First Grow - Need Advice - Wanted to say High, [Indica]tion says Start Here!

[]-[]igh,

First off I wanted to thank a plethora of rollitup.org members for all the time they've taken to pass-on meaningful information and help newbies like me get the courage to get their own operation together for personal supply driven by the sheer love of botany & nature.

I've spent endless nights sifting through the forums (sometime stoned, just staring, thinking I was reading) figuring out how to build my initial set-up to create a nice good supply of smoke.

I also wanted to say hello. I'm from Vancouver, great bud here, I smoke often and work in Animation, they seem to go hand-in-hand.

Anywho onto the juicy stuff;

My grow room;

• 2ft7"W x 7ft1"L x 9ftH = Approx. 170 cubic feet.
• Note: there is a shelf 5ft5" from the ground. (This is where I plan to mount the T5 ballast from)
• Carpeted (I should exacto-knife out, correct?)
• The grow room is beside a bathroom where I will vent the exhaust into (coincidentally the smell/exhaust not picked up by my "GP Carbon Filter" from the grow-room will vent into the adjacent washroom where there is another fan constantly running)
  

Equipment;

• QuantumT5 Badboy 4 Lamp (because of width of room. I was also contemplating the 8 lamp as its dimensions were 2ft width, but I'll start with this as I'm vegging 10 clones) http://www.quantumhort.com/quantum-t5-badboy.html
• 375cfm GP Carbon Filter 6" duct. http://www.pnwgardensupply.com/products/GP-Filter.html
  
• 500cfm In-line exhaust fan 8". http://www.pnwgardensupply.com/products/Fan-DB208-8"-500cfm.html
• 8"-6" Pipe reducer
• 2 floor registers (one larger one for air in-take, one smaller for exhaust into adjacent bathroom.
• 25ft of 8" ducting
• 4 x 6500k HO T5's for VEG - Likely Quantum brand.
  
• 4 x 2900k HO T5's for Bloom - Likely Quantum brand.

What I still need;

• Soil advice. (I was told not to use organic soil)
• Nutrient advice.
• Reflective material advice. Simple question; should I use a white reflective material or a shiny foil type for the walls? I'll buy either, just wondering people's preference and why.
  

Where I'm at now;

• I have 10x clones of "Louis or Louie" coming. A confirmed Indica strain. What is not confirmed is if this is the "King Louis" strain or something else? Does anyone recognize the nickname Louis for a particular strain other than that one?
• These clones will come once I get the room fully-built, set-up, taped-up and ventilated over the next two weeks.
  
• I am unsure of how I will be receiving the clones (ie. in rockwool or cups or pots). It is from a trusted friend so I am not worried, but I will ask to clarify so I can garner advice on next steps after receiving them.
  
• I have 10x 3.5" square pots to start the clones off in.

So that's the basics of what I'm starting. I'll post some pix in the coming week of the grow-room once I've cleaned it out and before I've nailed up the Gypsum to seal it off (w/ a 5ftx2.5ft door).

For my airflow I'd like some advice if possible; my plan is to put a floor register that is 6"x14" into the Gypsum wall that is adjacent to the bedroom for fresh air in-take. It would simply be a hole with the register fixed into it, no ducting on the inside (the grow-room).

From the ceiling of the closet I would attach and mount the Carbon Filter, feeding to > Pipe-reducer > Inline Fan > Ducting > End Boot Ducting > Floor Register (in-wall) > Adjacent Bathroom.

I guess my other main concern is space. Given the dimensions provided above for the room, do you guys think that will be sufficient for 10 plants to mature and enough wiggle room?

Apart from that, I'll start a photo-journal once my Quantum Badboy lights arrive that I ordered. It's the final piece of equipment I'm waiting on to commence construction. (the day after I will get my clones and start the grow-journal).

I hope to borrow advice from a hell-of-a-lot-of-you and do my best to contribute in a meaningful way in the near future.

Bye for now from Vancity.

-Wade

first off welcome to the forum

id just go with plain white walls 1 its cheap 2nd its like 90% reflective might be more and easy to wash down dosent rip list goes on

any pix gypsy?

For reflective material fire blankets are super cheap and they are made of Mylar witch has like 98% reflectivity, white paint is also good but I would not use aluminum foil it's a fire hazard. Not sure if they are fire blankets or space blankets but I found them in wal-marts camping section

thanks for info so far. i'm going with the white poly type reflective material. 15m, pix to come.

Downey said:

For reflective material fire blankets are super cheap and they are made of Mylar witch has like 98% reflectivity, white paint is also good but I would not use aluminum foil it's a fire hazard. Not sure if they are fire blankets or space blankets but I found them in wal-marts camping section

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That's what I use. http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0032C11BK/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&qid=1298699424&sr=8-29&condition=new
I bought a 12 pack last year and still have some left. They do tear if your not careful, but for the price you don't have to worry about it too much.

doowmd said:

That's what I use. http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0032C11BK/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&qid=1298699424&sr=8-29&condition=new
I bought a 12 pack last year and still have some left. They do tear if your not careful, but for the price you don't have to worry about it too much.

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Yeah I looked for Mylar rolls and they were like $50 min for one roll that's rediculous. then I found the blankets an i was stoked at how cheap they were I ended up being like 50 blankets for like $20 which was more than enough I'm glad I looked around more before I got thoses expensive rolls.

Sounds like your in a closet , id go flat white paint and id have them add the mold additive and the titanium addtive....Make sure its FLAT white.....paint is VERY easy to clean its cheap and it rolls on evenly and its just well, newbie friendly.....

People will tell you to get those cheap fire blankets id say thats not such a good idea...they rinkle up really bad they tear and they are a bitch to clean and they can creat hot spots.......If you dont want white paint then get mylar is just as annoying as the fire blankets but its actually made for the purpose you would be using it for......Remember that what you use on your walls is about the least important part of growing a good cycle of grade A bud.....Theres a 100 things more important then wether you use paint or mylar so focus on those more important things like Humidty, temp , water , light , nutes, those are WAY more important then paint verse fire blankets....


As fair as your exhaust goes just make sure that you redirect your old exhausted air to someplace other then your grow space as long as you do that you will be ok.....

Another thing is why the T5's for bloom?? Those T5's cost alot and why when you can get some HID lights and your yield will be WAY better....Everyone knows that HPS will kick the T5's ass when it comes to dense big buds any day of the week.........Your room is very narrow so if it where me id run 2 400watts inline that will cover your space very nicely.......Id keep the T5 idea for Veg if you want to save a little power but honestly you better off just running 2 400watts inline the hole cycle your yield will be better and your buds will be denser and your stems will be thicker.....Plain and simple HID lights are better period.... Im sure there will be people jumping in saying that you can grow just a good of bud with your T5's but the truth is HID lights are going to give you more bang for your buck.......I work at a despensary and if T5's where really as good all our venders would be using them but they dont, they all use HID lights .......do the math man

FootClan said:

Another thing is why the T5's for bloom?? Those T5's cost alot and why when you can get some HID lights and your yield will be WAY better....Everyone knows that HPS will kick the T5's ass when it comes to dense big buds any day of the week.........Your room is very narrow so if it where me id run 2 400watts inline that will cover your space very nicely.......Id keep the T5 idea for Veg if you want to save a little power but honestly you better off just running 2 400watts inline the hole cycle your yield will be better and your buds will be denser and your stems will be thicker.....Plain and simple HID lights are better period.... Im sure there will be people jumping in saying that you can grow just a good of bud with your T5's but the truth is HID lights are going to give you more bang for your buck.......I work at a despensary and if T5's where really as good all our venders would be using them but they dont, they all use HID lights .......do the math man

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As far as my T5's go. I'm set on those, its a power, heat, noise thing. As well, there are two dispensary's in Vancouver that use T5 lighting, the man whom is giving me my clones actually. Nuclear submarines use T5 lighting to grow their vegetables under thousands of feet of water year round.

As mentioned, my exhaust is venting into the adjacent bathroom so I'm not worried about smell as I have a carbon filter that is rated for twice the size of the room. My concern is the air in-take and if screwing in a simple floor register to the gypsum to let fresh air vent in is enough.

T5's $ for $ cost less than an HID.

Regardless, I cannot put two T5's Badboy's into my set-up because of the length, so I will likely be augmenting it with a 2ft ballast -- if I can find an HID quiet enough w/ an electronic ballast, I'd do that for he remaining room but I've never heard an HID that doesn't buzz or humm.

Wade Benz said:

As far as my T5's go. I'm set on those, its a power, heat, noise thing. As well, there are two dispensary's in Vancouver that use T5 lighting, the man whom is giving me my clones actually. Nuclear submarines use T5 lighting to grow their vegetables under thousands of feet of water year round.

As mentioned, my exhaust is venting into the adjacent bathroom so I'm not worried about smell as I have a carbon filter that is rated for twice the size of the room. My concern is the air in-take and if screwing in a simple floor register to the gypsum to let fresh air vent in is enough.

T5's $ for $ cost less than an HID.

Regardless, I cannot put two T5's Badboy's into my set-up because of the length, so I will likely be augmenting it with a 2ft ballast -- if I can find an HID quiet enough w/ an electronic ballast, I'd do that for he remaining room but I've never heard an HID that doesn't buzz or humm.

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Ok first off i dont know why you think HID light cost so much more then T5s i work at a hydro shop and 4 foot T5s cost about the same as the 400watt lights......Second if you get a digital ballest theres no hum at all...I have a quantum digital ballast and that shit is silent no its VERY silent......So im still thinking T5's suck.......the ONLY argument i can see you have is the heat issue yes T5's will be less heat but other than that i see no advantage to using those T5's over HID lights....straight up....Like i said you will hear people say that cfls and florcents can work just as good but when it comes down to it everyone knows that HID lights kick CFLS asses everytime......its not worth even debating anymore......like i said if they were so good people wouldnt be throwing 1000w hps with big air conditioiners and 10" inline fans they would just be using t5's and little tiny fans....but they arent so like i said before you can tell yourself there better but in the end its not better.......Unless your main concerin is heat then go with T5'S all day but dont try and say they give better results casue thats just not true

my 400w hps coil ballast makes less noise than my oscillating fan. The newer ones are a lot less audible.

So finally after a week or so of gathering my materials for building my custom grow-room I ran into numerous fun errors that I advise all new people like me to watch out for; (highlighted words are equipment used in the build)

- Your inline fan, if you decide to do an exhaust system like mine pictured, should push 2-3x your rooms cubic measurements in air-flow (http://www.420magazine.com/forums/how-grow-marijuana/71083-how-much-ventilation-do-i-need-my-grow-room.html) , but make sure if you get a bigger inline fan that the available "pipe-reducers" are available as going from a 10"-> 6" was very hard to find, even at plumbing stores, I bought an 8" -> 6" initially thinking I could get a affordable 8" inline fan, well, they were out of stock on the affordable ones around my city (cheapest was like $140) and so I figured I'd push the 10" as I could use the extra cfm on an in-line Inductor model. It worked out marvelously.

- I ran into a door-frame issue as the "typical" door-frames at 82.5"H won't fit in my 74" frame, so I'm custom shopping midget doors for double the price at a specialty store as opposed to home-depot (that's a bummer, but c'est la vie)

I rigged up the in-line with 375cfm carbon-filter side by side via pipe-reducers, screwed, then duct those bitches together, the with flexible ducting ($30 bucks for 30 feet, HomeD) following the air-flow of the inline I rigged that to my exhaust-vent into the bathroom. Soups happy with the outcome, despite it being a bitch and taking me three-fucking hours to hang it solo, rigging each steel-cable, slowly hoisting them up, carbon-filter on shoulder, sweating like an Orangutan in heat. I survived, inhaled some good acrylic caulking (I didn't remember it smelling that pleasing years ago...)

What next;

Exacto'ing out the carpet inside, installing the door and putting up the walls, getting my effing lights and hanging them, laying the black reflective polyester flooring over concrete, stapling the white reflective sheet around the room, caulking and sealing all holes.

Bonus;

I found my old aquarium light. I'll be mounting it to the inside wall for side foliage lighting under the plant-canopy to penetrate as much light as possible. It cost me like 250-300 back in the day when I had a wicked salt-water aquarium that I would stare at, sober, straight or stoned..... My question being is that its had 34w HO bulbs in there for years, do you guys think I could throw the 54w HO in their and it'd be okay? Or was 54w not that popular like 6 years ago and they put in a ballast (that I can't seem to find in the unit) that doesn't support that much wattage? Thanks for the info on the lights.


Anywho, some pix - in semi-order, from what the grow-room initially looked like to where its at, as of today.

Day 1;

- The Beginning. (This is what the closet initially looked like, then I put up a few 2x3's)


- The Bathroom. (Before I put in the exhaust from the grow-room, then putting in the exhaust from grow-room to the bathroom)


- Part of the Build. (Just some shots of the framing and work-in-progress to help translate).


- Putting up the Exhaust System Solo. (What a fucking nightmare LOL!)

... and then finally into place, all said and done. I recognize part of my carbon-filter is hugging the wall as is my inline, they are both padded and I did not have a hammer drill to screw into the concrete roof, otherwise I would have suspended them their as opposed to the studs in the side-wall, regardless, I've done a test-run and its virtually silent.

Anywho, more pics to come on Monday or Tuesday when I get my damn lights and then incoming clones

Thanks for taking the time to read,

Peace & Hot Sex with many clean partners!

Wade