my little project winds up breaking a $1000!

[Sinse_Farmer]

Hi everyone!

I was very fortunate to have been given a Nextgen 400w electronic ballast & decent hood to use with it! Along with those I already had a couple of 400w mh bulbs laying around and an old street light which would have somehow been my grow light had I not been lucky enough to get the hood & ballast from a friend!

I am waiting on my GrowLab (Horticulture) 80L grow tent, which is 2'7" x 4'11" x 6'7". This will house my entire setup and I decided on the tent because it will keep my setup enclosed/contained, also get rid of the problem of where and how to hang my light - now I can just hang it in my grow lab

I decided to go with an Aeroponic setup which I got out of a somewhat recent High Times issue - the Stinkbud Jr. system! I bought the required parts (pvc tubes, pvc connectors, 18-gal container, pvc fence post, etc.) and some tools (2" hole saw, pvc primer and cement, epoxy, hacksaw, drill bits, etc.) that I needed to complete the job at Home Depot, and a few of the parts I grabbed at a local gardening shop (pump, timer, sprayers, net pots, etc.).

Just to give a breakdown and also give an idea of what I have and how much it all costs, maybe this can help someone else who is contemplating doing something similiar...

Equipment
GrowLab Horticulture Growlab 80L $269.99
Nextgen 400w electronic ballast $188.00 (free)
Medium-sized hood w/ cord, etc $120.00 (free)
CAP ART-DNe adjustable timer $75.00
PVC + parts + tools (Home Depot)$150.00 (roughly)
396 ECO submersible pump $20.00
T5 lighting (2x3500K;2x21W) $80.00
Water Control
distilled water $7.50
nutrients (Botanicare) $92.75
electronic tds meter $40.00
ph tester kit $7.00
+
TGA seed pack (5 seeds - nonfem) $45.00
Space Jill (aka Space Queen)

----------------------------------------------------------

Ultimately I can't wait until I have everything set up the way I have planned - I think with what I have, the potential for a serious grow is there! Right now the babies are under the T5 lights until the tent gets here and then I will move the set-up and hook up the 400w MH & @ that point use the T5 to take care of any cuttings along the way.

The Stinkbud Jr. system has places for 6 plants; right now I have the 5 Space Jills and the sixth plant is a Lemon Haze seed that I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time to get.

Sorry for rambling on, please let me know what you think! Or even better if you have any questions or critizism!!

-SinSe

 

[dulce vitta]

nice set up that you are going to have there.

 

[Sinse_Farmer]

Thanks bud!

Thanks bud!

nice set up that you are going to have there.

Thanks dulce! I can't wait to put up some pictures of the final set-up - about a week away! In the mean time they are steady under the T5 tubes.

2 x 34" tubes,
2 x 3,500K,
2 x 21W,

this will ensure that I have some growth between now and when my GrowLab 80L gets here, then I will be able to hang up the 400 W mh, which will bring me up to speed!

-SinSe

 

[qbert]

I agree, nice setup. Stuff does add up quickly though.

 

[Sinse_Farmer]

Thanks bud!

Thanks bud!

I agree, nice setup. Stuff does add up quickly though.

Hey qbert!
(like the username by the way - *skratch skratch wiggle zip*)

Thanks, I like hearing the kind words, since obviously not something I can share in person with everyone that drops by...

The funny thing is, receiving the ballast and hood (i already had a few old bulbs laying around which still work!) is what prompted me to start - thinking I already have the expensive stuff out of the way - LOL. "Now I need this....," "oh now I should pick up this:....," etc., haha...

Now I really do have everything where the only other things I will wind up picking up at this point are some trellis ($6) when the plants get a little taller, more Botanicare ($50), and in a month or a little longer I'm going to get a decent sized Phresh (sp?) filter or smoething comparable to take care of any odor. Oh and a little mini fan to clip somewhere in the tent

-SinSe

 

[RobMarley420]

I'm just starting up my first grow and I've ended up spending a lot more than I planned.

I bought a complete 600 watt grow tent set-up with everything I needed for a little over $1,000.

My seeds were around $150.

Soil and Nutes was $100+ (i had no idea how expenisive fox farm oganic nutes were!)

Random electrical equipement and misc. $50

And now I'm going to have to buy the wood to build a window box to exhaust my tent out the window. And once it starts getting hot in the summer I'm going to have to buy another window AC.


Now I understand why an 1/8th of nugs costs $50!

 

[habeeb]

welcome to gardening.. its expensive! don;t worry much though, once you have alot of the stuff, it's only little stuff here and there you pick up..


don't talk about prices when building a sealed room...........



have fun!!!!!!

 

[HUGE]

great pick on the seeds. space queen is one of all time favorite smokes, and its definately my favorite tga strain. i have some going as we speak.

 

[Sinse_Farmer]

Thanks bud!

Thanks bud!

great pick on the seeds. space queen is one of all time favorite smokes, and its definately my favorite tga strain. i have some going as we speak.

Awesome! Just what I was wanting/needing to hear!!!

I also snagged up a 10 pack of their Pink Lady, from what I've researched it is the name that they tested the new Plushberry strain under. It is a cross between Space Queen and Black Cherry Soda - which I think the latter is/was a cutting originally when they made the strain. I'm really excited also cause I just very recently saw that even some of BOGs (some of THE best strains, period!) creations had a link to Space Queen - and a lot of the current "newer" strains Team Green Avengers have - their parent genetics are 50% Space Queen!

I'm so stoked, and I know that a lot of people here (and from what I've read) would tell me that I should have ordered other seeds, etc., however due to where I am and not wanting to order anything through the mail - I was matched to their genetics through fate since they're all I could get my hands on. (Definitely able to get other strains, but this is the ONLY thing I could get where after I harvest I know for sure what strain I have! Which doesn't seem like much to some, but even since I first knew about kind bud, lol, I've always maintained that unless YOU open the pack of seeds FROM the seedbank, LABELed, and keep your eyes on the respective containers, otherwise there is NO way of knowing what you really have!!

welcome to gardening.. its expensive! don;t worry much though, once you have alot of the stuff, it's only little stuff here and there you pick up..


don't talk about prices when building a sealed room...........



have fun!!!!!!

Thanks habeeb! Sorry for talking about the numbers, I can see why you say that - I just couldn't help myself from posting, since I made a little list here in person, I was like I think I'm going to throw that up there... Initially I thought I had basically what I needed, and then didn't take long before I was spending a couple hours a day browsing through the couple Indoor Gardening catalogs I had gotten from my local shop!


-SinSe

 

[one Q]

in a few years you;ll be able to set up an entire grow with just crap you have laying around.

good luck

 

[forkup]

Looks like a winner, I'm looking forward to pix of the op.

 

[dansbuds]

It's amazing how easy it is to spend money on grow equipment !!!! On a vanning forum i belong to ...its a common saying amongst us that " throw away the receipts .... cuz you don't really want to know what ya spent " its the same thing here with grow stuff !!! LOL don't keep track cuz it'll drive ya nuts .

one Q

in a few years you;ll be able to set up an entire grow with just crap you have laying around.

ain't that the truth LOL

good luck man .... growem green & stay safe .....Dan

 

[Sinse_Farmer]

in a few years you;ll be able to set up an entire grow with just crap you have laying around.

good luck

hehe, I know, that would be awesome. I've already got a vision of where things will be utilized next!

Looks like a winner, I'm looking forward to pix of the op.

Thanks forkup! Please just follow the link in my signature, cause I just put some new pics up on that thread, (i'm going to close this one & any updates in the near future until my actual "op" is finished will be in that thread).

It's amazing how easy it is to spend money on grow equipment !!!! On a vanning forum i belong to ...its a common saying amongst us that " throw away the receipts .... cuz you don't really want to know what ya spent " its the same thing here with grow stuff !!! LOL don't keep track cuz it'll drive ya nuts .

one Q

Ain't that the truth!!! my bad for putting the $$$ & whatnot, I'm just real anal and OCD, I actually wrote everything out in a table on paper and that's what motivated me to post in the first place (post all the info, including the costs)...Bad juju on the money, lol. Happy gardening brotha!

I'm going to unofficially close this thread for now, anyone who is interested in seeing what is developing over here check out the thread that I linked to in my signature. Then once the Grow Lab gets here I will take pics of setting everything up and then what the "lab" looks like w/ the system in it and the lighting set-up!

-SinSe