Start Up Fee's

Without the cost of seeds, if i make a small grow room (only planning to grow 1-2 plants) how much would you estimate start up costs would be?

how big are you looking to get these 2 plants....the bigger and better you want them the more expensive it will be....

1000hps- i pay $250 ballast included,this would be the biggest i would buy and most everything else will be cheaper...
ferts are cheap as hell ,,first grow i would start easy with shultz 20-20-20 for vegg and shultz 15-30-15 for budding (7 bucks each)
a fan-$20 bucks

list can go on and on bro...but light is most important and 250 should be max what you will pay for that.......

do you plan to go in soil or hydro

I was looking to avoid a big power bill since I'm on shared power and it would raise some eyebrows, even though I'd gladly pay the difference.

Check out my 'shoestring grow' thread and my noob's grow thread. I have spent a grand total of maybe 400 bucks over the last year and a half for my 'hobby' and I haven't had to buy weed in well over a year. I just started slow like you're talking about and learned to clone (practice on non-weed plants !!!) so I didn't have to keep buying seeds.

I'm using flourescent tubes for veg and CFLs for flowering. I built a flowering cabinet using half a dozen mylar space blankets and a bathroom fan from a recycled-building-supply place (same place I get the flouro fixtures from). I tape a new carbon filter over the outlet (about 5 bucks) every couple weeks and it seems to do a good job on the smell.

I built the tables and shelving from scrap that came from other jobs (yard sales for tables!)

Some of the more experienced growers may chuckle at my setup but IT WORKS and, if I have to walk away from it tomorrow and start over, it's no big loss.

That said, I do want to drop the coin on a HPS lamp for flowering - the little 'popcorn' buds I'm getting do the job, but I'm looking to ramp things up a bit. I don't see myself getting away from flouros for veg though: I'm pretty happy with how that's working.

Not to ruffle any feathers, but I'd stick with soil to start with - it's easier to see what the plants need and it's cheap as...well....dirt.

personally i feel it you use cfl's you can do it for less than 50 bucks. you get a 4 pack of bulbs for 8 bucks at walmart. it is 6 bucks for the y and socket and cord is a buck at the dollar store. and you can get good compost just about anywhere really cheap. if you co hydro it would be a 100. just the air pump and stone are like 10 bucks at petstore and 4 bucks for a bucket and lid at home depot or lowes. i am sure if you look around the house you have most of the diy stuff laying around. just take 5 minutes and look around the net and you see all the different ways you can diy a grow to save you money

hey boss i wont mock your set up,,,its similar to mine..i get alot more into the outdoor in summer grow but my cfl's keep me smoking all winter and give me all my clones for the next year....

and i seen these 2 cfl lights at a liquidation store...look like figure 8's and they are equivilant to 300watts of natural lite,but its only a 55watt lite...27.99$
like 2feet long each...looked sweet..
but i currently have 8 - 4ft long tubes ,,40watt each tube,,kinda hung up like a roof on a house....does the job for me and easy in the power bill..

oh yes they are great on the bills. would be nice not to have to worry about those dam utilities for one month. but they add up quickly. most people dont think about them when they grow because its not an out of pocket expesne...its an over time bill. if my wife actually knew she would have me trying to grow in the dark or by candle light

leftreartire said:

i use a cool white and day white in each fixture

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Is there an advantage to that vs using 6500k growing tubes or is it just one of those 'different strokes for different folks' things ?

Here is my t5 grow. Less than $400.