Need assistance planning first legal grow - PLEASE HELP!

[lunghater]

Hey all, I've been a lurker on this site for a long time and I'm now finally in a position to start posting while on a mission to plan my first legal grow, since I just finally obtained my medical MJ card! :smoke1:

I have grown 4 plants in soil just from bagseed using CFL's before, turned out okay, but naturally I'm now looking for a more professional, sleek, full-blown grow. I already have some ideas of what I'd like to do, but there's just so many options that I'd really appreciate some help. I've taken many hours studying this stuff just to be able to compile this post in an efficient manner, so I really hope it pays off with some good suggestions!

What I already have figured out

1. I think I am going to speed up the process of creating the grow area by purchasing a tent from Secret Jardin. Most likely the DR150 model. (hxxp://www.cdgrowlight.com/Indoor-G...a2ca85f05cb89dc2.e3eSc34RbhyRe34Pa38Ta3aLbNb0) I am willing to get 2 of these tents; one for vegging, one for flowering. It just depends on the tips you guys give me regarding whether I should just opt for a sea of green method according to the yield I'd like to get. I'd preferably rather just have the one tent and not have any vegging going on.

2. Ideally, I would like to yield at least close to 1/2 lb (8 ounces) per harvest, preferably closer to 16oz, every 8-12 weeks. Legally in Michigan you're permitted to have 12 plants all together, so at least at the start while I get used to the setup being in my house I'd like to stick to that rule. I'd consider going up later to about 36 plants.

3. I want to grow hydroponically using a pre-built system that is reliable. If the 2 tent setup is recommended by you guys, I would like to use the same system in both tents for vegging and flowering.

4. Budget is not really too much of an issue. I'd like to aim for $1500 at the most if possible to achieve what I want. I'm willing to buy fairly high-tier equipment as it comes to lights and ventilation.

Questions I still have

1. As noted before, one of my questions is this. Would it be suitable to start off with around 12 seeds, let them veg in the one tent using a metal halide light for about 2 weeks, and let them flower for approx. 8 weeks and still achieve the yield I'm looking for?

2. Also noted, which pre-built hydroponic system that is not TOO expensive would be suitable for this grow?

3. I have tried finding straight answers in this forum as well as others regarding ventilation. In a tent like this, what types of fan would I need to exhaust heat from the tent? Adversely, what type of fan setup and tubing will I need to provide air intake to the fan? Finally, how do you go about installing a carbon filter into this ventilation system to take care of some of the smell?


I know these are sort of a lot of questions, but this is about as basic as I can make it. PLEASE feel free to answer as many of my questions as you know the answer to, as I need to find the answer to all of them somehow or another before I can start my grow.

Help save my life! Haha.

Stay high, all.

 

[141820]

Build your own hydroponic system it will be WAY CHEAPER and it is not that hard to do!

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

What size light are you planning on using? What strain are you planning on growing? I would recommend vegging for substantially longer than 2 weeks. Two week old plants are still really small and they will not flower until they are sexually mature. In other words, you cannot veg for 2 weeks, put into 12/12 and expect to have them finish 8 weeks later--it is going to take longer. Starting 12 plants seems about right--statistically, 1/2 of them will be males which will leave you with probably 5-7 females in about 25 sq ft.

What kind of hydro do you want to do?

 

[tester]

Im not a lover of hydro setups myself much prefer the manual labour of it all, if your only looking for 8-16 oz Just get a 2m by 2m tent with 10-12 6.5 litre pots 2 x drip trays 1 x 600w lamp, 100 litres of soil or coco, and just water and feed yourself

 

[smokingjoe]

hydro has been horribly mystified for reasons beyond me; it's really not that complicated; especially if you have wholesale landscaping supplies or a really decent hardware store nearby.

Get the biggest reservoir you can fit in your space and with a little bit of inginuity you can have a cranking hydro system.

It's not as simple as soil, but imho that's just too messy for an indoor grow.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

Im not a lover of hydro setups myself much prefer the manual labour of it all, if your only looking for 8-16 oz Just get a 2m by 2m tent with 10-12 6.5 litre pots 2 x drip trays 1 x 600w lamp, 100 litres of soil or coco, and just water and feed yourself

LOL--If you do not believe that hydro involves "manual labor" you know nothing about hydro. IMO, hydro is far more "hand on" than soil and like Joe said, far less messy.

I would recommend something like a waterfarm system. What size light you need will depend on the space you plan on using? You are going to want a min of 5000 lumens per sq ft for flowering.

 

[DonJones]

WELCOME!

Well, I'm probably going to tick some body off, but here are my thoughts.

First If you own the building, have someone frame off the room(s) rather than using a tent. You can frame the room(s) as quickly as you can have the tents shipped to you. They do NOT need to be tapped , mudded and sanded unless you want them that way. They only need to have sheetrock on one side of the studs. Paint the insides white, some people say to only use flat white, but high gloss is easier to take care of.

Use a door that overlaps the opening by at least 1" all the way around and install weatherstripping on the overlapping surfaces. If practical draw your intake air from close to the floor and the exhaust from near the ceiling and preferably on opposite walls.

Scrubbers work better if they are at the exhaust end of the ducting rather than near the inlet end.

If you are really looking for perpetual harvest, then seriously investigate the autoflowering strains and grow them in separate 5 gallon buckets, either separate or a few of them sharing a reservoir so you can switch nutrients to match the stage the plant is in, because with autoflowering you do NOT need to change the lights, only the nutrients when they switch -- in fact most autoflowering varieties do better on a 16/8 or 18/6 cycle throughout their life than if you try to put them on a 12/12 flower cycle. That means you only have to have one room with one set of lights and timers, and can plant a new plant every time you harvest one. Also the autoflowering varieties will pretty much switch on their own by age regardless of what you try to do to control the switch.

Personally I think the General Hydroponics WaterFarm systems are the easiest and most economical to use. If you are a do it yourself type person, there are a whole lot of DIY threads that will help you save money and give you a sense of ownership that buying will never give you. I have a thread on DIY 5 gallon Waterfarms linked in my signature and Irish has a good 5 gallon DWC (deep water cycle) how to do thread too. Either system is probably the most trouble free system that I know of and either one of them can be put together in a less than 2 hours per bucket and probalby less than an hour per bucket.

If you aren't a DIY type person, consider buying General Hydroponic's WaterFarm systems. They use square buckets which let you put the plants closer together than the round ones. Plus I believe that their multiple bucket systems come with a set of nutes fo ryour first grow.

For lighting I recommend a mix of Metal Halide and High Pressure Sodium because neither one of them separately supply a complete spectrum that the plant needs to grow at its potential. My mentors say that just straight MH will give nearly as good of a result as MH for vegging switched to HPS for flowering, but I only have used straight MH all the way through so I can't confirm or deny that. Like I sad before, the autoflowering are a lot simpler, but not always easier, to grow.

If you can exhaust waste air up high like through the roof that helps conceal the smell too. Personally I haven't had near as much odor as my son does growing the same varieties under as close to the same conditions as we can duplicate. But strangely enough to some people who claim the high isn't as good without dank smell, when they smoke both of our weed, they say they can't tell the difference in the high but prefer the smell of the stinky stuff.

Get you a PH, EDS/PPM/TDS and temperature meter, preferably all in one, but you need to be able to monitor PH, PPM/TDS and temperature of the solution if your are going to grow hydroponically. Get a good one, Hanna and Milwaukee both are good brands, and keep it calibrated because a meter that isn't accurate can cause more trouble than not using a meter.

Personally I use Future Harvest Development nutrients because I have several local friends using different nutes in nearly identical operations and over a long period of time their results are virtually identical even though FHD only cost us under $50/cycle and the guy who swears by AN spends nearly $1,000/cycle -- of course he uses every additive that AN sells. FHD's basic 3 part set costs me $30/10 plant cycle.

If I've missed anything or you have more questions just ask and I'll do what I can to help you.

Good growing and good smoking.