Hi all,
I'm new to the forums and new to growing as well! What I have embarked on is a journey to learn everything I can about growing; this is my first operation, and if I can master it, I plan on expanding to something bigger, possibly a whole house or a warehouse. This grow is the culmination of months of research and planning but I realize I still have my work cut out for me!
I've never grown anything in my life up until now but I'm a fast learner and I'm here to soak up all the knowledge I can. I've been blown away by the amount of information available on these forums, I've been spending hours for the last few weeks just browsing and reading thread after thread. Thank you so much to everyone for contributing what you know to make this forum great!
I'd like to make it clear that is is a completely legal grow in a medical state with the use of multiple prescriptions formed under a cooperative. I don't want to go to jail, so this was extremely important in the planning stages.
I currently reside in a 3 bedroom townhouse with one roommate. We are both students, full-time employees, and marijuana enthusiasts with prescriptions
For awhile the 3rd bedroom was used for storage and clutter, but a few months ago I decided to make better use of it.
The room measures about 10 feet by 12 feet, and has a closet as well, which measures about 8 feet wide by 2 feet deep. I decided that I wanted to use the closet for vegatative growth and the rest of the room for flowering. The idea was to take clippings from each plant before flowering and using them to make a new batch of plants, creating a perpetual harvest every month (after the 3rd month).
I plan on having 12 plants vegging in the closet and 24 plants flowering in the room at all times. I sketched up a visual diagram of this plan in photoshop and you can check it out here:
After spending more money than I would have liked to at the local hydroponics store, I ended up with three 600watt HPS lights for flowering in the room, and one 400watt MH light for vegging in the closet, among many other things. I decided to grow in soil based on the reccomendation from my friend who is helping me set this up based on the fact that it'll be my first grow and I'm probably in over my head already with 2200 watts and throwing hydro/aero into the mix would just be a recipe for disaster.
Although completely legal, stealth is still important to the operation. Since the townhouse is rented and part of a homeowners association, discovery would most likely lead to a cease-or-be-evicted notification. Part one of stealth was making sure the room didn't look like the twilight zone from the outside. (see picture below)
We decided to build a faux-wall across the window-space and leave the curtains drawn. From the outside, it simply looks like the light is never on in this room, and thanks to the curtains, the neighbors can't tell that there is actually a bunch of wood blocking light from coming out.
Part two of stealth was making sure it didn't stink like amsterdam in my neighborhood. We knew we would have to exhaust anyway, so we cut a 6" exhaust duct into the faux-wall and cracked the window before sealing the wall up completely. We are going to run a 6" vortex fan for exhaust and hook it up with a CAN50 carbon filter so the air going out the window should be nice and clean.
After building the faux-wall and hanging the hoods, this is what my room now looks like:
(we haven't set up/hung the ducting yet, so for now i have black t-shirt covering the exhaust exit)
Part three of stealth was making sure that people who come over to the house don't know that we're growing in the 3rd bedroom. I bought a lock for the door and installed it, but once the lights came on it became clear that something would have to be done about light leaking around the doorframe. I know it's a little ghetto, but I got some construction paper and cut it up to block the cracks in the doorframe. There is still a tiny bit of light that gets through the bottom left corner of the doorway, but I'm not too worried about since I don't plan on having a lot of people over from now on!
Next up was the closet. We took the sliding doors off and drilled some hooks into the shelf for the hood. Since I didn't want to mix light between the closet and the rest of the room, and since the closet is going to be on an 18/6 light cycle while the rest of the room will be on 12/12, obviously some sort of barrier had to be made. I didn't join the forums until after the room was already built, but I wish I had because I've seen some nice set-ups that probably would have been more conventional than mine, but it is what it is and so far it looks like it'll work fine!
We bought some velcro from home depot and lined the closet frame with it. Then we took some panda-tarp and cut it out to roughly the same shape as the frame. After some careful execution, we managed to get the sticky side of the velcro onto the tarp.. so now we have a fully-removable, reflective wall that for the most-part, blocks all light in or out of the closet. Here are the pictures:
Once the room was completely set up, it was time to get some clones and get the party going! We picked up 12 clones from a local dispensary, 6 GDP and 6 afghan kush. Without getting into a long, sad story about an amateur grower messing up, lets just say I lost 11 of the first batch of clones, leaving just one afghan kush standing.
Last tuesday I bought 11 more clones; 6 GDP and 5 purple kush, and so far the plants are looking pretty healthy! In about 2 weeks I think we'll be taking some clones and then moving them into the main room and firing up one or two of the 600watt lights. I plan on updating this thread once the room is completely set-up as well as showing my progress as the grow continues. Here's the first batch as of tonight (only 9/12 photographed). The big guy in the back row is the afghan kush that is a little over 2 weeks old now!
I'm extremely excited to be part of this community and hope to contribute my experiences as well as learn from people who have been doing this much longer than me (so far, that's just about everyone lol).
Please, point out any flaws you see with my set-up or any concerns about my plans! But before you do that, I have some questions that might be what you planned on addressing anyway:
1) My biggest concern right now is not burning the house down. It was built 8 years ago so I'm hoping that the wiring is in good shape and can handle what I'm trying to run. Since I don't plan on staying here for more than a year, I won't be upgrading the fusebox or converting to 240volts. My friend calculated that we're going to be running about 21amps altogether. If I read the fusebox correctly, this bedroom is rated at 15amps. Therefore, I plan on running extension cables from the other bedrooms, essentially running one 600 watt light off of each room in the house. Of course I'll be using surge protectors also. Is this a decent plan for risk-management as far as an electrical fire goes? I don't care about expensive electricity bills, I just don't want to wake up surrounded by fire.
2) Right now the only light in this room is the 400watt MH but even so, temperatures in the closet are running from 78-82 degrees. As you can see in the pictures, I have two mini-fans cooling the closet, but I'm concerned that once I seal the closet with the tarp when I'm using the rest of the room, temperatures will climb even more. Would buying one or two more fans help, or is there a better way to cool the closet off?
3) I tested the water from my sink (what I've been using) with a digital ph tester and it came back 7.8 - 8.0, which I thought was too high. After I added nutrients and stirred it up, the ph came back 6.4 - 6.7, should I be concerned or is this normal?
Thanks in advance for any advice/pointers! I hope to learn and grow as a grower during my stay on these forums!
I'm new to the forums and new to growing as well! What I have embarked on is a journey to learn everything I can about growing; this is my first operation, and if I can master it, I plan on expanding to something bigger, possibly a whole house or a warehouse. This grow is the culmination of months of research and planning but I realize I still have my work cut out for me!
I've never grown anything in my life up until now but I'm a fast learner and I'm here to soak up all the knowledge I can. I've been blown away by the amount of information available on these forums, I've been spending hours for the last few weeks just browsing and reading thread after thread. Thank you so much to everyone for contributing what you know to make this forum great!
I'd like to make it clear that is is a completely legal grow in a medical state with the use of multiple prescriptions formed under a cooperative. I don't want to go to jail, so this was extremely important in the planning stages.
I currently reside in a 3 bedroom townhouse with one roommate. We are both students, full-time employees, and marijuana enthusiasts with prescriptions
For awhile the 3rd bedroom was used for storage and clutter, but a few months ago I decided to make better use of it. The room measures about 10 feet by 12 feet, and has a closet as well, which measures about 8 feet wide by 2 feet deep. I decided that I wanted to use the closet for vegatative growth and the rest of the room for flowering. The idea was to take clippings from each plant before flowering and using them to make a new batch of plants, creating a perpetual harvest every month (after the 3rd month).
I plan on having 12 plants vegging in the closet and 24 plants flowering in the room at all times. I sketched up a visual diagram of this plan in photoshop and you can check it out here:
After spending more money than I would have liked to at the local hydroponics store, I ended up with three 600watt HPS lights for flowering in the room, and one 400watt MH light for vegging in the closet, among many other things. I decided to grow in soil based on the reccomendation from my friend who is helping me set this up based on the fact that it'll be my first grow and I'm probably in over my head already with 2200 watts and throwing hydro/aero into the mix would just be a recipe for disaster.
Although completely legal, stealth is still important to the operation. Since the townhouse is rented and part of a homeowners association, discovery would most likely lead to a cease-or-be-evicted notification. Part one of stealth was making sure the room didn't look like the twilight zone from the outside. (see picture below)
We decided to build a faux-wall across the window-space and leave the curtains drawn. From the outside, it simply looks like the light is never on in this room, and thanks to the curtains, the neighbors can't tell that there is actually a bunch of wood blocking light from coming out.
Part two of stealth was making sure it didn't stink like amsterdam in my neighborhood. We knew we would have to exhaust anyway, so we cut a 6" exhaust duct into the faux-wall and cracked the window before sealing the wall up completely. We are going to run a 6" vortex fan for exhaust and hook it up with a CAN50 carbon filter so the air going out the window should be nice and clean.
After building the faux-wall and hanging the hoods, this is what my room now looks like:
(we haven't set up/hung the ducting yet, so for now i have black t-shirt covering the exhaust exit)
Part three of stealth was making sure that people who come over to the house don't know that we're growing in the 3rd bedroom. I bought a lock for the door and installed it, but once the lights came on it became clear that something would have to be done about light leaking around the doorframe. I know it's a little ghetto, but I got some construction paper and cut it up to block the cracks in the doorframe. There is still a tiny bit of light that gets through the bottom left corner of the doorway, but I'm not too worried about since I don't plan on having a lot of people over from now on!
Next up was the closet. We took the sliding doors off and drilled some hooks into the shelf for the hood. Since I didn't want to mix light between the closet and the rest of the room, and since the closet is going to be on an 18/6 light cycle while the rest of the room will be on 12/12, obviously some sort of barrier had to be made. I didn't join the forums until after the room was already built, but I wish I had because I've seen some nice set-ups that probably would have been more conventional than mine, but it is what it is and so far it looks like it'll work fine!
We bought some velcro from home depot and lined the closet frame with it. Then we took some panda-tarp and cut it out to roughly the same shape as the frame. After some careful execution, we managed to get the sticky side of the velcro onto the tarp.. so now we have a fully-removable, reflective wall that for the most-part, blocks all light in or out of the closet. Here are the pictures:
Once the room was completely set up, it was time to get some clones and get the party going! We picked up 12 clones from a local dispensary, 6 GDP and 6 afghan kush. Without getting into a long, sad story about an amateur grower messing up, lets just say I lost 11 of the first batch of clones, leaving just one afghan kush standing.
Last tuesday I bought 11 more clones; 6 GDP and 5 purple kush, and so far the plants are looking pretty healthy! In about 2 weeks I think we'll be taking some clones and then moving them into the main room and firing up one or two of the 600watt lights. I plan on updating this thread once the room is completely set-up as well as showing my progress as the grow continues. Here's the first batch as of tonight (only 9/12 photographed). The big guy in the back row is the afghan kush that is a little over 2 weeks old now!
I'm extremely excited to be part of this community and hope to contribute my experiences as well as learn from people who have been doing this much longer than me (so far, that's just about everyone lol).
Please, point out any flaws you see with my set-up or any concerns about my plans! But before you do that, I have some questions that might be what you planned on addressing anyway:
1) My biggest concern right now is not burning the house down. It was built 8 years ago so I'm hoping that the wiring is in good shape and can handle what I'm trying to run. Since I don't plan on staying here for more than a year, I won't be upgrading the fusebox or converting to 240volts. My friend calculated that we're going to be running about 21amps altogether. If I read the fusebox correctly, this bedroom is rated at 15amps. Therefore, I plan on running extension cables from the other bedrooms, essentially running one 600 watt light off of each room in the house. Of course I'll be using surge protectors also. Is this a decent plan for risk-management as far as an electrical fire goes? I don't care about expensive electricity bills, I just don't want to wake up surrounded by fire.
2) Right now the only light in this room is the 400watt MH but even so, temperatures in the closet are running from 78-82 degrees. As you can see in the pictures, I have two mini-fans cooling the closet, but I'm concerned that once I seal the closet with the tarp when I'm using the rest of the room, temperatures will climb even more. Would buying one or two more fans help, or is there a better way to cool the closet off?
3) I tested the water from my sink (what I've been using) with a digital ph tester and it came back 7.8 - 8.0, which I thought was too high. After I added nutrients and stirred it up, the ph came back 6.4 - 6.7, should I be concerned or is this normal?
Thanks in advance for any advice/pointers! I hope to learn and grow as a grower during my stay on these forums!
