1st Timer ISO Help W/Grow Room Design / Setup

Discussion in 'Growing Marijuana Indoors' started by CloudSurfer1, Feb 19, 2017.

  1. So I've Been Researching for over a year and I feel as If Im ready to start my 1st Grow.
    My goal is to be able to create a sustainable perpetual Grow that is able produce and yield enough bud to satisfy myself and my wife.
    We Typically go through about an ounce a week.
    From my understanding Grow cycles usually take 3 months at least from germination to harvest plus the curing process.
    This would bring my target yield to 12oz or 3/4 lb
    This leads me to My 1st set of Questions which is.....
    1.How many plants would I need to produce this amount or something close to it???
    2.Is This possible to do in a Tent?
    3. What type of lighting would you recommend??


    The Grow will Take Place in a guest bedroom in my house.
    I'm almost sure I want to Go with a Grow Tent. Although I do have questions about the dimensions..

    Stealth is Somewhat of an Issue.
    My Major concern is CONTROLLING THE SMELL..

    Any suggestions or tips or comments would be greatly appreciated.








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  2. #2 Tbone Shuffle, Feb 19, 2017
    Last edited: Feb 19, 2017
    A 4x4 flower tent is going to be well within your yield goals. 4 plants fit well in there with either a 6 or 8 week veg depending on strain. You'll want anywhere from 600-1000 watts to flower a 4x4 and yield over a pound consistently. With time and building your expertise you should be able to approach 2 pounds in that space with 4 plants.

    Your best lighting setup is going to depend on your budget and building/electrical skills if you consider DIY'in your own lights. That is the cheapest way currently to get the best light setup which is 30mm cob based lighting from Cree, Citizen, or Vero. They currently have the highest lumens per watt, (up to 50% more then the best HPS), and the best spread of light coverage. They also run much cooler then any previous lighting setups. They can be ran with no fans if not pushed to full power.

    Here's an example. This company started selling pre assembled kits with all the parts you need to build your own lights. They're not the cheapest source for these parts by any means but they're convenient. They started building their own pre-assembled lights last year. It's not worth buying the kits because they'll build the light for your for about $50-75 extra. This is a wonderful light for flowering a 4x4.
    600 Watt Citizen CLU048 4'x4' Framework
    [​IMG]
    If this interests you but you don't have quite the cash you can build a similar light yourself sourcing parts all over the web to cut that $1000 price down a good 30% but it will cost you time. Realstyles and nibbloid both have good threads on sourcing parts. There's others on GC with DIY cob light threads.

    I think a tent is the way to go unless you already have an unused room that is the appropriate size. They're just so easy to setup and move. The cost is comparable to buying all the supplies yourself and building a room if you add in your time for sure. My 4x8 tent was $200. I split it into a 4x4 veg and a 4x4 flower area.

    One of the keys to larger yields is a long healthy veg time. I think many people try to flip their plants too early when they're too small to get them good yield. Especially with LED the plants don't stretch as much. You can bud quite a large plant and not run out of headroom. This is key if you're running 4 plants in a 4x4. If you bud them early you'll be limited to a couple of ounces a plant and not get the yield you're after.

    This also makes sense when running two rooms. If you get excited about having multiple strains like me what you'll find is you have a backup in the veg tent of plants waiting for their turn in the bud area. This is great for the 4 large plant method because you have at least 8 weeks of topping and LST training to get the plant the shape you want before your put it in flower. If it's a little too large lollipop starting from the bottom and remove any small side shoots and their associated fan leaves to shrink the canopy down until it fits in the space but you'll still have that large main stem structure to feed massive colas.

    You only need about half the amount of watts for veg as for flower I've found. If you do end up going with COBs. I think two linear 200 watt 4 cob fixtures would be great for veg. You could run one at clone height on half the tent and one at veg plant height on the other side.
    200 Watt Citizen CLU048 Linear Framework

    I highly recommend building or buying an aeroponic cloner machine. They make cloning easy, no mess, and reliable as clockwork. I'm using a turboklone 24.

    You will need a good size 400+cfm 6" centrifugal fan, a 6" muffler, some 6" duct work, and a 6" carbon filter. The carbon filter should be mounted in the bud tent up near the ceiling out of the way of the lights. This way is sucks the hottest stinkiest air out of the tent. You'll want a variable speed controller for the fan. Usually you can dial it in so leaving it running all the time gets you good temps with the lights on and off. Sometimes you'll have to speed it up for summer or hot days but that's about it.

    It will need to be ducted to the outside. The easiest way to do this without cutting holes in the walls is to build a covert window vent.

    Watch this guy do a good job building a stealth window vent.


    If you leave the fan running all the time the carbon filter with the negative pressure keeping odors from escaping should do a good job of eliminating most of the smell. I would dump the air in the back of your house if that's possible. There is other odor eliminating options like ozone generators and such if you look around. Most people get by with just a quality carbon filter.

    In order to get the most yield from a plant you don't want to grow just straight up single colas. A properly trained and lollipopped plant can yield double the same strain that isn't touched at all. This site has an excellent writeup on LST training. Check it out.
    Low Stress Training (LST) Tutorial | Grow Weed Easy

    If you do use soil or some kind of similar medium like coco or promix use generous portions of perlite in your mix to keep the soil light and drainage good. Cannabis likes lots of aeration in the soil and plenty of room for rapid root expansion. This is also key to good yields. I think fabric bags are far superior to plastic pots. I don't see the need to ever use those except for small starter pots.

    I'm a huge DWC hydro fan and if you can swing it this method can really increase your yield. Bucket DWC on this scale isn't that hard. Coco is a great option as well and ironhead has a great guide in the hydroponic section under coco coir.

    You'll want at least one good oscillating fan in each side of the tent for good circulation and strengthening of plant stem structure. I've found tower fans are great for tight space tents. They oscillate without running into plants and have much more clearance so leaves don't get caught in them. I ended up putting tower fans in each room after going through a few clip ons and other options. They sit on the floor and provide good air at top and bottom of the canopy.
     
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  3. god damn tbone you deserve some kinda award. GC is lucky to have you.
     
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  4. I'm an old forum geek from way back on lots of different subjects. It's something I enjoy.
     
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  5. I'm running 770 watts of platinum LED in my 4x4 bud side. It's outdated old burple stuff compared to COBs but still yielding me top notch bud, just not as much gram per watt as the newer light setups are capable of. After learning what I'm doing and 20 years of research on and off I just yielded over a pound on my 4th crop. This is my top yielding plant. It's DWC hydro in a 3.5 gallon bucket with mostly GH nutrients. I got over 6oz's of trimmed jarred buds and 2-3oz's or so of immature buds and trim for shatter and edibles. My wife likes edibles and I like butane hash so we fight over trimmings. This is a one of my Grand Daddy Purple phenotypes I call Sister Stout.
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    This is my 5th recent crop with my new legal setup. These two are White Widow clones from a friend I'm currently flowering that are making promix proud. They're 2 1/2 weeks in 12/12. This is a great example of a high yield strain. You can see how tight the bud structure is on the colas already. They're going to fill in nice. I can't wait. My buddy saw these and immediately wanted to do another crop of the white widow. He's been trying to run a few other strains that have had disappointing yields since. White Widow is a known high yielder and he has a good pheno he's been missing since the last time he ran it. Strain and also the best phenotype of that strain is important for the best yields. You can pop a seed of a known good strain that has completely undesirable characteristics. It's important to seek out good genetics of whatever strain you want. If you're working from seed pop at least 10 or so and select the one with the most desirable traits. They vary surprisingly depending on what seed you pop. Most strains are such a mix of genetics sometimes is a crap shoot which traits come out. You don't want to be left with a shite example of a great strain just because you popped one seed and your pheno sucks.
    [​IMG]
     
  6. Thanks for the feedback... for my 1st Grow I think one Tent will be better.

    What lighting would you recommend to cover the 4 plants??


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  7. If you have a guest bedroom, IMO only,
    I would put a good lock on the door 1st,
    2nd put a good blocker in your windows, I use a light surface so if someone looks at the window all they see is a light pattern, without any light shining thru it. so it just looks like the inside of your house,
    I really don't think you need a tent but if you prefer one use it. I find it easier to control with more space than a 4x4 tent that is just my opinion.
    I've been doing perpetual for years now because I am what sounds like the same situation you're in, just enough to keep me and a few patients with Medicine.
    Do you know if you are using DWC,Soil, or Soiless. (peatmoss)
    In mine I use Promix HP. works well for me, imo, it is less to work on, Hydro takes more time and IMO more can go wrong. (some will disagree) that is just MO
    if you get some good ladies vegging, then you're well on your way, In mine I use 8, 4 foot t5s for veg, and I have 3 600 watt HPS in the flower part, put 5 to 6 under each, by putting one or two in week sometimes less depending, but with perpetual that will give you one or two a week to take down, Depending on your strains. Sativa's can take 12 weeks, most india's are 8 weeks, so you can figure it out from there, depending on your needs, and what lights you use. I myself like the HIDs, haven't had any experience with LEDS or Cobs, But I am sure there are good people that can give info on them here.
    Good Luck on your new set up, Keep us posted on progress.
     
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  8. Hydro has a larger learning curve but once you understand how to run it you can fix problems with plants instantly that take days or a week to straighten out in soil. You just change the water and dial it back in. Soil or promix is easier but If you don't reuse your soil I'm not sure how much cheaper it really is. Sure no till is cheap in the long run once you have all the supplies to build your soil but if you're buying bags of soil or promix and replacing it every grow you're probably spending hundreds a year easy even with a small garden. That's as much or less then I spend in nutrients a year. Initial setup in hydro can be considerably more then soil also. When you see those fat baseball bat stems though on the hydro plants you'll know why you spent the time to do it. =)

    I would recommend starting in promix with a reputable nutrient line. It's a little easier then coco in that you don't need to be quite as careful with PH or coco specific nutrients but it's very similar to coco. It's not sterile and has a small amount of nutrients to start.

    IMO LED's and cobs are only a real option if you have a good size investment to setup your room or if you are doing a micro grow. The affordable LED's are pretty unreliable and hit and miss for lasting very long. You're not going to get many actual watts for your dollar.

    On amazon right now you can get vented hood 600 hps kits for $175 everything included. $200-225 for 1000watt with digital ballast and MH bulbs for veg. You can't come close to that kind of yielding power with LED for $200. If you do you have some serious knock off panels that may last a week or might not.

    I think getting started on a budget if you want a good size room like a 4x4 or 5x5 you still can't beat HPS for the price. Of course you have to pay for it every electric bill. Eventually in years of added electric savings you would have been way better off with the $1100 cob light but it will take a while and if you don't have that initial cash then you don't HPS is your best option.

    If you have $200 for a light and you want to grow a plant in a closet then a mars panel is a better choice then HPS.
     

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