After your lights I'd spent the bulk of your budget on your exhaust set up. If you have a killer exhaust system it will avoid many problems. And Charcoal charcoal charcoal.
Wanna Ask The Old Farts A Question?
- Thread starter HempKat
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After your lights I'd spent the bulk of your budget on your exhaust set up. If you have a killer exhaust system it will avoid many problems. And Charcoal charcoal charcoal.
Well it's your call but I couldn't begin to tell you how many I've seen over the years get burned by someone they thought they could completely trust. Girlfriends in particular seem to be bad because often times the issue that soured the relationship is the guy being more attentive to the grow then the girlfriend. So the girlfriend begins to see the grow as competition and goes after it in some way, shape or form. You know the old saying "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"
Magnetic ballasts are the traditional kinds of ballast that have been in use for years. They are called that because there is a componant in it that creates a magnetic field. Digital or electronic ballasts are newer, just on the market for only a few years now. Using digital electronics they've found a way to do what the older magnetic ballasts do but they do it more efficiently (less heat, less electric use). Being new though and better, the people selling them take advantage by selling them at a higher price. So while a magnetic ballast with hood, socket and cords can be found for around $300-$350 you'll pay that much for just the digital 1000W ballast by itself, no hood, no socket, no cord connecting a socket to the ballast. Digital is prefered though because the improved efficiency means bulbs last longer electric bills are slightly lower, they can run both HPS and MH bulbs, less heat and noise means they are more stealthy then magnetic and they also claim that the efficiency allows them to squeeze more lumens (light intensity) out of a bulb. Meaning that you could take the same bulb and it can run brighter in a digital ballast then it could in a magnetic ballast.
For what it's worth if your ventilation is good enough your plants will get plenty of the natural co2 that exists in the air. Co2 being supplemented is often used because you can run temps a bit higher then is normally recommended for plants and it requires you to keep the air contained in the space making stealth a little easier. Beyond that though there is no real need to supplement co2.
I've built my own carbon scrubber for a room that's about half the size of the one you're planning, for about $100 and it works great. It is more work then just having one shipped but it's not hard work and it is much cheaper if you have a good source for bulk amounts of activated charcoal which is the most expensive part. The rest of the elements to make one can be found in places like Walmart and Home Depot. There is no maintenance for them really other then changing the dirty carbon out for clean carbon, every few years as needed.
Well actually you want 2-3k because you want the grow to be the size of a small commercial grow op. If you had a smaller room then you could still get maximum bud production from just one 1000W light. So it's the amount of space you're wanting to light, not the buds, that are dictating the need for 3 lights. I use one 1000W light and I get about 1.5 to 2 pounds of dried, cured, trimmed, bud with every harvest which is enough to cover my needs for about a year. I understand that you want to get it all right before you start and that you want it to be easy, high performing, stealthy, low maintenance (in other words, perfect) before you start but that requires more money then you have. If the hoods are air aircooled you could skip the cool tubes but that's only going to save you around $300 total.
Well if you go with the inline air cooled hoods you're only real choice is to hang them horizontally, vertically (up and down) would make them harder to connect together for the ventilation and the hoods would limit the amount of area each light could cover. Cool tubes on the other hand can be hung vertically or horizontally with no problems. As for which is best that really depends on what you're growing and how. If you want to grow really big plants (5 feet tall or taller) then you pretty much have to go vertical. If you go horizontal at that hieght the bottom half of your plant won't be producing much worth smoking.
Nice thread, thanks for posting it, I just glanced thru it but it looks pretty comprehensive and should be a great aide to anyone wanting to go ScrOG style.
Hiya HK and all,
It's been awhile since I've been on and I thought I'd pop on with my recent experiences, maybe some of them are useful to others.
I took your advice Hemp, took a break and regrouped. I started struggling with my grows and couldn't figure out why I once had vigourous grows, nice flowers, decent yield... and things just fell apart. After knocking back the moderate infestation of mites last year, things were fine for a bit then I got this weak, anemic growth, poor flowering crop and couldn't figure it out. Turns out I had root aphids, near as I can tell from FF soil I bought locally. Started with a different (indoor stored) soil and I finally wiped them out with Imid, got a better harvest and am feeling better overall about my results. It's been a 6 months now with the aphids gone, and 9 with the mites. What's worked is Dr Doom for the mites, Imid for the root aphids. I've taken a preventive approach, one application of Dr Doom during veg, one very mild application of Imid just as plants go to flowering time. Working well so far.
The other find that I can pass along, and might be of some use to Hypnotiq... I just got a tent from Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002V9HZBA/ref=ox_ya_os_product
For a small personal grow I think I'd give it a good review. Cannot beat the price. It looks adequately made, nearly completely light proof. I'm looking at this for flowering, as my home made cab runs into height problems when the girls stretch in early flowering.
My $.02 for Hypnotiq would be, rather than spend all your spare change and time building something like you described, maybe check out that tent and consider 2, one for vegging and one for flowering. The amount of smoking you described wouldnt need 100 sq feet of space, I've pulled 6 oz from 2 1/2 X 4 foot cabinet, 4 feet tall. I've had to LST to keep heights manageable and still had a hard time with height which is why I got this tent, especially with my new lemon haze (sativa) girl I have now. A 400 or 600 watt hps for flowering in one, a T-5 fixture for vegging, 2 tents, misc fans and timers, should be possible for $ 1K if you're pretty handy. You could yield 6-8 zips every 2 months or so pretty easily with that set up. And it could easily be moved when the time comes.
HK, thanks for your past advice and hangin out here with us newbs. I'm looking at cutting in the next day or two, I'll post a few pics of my vastly improved results.
It's been awhile since I've been on and I thought I'd pop on with my recent experiences, maybe some of them are useful to others.
I took your advice Hemp, took a break and regrouped. I started struggling with my grows and couldn't figure out why I once had vigourous grows, nice flowers, decent yield... and things just fell apart. After knocking back the moderate infestation of mites last year, things were fine for a bit then I got this weak, anemic growth, poor flowering crop and couldn't figure it out. Turns out I had root aphids, near as I can tell from FF soil I bought locally. Started with a different (indoor stored) soil and I finally wiped them out with Imid, got a better harvest and am feeling better overall about my results. It's been a 6 months now with the aphids gone, and 9 with the mites. What's worked is Dr Doom for the mites, Imid for the root aphids. I've taken a preventive approach, one application of Dr Doom during veg, one very mild application of Imid just as plants go to flowering time. Working well so far.
The other find that I can pass along, and might be of some use to Hypnotiq... I just got a tent from Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002V9HZBA/ref=ox_ya_os_product
For a small personal grow I think I'd give it a good review. Cannot beat the price. It looks adequately made, nearly completely light proof. I'm looking at this for flowering, as my home made cab runs into height problems when the girls stretch in early flowering.
My $.02 for Hypnotiq would be, rather than spend all your spare change and time building something like you described, maybe check out that tent and consider 2, one for vegging and one for flowering. The amount of smoking you described wouldnt need 100 sq feet of space, I've pulled 6 oz from 2 1/2 X 4 foot cabinet, 4 feet tall. I've had to LST to keep heights manageable and still had a hard time with height which is why I got this tent, especially with my new lemon haze (sativa) girl I have now. A 400 or 600 watt hps for flowering in one, a T-5 fixture for vegging, 2 tents, misc fans and timers, should be possible for $ 1K if you're pretty handy. You could yield 6-8 zips every 2 months or so pretty easily with that set up. And it could easily be moved when the time comes.
HK, thanks for your past advice and hangin out here with us newbs. I'm looking at cutting in the next day or two, I'll post a few pics of my vastly improved results.
Hey good to hear from you and thanks for sharing your experiences there. I'm glad you figured out what it was and got it under control. Pre-Treating isn't a bad idea and really isn't much different then some other statagies such as sterilizing soil by running it in a microwave briefly before use. There's one thing to be careful of with such stratagies though. While they can wipe out dorment pests they can also wipe out the good living organisms in your soil. Now if you use chemical ferts this isn't such an important issue as you don't need the help of a bio-herd to help process food. If you go organic though, then you may want to think about treating the soil afterwards with stuff such as this http://www.espoma.com/p_consumer/biotone_02.html or even just adding straight Mycorrhizae. Even if the stuff you use turns out to not be harmful to beneficial micro organisms it's still not a bad idea to beef up the soil a bit with stuff like this.
lbezphil2005
Member
Okay. I need to know how early I can start feeding my girls molasses? I have heard 2 weeks into bloom but have also heard that you can start during vegetative state? I want to start them as early as possible, need to get the most out of what I am working with. I have 2 super lemon haze (GHS), arjans strawberry haze, hawaiian snow, (all ghs) and magus genetics motivation under a 700 watt LED with 15 light spectrums (3 watt cree leds running at 2.58watts) in ffof/perlite and crf's (oc+, epsoma biotone starter plus, mater magic) and 6.0ph water. temps run from 71 to 94 in room
Well the answer would kind of depend on what you mean by "need to get the most out of what I'm working with". If you have a limited amount of molasses then wait until you start flower. If the amount of molasses is not an issue then you can start sooner. Keep in mind molasses is not really so much for the plant (not directly anyway) as it is for the micro organisms in your soil that help your plant digest nutrients. Although there are things in molasses that are good for the plant directly such as iron, calcium, magnesium, potassium and some vitamins.
The plant should still be okay without the micros, it'll just take longer for it to break down the organics to a usable form. So it might not grow quite as well as a plant with a healthy active bio-herd in the root zone.
MagicChef
Member
Peace! Just wonderin what ideas anyone has for good cheap DIY intake filters...I use a medium sized cabinet with a 250w. I use passive 2" holes (x8) through a false bottom drawn through the back. I use a 4" inline and have been using a cheap filter material in the back of the cab, and it seemed to work alright, but I would like something that trapped spores as well. Some type of filter I could cut to shape would be ideal...Any insight would help!
Alas given my setup filtering intake would be difficult at best so I've never tried, I would think cheese cloth or silk screen material would be sufficient but I guess it really depends on just how small the spores you're trying to trap are? Hopefully someone else here will be able to answer your question better.
used dryer sheets
If the humidity, temps and air ventilation/circulation is good and you don't overwater, rust disease shouldn't be able to survive in your grow space.
Hmmm. lemme think 'bout dat.
Hmmm. lemme think 'bout dat.
Here's a thought.
They make and sell HEPA filters for vacuum cleaners, yah?
I'm guessing they need to filter well and still pass a lot of air.
So, it's googlin' time.
"Filtrete HEPA vacuum filters help trap 99.97% of all airborne pollutants 0.3 microns or larger, including mold spores, pet dander, grass and ragweed pollen, and other microscopic allergens."
http://www.filters-now.com/products/veu.html#products
They are usually less than $20.
Might do for a lash-up.
Aloha,
Weezard
Hmmm. lemme think 'bout dat.
Here's a thought.
They make and sell HEPA filters for vacuum cleaners, yah?
I'm guessing they need to filter well and still pass a lot of air.
So, it's googlin' time.
"Filtrete HEPA vacuum filters help trap 99.97% of all airborne pollutants 0.3 microns or larger, including mold spores, pet dander, grass and ragweed pollen, and other microscopic allergens."
http://www.filters-now.com/products/veu.html#products
They are usually less than $20.
Might do for a lash-up.
Aloha,
Weezard
S
snoopytime
OK heres a question for the ol' timers . . whens the good 'cant go wrong' harvest time, trich-wise? Some places I read half clear, half milky. Then others say 25% amber . . it seems like to get amber takes wayyyyyyyyyy longer than the strains alleged finish time.
Thanks you guys!
Thanks you guys!
Well there is no one, can't go wrong, harvest time because how much cloudy and how much amber is a matter of personal preference.
If you want the peak of ripeness you want as much of the triches to be cloudy as you can get them. That's when the THC inside is at it's peak. Amber triches are a sign of age and actually comes about when the THC inside is starting to degrade. When this happens though the THC degrades into other cannabinoids that give marijuana more of a sleepy narcotic effect which many equate with the pot being potent. Some however prefer a more up high that gets your mind racing and this comes from triches that are mostly cloudy. So really harvest is a matter of getting it to it's peak and then allowing just enough degradation to get the right mix of up high/ sleepytime high to suit your preference.
Also it's hard to give a specific ratio of cloudy to amber because not all triches respond the same way. I've grown strains before that were well beyond their recommended harvest by several weeks and yet the triches hadn't reached 50/50 cloudy/amber yet even though many sources will say that 50/50 is what to shoot for. In the end though I found when I harvest this strain at the recommend time it whas everything I wanted it to be.
S
snoopytime
Ah thanks HempKat, good detailed answer. So if I understand correctly, you should AT LEAST wait til theres all\almost all cloudy trichs. And if you want the body toast then wait longer till some of the cloudies turn amber.
MagicChef
Member
My temps are 71-79 lights on, 67-70'ish off, humidity 40-60 on or off and Iv'e got a 4 inch vortex drawing through and out my cool tube, and a fan to blow gently on the canopy. Ive never had rust problems but recently with one strain in particular, got what myself and others thought was rust, 3 grows in a row. The more people I talk to say that this region can be bad for it. Perhaps I am missing it. Nothing yet with the new strain Im running but then again I usually get it 3 weeks into flower. Maybe its just locked out.
Well those numbers don't sound bad so it shouldn't be from that. How often do you water?
