So here goes my first real attempt at a grow. Went out today and bought a jiffy greenhouse to start my seeds. Right now I have 10 seeds in there, hopefully at least 3 pop so I have a decent chance of getting a female or 2. I have 4 23w 6500k cfls, and 4 clamp on light fixtures from my late chameleon. The tub is just some random container I had sitting around the house. I plan on spray painting it black inside, followed by flat white, figure the base coat of black will help with light leaks. On Friday I am going to the "local" hydroponics store to get some Perlite and hopefully a ph test kit. Of the 4 stores I went to today I found about 10 test kits, not one of which goes below 5.8. I am going with Perlite because I plan on a 3 gal hempy setup and LST. Here are some pics of what I've got so far. Not sure what size the tub is. Don't mind the bulbs in the lights, all but the spiral uvb bulb are blown out so they are getting trashed and replaced. Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated.
As far as CFL wattage goes: the general rule is 100 (real) watts for the first plant, 50 watts for each additional plant. More never hurts, of course Are you hiding your grow. You know, growing "stealthy?" If so, how do you plan to control the smell? If you have never grow before, sometimes soil grows are easy to start with. That is what I have done for the most part because I am poor and lazy Getting those seeds to pop can be tricky. If none of them come through for you, PM me and I can give you some tips I have learned over the years to germinating MJ seeds. Also, you should be able to get some mylar from your local hydroponics shop. That would be great to line your rubbermaid with... ... ... ... ... Good luck!
For smell I plan on building a carbon scrubber in the next few weeks. My "local" hydro shop is 35 miles away. Living in Pa is terrible for buying both bud and supplies.
Do you have to worry about anyone uncovering your grow because of the smell? A lot of first time growers (myself definitely included) underestimate the powerful smell that these plants can produce. During flowering when the buds are developing...OH MY GOD! I built a DIY carbon scrubber in my first grow. It would work great for about a day, but after that the carbon material was so saturated with the stuff that it would stop working. In the end I had better luck with simply keeping the windows open in the basement (where I do my growing) and having a fan running all the time to circulate the air out of the house.
What kind of scrubber did u make? I was planning on one of the 6 inch ones filled with activated carbon. How well/ long do those work?
I made two different carbon filters. I also made an Odor Neutralizing machine, which turned out really awesome. Here is one of the carbon filters I made It would work well for a few days, but the carbon material got saturated fast. It wasn't too cost effective in the end. The other one I made used carbon rocks in a can instead of filter material. My fans were not strong enough to pull air through the rocks, so that did not work very well either. In the end the odor neutralizing machine was the most effective, though nothing was 100%. I ended up opening all the windows in the basement and leaving them open full time. That worked better then anything. I wish I could say that I had perfect luck with one of my designs, but I didn't Smell is a really difficult issue to deal with. A lot of new growers (myself included) have no idea the kind of punch these cannabis plants can pack!! You have to plan and be ready for it, for sure.
Day4: first sprout broke the surface of the jiffy starter, went to the hydro store and bought some perlite to get things started in a few days. Putting plans together for a carbon scrubber and an odor neutralizing machine.
Transferred the 2 that broke the surface to Dixie cups with perlite, and threw on two of the lights on a 18-6 timer
Day 6: Lights and bottled water really perked them up, doubled in size since yesterday. I think the first true leaves are forming, not positive. For moving air, would pc fans work for now? Already have them and don't want to over stress the stems just yet with a true fan.
Looks like you are starting how I started. Check out where im at now. I only used cfls and put her in a rubbermaid after a while in veg. But I started out kinda aeroponics before switching to full soil. Check my grow out too?!
I bought a sheet of reflective material at Canadian Tire for $3.49 and I have plenty left over (it was huge!). They are also known as solar blankets or emergency blankets.
Yeah, I got an emergency blanket, now I just have to attach it. Any good way of doing that? I have gorilla glue, but haven't had an opportunity yet to try it.
So, the emergency blanket went up, now it's like looking into a mini sun in there, but it didn't cut the light like I wanted. Probably about 90% of the light is reflected now, but you can still see a slight glow coming from the sides of the tub. It is starting to look like I am going to have to rip out the lining, paint the inside white, and redo everything. On top of that, this week is when I had planned on getting ventilation and odor control figured out. On that subject, is it possible to hook up a fairly cheap inline fan to a dimmer switch to control the speed? I don't have to worry about noise really unless the manager comes in for the yearly inspection, and when family comes over. It's really just a matter of dialing it in just right for the size of my grow.
Same here. I bought a car seat blanket, lined the part that will be inside the cabinet with left over emergency blanket, stapled it to the cabinet and velcroed it to the sides and there is a slight glow coming around the edges. I will see if it is an issue tonight when the lights are off...
Well, white paint plus emergency blanket cut about 95% of the light leaks, but the temps skyrocketed. In the 2 days since it started all 3 plants are brown. Just rigged a pc fan and watered again, but they may be done. Damn busy schedule preventing me from doing necessary maintenance. ; (