Needing help

Hey everyone, I need some help and hoping someone can bare with my inexperience for a little while.
I am hoping to have about 12-15 plants in my basement bedroom about 7'x7'x8'. First I'll be spraying disinfectant on the walls and ceiling. I'll be getting some clones and putting them in plastic pots. Cost is a big factor so I will be working with a fluorescent light set up borrowed from my workplace using t5 bulbs. I will probably be able to get about 6..I would be using cool white's during veg and warm white during flowering...If the lighting is too little, could I just add some cfl's, if so how many? I am looking for most yield in least time, my plan is probably going to put them in pots about 12" deep. Tap water will be monitored for ph ratings and I will be using some nutrients which will be determined later. I guess critique and suggestions are what I am hoping for about my plan so far. I would also like to ask about air ventilation.

Do I need to set up a crazy duct system to monitor the temperature and smell? If I did my plan was to get a carbon filter thing (haha) and just have that running in the room with a closed environment. (Not sure if that is good..there is a short/long extending window which I planned to board up). If it get too hot i would run a fan or 2..too cool, turn a fan off..way too cool bring in a heater and manually monitor the temperature..and just spray febreze all the time for smell. Holes in the walls could be resorted to if it is important.

Some final notes I guess would be that the pots will have holes in them to let water distribute itself nicely. I will be buying some white reflective coating for the walls at a hydroponics store for light reflection. I'll get some high quality soil from art knapps or something. And I am hoping to yield about a pound and a half once everything is finished of some decent quality product with the process lasting about 3 months. I will make clones of the plants that were grown and start the cycle again and hope to get the same results. Any advice or criticism is welcomed.
Thank you.

First things first. You won't get the results you are expecting with the light you are planning to use. Using 1000 watts of light, if you pull a pound of bud off your grow room, you're winning. I'm not sure what fluorescent lights you plan to use, but not all ballasts are the same; you can't just throw T5 bulbs into a T8 ballast; they aren't even the same size bulb! I see you have high aspirations; just as I did about 18 months ago when I started my first grow. I tried to do 12 plants in my apartment without proper equipment. Had a pretty decent harvest of about 3 oz off of the whole lot; and I used a 400 watt light!

All that aside, you seem to have your mind in the right place for when it comes to growing. You seem to have the fundamentals in order, just need a little help understanding them fully.
CFL and Flouro lights are great for plants in the first few weeks of life, the reason being that the plants are short and the low intensity lights dissipate energy very quickly. 1 inch from the light source your "lux" may be about 3000. 2 inchs away its going to be 750 lux. Light degrades and becomes weak VERY fast. To combat this we use High Intensity Discharge ( HID ) lights and keep them as close to the plant as possible without causing "heat burn" to the tops. Lux is the measure for "light energy" that your plant is going to be able to use. Assuming that you end up going with the flouro tubes you are going to want them on "tracks" of sorts so you can be sure to keep them AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE to the plant tops.

With your set up and the fact that you are in the basement where the majority of cold air in the house is going to reside, you are not likely going to need to have a crazy ventilation system to have your temperatures in check, especially considering the light sources you are going to be using are low heat light sources. ( Low heat means low energy >.< ) Don't go "Spraying Febreeze" anywhere near your grow room, you don't want to be smoking that shit do you? No? Then don't let your plants breathe it! Holes in the walls shouldn't be needed, just open the door and if anything get a good fan to exhaust the heat out. Sounds like you are going to be using soil, great, thats the best for beginning! Make sure not to "over fertilize". Fertilize AT MOST once every two weeks with half strength nutes until you see signs of nutrient deficiency! DONT BURN EM WITH NUTES.

DONT BURN THEM WITH NUTRIENTS. NO REALLY, READ THIS LINE 3 MORE TIMES...
Did you read it 3 more times? Okay? You get that im serious? I did this like, six times in a row my first time growing thinking " I'll just add some nutes and they'll grow faster ". WRONG. I killed em; like six times before I realized I was a bone head.... I'm here for you buddy, let me know if theres anything I can do to help!

thehome said:

I am hoping to yield about a pound and a half once everything is finished of some decent quality product with the process lasting about 3 months.

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Where did you come up with this number, a pound plus half an oz? You're not gonna get anything near that with the lights you are using. 1/2 gram per watt would be a respectable yield for a first time grow. And depending on the strain and size of clones you start with, 3 months may or may not be realistic.

Good luck

thanks for the replies so far...So for the lighting..would I be able to get away with using 1000w (I'll probably get more wattage now) of fluoro and cfl's through the veg stage and then later ( I am roughly guessing flowering stage would start in about 7 weeks once i get my clones?) when I get some more money buy a hid light for flowering, that would be better? I am guessing my 6 fluoros would produce only about 240 watts now that I think about it which is shit. Would I just be able to use 15 cfl's which would give me about 1200 watts? a combo of fluoros and cfl's?

And for the smell...the last thing i want is people thinking i have a grow in my house, what can i do to prevent it if an unexpected visitior shows up? just close the door? do i need a carbon filter?

how long should I veg and flower to help with my goals? are there any precautions i should take? Thanks again for any input.

oh and im not looking for a pound plus a half oz...im looking for a pound and a half.. 1.5 lb's.

A pound and a half from Floro's... You must be joking.

thehome said:

What can i do to prevent it if an unexpected visitior shows up? just close the door?

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Hell yeah just slam the door in their face, they'll get the message and go away.

ok well I am studying more everyday with the limited time i have. I stopped at home depot and looked at some cfl's which said they were 23Watt=100 watt which i assume means each bulb produces 100Watts. If 15 of those equalled 1500 total watts and I kept them close to the plants until the start of flowering which I will probably get a mh hid light because I hear it has more red light rays which is better for flowering. What could I expect if I used the cfl's all the way through? should i just wait and start the whole process with a mh light? or would using both be good? please i hope someone can help me. researching facts can only tell so much.

no those CFLs are "100 watt equivalent" which is bs. but i have used them successfully to veg small plants before moving them into a bigger veg space.and if your dead set on going cheap they have a decent enough lumen output and i would suggest going back to home depot and get some of these

http://www.homedepot.com/p/t/100170446?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&keyword=socket+to+outlet&storeId=10051&N=5yc1v&R=100170446#.UWeZQ0rCT-s

and these

http://www.homedepot.com/p/t/100356967?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&keyword=dual+socket&storeId=10051&N=5yc1v&R=100356967#.UWeZckrCT-s

and these

http://www.homedepot.com/p/t/203252142?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&keyword=cfl&storeId=10051&N=5yc1v&R=203252142#specifications

and zip tying those babies to a power strip that has a surge protector and you can strap that it to a piece of aluminum or pvc or whatever you want to and veg with that for now. i'd do at least 4 bulbs per power strip

I'm growing using high output t5's right now, check out my journal

https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/640832-dankys-white-rhino-t5s.html

and you got that backwards High pressure sodium are the red lights used in flower. i hear they have new HPS bulbs that have enough blue spectrum to veg and flower with but i haven't really looked into it yet

oh and a warning!!!!: lots of people will tell you to put them really close to your plants...like within just a few inches. do not do this and your babies will start to get bleached and burned from the intensity of the light, not necessarily the heat from the bulb

thanks danky...I can't believe how much info there is once you start to delve into this seriously. So After looking around a while longer, it doesn't seem much more expensive to just get a hid light with the yield I am looking for rather than buying a cluster of cfl's. I will probably end up getting a 600w hps. the verticle method looks pretty alluring to me I will look into that more. Now with venting, what is required for eliminating smell to all other rooms of the household?

IMO, I would go out and buy one good light rather than a bunch of floros. Less clutter, fewer bulbs, and better yield. I got mine from Amazon (600 watt) and I have not had any issues, just make sure the ballast has a cooling fan built into the device.
Lighting is key.

Peace