Hello all. I'm a first time grower and have a couple questions.
I plan to grow 8 plants total, with 4 flowering and 4 vegetating using seeds from some really good mids I have. My grow area is a box I made which is 5 foot wide, 4 foot tall, and 2 foot deep. The inside is completely covered with mylar film and i'm using (2) 4 foot dual bulb fluorescent lights, 2 bulbs warm red and 2 bulbs cool white. I have a walk-in closet with plenty of room to grow, and the box i'm using is temporary until next week when i build a hidden bookcase door for my closet. When that's done i'm going to get some type of plywood or something and block off a section of my closet from floor to ceiling with the front being a door I can open to get to the plants. My new grow area will be roughly 6.5 foot wide, 7.5 foot tall and 2 foot deep, and will be covered with mylar as well. I plan to put in a 6 inch pvc tube going through the roof into the attic (in hopes that most of the smell will go up there and not in my closet) for the exit vent, and maybe a 6 inch tube for the inlet vent with a fan sitting in front on the tube at all times blowing air into the cabinet.
Now for my questions...
1) Will that type of venting be enough for both air in and air out? If not, any suggestions on a better way to do it with the final setup?
Usually you need some fans moving that air- simply putting a tube that ALLOWS air to come in, does not mean that it will. You need to hook up a fan to move that air. Most people use 4" ducting because they make 4" inline fans that work perfectly for it. If you want to skip an intake, you can make just an exhaust, and all of the other air leaks to your room (ie, the cracks around the door) will be your intake. As the exaust pushes air out, it will also suck new air in. It all depends on how hot your setup is getting. The hotter it gets, the more air you need to move.
2) Will 1 Dual fluorescent be enough for veg stage (4 plants), and I plan to buy 1 more to have 2 duals for flowering (4 plants), will that be enough? (I know HPS or MH lights are far better, but i'm on Disability, so I don't have a lot of money and would like to get a decent yield as cheap as possible)
You can find HID lighting for fairly inexpensively. Search on ebay for "high bay" or "low bay" lighting. Most of these are 250 or 400 watt HPS or Metal Halides, for under $75. One dual tube fixture will not be enough to veg 4 plants to their full potential. Theyll grow, but theyll be lanky and stretchy. Pick up some CFL's and try to get at least 3 per plant for vegging, and 6 per plant for flowering. Lighting should be 60% of your growroom budget. Cannabis is a light HOG, she cant get enough of it!
3) I'm using distilled water that has a ph of 5.5 - 6, is that ok? (When I add the drops right away it says ph is 6, but if i let it set with the drops in for a few minutes it seems to show 5.5)
If you can, ditch the test strips. They suck. I bought a digital pH meter on amazon.com for $23. They also sell them at a lot of pet stores. But if you must use the strips, aim for 6.0-6.6 or so. Anything lower than 6 is too low for soil.
4) The temp in my box stays at 80-85 degrees and the humitidy is 20% with a small fan blowing in the box, is that ok? What's the easiest way to raise the humitidy if that's too low?
The low humidity is probably what killed that seedling of yours. Seedlings are very vulnerable to low humidity. I would put a clear tupperware over each plant when you try to sprout them. This keeps the humidty at 100% for them. Use the dome until they are 5 days old or so.
80 degrees is okay, 85 is getting too hot. Move more air, try not to let it get higher than 81 or 82.
The easiest way to raise the humidity is to uy a humidifier. Granted, not all of us have the money for it, so I've adapted my own ghetto humidifier. Put water in anything that can hold water. I use a cookie sheet for more surface area. In the cookie sheet I put a bunch of sponges, and run a fan over the top of the sheet. This is ususally good for about 10% until the water runs out.
5) I'm using some All Purpose Organic Potting Mix I got from Menards and I bought some Miracle Grow 20-20-20 Plant Food, but when should I start using the Miracle Grow?
I too use a 20-20-20 formula (mine is Peters). I wait until the plants are at LEAST 2 weeks old before I add any fertilizer, and even then I do so very sparingly. Without a TDS meter (total dissolved salts, tells you how much nutes are in your water) its hard to know exactly how the nutes will affect your plant. You dont get much warning before you nute burn it, so be careful.
6) Lastly, I did a test run and got a seed to sprout to about 3" above the soil. It looked perfect in color and such for 4 days, but on the 5th day when I checked it the plant was laying on it's side in the soil and it lost a lot of it's green color. I watered it with a spray bottle when the top of the soil was dry, which was almost everyday. My lights are about 5" above the pot and holding my hand above the pot I did not feel a lot of heat. Any ideas on what could have happened?
Like I said above, my guess would be the humidity. 20% will make a seedling dry out no problem. Covering your seedlings with a clear plastic, or whatever (to hold the humidity in) should fix your problem. Once the plants are a few days old, they should be able to survive in 20% humidity, but will only thrive in 40-80%.
Sorry for all the questions, I just want to try and get this all right the first time so I don't have to keep adjusting everything later. Thank you so much in advance for and help you can provide!!!
