Hello GC people.... First and for most I'd like to say thank you to all the guru's out here, you guys sure are a vast source of knowledge!! i've done a lot of reading and research and I have a space that I'll be turning into my grow room. At first I was thinking of getting a large tent, 4x8 and using that but I want to go all out and I'll construct a room in the basement. Inside dimensions are 8'10 L x 5' W.(Designs attached) Not the biggest spot but it will hopefully do. I'm pretty ahead of myself since as of right now I'm in the midst of trying to get my medical card, but no harm in getting the ball rolling. I'm wanting to do a perpetual grow and eventually grow for others as well, so I'm aiming towards 24-30 plants. With the space I've got I mapped out that amount of plants but I now realized that I didn't take into consideration where I would veg the ladies first. I guess my first initial thought was germ from seed, florescent bulb on the seedlings, veg with MH and flower with HPS all in the same room (except for the germ and seedling growth) I think I may still be able to use the same room for the veg while a flower cycle is in progress but only if I build a cabinet that is light proof. I plan on building Rumpleforeskins DWC bubble buckets and clone buckets. (This guy is amazing!!) My questions are: I've red that if you give your plants 1 sq ft of room to grow you can get max yeild depending on the strain. So I'm confused does that mean you want the plant to have 1 sq ft of space all around the thing equaling 4 sq ft? Or is it ok sitting in a bucket with an area of 1 sq ft. (You will notice that in my design i have the buckets sitting in a square that is 1 sg ft. The diameter of a usual 5-10 gal pot is 11.5" so that would be 1 sg ft) Also I want to be as efficient as possible and want to know how many watts I'm going to need to grow 24-30 plants? I've red all types of numbers and I know more is better but again I'd like to try and be efficient. I've red 50-100 watts per sq ft. Looking at my design what should I need to make it happen? Finally I plan on doing a hydro grow DWC and go with a scrog. This will be my first ever grow so I'm not sure if I should do the scrog but it seams like its pretty easy for to the yields you can get. Feel free to look at my design and give me any feed back to better it and help me make a decision. Any help for a newbie is much appreciated, thanks in advance!
Not really getting your models, but 1 sq foot is not enough room for a plant in a 5 gal or 10 gal pot. If your plants aren't branching out way beyond the pot, you are not growing them right. How much room a plant needs and how many watts really depends on how big a plant you plan to grow. IMO less is better. There is no advantage to having a bunch of plants jammed up against each other with their branches getting no light and air instead of fewer plants with room for the branches to spread out. I don't know about your veg cabinet. It would have to be totally light proof while letting air in and out. While you're building rooms in the basement, just build your vegging plants a separate room. With 4 600's or 400's in that space, you better have some excellent ventilation to cool it. How about two 1000's?
Thanks usedtocare, for reading my long ass thread I appreciate it lol (love the screen name). I will take your advice and build 2 rooms one for veg and one for flower. Only reason i got the number of 1 sq ft is when you look at seed sites they all seam to say (yeild) i.e 500gr/sq ft. Personally I'd love to yield a pound each plant, actually that is my goal so I will grow less, (thinking 16) for the space I've got. I've red some grow journals and can estimate width of plant to be about 3' give or take. I am leaning toward the scrog method and in my updated room design you can see the screen area I'm thinking of. Also I think I will go with 2 1000's in the flower room and either 2x600 or 2x1000 for veg. I would like to see what you guys out there think. I'm just trying to plan this out before I dive right in. Any advice is much appreciated! Thanks all!
You do not need 1200 - 2000w for veg with only 2000w for flowering. A single 600w will be fine. Remember, your plants get big in flowering, not in veg. You only need roughly 1/4 of the flowering space to veg them out. For a 8x5, I'd run 2x 1000w. You can grow plants packed in 6" square pots packed wall to wall, or in 20 gallon containers with a few monster plants. The yields will be the same. It's about keeping the canopy nice, full and even - doesn't matter how many plants you do it with or how much space they take each.
You make a good point highonthe hill. I will be going with the scrog method so keeping a good level canopy will be my goal. At least I've got the lighting figured for now. since I only need 1/4 of the space for veg I'm more leaning toward a cabinet but maybe I can set up a smaller area. What would you suggest dimention wise for about 16 clones?
That depends on a lot. My clone cab is about 14" x 26" x 3' (LxWxH), I keep 2 bonsai mothers in there in 1 gallon pots + clones. Not sure how many clones I can fit, but it also depends on what you clone in. A clone tray is roughly 10x20" I think. I just use little 3" or 4" square pots and a soilless mix - I can fit maybe a dozen + mothers. Sometimes I clone in vermiculite in plugs in which case I could probably hold 20-30 clones + mother plants. All under 100w MH. My mothers grow very slowly, which suits me fine.
That sounds like a set up thats been on lock with some years of use. Myself I'm just overwhelmed with how I'm going to set up my rooms. I like the idea of doing a scrog as it seams to be an excellent way to get large yields. I'm now thinking I'll keep my room design as is in the above picture, and extend a smaller section off room one for the clone area, about 3.5'x3.5'. I really like the designs RF uses for his dwc and clone machine and will more then likely go this route. http://forum.grasscity.com/general-i...step-step.html To start I'll go with the larger room first until I figure out the amount of plants I can legally grow, then expand into the second room. Considering that I will have two rooms going I in turn would have to get 8 1000 watt bulbs 4 HPS, 4 MH, then get a smaller watt MH for the clones. That would be the only way to go if I want to do the scrog method(I don't like the idea of building a screen on the bucket then moving it). Now that I'm thinking about it, once I expand into the second room I'll have to use one for flower and one for veg this way to save on the amount spent on equipment. Jeez I know I'm over thinking this but the best plan of attack is to research then build (for me at least).
Your best bet is to keep it simple. My set-up was brand new and only running for a few months. The link you posted doesn't work for me, but the whole idea of growing is to find something you find interesting and pursue it - it may work for you, and it may not. Since this is your first grow, I suggest keeping it small for now and getting the gist of the whole thing before going off the deep end. IMO the best way to go about growing it to invest in equipment that you know you can use down the road. For instance maybe this time just get a cheap 400w ballast and run a CMH (Ceramic Metal Halide) bulb for the entire grow and see if you enjoy it. If growing really is for you, then you can invest in a nice 1000w HPS unit, and then you'll have the 400w CMH for vegging/cloning. Then if you still want more, maybe invest in a powerbox relay unit then run 2 flowering rooms 1000w each and 400w for veg (still plenty). Start small so you don't overwhelm yourself. After years of growing I have all sorts of equipment laying around that I don't even use. I only flowered with 400w (and still am) these past couple grows despite having probably 10k watts in ballasts/bulbs laying around. Sometimes running large grows just isn't as fun - it's a lot of labor and basically a pain in the ass until you get it dialed in.
H.O.T.H. I was reading up on one of your grow journals and I must say I'm impressed of what you accomplished with just 400w. Plus with all the different hurdles you had to overcome and still pull off a harvest that's awesome. I will take your advice and start off some what slow. I am in the midst of applying for my meds and here in Canada its a lot, I mean A LOT harder and a lot of jumping through hoops. So if and when I get my prescription I should be legal to grow 10-15 plants and it lasts a year so I want to get the most yields possible. My GP wont prescribe me so I have to go through a private medical centre and they charge $500. Once I'm legal to grow I plan on finding a patient in need of the meds to supplement my equipment cost at least. So my plan for now will be to divide the larger room into two sections veg and flower, flower being the biggest area. Use 1000w HPS for flower and 400w MH for the veg. Then once I do find someone to grow for I will use the other room as a flower as well. I've always liked gardening and love the beauty of the mj plant so I can see myself enjoying this little hobby/business.
Ok so I've done some designing and configured the probable design of the room I will be building. Nothing in depth yet just basic layout. Only issue now that just dawned on me is that I've been designing the room with only giving the plants 1 sq foot of growth space. I'm really wanting to yield big and not sog. I will upload what I've come up with but I now have to go back to the drawing board. Of the 5 I like design 1 the best....for now.