Yes, yes a first timer does have tips to give. it is amazing what you would learn your very first grow so here we go if you wanted to know 1. understand that lighting and ventilation is key. skimping out on either will screw your yield over in the end. 2. buying equipment "just to get started" is a complete BS statement to make. getting started only means you are going to expand. someone (can't remember) said "smoking marijuana may not be addicting, but growing it is" and it is. so if you love smoking weed man dude man dude, might as well buy the 600W HPS cooltube instead of "testing the water" with CFL's or even a 150w HPS. ( i purchased both, and now i am buying a 600WHPS. CFLs + 150HPS = $$ of 600WHPS) 3. if you can't float the cash now, then wait dude. just wait man. buying equipment that actually works for what your GOALS are. my was to grow weed. i did. now i want better weed. 4. understand that CFL's CAN produce high quality weed, just not a lot of it. OR it can produce a lof of low quality cannabis. your choice. again think before you buy. 5. patience. patience. patience. it begins from when you first began thinking of growing. you must be patient if you can't afford a good setup. otherwise you are wasting your money on a crap crop outcome. don't get me wrong it is rewarding to have a mason jar full of weed, but when it smokes like ass and gets you medicated for 30 minutes, its a bust. and an upgrade is needed. 5A. do NOT harvest early. you are only screwing yourself out of a lot of time and effort for a week or two. don't be a moron. 6. creating a setup, grow room or grow tent is F'n easy man!! just be prepared to light it up bright as hell and to cool it off at the same time!! 7. if you are able to grow outdoors, i envy the hell out of you. no lights no vents no setup to worry about. just gods creation and a little bit of sense on the nutrients. 8. nutrients. probably the most cheapest thing you can come across (in my mind) when growing cannabis. it takes a little beyond common sense to figure out how to read a plant. here is how it works 8A. you decide to feed the plant nutrients, well it shows a deficiency. pay attention asshole, if it does show a deficiency the sooner you catch it the better. once found, simply get on Grass City and find out the problem and cure. Fix the problem solve the cure and move on. Potency of marijuana is damn near 93% genetic default. If you grow her under a certain amount of light she will be as potent as the light allowed her to be. at a 93% ratio light/strain. whatever nutes you add will either fill the 7% gap, or make it much less. Just as important to potency with nutrients is heat stress. As stated in 1 and 2 be sure to plan your cooling effects early on and allow plenty of light for maximum potency. 9. doesn't matter what strain you grow, Indica or Sativa, a lot of light really is going to do you a lot of good. So back to number 5 have patience if you can't afford the 600W (which is about 10% more efficient than a 1000W) wait until you can afford it. then grow. 10. from a first timer to another first timer full of mistakes, don't make any of mine. just go big or go home. there is a dude on youtube. this guy YouTube - Important & Critical SCROG Maintenance his name is "justthinkbig" for a reason. just think big from the BIGinning. and you will have a much better end result. as for me i'm paying out my ass to compensate for pot smoke (which is pot smoked less for me) for all the extra crap i bought.... now i have enough for a full on vegg/everything grow style. now if only the wif agreed..... hope this helps all the new guys with questions on "should i or shouldn't" well i'm tellin ya YA SHOULD!
I would love to watch a first timer struggle to run a 600W HPS setup, especially if it's a sneak grow. Beginners, amateurs, and pros alike use CFLs, it has nothing to do with skimping out, at least not in my case. Not everyone can pitch a tent and run a massive HPS and do all kinds of other crazy shit. There's something to be said for growing on a budget, it takes skill and you learn a hell of a lot on the way. And if your weed only gets you high for 30 minutes, it's not because you used CFLs, it's probably because you chopped your plant down too early and/or didn't handle the drying/curing properly, both common beginner fuckups. I don't mean to seem condescending, I'm just a fellow amateur who has a much different take on this issue. I hope this post saves some helpless beginners from jumping into the deep end by buying a 600W light setup, you just don't need it if you're getting started. It would be like going out and buying a Les Paul before you knew how to play a chord. Senseless. It seems like most of the people who get into growing couldn't grow a marigold in a jiffy cup, so my advice would be to try and try again, and don't spend any big money unless you've got a strong knowledge base, even about plants in general.
I've been growing for 9 years now. I've used everything from 42w CFL to 100w MH to 6,000w HPS in flowering. My first indoor grow was a 400w. Typically what I recommend most new growers to use. Easy to cool. Makes a good veg light for when/if you expand. You can also grow successfully for very cheap. I built a 100w MH micro cab, light, ventilation, soil, nutes... all of it for under $150. My conditions were perfect and I yielded right around 3 oz.
I started with cfl's . in my opinion sucked for flowering . so I bought a 400w wow what a difference. then I bought a 600w so now I use the cfl for baby clones/seedlings the 400w for veg and the 600w for flowering . I think I got the perfect set up. especially when I have long flowering strains I can start budding the new batch with the 400w to keep the cycle flowing.
i totally agree with what your saying about the harvest thing. do not harvest early. as stated above. yet the entire purpose to save a beginner from say what now?? my above statement was to let the beginners know from A BEGINNER that if you LOVE TO SMOKE CANNABIS which WE ALL DO then you might as well go with a single 400-600watt bulb with whatever cooling/cab you can to provide for the plant. CFLs just waste time on the learning curve. why not learn on what you are going to be dealing with later rather than about 600k light difference and about a 30% more light efficient lamp. personally i'd rather learn on what i am growing with later than now. as far as the 600watt... it indeed does outdo and almost threaten many new growers. yet if all of you new growers actually want grade A+ medical marijuana, then you should really consider just skipping the learning curve as far as lighting goes, and get the 600w. it is more efficient than the 1000w and costs less either which way the learning curve for CFL to a 150 HPS to a 600 HPS you might as well of learned from the 600 from the beginning, otherwise you will be upgrading you ventilation, lighting as well as and possibly your cab as well. not doggin ya man, just sayin.... might as well. i like good herb. i'm sure ya'll do too...
say you have 12 1000w lamps. what if you had say 12 600w lamps. ultimately the energy consumed by the 1000w lamp is less due to the fact it is a 1000w lamp. if you are powering a 600w lamp out of a 120v socket you would almost certainly gain more (7-8%) energy per watt as to the 1000w. not only that but if you try to even out the end result of 12,0000w of power amongst twelve points of light, and we even out 12,000w of power amongst 20 points of light (about equal points to 1000w~600w) we get more even distribution of light, and a maximal output of power per ballast per lamp. not sure if it makes sense. but in the end, the math works. check it for yourself however you wish. its more efficient. or at least it should be.
That makes sense, thanks. Is there anything too crazy about putting a 1000w hps in a closet grow if you're going to give it ample ventilation?
I suppose not really. To look at this further, another person on grass city, CrazyPineApple has thrown a 1000W HPS in a 3x3x2 foot space. can only imagine the herb off it....
if everyone could yield 3 oscars off a 150$ setup, would do. I would go with the 400W rather than the 150$ setup. that is just me. why? simply put most new growers usually struggle with a few things here and there. things get purchased that weren't needed, or things are now needed but weren't thought of before and 150 turns in to 300 real fast for a new grower. and not to burst the first timers bubble, but if you do go off skimping out and getting CFLs er whatev, don't expect three ounces your first go. expect it, just dont' expect it. HighOnTheHill probably actually knows what the chuck he is doing with 150$ to pull out 3 oscars. with that being said. 3 ounces or 3 grams. its all worth it. its a beautiful life watching herb grow
i get what ur sayin i wish i coulda skipped my mistakes. point in fact< the advice given to me in the begining was ' try bagseed before u pay $200 for seeds. well the bagseed turned out to be kickass so i wish i woulda started with some ak or widow.
Yeah, I suppose my hangups were security related. And using CFLs almost completely frees you from venting. They're just so low maintenance. I guess as long as you know what you're doing, you're good! I could just imagine a beginner, as I once was, reading that and getting it in my head that the only way to be successful is with hotter, power sucking lights.
Sorry, not trying to hijack the thread or anything. I'm not sure on the exact size of the closet yet, wont be too big or too small. I already have a 6" inline fan rated at 445 cfm to run from the hood into the attic, does that sound good or shall I look into another fan? I'll have a couple oscillating fans and a carbon filter too.
what's the room temp usually? I mean I could only guess but I'd start out cautiously and expect to do some extra cooling if it were me....
yes. and mr. high on the hill strikes again. the 600 is more efficient due to the higher lumens per watt. i am sure that he would agree with the statement that not only per watt is it more effiecient, like CFL's, having more provides a better light distribution. which in turn means our plants are more happy. thus potency is better as well as yield. well put HOTH when i couldn't find the words. gracias. domo. domo.
For arguments sake, I'm going to disagree on CFL's, but only to a certain extent. Your typical SPIRAL shaped CFL is, IMO horribly inefficient. Let me try to break this down a little: 1000w HPS: 145,000 lumens/1000w = 145 lumens per watt 600w HPS: 95,000 lumens/600w = 158 lumens per watt 4' 54w T5ho: 5000 lumens/54w = 93 lumens per watt 200w spiral CFL: 9500 lumens/200w = 48 lumens per watt 55w 4 pin 2g11 (PL-L) cfl: 4800 lumens/55w = 87 lumens per watt That being said, CFL's are only more efficient as long as you use them correctly. I own a 6 lamp T5HO fixture for vegging, if I were flowering with it, I would use it in a 4x4 or 5x5 area - similar to the same area I'd cover with a 600w HPS, but using less than 400w to cover the same area. Anyway, the spiral CFL's are horrible IMO. Half of the lumens it put out are merely striking the glass from the other side of the bulb. When I use CFL's, I use the "PL-L's" which are essentially a T5ho tube bent in half. A lot less light striking the bulb. Much better use of available light. People worry way too much about "is this enough light for x# of plants," when what they REALLY need to be worrying about is "What's the correct amount of light to use for my space?" Let me put it this way - I downsized from a 1000w to a 600w in a 4x4 tent. All grown from clone in the exact same organic soil mixture. The difference in my yield was extremely minimal (under an ounce). So I asked myself what I was wasting that extra 400w in electricity for? I see so many grow journals where people have a 1000w in a 3x3 or something, and I can't help but wonder where they got that advice. You're not going to yield any more than if you ran a 600 in that same area, and only minimal gains over what a 400w would pull. The 100w per plant "rule"(or 100w for the 1st and 50w per plant after) is bogus. You light your area correctly, and then you can decide how many plants you can fit in that area. It's all about method of growing. I've flowered 16 plants under 100w MH. Yes, you read that right. 16 plants under 100w. Each plant was in a 4" square "tree pot" and packed as into a 14" square grow box. I've also grown 1 plant under 600w, ScOG'd to fill a 4x4 tent. When planning a grow, IMO the proper order to do things is: Get the dimensions of your grow area > CORRECTLY light the area > determine your genetics/grow style based on the light you buy. IE, if you get CFL's or T5's, you shouldn't be attempting to grow any bushes or trees. Stick to SOG or ScOG. Even with a 400w or smaller, I still suggest growing in a style that doesn't require for much penetration. Sativas can thrive under a 600w easily as the shape of their leaves allow for much more light penetration than the broad leafed indicas. Large, bushy indica's should use a 1000w for the sheer penetration power. Personally, I prefer sativas. 600w works excellent for me in all instances.