not wanna let go of it's shell.

you could pry that using a sharp object, do it carefully tho.

ha. well i tried and appear to have basically decapitated the seedling. the leaves were growing inside and the shell was slicing into them. didn't take much and the leaves pinched off.

Think there's any chance the plant will make it? or should i just start germing another seed?

I'm a betting guy.. and I bet it will be Ok. The only way to know is to let it go and see what happens.

yeah I think i'll wait it out a while

1 grand? Thats a pretty good budget considering
how nice your set-up is....

I wonder how much I'll spend when I start...

purplekitty7772008 said:

1 grand? Thats a pretty good budget considering
how nice your set-up is....

I wonder how much I'll spend when I start...

Click to expand...

Hey thanks for looking.

I used a combination of HTG and Ebay to get all my hardware and always tried to find the best prices.

The decapitated plant appears to only have taken damage to it's first round leaves. The first set of serrated leaves seems to be coming in ok still.

Pictures man pictures!

Congrats on it recovering.