kstampy
Member
Moisture meter is a waste of money IMO read your plants and use the finger in the dirt and watch and take note of how long it takes those fan leaves to start sagging... that's when natures moisture meter says WATER ME! 
The older they become in the same pot the more frequent they will need water/feedings. Honestly I would suggest Against one big plot of soil for a first time indoor situation and just use small pots like 20oz soda bottles or 2L bottles or just 1 gal pots in a SOG style grow OR just veg one crazy plant out for a SCROG (I have no experience in SCROG though). It makes things much easier to work with, especially when space is tight and if you go SOG you can do 0 days of veg from clone. I specifically like the idea of taking out each plant, turning it 360* to check out any issues and throw it back under the light. You will not be able to do this with any ease sharing one bed for multiple plants, what if your plants grow bigger than expected and start overgrowing the rest of them? You can simply move one plant an inch over if you have them in separate pots or in a single bed of soil you may have to cull the weaker ones, wasting space and time and plants. Outdoors would be a different issue, they wouldn't be living in a box lol. Just remember environment is where you want to spend most of your time/money preparing for the plants and you want that environment running well for a few days to a week before you even get plants in there. That was my biggest noob mistake years ago and I think it is what most noobs do lol.
So with that in mind is this box going in a place where temp is controlled around it? That can eliminate a lot of problems if you can keep temps constantly around 76*F/25*C and RH 30-50% in the last half of flower (I run 30%, everything comes out as oily and resinous as that oil spill in the gulf lol). Once you have RH and Temp under tabs then worry about lighting. If you want to use like a 150w-250w air cooled HPS I would suggest a 4" carbon filter on one end and a 4" exhaust fan like a vortex (or equivalent value line) sucking out from the other end effectively cooling and scrubbing the smell at the same time. You can place that on the outside of the box to save room inside and the exhaust can run 24/7 especially if the outer ambient environment is stable or set it up to a thermostat/humidistat. Don't forget to make absolutely sure the box is light proof too, put panda film around if it you are unsure, with the black facing out, I use 2 layers to cover the doors light leaks to my room.
Sorry lots to take in lol.
Equipment wise...
-HANNA HI 9813-6N or 5N is what I would recommend for ph/ppm/ec/temp. If you want to go cheaper you can but I wouldn't do that again. These measurements are really important unless growing in cooked organic soil.
-Any Hygrometer. Keep it out of direct light for more accurate readings.
-Definitely have an oscillating fan in there, all the leaves should be dancing without stressful blowing and bending of leaves. They really can take quite a bit of abuse from air movement. Try to get air movement all around, canopy level and under the foliage.
-Line it with Panda film. Mylar works too but is fragile compared to panda and loses reflectivity as it gets dirty and is kind of lame to clean compared to panda from my experience, especially if you have to spray neem etc.
-4" flex ducting that is very thick, think the kind that vents your dryer that's what I prefer now but any works.
-4" vortex IMO this is the one thing that you can't really overkill easily and if you want to reduce it use a fan speed controller.
-Nutes : KISS. Whatever you do nutes wise is a very lil part of the whole picture, always start small and move up. Don't start using snake oils/magic sauces until you've dialed something in with simple bloom/grow/micro. Right now I am using the Lucas formula in soil with GH and it came out alright, had to feed/water/water/feed/water/water like that since each feeding was ~1400ppm. Start with like pure blend pro grow/bloom and cal/mag, start with smaller bottles (quarts?) cos soil takes less nutes and you can get away with that.
-Light hangers that are adjustable can help but in your box you may not need them. Yo-yos or the new pulley ones are best IMO.
Man I really started to rant there, got in to it while smokin a bowl of LUI Keep throwin questions out there man there is nothing better than to be prepared for your grow then it's allllllll about first hand experience figuring out the quirks of the hobby hehe. Any more ?s just ask!
The older they become in the same pot the more frequent they will need water/feedings. Honestly I would suggest Against one big plot of soil for a first time indoor situation and just use small pots like 20oz soda bottles or 2L bottles or just 1 gal pots in a SOG style grow OR just veg one crazy plant out for a SCROG (I have no experience in SCROG though). It makes things much easier to work with, especially when space is tight and if you go SOG you can do 0 days of veg from clone. I specifically like the idea of taking out each plant, turning it 360* to check out any issues and throw it back under the light. You will not be able to do this with any ease sharing one bed for multiple plants, what if your plants grow bigger than expected and start overgrowing the rest of them? You can simply move one plant an inch over if you have them in separate pots or in a single bed of soil you may have to cull the weaker ones, wasting space and time and plants. Outdoors would be a different issue, they wouldn't be living in a box lol. Just remember environment is where you want to spend most of your time/money preparing for the plants and you want that environment running well for a few days to a week before you even get plants in there. That was my biggest noob mistake years ago and I think it is what most noobs do lol.So with that in mind is this box going in a place where temp is controlled around it? That can eliminate a lot of problems if you can keep temps constantly around 76*F/25*C and RH 30-50% in the last half of flower (I run 30%, everything comes out as oily and resinous as that oil spill in the gulf lol). Once you have RH and Temp under tabs then worry about lighting. If you want to use like a 150w-250w air cooled HPS I would suggest a 4" carbon filter on one end and a 4" exhaust fan like a vortex (or equivalent value line) sucking out from the other end effectively cooling and scrubbing the smell at the same time. You can place that on the outside of the box to save room inside and the exhaust can run 24/7 especially if the outer ambient environment is stable or set it up to a thermostat/humidistat. Don't forget to make absolutely sure the box is light proof too, put panda film around if it you are unsure, with the black facing out, I use 2 layers to cover the doors light leaks to my room.
Sorry lots to take in lol.
Equipment wise...
-HANNA HI 9813-6N or 5N is what I would recommend for ph/ppm/ec/temp. If you want to go cheaper you can but I wouldn't do that again. These measurements are really important unless growing in cooked organic soil.
-Any Hygrometer. Keep it out of direct light for more accurate readings.
-Definitely have an oscillating fan in there, all the leaves should be dancing without stressful blowing and bending of leaves. They really can take quite a bit of abuse from air movement. Try to get air movement all around, canopy level and under the foliage.
-Line it with Panda film. Mylar works too but is fragile compared to panda and loses reflectivity as it gets dirty and is kind of lame to clean compared to panda from my experience, especially if you have to spray neem etc.
-4" flex ducting that is very thick, think the kind that vents your dryer that's what I prefer now but any works.
-4" vortex IMO this is the one thing that you can't really overkill easily and if you want to reduce it use a fan speed controller.
-Nutes : KISS. Whatever you do nutes wise is a very lil part of the whole picture, always start small and move up. Don't start using snake oils/magic sauces until you've dialed something in with simple bloom/grow/micro. Right now I am using the Lucas formula in soil with GH and it came out alright, had to feed/water/water/feed/water/water like that since each feeding was ~1400ppm. Start with like pure blend pro grow/bloom and cal/mag, start with smaller bottles (quarts?) cos soil takes less nutes and you can get away with that.
-Light hangers that are adjustable can help but in your box you may not need them. Yo-yos or the new pulley ones are best IMO.
Man I really started to rant there, got in to it while smokin a bowl of LUI
Keep throwin questions out there man there is nothing better than to be prepared for your grow then it's allllllll about first hand experience figuring out the quirks of the hobby hehe. Any more ?s just ask!
