100% New, 100% Serious!

As a fellow newbie, I just built my cabinet and buckets and ordered my lights and my nutrients and my exhaust system etc etc etc... Things can get expensive pretty quick! What your going to want to do is decide what zone of "cheap" your in, my 3 bubble bucket hydro setup w/ IKEA cabinet converted to grow cab and my 400w light system and nutes etc cost me roughly $500... w/ soil, smaller lighting (CFL's or something) and some craftiness I don't possess you could probably drop that cost. **EDIT** Do your research here on the boards... I built everything without needing to ask questions, it's all at your finger tips. Ask questions after your grow or if your confused, do yourself a favor and look around yourself because you will stumble on lots of useful tidbits AND have a better all around knowledge base.

 

at home depot you can get in and get out with two florescent tube fixtures and the tubes for under 40$, this is plenty of light to start vegging your girls while you wait, and you can set up a veg to flower set up where you are constantly vegging new girls and in another room your flowering ones you already grew.

 

i'm doing hydro but as far as I can tell go with foxfarm organic, some GOOD perlite and you should be alright.

 

I've done Hydro and Soil grows and Im totally hooked on Organic Soils now (Fox Farm). They seem to grow the plants really well with some good nutes and proper lighting. Plus the smoke is so damn smooth, but everyone has their own input. Organic Soil is very easy to grow in too compared to even a simple hydro setup.

Im using Organic soil with RO water and Organic nutes, my bud is rated USDA Organic now

 

If your on a tight budget (>$500), you want to go soil, hydro will empty your pockets getting started, especially if you make a mistake.

 

read the lighting guide in my sig

 

1) What are your stealth needs?

2) How much do you need to yield?

3) How much space do you have?

Let's start with answering those questions and go from there, eh?

 

1) What are your stealth needs?

2) How much do you need to yield?

3) How much space do you have?

Let's start with answering those questions and go from there, eh?

 

what is your actual budget as well. give us a number.

 

for a light look at ebay thare cheaper if you want a hps of mh light.and for soil you can make your owen mix and still be cheap and organic. you can pretty much get every thing you need to grow at home depo lowes or walmart.my first grow i was under $200 for every thing .

 

For 2 plants? Yes... A 250w HPS would be perfect.
(200w is an odd wattage and difficult to find bulbs for if at all?)

If you decide on a cabinet, look into SCRoG. You'll want about a 2' x 3' screen and that will give you around 41 Watts per square foot. Excellent light level for good MJ.

With a 250W light... Hrmm...

If space is an issue you can go with a shallow bubble bucket that holds around 10 gallons of water. I used a rubbermaid low slung tub about 6 inches deep with the Lucas Method and it did excellent for 2 150W hps so you're thinking about the same size grow.

If space isn't an issue I'd use 2 5gal bubbler buckets.



The reason I keep pimping the bubbler bucket method with the Lucas Method for nutes is because it's simple enough to allow the beginner to learn how the MJ plant grows and matures without getting into too much detail about the hydro.

Use the simple Lucas method with RO water and you'll get great results without a PHD in Chemistry.

Once you've done a grow you'll have so much more experience you'll be planning everything completely different than now.

GROW ON!

 

RO = Reverse Osmosis water. Water filtered using an RO filter is very clean


Lucas Method = A very simple hydroponic nutrient mix and reservoir maintenance schedule that makes it very simple for a rank beginner to get great results without learning chemistry.

Here's what I have for pasting on that...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GrowFAQ :<table bgcolor="#ffffff" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="650"><tbody><tr><td>Lucas Formula

<table border="1" bordercolor="#afafcf" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td class="smalll" align="left" bgcolor="#dfdfef" width="100%"> Added by: snoofer Last edited by: snoofer Viewed: 507 times</td><td class="small" align="right" bgcolor="#dfdfef"> <nobr>Rated by 19 users: 8.89/10</nobr></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" bgcolor="#f6f6ff">Contributed by: Snaps_Provolone
Submitted: 15-05-2004

General Hydroponics Flora Series Feeding Strategy - Lucas Formula

G-M-B (Grow-Micro-Bloom)
0-5-10 - For Vegetative cycle (18/6)
0-8-16 - For Flowering cycle (12/12)

The numbers above indicate the number of milliliters (ml) of Flora Grow, Micro or Bloom formulas that I use in one gallon (US Liquid) of nutrients.

You will notice I dont use any of the Flora “Grow” formula, do not need to, the Flora "Micro" provides plenty of Nitrogen.

There are two ways to work with this formula:

1. Top off the reservoir daily using a pH corrected water solution as required to maintain full reservoir level. After adding back an amount of water equal to the amount of your reservoir capacity you should change the reservoir and put in fresh solution.

2. Top off the reservoir daily using a pH corrected 100% strength nutrient solution as required to maintain full reservoir level. Continue to use this nutrient solution without dumping the tank unless the PPM rises above acceptable levels.

Between vegetative and flowering cycles you should dump your nutrients, then flush (possibly with Clearex) to remove salt buildups, then change to the other feeding program. Always shake your GH nutrient bottles before using them!

For young plants, just transplanted into the hydro setup, give them 50% strength nutrient mix to prevent overfeeding them while their young. Gradually bring up the mix to full strength as they grow over the next few weeks or so.

The lucas formula is normally intended for use with RO or near 0 PPM water.

NOTE: The Lucas formula eliminates the need for Epsom salts to correct (Magnesium) Mg deficiencies in most normal feeding programs recommended by manufacturers. Cannabis needs a lot of Magnesium to thrive.

The Flora Micro is providing the Nitrogen and the Magnesium in the proper balance, thus there is no need for the Grow formula and little or no room under the maximum acceptable ppm limit of 1600 @ 0.7 conversion.

Calculated EC/TDS levels:

EC microsiemen:
0-4-8: 946 µS
0-5-10: 1184 µS
0-8-16: 1894 µS

TDS @ 0.5 conversion:
0-4-8 = 473 ppm
0-5-10 = 592 ppm
0-8-16 = 947 ppm

TDS @ 0.7 conversion:
0-4-8 = 663 ppm
0-5-10 = 829 ppm
0-8-16 = 1326 ppm

Addback Calculator - (For Advanced Users)

Say you were running the 0-8-16 formula, at 0.7 conversion with a 22 gallon res. When you first fill it up, your ppm will be around 1330.

Now you have been growing for a week, and some of the water has been taken up by the plants, some has evaporated, and now your res is at 947 ppm. You need to get your ppm from 947 to 1330. Here is the equation:

((target - current) / target) * 8 ml per gallon * res gallons = Flora Micro (ml) double this figure to get Flora Bloom (ml)

Example:

((1330 - 947) / 1330) * 8 * 22
(383 / 1330) * 8 * 22
0.3 * 8 * 22 = 53 ml Flora Micro

53 ml Flora Micro, double that and you get 106 ml Flora Bloom. So 53 ml Flora Micro and 106 ml Flora Bloom to add back to your 22 gallon res to get you from 947 to 1330.

Using Hard Water GH Micro

I had been experimenting with using the Hard water Micro as a substitute for the normal Flora Micro, this to account for my hard 350 PPM water and the lack of a large enough RO filter at the time. It has worked well for me. I just kept my reservoir below 1150 PPM @ .5 conversion and its all good.

One tip - do not pH down this stuff, the hard water micro will drop pH gradually over the next 24 hours, for example I mix up a batch, it is at like 6.2, the next day, its at 5.6-5.8 after running in the system for a while. If I pH downed that to 5.7 before putting it in the system, it ended up as low as 4.8-5.2 by the next day.

My conclusion, the hard water micro was buffering the alkaline crud in my water, it just doesnot do it ASAP fast like the phosphoric acid.
</td></tr><tr><td align="left" bgcolor="#dfdfef" width="100%"> Last modified: 03:16 - May 17, 2004</td><td class="small" align="right" bgcolor="#dfdfef"> </td></tr></tbody></table>
</td></tr></tbody></table>Quicklink: http://overgrow.com/growfaq/1654
GrowFAQ © 2000-2004 Overgrow
faq:1654 "Lucas Formula"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Does that work for you?
I used the simple method of just mixing it up in the Reservoir full strength and then adding RO water until I reached the full number of starting gallons. Dump the res and start over.


VERY simple and it allowed me to focus on the plants and how they grow and working them into a SCRoG screen. Very Therapeutic.


Glad to be able to relay some info that helped myself in the past

 

Are you planning to do the grow in China or is this upcoming move going to relocate you to another country? If not, I'm not sure what kind of hydroponic nutes are available in China.

The Lucas Formula works for both AN and GH (Advanced Nutrients and General Hydroponics) nutrients, but I'm not sure if you can get those there.

 

Are you planning to do the grow in China or is this upcoming move going to relocate you to another country? If not, I'm not sure what kind of hydroponic nutes are available in China.

The Lucas Formula works for both AN and GH (Advanced Nutrients and General Hydroponics) nutrients, but I'm not sure if you can get those there.