First Grow & need some advice! 4x4x6.4 Mylar Grow Tent and 600w HPS

*UPDATE* Bought a magnum xxxl 6" reflector, pH meter, TDS meter and some 5 gallon smart pots!!!


Hey this is gonna be my first grow, and I need some advice for what materials I need.

Currently I have:

-4'x4'x6'4" Mylar lined grow tent
-Sun Systems Magnum XXXL 6" Reflector
-600watt Lumatek HPS electronic ballast
-600watt Eye Hortilux Super HPS Bulb
-Fox Farm Ocean Forest Soil
-Fox Farm Tiger Bloom
-Fox Farm Grow Big
-Fox Farm Big Bloom
-Thermometer and Humity Guage
-pH Meter
-TDS PPM Meter
-(6) 5 gallon Smart Pots and trays

I am wanting to plant some White Widow seeds and I already have them on order, but now I just need to finish collecting the materials.

Judging by the pictures and the 600w HPS light, how many plants could I grow in here using the pots that I have in the pictures. I think they are 3 gallon pots that I bought from WalMart. Are these even big enough for the plants to fully grow in? They are the kind where you would just water at the bottom of the pot in the hole and the roots collect the water from there.

I do plan on topping all of them so that I won't run into any height clearance issues.

Is there anything else that you guys recommend that I buy, besides duct piping, filters, fans, and intakes?

What size inline fans do I need, and how many of them?

Also, what kind of bulb should I use? My ballast is only an HPS ballast, but are there 2 different bulbs that I need to buy to grow and flower with, or can I just use one? And which bulb do yall recommend that I buy?

Sorry for all the questions, but i'm new to this and I wanna get it as close to perfect as possible.

Thanks.

I'd go with the Magnum just because it has the widest light spread and the tent walls will do a good job of reflecting the spread light back to the outside edges of the plants. Probably not going to be a huge difference between the three though in practice though as all three will cover a 4'x4' footprint no problem.

As far as how many plants depends a lot on how big you want to grow the plants. With a little over 6' of height, you could fit four bushy plants around 3.5' tall each (excluding pots/light)... or many small plants. Just depending on how you want to do things.

I started out with a pcv cage like you have and eventually got sick of it twisting and shifting so i threw it away and drilled into the ceiling to hang the lights and just hung Panda film to make a little room inside a big room, works 100% better.
Get a good pH meter, not that vial and drops and get a ppm meter as well.
HTG Supply has them or your local grow store. those 2 things are a must have for a good grow.
I had 7 plants in a 3'x4'x6' and they turned out all right, 600 HPS is good!!

Hortilux makes good bulbs and a nice size 6" inline fan and some duct work will vent you just fine.

You can use the HPS veg to flower.

I grow (used to ) in 5 gallon buckets from lowes.

i grow in a 4x4 tent also. I have a 600 watt HPS and use what ever (horticulture) bulb I can get that has as much blue spectrum also. It is really a personal thing, but look and see what you might buy for a bulb and go home and look it up, I know there have been a few bulbs that had bad batches and burned out early.

You can always put in a few cfl tubes in blue to help with the vegging.

I have one fan for my hood (a magnum xxxl hood, that I love), is a 230 cfm 6 inch fan. If i could find a dimmer switch worth a damn I would only need to run it at about 60%, so you could get away with a smaller fan.

I have to run Air Conditioning in the summer so I have a closed system for my tent, that is C02 enriched.
In the winter I pull cold air in from outside and use that to cool my tent. For the air in I use a old 7 inch bathroom fan that is rated for 140 cfm, so it does fine for this job.

Any more questions ask away...JR

oh yeah with those pots you have it looks like 9 plants is all you will be able to do. Good luck and let us know,,,,,,,,,,,JR

You can use either one Magnum XXXL reflector or the Sunlight Adjust a wing to cover the tent. The Adjust a Wing won't heat up your area as much as any other reflector. But if you're only growing during the winter then it's not an issue to worry about.

You can use one 6" CAP fan (valueline) to push the air out and stay with one 6" x 24" or 6" x 39" carbon filter. No need to go bigger unless you had a bigger tent to work with.

Your pots should be black, so you don't any lights to the roots system. A little extra cents on your pots will pay out...


Don't forget about the litte things:
a regular oscillating fan to move your plants around...
simple timer to turn off ballast during lights off

And get most important parts of Fox Farm line!
OPEN SESAME, BEASTIE BLOOM & CHA CHING

Open Sesame: Increases Buds on your plants
Beastie Bloom: Increases sizes of your Buds
Cha Ching: Increases resin and weight of your Buds

Once I germinate my seeds, how long before I start feeding them nutrients, and how long should I keep them on the veg cycle before I start to flower? I am gonna top these plants at least once. I want as much oz's as I can out of the room and light I have to work with. They don't have to be huge plants, but I want enough of them to make a decent yield. Am I going about it wrong by wanting a lot of little ones instead of a couple of big ones?

So could I get away with 9 plants in the same size pots that I have, or will the roots outgrow it?

Does anyone have any objections to me using the pots that I have, other than the color? You are supposed to feed the plants from downlow instead of on top, to avoid overwatering. Or so it says that on the label, and on the picture on the label.

Any suggestions?

use fabric pots check out this sick pot
https://www.rollitup.org/do-yourself/389656-diy-fabric-pots-jumpman-pipe.html

How air pruning works video:
http://www.airpotgarden.com/store/index.php?app=gbu0&ns=display&ref=airpotworks

No seriously, buy these
http://www.aurorainnovations.org/rootpots.html

But check out my DIY pot

Ok it looks like your spending your money wisely and wanting to buy all of the right materials. So start with the reflector. definintely go with the xxxl. If you can fit it in your grow tent then do that. You want to get as much light evenly across your whole canopy. That relector should cover the majority of the whole area in your tent.Get at least a 440 cfm fan and air cool your light. Now to your 4x4. your want atleast 1sq ft of grow space per plant so 4 plants is ideal but you could possibly do 5. Those pots are not gonna work. I recommend Geopots, But square or circle pots not those self watering pots, those are garbage. If not geopots smartpots if not smart pots grow bags or circle pots. 5 gallon to flower in. if you can go bigger, go bigger 6 or 7 gallon. And i wouldnt get a hortilux bulb if i were you i would go with the Ushio Digilux bulb. it puts out 95,000 lumen and you can find them for around $70. The regluar 600w hortilux is like $99 with 90,000 lumens. and the hortilux super hps is $120+ with 97,000 lumens. so its really your decision on that. Evrybody has their personal prefference on bulbs. Now i would get all of the solubles from FF the open sesame,beastie bloomz and cha ching and the bush doctor thats a root inoculant and yes of course the very important PH pen. but yea that should get you started if you want to know anything else PM me. Let me know when you pop your beans so i can check up on you. GOOD LUCK++

AND READ!!!!! Most of your questions have been asked a million times. search the threads, read all of the newbie FAQ's Google youtube. Im telling you there is no question that you are going to have about growing that either hasn't been asked or can't be answered so just read. and watch some grow videos too. Thats should get you up to PAR with your grow knowledge. PEACE

Nice, thanks for the info, i'll definately be pm'ing you.

Thanks everyone.

If you have any other suggestions, please do so, as I am a beginner at this.

Ok so I bought 6 smart pot 5 gallon bags, 6 tray to set them on, a magnum xxxl 6" reflector, eye hortilux 600watt super hps bulb, a pH meter, a TDS PPM meter and a timer.

Next thing on my list is an inline fan to exhaust and cool off the reflector, a tower oscillating fan (any objections to using a tower vs. a cage??), and ducting and all the other little stuff.

Can anyone chime in on what else I should buy?