This is my second thread looking into my first grow and the most frugal and efficient way to go about it. As of now i just have questions that i hope GC can help me out with. I plan on making a 1 1/2 ft x 1 1/2 ft x 3 ft box, and i plan on doing a compact DWC scrog with 2 70w HPS lamps. I plan on covering the walls in Mylar as well. Now for the questions. Do i really need two 70w HPS lamps or would 1 be fine going by the 1 sq ft to 60-70W rule? Fans: i can keep my room at any temperature with good air circulation. I live in a studio apartment and I'm a guy who likes the cold, i keep it at 69-70 degrees usually. The box will be inside of a cabinet, but will have space all around it. During the day the cabinet can be kept open for maximum air flow into the cabinet and around the box. I was thinking if i had one fan at the top of the box and two openings near the bottom for air to get out? The temperature with 1-2 HPS lamps should be controllable with this setup, no? As for the DWC i plan on using a home made container capable of filling the entire base of my cabinet for maximum space usage, room for air pump and what not will be outside of the box. So: do i need more fans? Should i put fans near the base of the plant to promote stronger stem growth or is that just unnecessary (thinking PC fans)? What nutes do you guys recommend? And can someone explain how i would go from seed to DWC? Kind of vague on that? Also giving good consideration to scrapping the DWC entirely and doing a soil scrog since I might be working with bag seed. Since its a single plant if it turns out male i can just start over. This is just the creative side of me but would it be possible to veg for a short amount of time, force flower to determine sex then revert back to a normal veg time? That way i can save time and money vegging for full time and getting a male. All contributions would be wonderful and I'm open to any changes and thoughts. The only definitive aspect of this grow is budget: under 300-400$ and space 1.5x1.5x2.5-3ft. From hat i understand a DWC scrog with good maintenance will give me the best yield for my space. **please don't suggest a mother-cloning area i plan on going seed to flower for my first grow and see what's up.
Well it looks like youve got it all figured out already! As for heat, really only way to tell is get it up and running and see how hot it sits with light and fans on, maybe put a houseplant or something in there to emulate the obstruction of air from the plant. start your seeds a per normal germination, then drop them into a small rockwool cube, then im pretty sure the cubes get dropped in the dwc with clay pellets or w/e medium when they ready. (dont quote me on that ive never done hydro really) When it comes to nutrients, theres so many to choose from, but in my opinion go organic and keep it simple, or go with the full out 8 part crazy expensive crap they ram at you at the hydro stores. btw, my grow is about 16"X16"2" and i have a bitchin time trying to keep it cool enough with my new lights in, im pushing about 200w-240w now. BUT im hopeing to break over 2oz this time
Are you using soil and CFL's? Any chance of posting a picture of your setup? In that space using what i assume is soil and CFL's, how has your yield been?
Coco coir actually, last yield was 1.7oz, now I have a 70w 5 band led lamp in there also Edit: last time only ran four 43w warm white cfl's
Built the lamp myself, 3w chips in uv, royal blue, blue, red and far red. Cost me a good 160 all said an done, not including leftover electronics. I don't use a screen, I just train with bonsai wire, lots of topping and some lst
Let me know how your LED works out i might want to invest in one. I'm gonna be using HPS/CFL's for this grow. Can you give me your explanation of topping? I'm kind of vague on the subject.
Your probably better off with hid lighting, heat is a MAJOR issue with my grow location, thus led, and I made one myself cuz 1-I'm cheap as shit and 2-I have lots of free time and an extensive knowledge of electronics systems. The LEDs are working great so far, should have actual results near end of January, at that point I should be able to compare to similar HID setups. But ya, cfl's just didn't have the penetration, only top 2 inches were good buds, rest was quite airy. As for topping techniques, check out the advances grow techniques area of the forum, or pick up an actual book on mj growing, there is a lot of info in those places that is better than my advice
This is my first grow so i don't have extensive knowledge, but after flowering begins could i theoretically place some CFL's under the canopy and train the growth up and sideways? That would solve the penetration problem wouldn't it?
Here we go, snapped a couple pics to show what i do. First pic shows where I cut the main growing tip, I usually cut off one or two nodes, try and cut it around the height of highest outer branches tops. As you can see in second pic, the plant now has 2 main tips, which would end up as two main colas in flower now. This can be done over and over again, just keep in mind that every time you do this the veg time is extended a few days before it starts to split and grow in two again. The last pic shows my little veg area just for fun, the skywalker OG from pics one and two, 2 original grand daddy purps (I hope one is a girl!) and a clone of the romulan in flower now. Pic four shows how extensively I have cut and vegged my romulan mom, but now flowering out I'm pretty excited for a nice yield out of the little monster
Yes possibly, but like I said, I have heat issues, another 166w of cfl's and I wouldn't be able to keep it cool enough anymore, If you have no heat issues I would stick with hid, very efficient and sooo much light
Also just noticed u asked for a pic of my flower room a while back, here you go! It's a bar fridge, I gutted all internals and put in passive intakes on bottom, two 4x4" vents on top with a 4" inline fan and carbon filter. Glad I put the filter on, this strain stinks hard, and I think the skywalker will be even worse
No circulation inside the room itself? Should throw some PC fans under the plant should help with heat problems
Temps are all stable now with the big fan installed usually sits around 21c at night to 26c with lights on. But I have been meaning to put some computer fans back in, I had to move two of them to the veg area. (There's still two in the exhaust holes that run at night, the fridge is in my bedroom so the inline was too noisy to leave on all the time)