Dj Dude420

Note to MOD: sorry if this post isnt in the right place. I have a slew of situations and questions to ask about. So I wasnt really sure where to put this post.

Anyway... On with the post. First of all I'll give you a little background on the situation. I'm a fairly new grower. I've helped a few friends get through their growing experiances and have now decided to take this on myself. I think I've got a pretty sound grasp on the basic concepts of growing and some not so basic concepts. In other words I have read up alot on this website and others similar and know what growing pot is all about... I just lack the personal experiance. So now I've got a small plant. Approx 1 inch tall growing in a closet with 8' in the upward direction to go. And about 2 sq feet side by side for the width and depth. So its about 8'H x 26"W x 16"D. I have this plant in a small plastic starter pot with good drainage. Its in a soil composed of very light material. I'm not exactly sure what.. Its some sort of potting soil....with decent moisture holding quality. I have a 40 Watt Aqua glo flouro light and a 30 watt repti glo flouro light that I'm keeping on 24/7 through veg. There are two ducts in the closet being used for air circulation. I used a small modified box fan to draw fresh air into the closet at the ground level and then the warmer air is forced out of another duct closer to the ceiling. The door is compleatly sealed so when its shut the only air comming into the closet is directly from outside. The temperature in the closet with the lights on and fan running ranges from 82 to 88 degrees consistantly. With the humidity from 22 to 32 percent consistantly. The lights are currently inches above the plant and are on 24/7. The fan is always on as well. I have a CO2 tank that I plan to rig up with a regulator and airline tubing as well to assist the plant. I also have plants to make light reflectors to put around the plant and lights to get as much out of it as possible. So here are my questions... First. Are my temps and humidity good? Also I heard that the roots of the plant need oxygen. If I were to hook up a small air pump with airline tubing that was perforated and coil it into the pot that my plant is in. Would it help at all? Good idea? Ok third... I plan to add at least another 100Watts to the setup.. Should I be ok for now with the 70 Watts? The other 100 watts will probably be compact flouros. Next... I decided to keep a grow journal to record all my experiances for future examination. I've been recording plant height, leaf color, texture, whether or not I watered it... how long the light was on... room temp and humidity. Is there any thing else I should be keeping track of in this journal... things I should look out for? Thanks for reading my concerns I hope I provided you with enough info to give me a few opinions on my setup/ procedure. I hope to hear from you.
Peace

cecil_b

Great post, DJ

1. Add a sm. oscillating fan blowing on the stems to keep them strong.

2. 70w of fluoros is not much light if you're going to use CO2. I'm not sure if the CO2 enrichment will do much for you, since w/ that level of light the plant might not even metabolize the CO2 normally in the air. If you blaze up your lighting up to 6500-7000 lumens/sf (or more) that will be a different story. I'd be willing to stand corrected, but that's what I've learned by working in a greenhouse and from conventional wisdom on this site.

3. There is no evidence in horticulture that oxygen amendment of soil will have any effect on yield or speed of growth. Just make sure your soil is properly aerated with perlite or something and it will be fine. Having tanks of O2 around is a bad idea anyway, esp. if you want to use the products of your labor...

4. By all means keep your journal on here so that we can all benefit and help you. In addition to what you mentioned, you might want to also keep track of the #/amt of your waterings, nutrients used, temp/RH, etc.

5. Your temps will go up further w/ your additional 100w lamps - if your RH is already low, it might get even lower as more heat is added. Think about adding a little bit of humidity with a cool mist humidifier. I would recommend an ultrasonic mini-fogger for small spaces, rather than a big resevoir-type like you buy in the drug store. See image below:



I ordered one of these for about US$40. PM me if you want the link. You can also get a cheap digital temp/ hygrometer at the hardware store to monitor this.

Good luck!

-cb

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TetraHydroCanna

In my opinion, i think your setup rocks except more space to grow sideayas instead of up, id suggest some LST(Low Stress training) when they gate almost to the top, keep the flos on them at about 1 inch so they wont stretch, to me this isnt enough light, but i think it'd work for one plant unless you plan on adding more...Lighting isa the most important thing to me, the rest is kinda extra ya know...but keep uyp the good work and get you some compact flos to add to the sides, i think this may help

scooterpie

Light Light Light lumens lumens lumens The Aqua and the repti glo flouro is not going to provide the proper spectrium for your plants a regular cool or warm flourescent will provide a better spectrium. One is for veg and the other for flower. As far as parimenters to chart in your journal my experience has been that anything just any piece of info that happens or a procedure or a reading will sooner or later be wanted for a reference. My suggestion would be have a bowl and jot down all that come to mind and hit save you will be glad you did in a crises and you can't remember what you thought was irrelivant at the time.

Best of luck and happy growing
scooterpie

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Dj Dude420

Excellent. Thanks for the replies. I beleive I might run to HDepo today and check out some fans and lights... if they have them. I dont recall seeing much of a selection in my local store. Maybe I didnt look enough. I get my tax returns back this Friday so after I pay this months rent I should have about $150 to play with. The lights I have now were from a friend that works at a fish and reptile store. It was all he had available and they were free so I cant complain. They are just end plugs for the bulbs and ballasts. Anyway he also gets compact flouros in often.. But is paying $100 for another 72 watts of light worth it? I'm not sure how many lumens it would have. The warm and cool bulbs you mentioned... Are they just light regular shop flouro lights? The one aqua glo light says its for aquarium plants as well but that may not mean anything. As far as flouro bulbs and compacts... Which ones get the most lumens per watt? I would imagine the investment would be well worth it to go ahead and get more appropriate bulbs. So I'll add that fan as you suggested... and if you could send me that link I would appreciate it. Yeah the humidity seemed a bit low.... wouldnt humidity between 35 and 45 percent help keep fungus down and possibly mold? I wouldnt think mold or fungus would be too big of a problem. Before I even began using the closet I scrubbed the entire interior with bleach water. Alright, well I've rambled for some time now and can't remember what I originally intended to say so I'll stop for now. haha! By the way I think I will keep my grow journal on here. Would you recommend putting it in this thread or starting a new one in a more appropriate place.. Thanks
-jay

afterburner

No.

I payed 100 bucks to add 400 watts of Metal Halide lighting to my grow (more than 36,000 lumens) that includes the price of two 130 cfm fans... That number is a tad misleading however because I did already have a reflector & aircooled hood, and the light was from a ballast KIT that I put together and wired myself... BUT you could build a reflector /coolhood for another 30 bucks or less pretty easily.

It's really not hard at all to build as long as you can find a suitable heatproof case for the ballast box, and are slightly adept with building things. Its easy I'm serious! If your concidering dumping more than 100 in lighting you might as well do it right and get HID! Only problem with HID is they get hot! Hot means more cooling, more cooling means a louder grow box.

Its your call...

72 watts of floros cant add up to more than 6000 lumens...

More lumens = more weed!

You'll want to start your grow journal in the soil grow journal section.

Oh and dont worry too much about the humidity, concentrate on fixing your lighting first, I cant get the humidity to stay above 28% for the life of me, and I still had a very successful first grow.

Lemme know if you want any more details on where to get cheap lighting or how to build a custom light.

Peace

Afterburner

TetraHydroCanna

no your paying to much...for about 40 bucksd or so you could get 5 compact twisted flos, at wal m,art...luckily i have readily access to every kind of light for free, but i did see them at wal mart, home depot shold have them too

pfrtheotherside

Hi dj

At this young of an age, they do like humidity. Before going into flowering it is preferable to have better than 50% humidity. When you go into flowering and start to get buds is the time to bring the humidity down.

If you can't spend the $ for a humidifier, try hanging some towels up that are in bowls of water.

Good luck with your grow.

TOS

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pfloydrocks420

And you know what they say about opinions.

At any rate. I agree that you need more light. However I think you'd do quite well if you got a 250W HPS for lighting. You are looking at 3 sq feet of floorspace.. a 250W HPS provides roughly 28,500 Lumens.. which would put you at 9500Lumens per sq foot. Thats quite a bit of light.

I don't think a 250 would provide too much heat in that much space.. but if you did have to vent.. you could help lower the noise factor with a smaller and quieter exhaust fan.

Good news.. if you are handy.. is that you can get a 250W system quite cheap.
@ 1000bulbs-dot-com.
260W HPS Ballast.. $48.13
250W HPS Bulb.. $12.50
Total.. $60.63

I do believe shipping is free under $100.. but that could have changed. Either way.. shipping shouldn't be much.

Additional wiring will be needed. I used a heavy duty extension cord.. same as many others. There are quite a few threads on constructing a remote ballast. Agent86 did a great one.

As far as the Rh.. higher is better during veg.. but as AB said.. I wouldn't worry about it that much.

Good luck on the grow.

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Dj Dude420

Thanks again everyone for all the replies. It is helpfull beyond words.
I think I'll check out that action at 1000bulbs. Thats really cheap and a 250W light would be Ideal i'd imagine for the area provided. Heat isnt really an issue. I currently have a modified box fan running 24/7 on high. Its enough to keep the temp steady. With a HPS light however I'm sure I'll need to upgrade. A friend of mine had an idea for an "air conditioner" of sorts. I live in the desert so the humidity is naturally really really low. Most houses out here have "swamp coolers" rather than refridgerated air. So what we were thinking is to have a screen or grate of some sort that would have water trickling down it as air drawn from directly outside. This would not only bring up the humidity but it would keep the closet cool when I get a different light. For now the plant is doing amazing. Its almost as though I can see it getting bigger if I stare at it long enough! lol Its already doubled almost tripled in size since it first reared its little head the day before yesterday. AMAZING!! haha I would be very intersted in making a setup as you suggested on the 1000 bulbs site.. I've never put lights together before however. I'm not sure if I would have the proper equipment. So I guess if there is a link somone could share regarding in depth instructions on how to put together a light like that I would give it a go. All should be fairly settled in the next week so my little un can GRO GRO GRO!!