What soil, equipment and lightbulbs would anyone recommend?

So far my first attempt was somewhat bad as one plant began to grow and than I messed with the soil and it died which I will never do again. Okay I have miracle-gro moisture control so from there I need tips. I just need a lot of help with preparation than from there I got it.

As for lights if you have the money Hortilux super hps is nice for flowering,I always recommend soil with no time release nutrients,with that said 50% soil,25% perlite for soil aeration 25% vermiculite (retains water well),then purchase water soluble nutrients (ex. advance nutrients,botanicare line products.)As for humidifier IDK i never used one I just keep the room sealed.

wat soils or mixtures would u recommend

Any soil with out time release nutes perlite and vermiculite they sell all these products at home depot

what nutrients would you recomend and when add them if i get something without a time release

I use mostly botanicare products, just make sure they are for soil they have a hydroponic formula also,they have a feeding guide that you can follow on back.

out of these lights for these stages what would work best or multiple lights I also put what I found about each

Vegetation Stage:
1.Daylight spectrum fluorescent bulbs are very high (if not the highest) in the blue range on the Kelvin scale. This fluorescent promotes an arctic blue look.
2.Cool spectrum fluorescent bulbs will promote multiple side growth, nice green foliage. This fluorescent is high in the blue range, giving off a bright white appearance.
3. Metal Halide Bulbs (MH)

Flowering:
1.Warm spectrum fluorescent, will promote extra thick stems and branches, and will give you about 5% denser buds than other spectrums. This fluorescent is high in the red range on the Kelvin scale.
2.Wide spectrum fluorescent bulbs will restrict development of side branching, helps plants mature faster. This fluorescent is high in the red, orange and yellow color range. In fact, this fluorescent is the highest than all other fluorescent bulbs. As a matter of fact, this fluorescent is much like an HPS color range.
3. High Pressure Sodium Bulbs (HPS)

Metal Halide is best for the vegetative stage, HPS High pressur Sodium for the flowering stage,the penetrating power of HID is by far the best,The only downside is they produce a fair amount of heat,depending on the temps in your region you may or may not need to cool your reflector hood,that's if you decide to go 400 watt or higher,250 watt and lower are generally pretty easy to keep cool with proper ventilation.I use regular fluorescent for the vegatative room with great results.I purchase the lights and fixtures at Wal-Mart,the fixtures are $9-$10 that hold two lights,and the two packs are $7-$8.You can also use Cfl (compact fluorescent) lights that simply plug into a regular light sockets.I dislike these myself ,just too many wires every where.If you do decide to use fluorescent lighting you need your lights to be 6500k color temp. bulbs for veg,3000k color temp. bulbs for flowering,I use 1 of each in each fixture in my veg room.For flowering as stated above high pressure sodium is the best way to go for the nicest, juciest, compact buds.Some high output fluorescent lights have good results but HID is better hands down,now if you need to be super stealthy fluorescent is the way to go.

I wouldn't grow in the Miracle Grow Moisture Control. I used 1 bag of that, two bags of their regular potting soil, and 2 bags of peat moss and it's not turning out so well. First, I had a problem with gnats, so I used sand. Now the sand is kind of blocking out the porousness of the mixture, so it's really hard to water and even then, the dirt has turned super hard. I'll never use Miracle Grow again, but I was in a rush to set up the first time, and it was probably my biggest mistake, and the moisture control I think is probably the worst. It'll trap moisture for waaaay too long and your plants won't like it much. It's better to have a looser soil that will aerate more quickly. I'm gonna try a coco/soil mix next time.

I read this pretty indepth study from this guy growing venus flytraps and he really recommended using General Electric's 4 ft. Plant and Aquarium bulbs. They give off a white, faintly bluish light and I can tell the plants really like it. I'm just going into my first week of flowering and even with a 400w HPS going, I can tell the plants will still lean over to try to capture the light from the flouros I'm still using as a supplemental lighting source. For good flowering, you pretty much need a decent HPS light.

AirAnt said:

I wouldn't grow in the Miracle Grow Moisture Control. I used 1 bag of that, two bags of their regular potting soil, and 2 bags of peat moss and it's not turning out so well. First, I had a problem with gnats, so I used sand. Now the sand is kind of blocking out the porousness of the mixture, so it's really hard to water and even then, the dirt has turned super hard. I'll never use Miracle Grow again, but I was in a rush to set up the first time, and it was probably my biggest mistake, and the moisture control I think is probably the worst. It'll trap moisture for waaaay too long and your plants won't like it much. It's better to have a looser soil that will aerate more quickly. I'm gonna try a coco/soil mix next time.

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Perlite is excellent for soil aeration and pretty cheap.I heard good things about coco also but never used it.

Does no one read about growing before asking stupid questions? And yeah, it IS stupid when the same questions have been answered about 7000 times over and over and over again.

ganjman said:

Does no one read about growing before asking stupid questions? And yeah, it IS stupid when the same questions have been answered about 7000 times over and over and over again.

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True bro but we're here to help,I don't mind answering questions about growing it's a passion of mines and I enjoy sharing it with others. and good

jcdws602 said:

The only downside is they produce a fair amount of heat,depending on the temps in your region you may or may not need to cool your reflector hood,that's if you decide to go 400 watt or higher,250 watt and lower are generally pretty easy to keep cool with proper ventilation.

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I live in southern california so any tips?

ganjman said:

Does no one read about growing before asking stupid questions? And yeah, it IS stupid when the same questions have been answered about 7000 times over and over and over again.

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yeah but sometimes when you read those there isnt the specific information that you need .. duh i looked up on it first and than asked but some of the things in the others are irrelevant to my situation as i am givin it another try and i am trying to make less errors.

jcdws602 said:

Perlite is excellent for soil aeration and pretty cheap.I heard good things about coco also but never used it.

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Hopefully If I can get enough funds around before my next start-up, which is probably going to be pretty soon here, I'm going to get a bunch of different mediums and experiment with what works best.

My planters aren't all that big so next time I'm going to use those cups that roots can grow through to try to make my plants work harder to reach the bottoms. I'm thinking about filling the cups with Shultz Pro Potting Mix or maybe some canna specific blend if I can afford it and then suspending those in pots filled with coco, perlite, vermiculite, lava and different mixtures of those.

I've grown a few times but never really been that satisfied with my soil mixture, it always seems to get too wet which leads to nutrient defficiencies later in the plants life. Then again, I've always used miracle grow so...

Well, I think probably the biggest thing missing from my equation right now is a Ph tester. I'm going out tonight to buy some blackstrap molasses and epsom salts. I'm eventually going to get a Ph tester but probably wont be able to afford it right away. The nearest hydro store is about an hour away and their stuff seems to be overpriced but I'm way too paranoid to have stuff shipped to my place.

a few things that I would def spend money on before ever starting again:
1. Electronic ph tester
2. Bluelab Truncheon ppm meter
3. Daisy Cloner (or something similar)
4. Lots of zip ties

the answer to the rest all depends on how much you want to grow and what kind of space and budget you have.

I'm fast becoming a fan of an led / hid combo and on my next try (clones going in the dirt over the next few days) I am going to only use the hid's 30 min every 3 hours. This way there is no heat buildup and will make life a lot easier when it's 90-100f outside. And if you do use led's - dont put them right on the plants - they actually perform best at distances of over 24".

For soil i use pro mix - this will only be my second grow but i know many who swear by it and it's not that expensive, you just have to buy a lot at a time.

Actually many of these questions have been answered. I read a lot of this stuff awhile back and most of my questions where answered already. Coco I heard is the best for aeration.

AirAnt said:

Hopefully If I can get enough funds around before my next start-up, which is probably going to be pretty soon here, I'm going to get a bunch of different mediums and experiment with what works best.

My planters aren't all that big so next time I'm going to use those cups that roots can grow through to try to make my plants work harder to reach the bottoms. I'm thinking about filling the cups with Shultz Pro Potting Mix or maybe some canna specific blend if I can afford it and then suspending those in pots filled with coco, perlite, vermiculite, lava and different mixtures of those.

I've grown a few times but never really been that satisfied with my soil mixture, it always seems to get too wet which leads to nutrient defficiencies later in the plants life. Then again, I've always used miracle grow so...

Well, I think probably the biggest thing missing from my equation right now is a Ph tester. I'm going out tonight to buy some blackstrap molasses and epsom salts. I'm eventually going to get a Ph tester but probably wont be able to afford it right away. The nearest hydro store is about an hour away and their stuff seems to be overpriced but I'm way too paranoid to have stuff shipped to my place.

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I get stuff shipped all the time with no probs,I've been growing about 8 years off and on now,there are lots of people that grow indoor veggies and get stuff shipped to them all the time.I myself don't do soil grows anymore,I hate all the bugs it brings and all the mess with soil if you spill any plus carrying big soil bags,and don't get me started on the watering.Growing is pretty easy if you get the right recipe,I find that people tend to over analyze,thats when probs start to occur,just keep it simple, do what your sposed to do when your sposed to,and with the right genetics, you will have great results.

thanks for the advice. +rep for you my friend. Think I'm going to go heavily coco, and I've pretty much got no choice but to order that and it's nutes online. The coco thread here is awesome, btw. I'm learning so much from this forum, it's great.

I do have one question that I'm not sure deserves its own thread, but I can't find a definate answer yet. I'm growing from bag seeds, so I'll only be able to determine if a plant is female, and her potency and yeild is by completing flowering. Do you know if it's ok to harvest a fully flowered plant, leave a couple leaves on her, and then re-veg it to a state where clones can be taken? I just don't want to lose all the potency or have mutant/weak clones mainly. If I find a really good mystery strain, I'd like to be able to do that rather than take my chances over and over again with hermies and males.

I am using a soilless mix. It consists of Peatmoss, perlite, crushed expanded clay balls aka hydroton. Some dolimite to raise the ph because peatmoss is very acidic. The ph of the mix is 6.7. Right now they are under a t5 4x54 watt 6500k grow light. Planning on just using that light for vegging the mothers and the clones. May need to upgrade to the 8 light version and use the 4 bulb one for side lighting in flower room. Flower room will have a 1000 watt HPS to start I have room and venting to add more later. Couple pics plants 2 weeks old from seeds.