This is my first grow for myself, by myself. I have helped others grow. This is my passion, I am both a scientist and stoner at heart.
First my grow room. For all you visual people, I drew a half-assed sketch to help me explain.
(Please note that the loft of my grow room is not 733 cubic ft. Stoned math. It's probably closer to 550 due to the slant of my roof. The drawing is not to scale.)
8 foot from the floor are 6in rafters. Panda plastic is going to be stapled to the bottom of the rafter via a staple gun, forming a plastic drop ceiling. The outer walls will be framed with 2x4's and made out of panda plastic. I have zippers to make doors in the panda plastic that will otherwise be light tight rooms. The drop ceiling will make a little loft above the grow area. This is where the air from the air cooled lights will be dumped.
Tomorrow we are putting in an exhaust fan (like in the picture). We are using an exhaust fan made for a house so it shouldn't leak cold air in the winter. I am thinking we'll turn it on twice a day to clear out all the hot air out of the 2.5 ft loft. Do you experienced growers think this is necessary? This part is going to be the biggest bummer to setting up the grow room. But I might keep the ballasts up there. There will also be a ton of cords and what not up in this area, I don't want it to get too hot up there.
Fresh air will be pumped in through a window through duct. I plan on using two of these or these (which fan do you guys think is better?) to pump fresh air into my rooms. One fan for flower, and one for veg. I will also use the same type of fan to pump air out through the air-cooled light.
For lights I will use :
-1000 watt MH light (Veg)
SunMaster 1000w MH Cool Deluxe Bulb
GrowBright Premium 1000 Watt Switchable Ballast
EasyCool 8 Reflector
or
AIROFLOW Reflector
This will support up to 12 plants in veg. Do I need anything else to hook up this light besides chain? Does that ballast come with something to screw the light into? Opinions on the reflectors?
The flower room will have two 600 watt HPS which will support up to 12 plants. Eventually I would like there to be four 600 watt HPS in the flowering room, and 24 plants in there. There will be 2 fans extracting air, and one for intake coming from the window.
My plants will be grow in 5 gallon buckets, with drip trays to collect run off water. My soil is going to be 70% Happy Frog 20% Perlite 10% Worm Casing. Will be using Fox Farm nutes. All water goes through RO and comes out at 30PPM. Do you feed your plant with every water? I was going to feed - water - feed - water etc. Is this right, or should I feed every time I water until I flush before harvest? The ladies will be hand watered, hopefully with a water wand and submersible pump (anyone know somewhere to get a water wand cheap?)
For genetics I am going to have:
5 seeds of Wonder Woman from Nirvana
5 seeds of Bubbalicious from Nirvana
3 clones from a medical growing friend. Possibly Strawberry Cough.
I'm hoping to get at least 4/5 with the seeds. I am using Rapid Rooter and have raised seedlings before.
I am going to split each strain up into 3rds.
With 1/3 of my plants I am not going to trim them.
With 1/3 I am going to do Uncle Ben's Topping Technique to get 4 MAIN colas
With 1/3 I am going to FIM them.
I am going to record what technique gives the highest yield per plant and continue using it.
The goal is to constantly have 12 plants in the veg room and 24 plants in the flower room, and harvest 12 plants every 30 days. The grow room goes up this weekend, the seeds are in the mail, and our clones will be cut this weekend as well.
Does everything seem in order? Am I forgetting anything here. Like I said this is my first time growing by myself. And it's not like being a chemist where the university "donated" lots of unused glassware and equipment, this shit is expensive and I gotta buy it all! So I can't mess up. Any advice and opinions are welcomed. Thanks for reading this.
First my grow room. For all you visual people, I drew a half-assed sketch to help me explain.
(Please note that the loft of my grow room is not 733 cubic ft. Stoned math. It's probably closer to 550 due to the slant of my roof. The drawing is not to scale.)8 foot from the floor are 6in rafters. Panda plastic is going to be stapled to the bottom of the rafter via a staple gun, forming a plastic drop ceiling. The outer walls will be framed with 2x4's and made out of panda plastic. I have zippers to make doors in the panda plastic that will otherwise be light tight rooms. The drop ceiling will make a little loft above the grow area. This is where the air from the air cooled lights will be dumped.
Tomorrow we are putting in an exhaust fan (like in the picture). We are using an exhaust fan made for a house so it shouldn't leak cold air in the winter. I am thinking we'll turn it on twice a day to clear out all the hot air out of the 2.5 ft loft. Do you experienced growers think this is necessary? This part is going to be the biggest bummer to setting up the grow room. But I might keep the ballasts up there. There will also be a ton of cords and what not up in this area, I don't want it to get too hot up there.
Fresh air will be pumped in through a window through duct. I plan on using two of these or these (which fan do you guys think is better?) to pump fresh air into my rooms. One fan for flower, and one for veg. I will also use the same type of fan to pump air out through the air-cooled light.
For lights I will use :
-1000 watt MH light (Veg)
SunMaster 1000w MH Cool Deluxe Bulb
GrowBright Premium 1000 Watt Switchable Ballast
EasyCool 8 Reflector
or
AIROFLOW Reflector
This will support up to 12 plants in veg. Do I need anything else to hook up this light besides chain? Does that ballast come with something to screw the light into? Opinions on the reflectors?
The flower room will have two 600 watt HPS which will support up to 12 plants. Eventually I would like there to be four 600 watt HPS in the flowering room, and 24 plants in there. There will be 2 fans extracting air, and one for intake coming from the window.
My plants will be grow in 5 gallon buckets, with drip trays to collect run off water. My soil is going to be 70% Happy Frog 20% Perlite 10% Worm Casing. Will be using Fox Farm nutes. All water goes through RO and comes out at 30PPM. Do you feed your plant with every water? I was going to feed - water - feed - water etc. Is this right, or should I feed every time I water until I flush before harvest? The ladies will be hand watered, hopefully with a water wand and submersible pump (anyone know somewhere to get a water wand cheap?)
For genetics I am going to have:
5 seeds of Wonder Woman from Nirvana
5 seeds of Bubbalicious from Nirvana
3 clones from a medical growing friend. Possibly Strawberry Cough.
I'm hoping to get at least 4/5 with the seeds. I am using Rapid Rooter and have raised seedlings before.
I am going to split each strain up into 3rds.
With 1/3 of my plants I am not going to trim them.
With 1/3 I am going to do Uncle Ben's Topping Technique to get 4 MAIN colas
With 1/3 I am going to FIM them.
I am going to record what technique gives the highest yield per plant and continue using it.
The goal is to constantly have 12 plants in the veg room and 24 plants in the flower room, and harvest 12 plants every 30 days. The grow room goes up this weekend, the seeds are in the mail, and our clones will be cut this weekend as well.
Does everything seem in order? Am I forgetting anything here. Like I said this is my first time growing by myself. And it's not like being a chemist where the university "donated" lots of unused glassware and equipment, this shit is expensive and I gotta buy it all! So I can't mess up. Any advice and opinions are welcomed. Thanks for reading this.
