First grow - Think I have it all figured out.

Chris n

Member
Ok. I will be beginning my first grow ever very shortly. This grow will be the culmination of about 9-10 months of desire and research and a 900 dollar budget. The purpose of this post is to explain the set up of my op, and to receive advice regarding any flaws or tweaks that could be made to my plan. My yield goal is roughly 2lbs a month. This will be a Sea of Green style soil garden.

I will be growing in two 3x4x7 areas with a 600 watt hps cooltubes in each grow area. This setup is so that my power bill shows a constant drain of 600 watts rather than 1200 on/off at 12hr intervals. I have the grow medium and flowering stages down. I will not over water, nor will I over feed my plants. After reading through so many forums I am confident that I will practice discretion when providing nutrients and water.

The cooling in my flowering rooms will be through a 6" ducting that meets in a wishbone shape. I will be building a DIY scrubber and using the DIY Stanley Blower fan mod. The air intake as of right now will be from inside the room that the grow rooms are built in, the exhaust will also be in this room ala grow tent style.
Advice?

I will be doing the vegging and clone in a third room. This room will contain flouro tubes for the clones, and a t5 rack for the donors. This part of my setup is something I am not 100% sure about. I have read flowering with HPS produces better yield, and also that flowering with t5's is perfectly acceptable and can still produce nice yields. In fact this is one of the few areas of growing for which I've read mixed answers. For the time being my budget will only allow me to use the flouros for flowering so this might be a moot point; however, if I can increase my yield by a significant amount I will switch lighting@veg room after first harvest. Advice?

I have purchased five ak-48 femmed seeds from Nirvana. I'm going to label them as clones and use those labels to distinguish what plant each clone is from. After inducing the flowering stage I will throw out any males if they show up. I hope no males will show up - to help insure this my vegging light cycle will be 18/6 as I have read that more dark time produces lower stress to new seedlings and promotes female development.
Advice?

As a side note I would like to add that I originally planned on using a diy aeroponic bubble tub. It turns out that my budget ran slightly short for this goal. Adding to this, the house I'm moving into was left to me and it is the house I grew up in. In the summer the area this house is in loses power 1-3 times for a total period of roughly 4-8 hours during storms. These two factors have lead me to decide on using soil since summer is coming soon. I also realize that I have little experience, and putting a few grows under my belt will help me feel more at ease with plant care over the next winter when I switch to aeroponics. The number one piece of advice I have read over and over again is START SIMPLE. The idea of growing aeroponic buds is extremely tantalizing; however, in the spirit of success and simplicity I have chosen to go with the organic soil method.

This concludes my basic plan and set up. To re-iterate:
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3 rooms 2xflower via 600watt hps cooltubes at alternating 12/12 schedules. Flouros in cloner/donor room. 3x4x7 flower rooms.

I will build the dimensions of my cloner/donor room based upon the size of the equipment that I use.

6"ducting from each flower room connecting to a DIY scrubber+ stanley blower fan mod (I will gauge temps in room with light running before I put plants in there, if temperatures aren't good I will add another fan+ scrubber for personal room ventilation)

Organic soil SOG style grow for the summer during threat of power outages. Switching a single room to aeroponics over the winter when the power is more stable.
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If anyone has any advice, whether it be a tweak, or if I'm totally fucking something up any info/knowledge would be appreciated.
 
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