Hi everyone. I have grown outdoors several times now, I lived in ca so it was not a big deal. Now due to work I live in a prohibited state. Not letting it stop me, I have decided to grow in our basement. I will be growing blackberry fire. So although this is my first indoor grow, I still have a decent grasp of basic growing concepts. I am just wondering if you wonderful humans have any tips about things I may come up against that I am not familiar with. Here’s what I’m doing… I can’t afford a tent yet, but my basement has a tornado room. It’s a white metal enclosed room that has electrical outlets and seals off completely, except for two air registers above the door. The garage, where it is located stays as warm as the house and I keep it around 72 degrees (sometimes warmer, but rarely colder in the winter months). I plan on putting a small fan in there and I may just put a carbon scrubber, utilizing the two registers above the door. I just started to pop my seeds (blackberry fire) and I have prepped the room using Clorox and kills to make sure there is no mold in there. Yes, I have aired the room out to make sure there is no lingering chemicals. I usually use fox farms, but I am going to use Alaska 5-1-1 as that’s what is available locally. I am starting with a double fluorescent led light that I can lower with a chain, via two hooks already on the ceiling. My growing medium will be soil, I forget the brand but it is an organic soil I have from Home Depot. I am planning on posting pictures of my setup, but as you can tell it isn’t fancy by any means. I would love some feedback and tips, as I was saying. Thanks for any help you can provide. Stay medicated mi amigos. Xar
Is the room above grade or underground? If its below grade I'd make sure you have not only a properly filtered exhaust, but some form to feed fresh air into the grow area, multiply the length, width and height of your grow area to get total cubic feet, ensure you are getting enough air changes per hour for the plants, so like a 4x4x6 tall grow tent is about 96 cuft, a 100cfm inline fan is in theory changing that air every minute. Thats overkill imo, typically every 10-15 minutes while the light is on is what I use for air changes, but you will need air changes, and if you have registers in there, that will mess with the hvac (or more likely the hvac will mess with your grow) You say there are registers in the room, which you can use, but that probably means those registers are tied into the house hvac, which can lead to pressure or temp differentials as your house fan cuts on and off to heat the area, meanwhile, you want a slow steady stream of fresh cooler air being brought into the room, with the hot exhaust air flowing through a filter and to the outside. Also, if the room has a grate that pumps hot / cold air into the room, its probably got an intake somewhere as well, you'll want to make sure your exhaust fan can handle against the pressure of your return when it wants to suck air out of the grow room and through the rest of the hvac system. You may have to disconnect or jury rig the duct specific to those registers just to isolate the grow room from the rest of the home, depending on the setup (some of which you may not know except through trail and error) The electric outlets in the room how many circuits do you have? (a circuit is a group of plugs or receptacles wired together to a single breaker on your box, usually 15 amps but can be 10 amps per breaker in older homes). If your grow area is just one circuit, will there be enough juice to run lights, fans, dehu, etc without tripping the breaker or running it over 80% capacity regularly? (sometimes if you are out of luck on the wiring, the ceiling light in some of these rooms can be on a separate breaker you can tap off of in an emergency, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you have electrical experience or someone who can help you in person.) If you have 2 or more circuits thats probably enough to run the grow room, I'd typically get different colored plates for the wall receptacles to know what you are plugging into circuit ! vs circuit B so you keep your power draw spread out. The poor man way is to just put a piece of duct tape next to each outlet with a 1 or 2 or an A or B on it so you know which receptacles belong to which circuits. Air circulation, and electric / safety considerations are some of the main factors to consider growing indoors imo since you mentioned you have experience in outdoor growing, on the good side depending on how your setup is, you will hopefully have a lot less pest prevention work, or wind / rain damage! Also no jackass neighbor with untended male plants pollinating everyone else's hard work for miles around!
CFL are they the T5 bulbs ? Your going to need more lights, i suggest Quality LED lighting which is about a buck per watt. Quality LED lighting per square foot of grow space is about 35 watts. Samsung is the leader in high tech LED'S light emitting diodes ( LED ) I prefer using Horticulture Light Group LED QB''s