sup man i'm about to start my first grow as well, i've been reading a shitload. this'll be good for me.
from what i can tell, here is SQUARE ONE for equipment:
1. GROWING MEDIUM.
. The growing medium is what the plant's roots will be in. What will your plants be growing out of? Soil? Or do you want to go hydro/areoponics, in which case will you use rockwool, perlite, vermiculite or coco? Those are all basically bags of pellets (hence the ebb/flow/flushing) and it seems like people get beefy ass plants out of hydro/areopponics. But you can grow any strain in any medium. As far as I can tell soil is the best for beginners just because there's so much OTHER shit you need to get experience in before you get into next-level growing mediums. Soil is the easiest by far. 5 gallons of soil per plant is on the high end, it seems like 3 gallons is the average.
. You also have to decide what the soil goes in. Fabric pots are the semi-new thing that's sweeping the soil growing scene. It gives you some of the benefits of a hydroponic or aeroponic system (providing airflow to the roots, preventing them from getting cramped) without a bunch of pumps and timers and tubes and shit. And they're pretty cheap. Google "smartpots" or "rootpots" or "ecopots" and you'll find some. I can't think of any reason to use a plastic or terra cotta pot now that these are around.
. If you're going with hydroponics or aeroponics, you obviously need a system to run it. Google around to find out more about the equipment for a hydro/aeroponics system. They're expensive.
2. NUTRIENTS.
. Nutrients are simple but complicated, and fairly expensive as well. Most companies have feeding schedules with instructions for how much you should use and when. It's up to you whether you go organic or synthetic or mix. It seems like synthetics are easier to work with.
3. LIGHTS.
A. What kind of lights do you want? Most people use High Intensity Discharge (HID) bulbs. The basic types are Metal Halide (MH) and High Pressure Sodium (HPS), but there are other, more modern versions of HID lamps (pulse starts, ceramics, google it if you're interested, CMH bulbs seem awesome). You can also go with fluorescent tubes, Compact Fluorescents (CFLs), or LEDs. From what people say, LED technology isn't quite where we all want it to be yet, and costs too much. A lot of people say fluorescent lighting isn't strong enough, but you can also find a ton of people who grow quite successfully with just fluoros. If you go fluorescent, get a T5. There are T8s and T12s, but the T5 has the best output. Unlike other lighting questions, which T of fluorescent to go with is an easy answer. The numbers indicate different bulb widths; T5s run the same amount of electricity through a smaller chamber so they have better output. The energy from a fluorescent drops drastically after about 6 inches away from the bulb.
. Most people recommend you just go with HID. They suggest using MH for the vegetative stage (generally an 18 hours of light/6 hours of darkness cycle) which lasts from 2 weeks to 2 months (depending on whether you start from seed or clone and what strain it is) and switching to HPS for the flowering stage (12/12 cycle, usually under two months). This is because the vegetative stage requires a lot of blue spectrum light and the flowering stage requires a lot of red spectrum light. MH shines blue, HPS shines orange. The streetlights you see overhead at night- the whitish ones are MH and the orange ones are HPS.
B. How many lights? The common minimum I hear online is 50 watts per square foot using HID. Another minimum I hear is 7500 lumens (units of light) per square foot, but lately a lot of people have been pointing out that lumens are only good for measuring light the eye can see. Plants don't have eyes; research is suggesting they don't really care about lumens. It seems like for now wattage is a better way to measure the Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) output of your lamp. -By the way, don't google "PAR bulb", it's not for growing, it just has the same acronym.
. So, you need to measure your space and find the square footage. More watts per BULB is not always better. A lot of people suggest that two 400 watts are better than a single 1000 watt because you get a better light spread. The amount of light energy drops exponentially the further you are from the bulb. Also remember that basically no usable light comes out of the tips of an HID bulb, only the sides.
C. Horizontal or vertical bulbs? Most bulbs are either horizontal or vertical (they do make bulbs that can go either way) and if you position them wrong you will break them. If you don't know about vertical growing, check it out. A bulb hangs vertically in the center of the room with plants around it. This provides lighting to their sides, which you don't get much of from a horizontal bulb. On the other hand, only half the plant is being lit at a time, so you'll need to rotate your plants individually. Whether you want to go horizontal or vertical depends on your space, I guess, or just your preference.
. Most HID bulbs start producing less light at about half their rated lifespan (what it says on the box), so they should be replaced pretty soon after that. A full year of growing seems to be the average actual lifespan of an HID. More modern HIDs have longer lifespans. Fluorescent bulbs last around 18 months before they go bad. Even LEDs fail eventually, but they last for like 6 years. You'll need to record how many hours each bulb is used as you use them.
4. ACCESSORIES.
A. Lighting accessories. An HID light needs a ballast, a fixture, a reflector/hood, and a timer. Light timers are like under 20 bucks and shouldn't be hard to find at a hardware/gardening store. They're really easy to use, too. Don't worry about the timer at all.
. Your bulb screws into your fixture(socket), which plugs into your ballast, which plugs into the wall. You need a ballast that matches your bulb in wattage and type. There are digital ballasts and magnetic "core and coil" or "cap and coil" ballasts; it's suggested you go with a digital nowadays to save money on electricity and because of some other neato stuff. Most modern ballasts are also switchable between MH and HPS bulbs AND wattages.
. A horizontal bulb needs a reflector above it; otherwise half the light is utterly wasted. A hood is a closed reflector with duct holes so you can vent heat from it with an inline fan. There are also things called "cool tubes", clear plastic tubes that surround the bulb so you can blow air over it, which I've been told are great for vertical bulbs.
. You can find preassembled units that even have reflectors/hoods, or you can buy the ballast, fixture and reflector/hood all separate.
B. Misc. accessories. The things in this section are less necessary. Carbon filters, fans, ducting, chains, reflective foil and random crap. Ducting is for fans and the chains are to hang your lights. The reflective foil is for the walls of your room and it's pretty cheap; there's no reason not to get it.
. There are two reasons to use carbon filters: to purify the air entering your room and two reduce the smell of the air leaving your room. It's DEFINITELY suggested that you get a carbon filter, but it isn't strictly necessary, and is less important in a sealed room.
. If your room is really hot or you really really want to turn your plants purple, you'll need an air conditioner.
. Most fans' powers are measured in Cubic Feet per Minute (CFM). Ideally you want to move all the air in your room in one minute. Cubic feet in case you weren't sure is length times width times height. You want a fan to reduce the heat in your room, to bring fresh air in and push old air out (unless you're doing a sealed environment grow), and because moving air a. reduces chances of a mold problem, b. makes stronger stems and c. helps spread CO2 around the room- even if you aren't adding any C02, it's a heavy gas and will settle to the floor in a stagnant room. Inline fans are for venting the entire room; you'll also want like a desk/wall fan to move air around inside.
. That brings us to "random crap". Get a cheap wall thermometer for sure, there's no reason not to. You want your room to be between 75 and 85 degrees F. And then there's random advanced crap, like pH meters, humidity meters, Parts Per Million meters for your nutrients or air, and CO2 generators. That's all pretty tech, and none of it is required. I'm not 100% on where the pH should be.. I should research that. I think it's around 6.5, but it might vary between strains. Humidity should be around 50%. They aren't NECESSARY, but a pH meter, humidity meter and ppm meter are all really good ideas. Most nutrients will give you a teaspoons to gallon ratio on the label for soil and hydroponics, so a ppm meter isn't necessary. And a CO2 generator is fucking expensive.
General pricing guide:
. High-watt HID bulbs are around $50 each. Ballast-fixture-reflector systems are around $200 total each (lower if purchased in separate pieces). T5 fluoroscent lights run around $20 per foot of coverage if you buy them with a fixture, and T5 bulbs are usually under $10. LED prices vary, but they're all expensive.
. A 9 gallon bag of soil is like under 15 bucks. Fabric pots range from $5 to $10 depending on how big it is.
. Fan prices are all over the frickin' place and vary depending on their CFM, but expect to pay anywhere from $60 to $200 for an inline. Regular household fans are under $40 generally.
. Reflective foil is fairly cheap; if you have a small room you can cover the walls for under 20 bucks. pH and ppm meters are like 20 bucks, timers are under 20 bucks, good chain is like $3 a foot. Idk how much ducting costs. And go get a damn thermometer at the dollar store, whatever.
. The price of your nutrients obviously depends on how much you're growing and for how long, but if this helps any the average seems to be sightly over ten dollars a quart.
- These are all prices for brand new shit, used stuff is obviously cheaper. Probably shouldn't get used bulbs though. Or growing medium.
. Before you get any electrical equipment, you need to consider your power bill. Most areas in the US charge between 15 and 25 cents per kilowatthour. Kilo=1000, a 1000w light uses a kilowatt per hour= 1 kwh. A 3 month grow is around 1200 hours, at 20 cents per kwh that averages to $80 a month. That doesn't include fan wattage, which is anywhere from 50 to 150, supplemental lighting, etc. Get a calculator.
. If you want an incredibly broad generalization on yield, here it is. Each square foot will yield between one and two ounces if properly lit (at least 50 watts of HID). A noob should expect one, a pro should expect two. If you get less than one, you screwed up. If you get more than two, we should hang out.
So, basically that's what you'll need to start growing. All of this stuff can be purchased online, in hardware/gardening stores, and I've even found some of it in thrift shops. Before you get ANY of it, you should grid your space out with as much detail as possible. On graph paper. Here's a link for some free customizable graph paper.
http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/
NOOB- POWERS- ACTIVATE! FORM OF- A GANGSTAPIMP!
People on these forums are more than happy to help, but within reason. Something that caught my eye was you asking for lighting shcedules aand then state one of the two used, how are you unable to read up on this second number yourself? We'll help but few will be willing to spoon feed.
