1st grow, am I on the right track?

N

Newbikin4204dyz

New Member
Hey everyone so I'm planning on starting my first grow at the end of the month. I hope to get some advice in regards to my setup/what is a realistic yeild expectation for my first time. I'm thinking about starting with 3-5 plants in a 51.5x22.5x48.5 grow tent using 5 gallon fabric pots with a mix of 65% coco coir and 35% perlite I plan on using dyna-gro (two seperate forumlas one for vegatative one for flowering) for my nutrients with a 4ft 4 lamp t5 fixture (still need advice on bulbs/watts) I am planning starting with (feminized seeds) a Northern Lights strain or a hybrid called crystal (it's part NL) I am hoping for a 3-4 month grow/harvest time. Any advice is helpful I'm not sure on my ph levels or exactly how I should distribute the nutrients/correct amounts for their respective life stages. I'm still going to be doing more research but has anyone had experience with either strain? How tall will my plants grow/did I choose a large enough tent? Is a fan enough to regulate the temp. Effectively? With this setup I should be able to plant whenever i want as long as i regulate temp correct? Any other things I should take into consideration as a first time? Thank you for any knowledge in advance!
 
Bugeye

Bugeye

Well-Known Member
A few zips per plant is a good goal to start but you could just as well get nothing if you make mistakes. Hard to really predict where someone's first grow will go but you'll learn some good stuff no matter the yield. Good luck!
 
sunny747

sunny747

Well-Known Member
That's not likely enough light. It would be great in veg, but not in flower. I believe that fixture will be around 200 watts. If you had two of them making a "V" formation it would rock two plants. I'd probably get mostly 2700k-3000k bulbs with a few 5000-6500k bulbs thrown in. Get the ones specifically made for MJ growing, not the ones from Home Dep.

The taller the tent the better.
You'll need a good vortex fan, speed controller and filter.

3ft x 3ft x 6ft tents are nice or 4ft x 2ft x 6.

Check to see exactly how long the fixtures are to make sure they will fit. Tents aren't always the exact size quoted.

The height of your plants will vary depending on strain, health, light, temps etc... They do sell "Ryder" seeds. These are auto flowers, but they stay squat. Probably grow about 18-24 inches.
 
sunny747

sunny747

Well-Known Member
Also, skip the coco for first grow and go with soil. You will likely encounter PH and CalMag issues.

Here is a great 1st grow setup: It's nearly full proof.

  • Make a 24 x 24 x 5ft tent out of PVC and Panda Film. Or make it out of wood or use a similar size cabinet.
  • 3 Gallon Pot.
  • 150w HPS grow light. Or, five 42 w Cfl's or 8 26w CFl's. Mostly Red Spectrum. Start with two CFls then add as she grows. By week 4 you will want 6-8 26w running.
  • NL x BB Auto Flower seed.
  • Fox Farms Ocean Forest + 25% perlite and 3-6 TBS of Dolomite lime.
  • Any quality nutrient line. (Fox Farms, Advanced Nutrients, General Hydroponics etc..) With autos you really don't need the veg nutes. Just start your bloom nutes at week 4.
  • Small 6 or 8 inch fan blowing out the top. (These are ten bucks at Walmart.) If smell will be an issue then you will need a vortex fan and filter instead of the small fan. Get the 6" vortex so that when you want to expand your grow your fan will be useful to connect to an air cooled hood.
  • Use 50% Tap water and 50% bottled water. No real need to PH, but that's optional.
  • Run your lights for 20 hours per day. In 8-9 weeks you will hopefully harvest 2 ounces if all goes according to plan.

I did this exact setup on my last grow except I tried some cheap LED's. The 150w HPS would have been much better.
1211.jpg
 
rnint

rnint

Well-Known Member
Some good advice here but one thing I would disagree with here is changing the coco for soil, I am just finishing up my first grow and I'm very happy with the coco perlite mix I used (roughly 50/50). pH problems are easy enough to fix with some ph up and down and a pH tester and CalMag is relatively easy to come by and putting some in with your reservoir is easy as hell. The only thing I think works better with soil is that it has nutrients in it so you could feasibly put a mix together at the beginning and just water it until the end. An air cooled hood would definitely be useful for your space or a cool tube if you can do that easier. In small spaces your lights will heat the space much faster so you need to ventilate above the minimum id say enough to circulate the whole space twice per minute (thats what I'm aiming for with my next fan). In terms of yield man its best to have low expectations and just basically do the first grow for knowledge rather than bud and then if you do get anything at the end you'll be happy, don't expect to yield a pound or anything despite what people here will try and tell you lol
 
sunny747

sunny747

Well-Known Member
Yea, agreed. I was trying to save him from buying a PH pen. I suspect that growth may be a bit more rapid in Coco. I tried a water only recipe last grow. It was intriguing to me, but I only made it half way through flower. My recipe needs some tweeking :)

I was also just thinking about this.. If you have a room or closet in your house that isn't used then you can scrap the whole tent idea and really make things easy. Just slap a good strong light over a pot and set a timer. All you would need is something to reflect the light back onto the plant such as an open ended cardboard box or an auto sun visor.
 
rnint

rnint

Well-Known Member
Yeah I made my cabs out of ikea cabinets and they work great, I'd highly suggest making up your own tent its really simple and it allows you to customise your space to suit your needs. Mine are even made out of fabric with a metal frame so all I had to do was line it with mylar and cut holes for ventilation and the fabric is loose enough that I can run my ducting outside of the grow area lined in mylar but still under the fabric so its not so obvious. And on the thought of saving him having to buy a pH pen he could always just get a pH drip test kit for a small amount of money, its not as accurate but at least they are reliable. Id get mylar instead of a auto sun visor or anything though, its not that expensive and some of the botch jobs I've seen photos of look like they give you issues with heat spots and stuff which would just be a pain to deal with, and after you've finished your first run you probably won't be stopping the cab grow even if you move into a larger space you can still use it for veg/keeping a mother so it'll be nice to have it done properly.

How did you go about your water only recipe because I was thinking about using organics to just buff up the coco basically if I could, I don't want to use organics that are soluble in water mainly because I'm worried about it stanking up my reservoir but if they were just in the soil id be happy because organics really seem like the way to go.
 
N

Newbikin4204dyz

New Member
Thank you guys for responding! Sunny how much should I expect to spend in materials if I was to make my own box? As of now I am looking at about $500-$550 investment to get the setup/supplies to start. Basically what I am hearing is taller tents = bigger plant = more yeild. Which I certainly don't hold high expectations for my first attempt, I just want to get myself in the practice of holding myself to high standards. From what I've learned coco does help provide faster growth and perlite provides high amounts of oxygen to you're root system which results in higher amounts. Ill make sure to look into the ph pen/test kits as the ph seems to be the primary issue with coco (even after extensive rinsing). Sunny why do you say with auto flowering plants you don't need nutrients for veg state? Will a seed like feminized crystal be an auto flowering plant? Auto flowering essentially means faster growth periods correct? rnint when you say keep a mother do you mean for cloning? I considered hydroponics but it seems to expensive for a 1st time especially with my experience level.
 
sunny747

sunny747

Well-Known Member
Newbikin4204dyz said:
Thank you guys for responding! Sunny how much should I expect to spend in materials if I was to make my own box? As of now I am looking at about $500-$550 investment to get the setup/supplies to start. Basically what I am hearing is taller tents = bigger plant = more yeild. Which I certainly don't hold high expectations for my first attempt, I just want to get myself in the practice of holding myself to high standards. From what I've learned coco does help provide faster growth and perlite provides high amounts of oxygen to you're root system which results in higher amounts. Ill make sure to look into the ph pen/test kits as the ph seems to be the primary issue with coco (even after extensive rinsing). Sunny why do you say with auto flowering plants you don't need nutrients for veg state? Will a seed like feminized crystal be an auto flowering plant? Auto flowering essentially means faster growth periods correct? rnint when you say keep a mother do you mean for cloning? I considered hydroponics but it seems to expensive for a 1st time especially with my experience level.
Click to expand...
Autos are nice for a first grow. "Set it and forget it" type of thing. No uppotting, no ssexing, less chance of hermies, no big worries about light leaks and they generally stay short. If a plant is autoflowering then it will specifically say "auto flower". Some will say that they don't produce the greatest smoke, but I can't tell the difference and they're just a great place to start. Soon you will likely move on to regular or photo strains.

The problem with most first grows is not understanding how much height you need. My first cab was 3 ft tall. I outgrew it in a few weeks. You need a lot of height for lights plus plant plus pots and the taller the tent the easier it is to disburse heat. Also, some strains will grow taller than you want them to and you will appreciate some height when this happens.
Also You don't want to have to spend a bunch of money on products that you won't want or need after your first grow. To keep costs low it's best to buy decent equipment early on.

The easiest and best setup, in my opinion, and I've tried it all is a 3x3 or 4x4 tent with an HID lamp and good vortex fan. You can get a great setup for well under $500. Check out Apollo tents on Amazon for a reasonably priced tent, decent tent.

A good PH is almost necessary to have. Also an EC or TDS pen is really great to have.

.
 
sunny747

sunny747

Well-Known Member
rnint said:
Yeah I made my cabs out of ikea cabinets and they work great, I'd highly suggest making up your own tent its really simple and it allows you to customise your space to suit your needs. Mine are even made out of fabric with a metal frame so all I had to do was line it with mylar and cut holes for ventilation and the fabric is loose enough that I can run my ducting outside of the grow area lined in mylar but still under the fabric so its not so obvious. And on the thought of saving him having to buy a pH pen he could always just get a pH drip test kit for a small amount of money, its not as accurate but at least they are reliable. Id get mylar instead of a auto sun visor or anything though, its not that expensive and some of the botch jobs I've seen photos of look like they give you issues with heat spots and stuff which would just be a pain to deal with, and after you've finished your first run you probably won't be stopping the cab grow even if you move into a larger space you can still use it for veg/keeping a mother so it'll be nice to have it done properly.

How did you go about your water only recipe because I was thinking about using organics to just buff up the coco basically if I could, I don't want to use organics that are soluble in water mainly because I'm worried about it stanking up my reservoir but if they were just in the soil id be happy because organics really seem like the way to go.
Click to expand...
I tried mixing happy Frog Organic Dry Nutes into my soil. It was supposed to get me through the whole grow. I didn't have enough control over the nute levels though so I burned the plants in the beginning and then ran out of gas later on. Now am back to GH Floranova and using a TDS pen to dial in the PPM.
 
vtmaster

vtmaster

Well-Known Member
sunny747 said:
Also, skip the coco for first grow and go with soil. You will likely encounter PH and CalMag issues.

Here is a great 1st grow setup: It's nearly full proof.

  • Make a 24 x 24 x 5ft tent out of PVC and Panda Film. Or make it out of wood or use a similar size cabinet.
  • 3 Gallon Pot.
  • 150w HPS grow light. Or, five 42 w Cfl's or 8 26w CFl's. Mostly Red Spectrum. Start with two CFls then add as she grows. By week 4 you will want 6-8 26w running.
  • NL x BB Auto Flower seed.
  • Fox Farms Ocean Forest + 25% perlite and 3-6 TBS of Dolomite lime.
  • Any quality nutrient line. (Fox Farms, Advanced Nutrients, General Hydroponics etc..) With autos you really don't need the veg nutes. Just start your bloom nutes at week 4.
  • Small 6 or 8 inch fan blowing out the top. (These are ten bucks at Walmart.) If smell will be an issue then you will need a vortex fan and filter instead of the small fan. Get the 6" vortex so that when you want to expand your grow your fan will be useful to connect to an air cooled hood.
  • Use 50% Tap water and 50% bottled water. No real need to PH, but that's optional.
  • Run your lights for 20 hours per day. In 8-9 weeks you will hopefully harvest 2 ounces if all goes according to plan.

I did this exact setup on my last grow except I tried some cheap LED's. The 150w HPS would have been much better.
View attachment 3441173
Click to expand...
leds dun hav much penetration power as cfls or hps.....so u hav to keep ur lights much closer to the plant ....closer than what ur is..since led doesnt produce much heat u can go for it ....n its best fr indoor grow
 
rnint

rnint

Well-Known Member
Yeah I did mean to keep the mother for cloning purposes, its your choice obviously if you want to keep a mother or not but cloning isn't too difficult and it means you don't have to keep buying seed which is nice. I would suggest you not go the hydroponic route just because with some systems if your pumps fail and you don't notice your plant could die in a number of hours so its much harder to get right, coco or soil will be much more forgiving. The taller tent thing is sort of true but if you can lst (low stress train) your plants so that they are all under a screen and if you get your light distribution to be evenly spread you can max out your yield without growing too tall.
 
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