I am looking for a couple of people who can give me a steady hand in my first round of indoor growing. I hope to find someone familiar with hydroponics and possibly doing so in a low vertical area with a SCROG method? I am doing a crawl space grow and have roughly 3 ½ foot of vertical from floor to roof. I have dug out another foot in a section of the 8 x 8 area I've chosen and would like to do another foot giving me a total of 5 vertical feet, but it is pretty rough being I'm 6' 2'' : ) Sooo 4 foot for sure on the vertical. Any feed back? I am doing a “Drip System†in my veg room and a “Ebb and Flow†in the flowering room. This will need to be thought out because that will consume a chunk of the vertical off the bat. \tI want to use a 600 watt digital light both HPS and MH in the flowering room. And have contemplated fluorescents in the veg room. \tThis is pretty much my hold up in life at the moment. Can I do a worthwhile grow with my height issue and can I use the light I'd like to use. \tI want to have a minimum of 8 plants going if possible and a quarter pound every 2 months. \tHow far must I keep my light from my flowering plants ? This is probably one of my bigger concerns. \tWell hope to hear from someone soon I have a week of solo time, a pocket of tax money and am ready to go to the horticulture shop. Thanks ladies and germs.
There are many people here who are very willing to help. Simply do your research first. If you still have questions which you cannot find an answer to on your own, then make a well thought out post. You'll generally have better responces to your questions if you make them easy to understand, well thought out, clear, and written in a legible manner. We're not asking for grammatical perfection here - just something easier than a gigantic wall of endless text to read. Remember that most of your beginner questions have been asked and answered dozens of times on these boards already. Use the search link at the top of each page. You'll find so much information, you'll be dreaming in GC posts! Good luck and happy growing!
The links in my signature will give you a great head start on nutrition and places to find information.
Your biggest concern with the low headspace is finding a reservoir that is big enough, but with a low profile. Most E & F and drip systems drain back into the reservoir. This means that you have to have a tray that sits on top of a reservoir to recirculate or drain back into. This will take up about half of your grow space. There is a system called a Eurogrower that has a fairly low profile, it measures 56"x24"x22"h. It has 8 - 2 gallon buckets and a 40 gallon reservoir. If you were to dig further in to accept the reservoir, you would gain 10-12" headspace, and with scrog, could pull it off pretty easily IMO. The other idea that comes to mind is a fairly new system called Autopots. This system uses a soilless mix so it is basically a hydro setup. The autopots have a device that automatically waters the plants when they get dry. It is a gravity fed system that is plumbed to each bucket, or group of buckets. The medium used is a 50/50 mixture of coco coir and perlite. This mix will wick the water through the bottom of the pot and water as needed from one central reservoir. There are no pumps, feeding is all done by gravity. With this system, your pot will sit right on the floor and you will not need to worry about height constraints. There is some solid science from the bottom feeding method also. As the plants medium dries, it pulls fresh o2 into the root zone. When the medium reaches a certain point of dryness, the patented device opens a valve that floods the pots water tray, and the dry medium sucks up all the water it needs until the valve again closes. When the plant is fully watered, all the stale air is expelled from the root zone. I'll give you some links on these systems, just so you can check out some options: http://nationalgardenwholesale.com/...rays / Reservoirs / Grow Systems&type=product http://nationalgardenwholesale.com/...rays / Reservoirs / Grow Systems&type=product http://www.autopot.com.au/ These are just a couple options I might consider if in your situation, and there are certainly other folks who'll have similar, but different ideas. Hope my $0.02 worth helps... ...........Good luck whichever way you decide to grow.....
What the hell, I've got some time. Let me make sure I've got this right. You have an 8'x8' crawl space area with 3.5 feet of vertical height? Thinking of going hydro with 600watt HPS? First flag - the reflector will take up 1 feet of that 3.5 leaving you with 2.5 feet reflector to floor. Because of the heat created, a 600 watt bulb needs to be 1 - 1.5 feet from tops of plants to prevent burning. This leaves you with 1.5 feet of vertical height. Now figure in your reservoir under your hydro tray. Do you see where I'm going here? This seems highly impossible. I would suggest high output fluorescents with your height restrictions. I've done hydro grows under 600watt HPS and 648watts of T5 HO fluorescents that weren't much different in yield. Go up to 864watts of T5's and you'll yield more than with the HPS. You can keep the fluorescents an inch from the top of your SCROG screen, not to mention you won't have to worry about the heat like you would with the HID. Think about that and I'll post more later.
My crawl space is the span of my 2500 square foot house. I just picked a 8x8 to work with.Should I stay away from hydro? I really wanted the yield and grow speed of hydro.
Since you're growing in a dug out space, your res temps probably won't get that high. Normally I don't recommend DWC/SWC anymore unless you're going low temp CFL. Too many issues with heat and lack of dissolved oxygen. I'd look into DWC/SWC instead of E&F in this situation. Your main concern will be in making sure you have enough air pumping through the water. At least 1 watt per gallon of res and make sure you use quality airstones. The nice 6$ ceramic ones, cause they'll last you 10 years and you won't have to mess around with them every week or so. Using DWC will mean growing your plants directly in your res so you'll save the space you would have used for a tray. Very low profile way to grow. The link on growing like a pro in my sig will give you a thread on how to use a simple nute system that gives superb results. Your plants will look like they've been grown like a pro. As for the lights for your scrog? I'm using PL-L CFL lamps right now. 4 55W T5HO lamps will provide roughly 23" X 20" of high intensity CFL lighting. Fulham workhorse 8 ballasts are $39 from 1000bulbs.com. They're 220w and will run up to 6 lamps (4 55w lamps like mine). If you place your order through 1000bulbs.com you'll need to call and phone order it. The sockets they sell are not listed on the website. They're part number SOCK-EG36070 and they're less than 2$ each. They're made for reflectors that have a clip for holding the other end of the lamp in, otherwise your lamps will sit at an angle in their socket. I use a bit of wire on the other end of the lamp to hold it up. You can always get pre-built systems but I have no experience with those. I place my lamps closer together and have a simple mylar surface above them for a reflector. It's not optimum but it creates a very dense light pattern anyway. The 55w is supposedly the most balanced between lumen and heat production per watt. Above 55 watt the lamps start putting off more heat and fewer lumens per watt. I know that a semi-restricted(sucking through a half inch layer of scrubber) 50cfm bathroom fart fan Will keep 220w at 7 degrees over room temp. So yeah, they're pretty easy to cool. Keep reading. Do LOTS of reading. The more reading you do, the more you'll learn and the more often you'll remember that bit of information while you're growing and have it help. The alternative is starting your grow now and having to come ask people for help when you have something go wrong that you don't remember reading about. MANY many plants have died that way. I don't recommend it. The stress levels really suck too. Nope.... go read more. Come back, ask a few questions and then go read some more. Anyone seriously interested in this should spend at least 3-6 months reading before they begin. This is a fantastic LIFETIME hobby Get started right so you enjoy it more.
My pleasure. I'd also recommend going with fluorescents for veg and a Ceramic Metal Halide 400w for bloom. If you want/need to go bigger later you can use the 400w for vegging That means you'd want a 400w HPS MAGNETIC Ballast. Then pick up a phillips retro-white HPS conversion bulb. Things will be a lot easier to control. Check the difference in heat output between the HPS and CMH bulb.... you'll be surprised how much cooler the stuff 'around' the light is when using the CMH. A lot less infra-red being thrown out. Just remember to be safe, be persistent and take accurate notes!
How come all the DWC tubs I see only have a max of 6 plants per tub ? I want to do a SOG set up DWC style with many more plants than this. Can and how wolud I create this ?
not recommended to put more than one plant in a container , they will fight each other for nutes..... with that said you will be ok with 2 plants in a big tupperware container, but rule of thumb is one bucket , one plant.....
Ok I am sold on SOG and I am getting a vented 400 watt HPS and Floros for my Veg area . My only concern now is I'd like to do DWC SOG and the max amount of plants I have seen is 6 plants to a tub ? I need 411 on this please.