Puff
Well-Known Member
Some basic information, Im a first time grower who is tired of paying for crappy weed. I smoke a lot and its just too dangerous driving around with it or making shady deals with people who dont have as much to loose as I do. Personally I don't take my weed out of the house and I keep a low profile. My father has Glaucoma and I have stomach issues and I am tired of buying it. So Im going to grow a few plants to supply myself and my father. I have invested a bit of money into my grow operation, more than a thousand dollars. To me thats a fair price to pay to not have to buy it again. So in this journal I will try and provide all the information a person would need to duplicate my setup. Currently Im using the following setup:
2 - HTG 20"x36"x64" tents with 400W HPS lights (flowering chamber for clones)
HomeBox 23.5"x23.5"x47" with a 200W Comet CFL light (vegging chamber for mothers)
General Hydroponics Waterfarm 8 pack System with reservoir and controller unit. (I added 4 more units for a total of 12)
Daisy Cloner with a 125W CFL light
Sunleaves Windtunnel 6" centrifugal fan
2 - 4" Odorsoks (ordor control)
Fox Farm Nutrients the complete set
I have a Kill a Watt meter that tracks the power usage. Im able to provide accurate electricty cost. So far its projected to cost about $18 a moth or 60 cents a day.
I only use RO water filtered at home, all water is PH adjusted to 5.6-5.8 prior to use. I also track everything with a TDS and PPM meter.
Im sure Im forgetting stuff but thats the basics. It took me a while to design a system that would work, temperature is your biggest problem. So this is what I finally came up with. My grow space is approx 5' x 5' x 8' (my bedroom closet). Its hard to keep two 400W lights running in there while keeping the temps in the 80's.
This is what it looks like.
Both tents are identical in every way. There are 6 Waterfam buckets in each tent hooked up to an 18 gallon shared reservoir.
The air flow is critical. Im using one powerful 6" Windtunnel (400CFM) fan for both tents. All the ducting was purchased at Home Depot. On the intake side of the tent I am using an Odorsok as seen below.
The air is blown out of the top of the closet door and is directed out the door. (insulating tape was used to reduce noise from wind flow)
For the air intake I dont use any fans, its a passive intake. I rely on the negative air pressure to pull cool air in through the vent. I cut a space for a vent and covered it with a grill.
I went through 3 fans before I finally bought a centrifugal fan. Centrifugal fans are designed to keep the boost pressure up. A lot of fans are rated at say 200CFM but as soon as you put an Odorsok on it drops by half. A good fan will be designed to boost the air flow. I cant emphasize how important it is to have good air flow. It will prevent so many problems. You wont need CO2 and there wont be any humidity issues. The only problem you have with big fans is the noise. I bought a fan with a polymer case, plastic or polymer cases are going to absorb vibrations unlike a metal cases. I also went a step further and hung the fan with bungee cords. Now the only noise was from the air flow, I found that if you put a reducer on the exhaust it cuts the noise in half? It was an accident that I discovered that, I was trying to blow the exhaust out of the room by putting an elbow on. So now I keep the 6" to 4" reducer on all the time. The airflow coming out is moving at 27 mph! Can you believe that? Eliminate as much unnecessary ducting as possible, and avoid 90" bends if at all possible.
Ok so now that we have covered where and what we will be using to start this grow lets cover how to grow in tight spaces maximizing your yield. I started by putting a couple of week old seedlings in the tent, one in each 10"x 10" bucket. After a month the plants were out of control and impossible to manage. This is what it looked like.
That picture was taken on day 29. Now thats a beautiful site to behold but its actually an unproductive garden. First of all when you start from seeds you going to get a mix of everything. I planted 3 strains but they grew at different rates and some of them ended up being males which are useless. Out of the 6 plants you see there, 2 are slow growing, 2 are going to be males, and 1 has turned out to be a female. There is still 1 more that has great potential but I dont know if its a boy or a girl yet. What I learned from my first grow is that this setup requires small plants, but you cant grow a healthy small plant. You want a fast growing productive female. What I decided to do was to take my big healthy female and cut off some large branches to make clones. By putting in a garden of all clones I can ensure that they will all be females, grow at the same rate, mature at the same time. It was probably the most difficult thing I have ever done by going in there and hacking up my beautiful female plant. But now I know that I wont have to remove half the plants when they turn out to be males. To grow in a setup like this you almost have to use clones. But cloning is easy and its cool too. lol... The small HomeBox tent is a perfect home for my mothers. You can fit 2-3 in there easy. They dont have to be the same strain, that way you can alternate in between harvests.
I also used the vegging chamber to start my seedlings to pick out the super mom.
So I went ahead and took the biggest branches off my month old female. (10" -12" cuttings)
Im using the Daisy Cloner. Mine make 8 clones at a time. I made my first batch of clones last week with some smaller cuttings and I had a 100% success rate. This time my clones are all 6". The Daisy Cloner is simple. Just put a rock wool cube in the net pot and wait for the roots to appear. I use rooting gel along with a cloning solution. I also only use RO filtered water. Once the roots appear I will take another batch from the same female leaving her pretty much stripped bare. Ill use 12 of the healthiest clones to fill both tents. I will keep 2-3 clones for future mothers. Im not going to waste anytime vegging the plants, they are going to go right into flowering mode. Remember you cant have big plants in a tight space like that. You may not get the big yield from each plant like you want but you will get a bigger yield overall.
Here is a pic of the clones I made yesterday. They are all alive and standing up.
So this is the point at which I will keep updating the journal. In about a week I should have them transplanted along with a second batch started. If you have any questions let me know. I'm not going to cover things step by step. I will be happy answer educated questions. I think that's a fair thing to ask.
2 - HTG 20"x36"x64" tents with 400W HPS lights (flowering chamber for clones)
HomeBox 23.5"x23.5"x47" with a 200W Comet CFL light (vegging chamber for mothers)
General Hydroponics Waterfarm 8 pack System with reservoir and controller unit. (I added 4 more units for a total of 12)
Daisy Cloner with a 125W CFL light
Sunleaves Windtunnel 6" centrifugal fan
2 - 4" Odorsoks (ordor control)
Fox Farm Nutrients the complete set
I have a Kill a Watt meter that tracks the power usage. Im able to provide accurate electricty cost. So far its projected to cost about $18 a moth or 60 cents a day.
I only use RO water filtered at home, all water is PH adjusted to 5.6-5.8 prior to use. I also track everything with a TDS and PPM meter.
Im sure Im forgetting stuff but thats the basics. It took me a while to design a system that would work, temperature is your biggest problem. So this is what I finally came up with. My grow space is approx 5' x 5' x 8' (my bedroom closet). Its hard to keep two 400W lights running in there while keeping the temps in the 80's.
This is what it looks like.
Both tents are identical in every way. There are 6 Waterfam buckets in each tent hooked up to an 18 gallon shared reservoir.
The air flow is critical. Im using one powerful 6" Windtunnel (400CFM) fan for both tents. All the ducting was purchased at Home Depot. On the intake side of the tent I am using an Odorsok as seen below.
The air is blown out of the top of the closet door and is directed out the door. (insulating tape was used to reduce noise from wind flow)
For the air intake I dont use any fans, its a passive intake. I rely on the negative air pressure to pull cool air in through the vent. I cut a space for a vent and covered it with a grill.
I went through 3 fans before I finally bought a centrifugal fan. Centrifugal fans are designed to keep the boost pressure up. A lot of fans are rated at say 200CFM but as soon as you put an Odorsok on it drops by half. A good fan will be designed to boost the air flow. I cant emphasize how important it is to have good air flow. It will prevent so many problems. You wont need CO2 and there wont be any humidity issues. The only problem you have with big fans is the noise. I bought a fan with a polymer case, plastic or polymer cases are going to absorb vibrations unlike a metal cases. I also went a step further and hung the fan with bungee cords. Now the only noise was from the air flow, I found that if you put a reducer on the exhaust it cuts the noise in half? It was an accident that I discovered that, I was trying to blow the exhaust out of the room by putting an elbow on. So now I keep the 6" to 4" reducer on all the time. The airflow coming out is moving at 27 mph! Can you believe that? Eliminate as much unnecessary ducting as possible, and avoid 90" bends if at all possible.
Ok so now that we have covered where and what we will be using to start this grow lets cover how to grow in tight spaces maximizing your yield. I started by putting a couple of week old seedlings in the tent, one in each 10"x 10" bucket. After a month the plants were out of control and impossible to manage. This is what it looked like.
That picture was taken on day 29. Now thats a beautiful site to behold but its actually an unproductive garden. First of all when you start from seeds you going to get a mix of everything. I planted 3 strains but they grew at different rates and some of them ended up being males which are useless. Out of the 6 plants you see there, 2 are slow growing, 2 are going to be males, and 1 has turned out to be a female. There is still 1 more that has great potential but I dont know if its a boy or a girl yet. What I learned from my first grow is that this setup requires small plants, but you cant grow a healthy small plant. You want a fast growing productive female. What I decided to do was to take my big healthy female and cut off some large branches to make clones. By putting in a garden of all clones I can ensure that they will all be females, grow at the same rate, mature at the same time. It was probably the most difficult thing I have ever done by going in there and hacking up my beautiful female plant. But now I know that I wont have to remove half the plants when they turn out to be males. To grow in a setup like this you almost have to use clones. But cloning is easy and its cool too. lol... The small HomeBox tent is a perfect home for my mothers. You can fit 2-3 in there easy. They dont have to be the same strain, that way you can alternate in between harvests.
I also used the vegging chamber to start my seedlings to pick out the super mom.
So I went ahead and took the biggest branches off my month old female. (10" -12" cuttings)
Im using the Daisy Cloner. Mine make 8 clones at a time. I made my first batch of clones last week with some smaller cuttings and I had a 100% success rate. This time my clones are all 6". The Daisy Cloner is simple. Just put a rock wool cube in the net pot and wait for the roots to appear. I use rooting gel along with a cloning solution. I also only use RO filtered water. Once the roots appear I will take another batch from the same female leaving her pretty much stripped bare. Ill use 12 of the healthiest clones to fill both tents. I will keep 2-3 clones for future mothers. Im not going to waste anytime vegging the plants, they are going to go right into flowering mode. Remember you cant have big plants in a tight space like that. You may not get the big yield from each plant like you want but you will get a bigger yield overall.
Here is a pic of the clones I made yesterday. They are all alive and standing up.
So this is the point at which I will keep updating the journal. In about a week I should have them transplanted along with a second batch started. If you have any questions let me know. I'm not going to cover things step by step. I will be happy answer educated questions. I think that's a fair thing to ask.
Running 800 watts in a 31.5" x 31.5" x 64" space is asking a lot. Hopefuly 500 watts will run a few degrees cooler.
, im looking forward into getting one of them but i duno were to buy them . Would a store like hight times provide such tent/boxes?
