Help me build 13 x 10 room

It will soon become painfully obvious to you all that I have never grown before. I have been wanting to for a few years, but didn't really know how. Never really thought to search the Web just because I figured it would all be hush hush. Now I have more information than I can process. My budget is pretty flexible. I could do $8k or more if necassary. I want to maximize my space for a high yield.

I have an upstairs bedroom that is attached to a full bath that I am going to try and set up a grow in. Main space is 10ft x 13ft. I plan on actually growing in a 10x10 portion of it. I figure I can use the bathroom and shower for cloning, mother and a drying/curing area. Only one window in main room and another small one in the bathroom so I can shut out all light. I plan on putting down some heavy duty plastic drop cloth to help protect the carpet floors. Bathroom has a vent in the ceiling that I figure I can attach a fan and ducting to or maybe use either window. Climate here is pretty cool and relatively dry. My basic plan so far is to buy 6 California Light Works Solarsystem 550 LED lights and keep it simple and grow in soil. Although I am game to go hydro, but really would need a ton of help with setup and design. This is where I start to get lost. If I go soil what should I use? Local shop has fox farms, etc. Size and setup for containers? How many in my space? Should I go with COBs from Timbergrowlights? The CA lights Solarsystem 550 looks really nice and seems like a good price for the coverage it provides.

Clean slate for going buck wild. I rather do it right answer spend the money now than do it over again. Ease of setup is for sure the preference, but not the priority. Help a total noob out.

Can I grow wall to wall in a room like this? I have been looking at going to 9 of the CA lightworks 550s.

Also going all out and doing a RDWC. I was checking out the viagrow 4 bucket kit and was thinking about buying 6 of them and spacing them at 18in on center. Then I was going to add some airstones to each bucket since it doesnt have them. Then I keep going to the DIY UCDWC thread and am contemplating building on of those. Then I start thinking those options will be a total PITA and just hit the easy button and buy a supercloset bubble flow bucket 24.

Lots of views. No comments. I'm trying to soak up as much info as I can but I feel like a total spaz. Oh look at the kitty.

First bit of advice is that if you are going this alone with only help from online then it is going to be tough on you. Thats how i started growing. One of the harder things was trying to seperate good advice fro bad advice. Hard to do when you know nothing.

Second thing is that your first go is not likely going to be a big success. Maybe. But probably not. So you might want to start out a little smaller at first. Make the mistakes you will inevitably make as a noob. Then increase the size of your grow. I have a friend who has 8x1000w he is doing nothing with because after all the work he did to set up that size of a grow, his ONE and only grow, he failed miserably. I told him...

If you have good help nearby that is a different story. If not start smaller and you wont discourage yourself from growing again...

You should start out smaller. Get one light and a 4 bucket kit and see if you like it instead of wasting a bunch of money on something you might regret. Focusing on only a few plants will help you pay more attention to what your doing and find a feeding schedule that works, learn what training techniques work etc. Also problems like bugs, heat, smell are easier to deal with when you have fewer plants to work around and care for.

Maybe add a light after each harvest so you don't get overwhelmed and stress yourself out. I've noticed you can harvest more off of fewer plants and fewer lights than if you have too many and can't properly care for them.

I do 8 plants under 2x1000w. I generally get about 3 lbs dry. It takes me about 5 hours a plant to trim by hand. That is a week of work for one guy... a lot of work.

So ya...start out smaller...lol

TAGrows said:

Can I grow wall to wall in a room like this? I have been looking at going to 9 of the CA lightworks 550s.

Also going all out and doing a RDWC. I was checking out the viagrow 4 bucket kit and was thinking about buying 6 of them and spacing them at 18in on center. Then I was going to add some airstones to each bucket since it doesnt have them. Then I keep going to the DIY UCDWC thread and am contemplating building on of those. Then I start thinking those options will be a total PITA and just hit the easy button and buy a supercloset bubble flow bucket 24.

Lots of views. No comments. I'm trying to soak up as much info as I can but I feel like a total spaz. Oh look at the kitty.

Click to expand...

yes TAGrows & heres a Link for a wall to wall grow
https://www.rollitup.org/t/my-latest-vert-garden.898041/
VG

Thanks guys. Way to burst my bubble. Hahaha. I still want to go all in though. I dont mind some hard work and maybe some mistakes. Thatbis why i am thinking the Hydro setup may be asking to much because of the additional complexity of it. I will be starting with clones and have only 10 for the first run. I was planning on getting them going the starting more as I can get more clones going from one of the originals.

As far as my layout plans is that going to be to packed in the room to be able to work on everything?

I know building a RDWC DIY will save some cash, but won't it take quite a bit of time to build and assemble a 24 bucket kit?

TAGrows said:

Should I go with COBs from Timbergrowlights? The CA lights Solarsystem 550 looks really nice and seems like a good price for the coverage it provides. Help a total noob out.

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i would go with Timber grow lights because they use the latest COBS & they get great results.
VG

i'd suggest trying hempy buckets for your first grow, they are awesome, the simplest form of hydroponics, very forgiving. dwc gives great results, till they break, check out loftygoals thread, she had an awesome grow going, then got repetitive root rot in rdwc, she went to hempys and her tent is so full she needs a machete to get to the back plants. k.i.s.s. in the simplest form.

https://www.rollitup.org/t/new-loft-grow-room-input-appreciated.899067/page-8
lofty's root troubles ^
https://www.rollitup.org/t/world-of-hempy.546006/
the hempy sticky^

I have been already been reading that first grow you posted VG. Not through it all yet.

I will check out the hemp buckets now too.

Did I miscalculate my lighting needs? I am looking at a 10.5ft X 11ft grow area with the 24 buckets if I do the super closet kit that spaces at 32in on centers for each basically. And I came up with needing 20x 200w timber COB kits if I go 35w/ft. $8k in lights?

I just noticed I missed the 300w kits on timber. These are much more cost effective. I would only need 13 kits at $500 each. Any issue with using these over the 200w kits?

TAGrows said:

Thanks guys. Way to burst my bubble. Hahaha. I still want to go all in though. I dont mind some hard work and maybe some mistakes. Thatbis why i am thinking the Hydro setup may be asking to much because of the additional complexity of it. I will be starting with clones and have only 10 for the first run. I was planning on getting them going the starting more as I can get more clones going from one of the originals.

As far as my layout plans is that going to be to packed in the room to be able to work on everything?

I know building a RDWC DIY will save some cash, but won't it take quite a bit of time to build and assemble a 24 bucket kit?

Click to expand...

Well... if youre not easily discouraged then have at errr..lol

Start with soil. I started full tilt RDWC and got great results but the effort of learning how to grow and troubleshoot mechanical issues at the same time can be daunting. It has taken me (3) full runs to get a good product from RDWC. I tried dirt next and was amazed and how easy it is to get good results. This plant requires understand and patience you need to learn how to talk to them, then when you speak there language you can grow in whatever style you prefer. but you will have a good baseline for what is achievable.

I have a California light works 220 solar flare. I'm very happy with the company, So cal based, good customer service. If you can ball out I would say go COB all the way.

If you want a hydro experience but maybe not all the way Hydro then look up coco coir! You sound like you don't mind getting down and dirty with the plants, coco does take a little work since it's a drain to waste medium. I've never grown a plant in my life but yet I was able to make it from seed to harvest on my first run with good bud at the end.

What ever you do keep us posted!

I would recomend starting out in pro mix or another peat lite mix. It will give you a buffer when you make mistakes and give the plants time to recover.

With that many watts and plants. This is an advanced grow.

You would yield better amount and quality if you pare it down and learn to read your plants first.

Good advice above. But hydro may complicate things as it is unforgiving.

And a Promix style grow will still teach you about feeding nutes correctly.

Please please please dont even think of touching the clones untill you bring your bug treatment and preventitive with you, otherwise that will set you up for failure HARD.

MichiganMedGrower said:

And a Promix style grow will still teach you about feeding nutes correctly.

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Do this. Peat soilless is a great way to learn. Huge yields also.

TAGrows said:

Thanks guys. Way to burst my bubble. Hahaha. I still want to go all in though. I dont mind some hard work and maybe some mistakes. Thatbis why i am thinking the Hydro setup may be asking to much because of the additional complexity of it. I will be starting with clones and have only 10 for the first run. I was planning on getting them going the starting more as I can get more clones going from one of the originals.

As far as my layout plans is that going to be to packed in the room to be able to work on everything?

I know building a RDWC DIY will save some cash, but won't it take quite a bit of time to build and assemble a 24 bucket kit?

Click to expand...

I was told to start with dirt when I was buying all my stuff from the hydro store. They said to learn the basics and then consider going to hydro. Well I said screw that and bought all my hydro gear. I am on my 7th grow and its doing great, feel free to check it out in my signature. Hydro is not complex. Add nutrients to reservoir, check ph, add ph up/down, close resevoior lid, come back in a week.