Senior Citizen Novice Advice For Getting Started!

Hello everyone! Before I start let me first thank everyone for the awesome sometimes overwhelming amount of information that is available in this forum!

I am about to begin setting up using a variety of techniques and ideas I have learned by studying for the last 6 months or so and I am very excited to get started, but I have some questions before I do. It is likely that I have already read the answers to some of these questions but as I said, sometimes there is too much info for me to retain and recall effectively so excuse me if the questions seem elementary.

Here is the basic plan and would love any comments or recommendations.

Going to try a SCROG in a home designed “aero” type system using the usual name brand grey tubs. (My design will be a rather unique system I think but I am still in the R&D stage so I will post the design and pics once I get it all ironed out.)

Lighting will be all HPS with wattage as of yet undetermined but leaning towards 600’s.

So the first questions are:
given the 600w lights, how many plants per tub?
* - I am thinking 4 per tub.

and how big should I make the screens?
* - I am thinking either the same size as the light footprint at the optimal height OR maybe half the light footprint and putting two screens under each light.

4 plants per 600 would be good. general rule is 100w per plant, and i believe its 50w/sq ft for sog/scrog

screen size can vary. for me i have a 4x4 floor space, 4 plants, with about a 3x4screen. if i had more light (maybe another 400 or 600) i could easily do each plant 2x2 and keep that 50w/ sqft.

thats just my 2cents, hopefully others can chime in as well

Hi Mojo, I'm an older newcomer too. Best of luck in your grow. I wonder why you want to put 4 plants per tub-- each plant should have its own dedicated pot. And also, why do you want to use hps for entire grow. Have you thought about a metal halide conversion bulb for vegging? Hope this helps.

The Scrog Method

So, you want to tackle a scrog do ya? Excellent choice! Scrog or SCREEN OF GREEN is one of the most productive and easiest ways to grow indoors. Now lets not get this confused with the Sea of green method. SOG involves no training nor does it have one item a scrog always has. A screen. Scrog has been around for many years. Before HID's were introduces many used floro's with this method with good success.
Now lets talk about the scrog for a little bit here. What is a scrog? What is screen of green? Well, it is just that. A screen is the main character of scrog. It is usually made of wire or something sturdy enough to hold back the growing canopy. This wire should have some holes in it about 2x2inches in size so that the plant mater can easily grow up through the wire and be supported by it. The wire is secured between the grow medium and the lamp at a distance determined by the size of your lamp. We will get into that later. The plants grow through the screen about 3-4 inches and then are pulled back under and spread out where YOU want them to grow. Its as easy as that folks. Its a great way to grow. Let me put it this way. I have tried untrained methods like SOG and have never come close to the yeild I get with a scrog. Okay, sounds easy right? So, what are you waiting for?

Getting Started
This is the hard part. Getting started. Damned if it ain't for me man. I spend hours thinkin of shit before I do it. lol Anyway, this isnt rocket science. If you've already got an area where you established plants growing you are halfway there.

The SCREEN
Remember at least 2x2inch squares. You can use chicken wire as well or even some tightly strug rope but I would suggest wire. You need something strong to support the buds and hold back the canopy growth. The screen needs to be cut to size. The size of the screen is determined by the size of your lamp. Remember that to get the good bud formation you want from 50 watts per square foot so your screen size should not exceed that. Check the examples below.

150hps screen size 1.75ft x 1.75ft

250hps screen size 2.25ft x 2.25ft

400hps screen size 2.91ft x 2.75ft

600hps screen size 3.45ft x 3.45ft

1000hps screen size 4.4ft x 4.5ft

If your screen exceeds the 50wpsf thing alittle. Thats perfectly okay. Just dont overdoit. lol Now once you've determined the size of your screen and cut it to size. Situate it over your grow area and secure it into place. Just a few screws will hold it in place. Your mounting a screen. Not a twenty pound wall painting. lol.....Wait just a minute! You need to figure out where to set the screen. First, a few questions to ask. Is your lamp air cooled and what size is your lamp? These two questions determine how close you can get to your canopy. This is very important stuff. The closer you get the better off you are. If you do not have air cooled lamps then a simple fan blowing between the canopy and the the lamp should do the trick. Okay, now lets set that screen. Here's some examples of screen settings for hps's. These are not exact settings. They are just a baseline idea. If you can get your lamp closer. Good for you. If you can't. Thats okay too. Dont worry. If you've got the right watts per footage they will produce.

150hps 10-12 inches
250hps 12-15 inches
400hps 16-20 inches
600hps 20+
1000hps 24+

Your Plants
How Many Will I Need Under The Screen? Usually the rule is one plant per square foot of screen. I go with as few plants as I can whenever possible. One side of my flower chamber is almost 3x3ft. Thats almost 9 sqft. I only have 6 plants under there and the screens are pretty full. So, the rule does not always need to be followed. Having less plants can be a good thing if they happen to discover your illegal activity..lol.....Remember with fewer plants you will have to veg a bit longer but be patient and hang in there. Its well worth the wait.

Spacing Lets talk about the spacing between the plant medium and the screen. This space will need to be large enough to allow you room to manipulate your plants during the training phase. I usually use around 8 inches. Some people use more/less. Eight seems to be just enough for me but when working in a 3x3ft space it is still a tight space for a big guy. lol.....

What Is The Best Strain To Grow In A Scrog? Now lets talk about your plants alittle bit. What kind should you be growing in a scrog you ask? Hmmmmm. Well, any kind your heart desires my friend. That's right. Most any plant strain can be grown without much difficulty using a scrog. The secret is in the screen. Some strains require more training than others but that is the only difference. Heavy yeild indica's are excellent scrog candidates but the unruley sativa can really shine with proper training and timing.

Hydro or Soil?

So, how are you going to do this scrog? Is it going to bubble, flow or just sit there? Here's some things you may consider before your plants get tangled up in the screen.

Hydro: No real problem here. I prefer to scrog with a bubbler system over soil anyday. The problem lies in the flush. I explain below.

Soil: Soil grows and scrogs are a wonderful thing. Orgainc buds rule. One problem I ran into when scroging with soil was the flushing of the medium at the end of the grow. Well, with the plants tangled in the screen. One can not just transport to the sink and flush. My soil buckets drain into catch pans. Then I have to drain the catch pans. Takes a while but it works. Hydro is much easier though.

Okay man, you just did something that will almost double your yeild in the next sixty days. So, how do you feel about that? The screen is set. Now its time to move on to other things. Lets take a look at whats going to happen when these babies start to grow through the screen.

Managing the Scrog Grow
You have done some things that are a little out of the ordinary from your usual grow regiem. Things look a little different. A wire screen has invaded your grow space and it looks weird in there. Maybe you even have a few inches growth through the screen. What in the fuck am I gonna do now? lol.......Be cool man. Here's where the real fun begins and were the beauty of scrog growing starts.

Vegging: Here is where alot of people make mistakes. They get in a fired up hurry and get confused somehow. Flip their shit over to 12/12 way to soon and wonder why their screen never filled up. At that point the screen is nothing more than a support system for the plant. Normally one would veg a plant till the screen is 70-80 percent full before switching over to the flowering cycle. Having knowlege of how much your strain stretches is helpful when determining when to switch to flowering. For example: If one had a very stretchy sativa. You would want to start flowering her with much less of the screen filled. Just the opposite for a nice stunted indica. Timing has alot to do with scrog. We go over that soon.

Pulling It Back Through: Okay, so you've got some growth through the screen. Should have about 3-4 inches aye? Don't be a pussy here. lol....... If it breaks. I'll explain what to do later. Reach under the screen and pull that branch back under the screen and place it where you want it to be. Even if it takes tying it in place with the plastic twisty ties. Now I could really get technical and shit and start with the be sure there is an internode in each hole of the screen but it really doesnt matter man. Just get the growth under the screen first. In the next few weeks. You will see were to guide the new growth to best suit your needs.

posted by Newf ( bcbd)

Are you looking to supplement your Social Security and /or pensions? I'm not kidding. I'd really like to know why you are getting into
this rather late in the game. In any event, good luck with your new endeavour.

i think he may be looking to take over your turf dragon

he may have Alzheimer's but at least he doesn't have Alzheimer's.

Thanks "Sg15" for posting that. I have read a couple others in the scrog section but yours answered my wattage, height, and foot print size questions nicely. That info plus the reply from "Jet" really helps me get some perspective and already tells me I had a few things wrong in my original thinking so this post has already helped me out a lot!

I guess I should edit the original post to clear up the question from "mae" but it shoul have read "HID" light instead of "HPS" but for the record yes I do plan to use MH for the veg period. I am extremely interested in these new LED's that are coming out of china now for the aquarium industry I think they are called "MaxSpect", http://www.aquashoponline.com/28-new-generation-maxspect-programmable-aquarium-led-lighting-g2.html
but they are very expensive for me right now and would like to see some real testing results by other growers before I invest.

I was also considering going with 48" T5 floro set up using a combination of bulbs from these guys http://www.zoomed.com/db/products/Search.php?Page=0&SearchID=3&DatabaseID=2&Heading=Aquarium&Keywords=Lighting . There seems to be some really nice color possibilities including the Actinics and the 10,000K blues, as well as the cool running temps allowing me to keep them close to the screens, are all very attractive. I assume there would also be longterm savings in electricity, replacement bulbs, and not so much concern over heat dissipation, but the cost of entry seems prohibitive for my current budget and experience level.

Any comments regarding the above is welcome however for now since I want to aquire some skill and experience before going all out, my plan is to buy all or most of my lighting gear second hand. There is an abundance of used equipment available in my area. I have been tracking it for the last several months and the average price for an aircooled hood, ballast, bulb combination regardless of wattage is around 175$. I figured if I simply buy new bulbs to insure fresh out of the box performance then it would be a good way to save some cash getting started. I am hoping to find a deal on a good 600w digital ballast so I can run either MH or HPS in them and my research suggests that "NextGen" might be the way to go if I can find one. If not then conversion bulbs or a switchable magnetic ballast would be my next choice. Anyone have a preference between the conversion bulbs or the switchable ballasts? Or would it make more sense to just go ahead and buy two seperate systems, one MH and one HPS and then just swap them out as needed? Seems like a digital ballast system would be the easiest and the least expensive way to go.

As for my reasons Hidden, both my wife and I have health issues I won't go into but we have found we both get significant relief when smoking or consuming cannabis. Although it is available to us at the corner store, the price is prohibitive on our income so we are looking to be self sufficient. While a supplemental income would also be nice, the growers in our area are masterful and their product is amazing so I'm not sure I could do it if I wanted to, and I wouldn't know who to sell to anyway. Having said that, there seems to be a popular idea that after this November the prices are going to fall through the floor so all this effort might be for nothing anyway but an old man needs a hobby to stay busy and this seems like a fun thing to do!

Ok, so I guess Im going to try to squeeze 2 plants into the tubs which I think are 15 gallons each and then train them onto a 2ft x 3ft screen. I understand this might be pushing the limits a bit but since I have never done the screen training before I want to give myself some headroom for my lack of efficiency in filling up the screen. I'm guessing then that I will place 2 tubs/screens next to each other to give me a canopy size of 3ft by 4ft under each light. I finished building my first prototype of the tubs last night and in order to get them to drain back into the reservoir they are going to have to be at least 18 inches of the floor. To manage this I am building a table that will allow the reservoir and pump to be placed underneath as well as a likely space for cloning once I get that far.

I suppose I should add at this point that I will be starting out using pre-rooted clones I buy from the local store. The guy there allows me to see both the mothers and the fully flowering adults so I think I can trust the clones are what they say they are but eventually I will set up a chamber for mothers and then root my own clones. I've also been looking at all the different kinds of seeds available and they are very tempting for down the road. Anyone have any suggestions about seeds as far as feminized or not? Seems like a lot of them turn out to be herms so wondering if they are worth it or if it is just better to do the sexing myself? Also, any thoughts on the auto flower varieties?

Feminized seeds are fine if u go with good breeders. I have both Pineapple Express & LA Woman mothers that were started from femized seed. I have taken over 15 clones of each with no hermies... As for lighting, go with HID, 600 or 1000. Switchable ballasts are nice, or u can do digital which offer similar benefits. Flouros are fine for veg, but produce airy buds, only use them if heat cannot be controlled. LEDs need to be watt for watt to match HID, so don't expect much out of a 90w LED, you need a 600w which is close to $2000, to match a $200 600w HID setup. What medium are you planning to use? Check out my & other people journals around here to get some ideas....might be some good info in them.

Thanks again SG15. I'm always checking other folks journals (including yours) and I am amazed at the results people get and the info gained from reading them.

As for what medium I plan to use, it is still a bit uncertain at this time however I did manage a very short test of my system yesterday after I finally got my nutrient pump. The results were very encouraging so the fact is I might not be using any medium at all!

Like I said this is going to be a home designed aero type system so the plan is to have the root system just free floating in the air. The thing I haven't quite figured out yet is how I plan to do that. LOL! The plan for the moment (I change my mind a lot as I read and do my r&d) is to use some kind of pots that i will likely modify for my needs. Net pots are too expensive I think considering I don't really need them for the purpose they are designed for.

If my system works the way I am imagining then the only thing I really need the pots for is to hold the plants in place in the growing tubs, not for holding nutes or water. The idea is for the plants to have their root system actually below the bottom of the pots and then filled with something relatively heavy and inert. I'm thinking of marbles or someting similar! The cheapest ones I can find that are all glass. I don't want them to be porous just heavy and easy to rinse off and reuse.

Again the only function being to give the plants something to sit in so they have a low center of gravity and some support at their base to help prevent them from toppling over or falling all the way down into the tub. Once they are trained to the screens it would likely be totally irrelevant but for now this is the only way I can think of to do it. Obviously I will be learning as I go and ready to make modifications as needed or at least implemented for each new round.

I feel like the nutrient solution and the proper feeding schedule will be the key so I am reading a lot about those now. I am not too bright and a bit lazy so I was hoping to find a simple schedule to follow without a lot of cocktail mixing. Since my system will be a recirculating hydro system I was planning to start off using all CANNA products and just follow the directions exactly as suggested by the manufacture. I have read a lot about them and they seem to offer some nice advantages like auto ph balancing etc.

Having said that, I am very impressed by SG15's results so I am compelled to keep reading and listening to any ideas or recommendations so anyone please chime in!

Built the frames for the screens last night out of pvc and will use floral wire for the webbing. The wire was super cheap and it is flexible, strong, and plastic coated so it won't react to anything. Today I'm going to try to figure out how to attach the screens to the tub lids only. I want the lid/screen/plants to all be removed as a single unit from the tubs if ever it needs it. Once everything is in place nothing should ever need to be moved but just trying to give myself options for down the road. I want to do this but still make it easy to place or remove the screens from the tubs so however I attach them I want it to be only a temporary thing and without destroying the integrity of the lid. Once I get back home and really get this stuff set up I will take some pics and show exactly what I am doing and them maybe I can get some more comments or advice.

The main thing is a finally got the whole nutrient solution supply system all worked out and it seems like it should work great. I wasn't sure how I would get the nutrient solution out of the reservior because the pump is not submerssible and it does not create any suction on the input side and I didn't want to use another pump just to feed the main one. After a couple calls to the manufacture I found out that since the amount of flow is so low the pump does not need hardly any pressure coming in so all I had to do is drill a hole in the bottom of the res and then run a feed tube to the input of the pump and gravity does the rest. So now the system is completely closed and will recirculate the nutes from the res to the pump then to the tubs which will then drain out through drain tubing back to the res.

I am thinking I may have made a mistake by going with the cheaper clear tubing instead of black. I'm concerned about light possible destroying some of compounds in the solution or encouraging algae growth which would use up some of the O2 or block the flow of the solution. Fortunately this is still me speculating and if it becomes a problem in practice it is an easy fix.

First lesson learned! Don't plan your setup too far in advance of seeing your grow space! I finally got moved in to the new place and got my first real look at the space and the amount of work involved to bring it up to speed.

I have divided the space into 3 main parts with 2 being spaces about 4.5ft x 2.5ft x 5ft high. I plan for these to be for cloning and vegging. There are several places where I can eventually put mothers but for now the rest of the space is about 8ft x 8ft x 9ft high and will be used for flowering. I can easily divide it as needed. The whole space is sealed pretty tightly with lots of places to do ductwork etc. and is covered with panda sheeting.

2 - CLONE/VEG SPACES 4.5ft wide x 2.5ft deep:
I have to consider the 5ft height limitation for this area although heat management is not an issue at all.

I'm thinking of the 8 bulb set of T5 HO floros:
for clones and then vegging. I was hoping to fully veg under these before moving to finish under HPS. Given each space is around 12sqft so at 40k lumens for that floro fixture, I would be getting 3333 lumens per sqft. I realize these are floros and might not give the "penetration" I read about all the time, but it seems like since they would be very close to the screen all during the vegging and training that this would not be an issue.

Q: Would this be enough to fully veg and train the plants to fill their screens?

If not what would be the best alternative?
a) add some smaller (home improvement) MH bulbs to the mix.
b) set up an "intermediate" space for vegging under some MH's after leaving the floro's but before going to the HPS's.
c) go with something like 2 x 250watt MH's instead of the floros.

I figure I would likely use this for rooting cuttings later on if it turns out not to be enough for good vegetation so it still seems like a good first light to buy. Any advice on this issue?

an 8 bulb t5 would be plenty for clones/mothers/vegging, after some time playing with a tweaking your system you may even find it easier to run more mothers, take larger clones and skip the veg alltogether. this has somewhat less value in my opinion to a scog grower then for sog, but it can cut down on harvest time slightly by cutting out the veg cycle for clones. imo the benefit of the screen is that you can get your smaller branching buds into the direct light, so taking the time to veg your clones means more side branching to get to the light, whereas with typical sog you would worry less about your lower branching and more about getting more plants into the space and focusing on the top buds. for this reason skipping veg tends to benefit the scoger less, but you could go with somewhat of a mix, have more mothers on hand and take larger clones and instead of skipping the veg simply have a shorter veg period.

Hidden Dragon said:

Are you looking to supplement your Social Security and /or pensions? I'm not kidding. I'd really like to know why you are getting into
this rather late in the game. In any event, good luck with your new endeavour.

Click to expand...

Heck, If he is like me then he is too old to know any kids with a source for weed and heading out to the hood to make a score is just not an option. Some of us old folk like to be self sufficient as well. Good luck with your grow Mojoman! Maybe we can start an old coots club.

No goin to the hood Fatrider. Really just wanted the wife and I to become more self sufficient with regard to our meds. Plus like I said it is a lot of fun and a great hobby for me to stay busy.

Bought the 8bulb t5 fixture yesterday, finished building out the nursery/veg space last night. and hung the floro fixture. It is nearly the exact size as the space it is hanging in. Starting with just one for now and will decide about what to do about the other same size space later. The flower space isn't finished but I can work on it while the clones are vegging.

Have to finish making and installing the screens to the top of the tubs today and then run a "wet test" of the entire system to check for leaks and make sure everything is working correctly. If all goes well then I should have girls under the lights in a couple more days. Will be shopping for lights to flower under.

Mojoman69 said:

No goin to the hood Fatrider. Really just wanted the wife and I to become more self sufficient with regard to our meds. Plus like I said it is a lot of fun and a great hobby for me to stay busy.

Bought the 8bulb t5 fixture yesterday, finished building out the nursery/veg space last night. and hung the floro fixture. It is nearly the exact size as the space it is hanging in. Starting with just one for now and will decide about what to do about the other same size space later. The flower space isn't finished but I can work on it while the clones are vegging.

Have to finish making and installing the screens to the top of the tubs today and then run a "wet test" of the entire system to check for leaks and make sure everything is working correctly. If all goes well then I should have girls under the lights in a couple more days. Will be shopping for lights to flower under.

Click to expand...

Go with 600s or 1000s hps...and Eye Hortilux or some other good quality horticulture bulbs. Large reflectors are great too if you have the space, they spread the light more evenly and have less hot spots.

Ran the system "wet" last night and all seemed to go well. This morning everything was still running along and not a drop of water leaking anywhere! YaY! Except for a few things I had to modify the system so far seems to be working exactly as I planned. Now to find out if it will actually grow plants.

Yesterday I bought the first set of clones!
4 are "Pure Kush"
4 are "Master Kush"

They all spent their first day outside in some glorious diffuse sunlight and then came indoors to stay the night under the floros. Just giving them some 24hr light for now just to let them understand they are in veg and to prep the tubs for them to get moved to later today. The removal from dirt and transplanting to nothing but nutrient mist is gonna be a shock to them so trying to mitigate that as much as possible.

things to do today:
> install a fan to pull off some of the heat and give them plenty of fresh air.
> cut the holes in the lids of the tubs to accomodate the root pots
> ongoing work on the rest of the space

I'm thinking putting four plants under a 2x2 ft screen is too much so I am thinking about going with just 2 plants per screen. Any suggestions there?

Still shopping for lights. Lots of used deals, average price for ballast/hood/bulb combo is around 125$ regardless of wattage. There are new ads everyday so I'm gonna wait a little longer to get farther along on the grow spaces and let my first set of screens veg and fill.

Once I get this set of kids under the lights and in the mist then I'm gonna build the next two tubs and add them to the system with the ultimate goal being perpetuity!

Mojoman69 said:

Ran the system "wet" last night and all seemed to go well. This morning everything was still running along and not a drop of water leaking anywhere! YaY! Except for a few things I had to modify the system so far seems to be working exactly as I planned. Now to find out if it will actually grow plants.

Yesterday I bought the first set of clones!
4 are "Pure Kush"
4 are "Master Kush"

They all spent their first day outside in some glorious diffuse sunlight and then came indoors to stay the night under the floros. Just giving them some 24hr light for now just to let them understand they are in veg and to prep the tubs for them to get moved to later today. The removal from dirt and transplanting to nothing but nutrient mist is gonna be a shock to them so trying to mitigate that as much as possible.

things to do today:
> install a fan to pull off some of the heat and give them plenty of fresh air.
> cut the holes in the lids of the tubs to accomodate the root pots
> ongoing work on the rest of the space

I'm thinking putting four plants under a 2x2 ft screen is too much so I am thinking about going with just 2 plants per screen. Any suggestions there?

Still shopping for lights. Lots of used deals, average price for ballast/hood/bulb combo is around 125$ regardless of wattage. There are new ads everyday so I'm gonna wait a little longer to get farther along on the grow spaces and let my first set of screens veg and fill.

Once I get this set of kids under the lights and in the mist then I'm gonna build the next two tubs and add them to the system with the ultimate goal being perpetuity!

Click to expand...

Careful putting them outside, u could bring bugs in with them at night. As for plants, more plants will fill the screen faster (so u can flower sooner), but either way will work.

So far so good! Ran the nute system all day yesterday and everything seems to be working as planned. I did however notice the pump turning itself off and on again on it's own. Not sure what this is but I think it may be getting too hot and it is cutting itself off until it cools down. Gonna try to find out today if this is actually what is happening or not. Either way after watching the system run for a day I have decided that it will not need to run continuously anyway. The root tubs are so filled with mist and condensing droplets on every surface in the tub that the root balls will stay nice and wet for a good long time even after the pump turns off. So over the next few days I will try to determine what is the best amount of on and off time to run the pump and then I will get a timer to facilitate it.

The kids spent the night in their room last night under the floros all night and looked very healthy this morning. the weather is fantastic again today so out they went again for some natural sunlight. I hear ya SG15 about the bugs. They are in a pretty good place up off the ground and away from most things that might harbor nasties and I blow them off and check for unwanted visitors before taking them back inside. I will most likely transfer them all to their pots and tubs today anyway so their outdoor days will be over.

Work has continued on all the various grow spaces. Finally finished the first flowering space as well as a nice double space for moms and now working on another space with lots of headroom. So far all the spaces are built around the concept of all my screens being 2x2 ft so the typical space is 2ft deep by 4 ft wide to accomodate 2 screens per space. All are fully enclosed with panda covering all surfaces and with easy access to overhead spaces for the addition of ventalation as needed.

Today I am shopping for some more varieties if I can find some clones otherwise I am looking at getting some seeds but getting ahead of myself again!

Temporarily stopped building out the space until I get farther along and see how it's workin' for me.

The lid to the 2nd tub is cut, pots glued in and drying now so it should be ready in a day or two.

The first set up is looking great so far. The "PK" quadruplets have been in their pots and tub now for 48 hours now. I took a peek inside the tub today to check out the roots and was amazed at the amount of root development so far!

Still no timer for the pump and haven't figured out the on/off cycle yet anyway so still doing it willy nilly but the root chamber is always wet inside.

Did a bit of trimming of the lower material on the 4 "MK" and they look great although still a might shorter than the "PK" ones. I really want to run these two strains together so I need to get the "Master Kushes" in their tubs ASAP! They are a lot shorter than their "PK" cousins so I am hoping I can get them to "catch up" once they get in their tubs, have a root explosion and start drinkin nutes.