Do I have what I need to grow successfully? - And question on inline fan

[growersteve]

Whats up guys, my first post, came here from growchat where there isn`t too much help/I get more bad responses just for asking, what I feel, are reasonable questions, so here I am. I'm going to start my first grow pretty soon, just waiting on a few items and I want to make sure what I have is all I need. First a little more info, I be will starting off with only 1 or 2 plants for my first grow, I wil be growing in soil under l.e.d. i'm starting with feminized afghan autoflower seeds from mjseedscanada (reps to them on the quick/very discreet shipping).

Heres what I have so far basic l.ed. grow:

my l.e.d light: MarsHydro 480w Reflector LED Grow Light Flower Veg Switches Save Power Cover Biger Area Increase Yields Full Spectrum 5w Leds

my grow tent: MILLIARD 36"x20"x63" Mylar 100% Reflective Hydroponic Grow Tent with Window

light hangers: Apollo Horticulture GLRP18 Pair of 1/8" Adjustable Grow Light Rope Hanger w/ Improved Metal Internal Gears

light timer: Hydrofarm TM01715D 7-Day Digital Program Timer

PH meter: Etekcity pH Meter Pen Tester with ATC and Backlit LCD PH2011 Red

PH control: General Hydroponics GH1514 Ph Control Kit

humidity monitor:AcuRite 00613A1 Indoor Humidity Monitor

pot: 5 gallon bucket (holes in bottom for drainage) with a tray under for drainage/runoff testing

soil: FoxFarm FX14053 12-Quart Ocean Forest Organic Potting Soil

nutrients:Fox Farm FX14049 Liquid Nutrient Trio Soil Formula: Big Bloom, Grow Big, Tiger Bloom

fan: VenTech VT IF4+CF4 IF4CF412 Inline Duct Fan with Virgin Charcoal Carbon Filter Combo, 190 CFM, 4" no smell

fan speed adjuster: Active Air ACSC Duct Fan Speed Adjuster

and last maybe some duct?

This will be my first time growing, do i have here all I need to be successful? any help at all is appreciated, and about the fan, the filter goes on it and connects to the tent? does the fan pull air into the tent or pull it out? if fan pulls air in, wouldlnt the smell still be coming out, do I need another fan? for example if this one does pull air out of the tent, through the filter, wouldn`t I need another fan to be pulling air in? Please explain, I will be keeping a journal of my first grow because I need all the help I can get, thanks in advance, steveo

 

[wootin]

re: Do I have what I need to grow successfully? & Question on inline fan

Looks good, just fire everything up and cruise.

About the fan, you want to draw the air through the filter and blow it out. I mount mine at the top of the tent(Hot air rises). So filter > Fan > out hole. I just use duct tape to secure the fan to the filter.

You don't need to draw air in if your tent can be opened on the bottom with flaps(many tents are designed like this). But if you want more air flow, just grab another inline fan at home depot, they have the 6" inline for around 25 bucks.

I'm growing three plants with this setup.
Appolo 48"x48"x80" tent.
6" inline fan from home depot with the 6" Carbon filter. It's rated for 250CFM, I don't bother with a controller since it's pretty quiet.
Mini air fan tower on bottom to circulate air.
2 300w LED panel.
Tiger BLoom for nutes. I use water from my 90g fish tank to water the plants until flowering then I add Tiger Bloom.
I am estimating an ounce or more per plant once I finish this grow.

 

[growersteve]

re: Do I have what I need to grow successfully? & Question on inline fan

Awesome! thanks for all the useful info from a grower, i thought it only made sense for it to pull the air out since it has the filter for the smell but i wanted to make sure, I will head to home depot tomorrow and look for an inline fan and carbon filter instead the way more expensive one i was going to jump on online, which is less cfm then yours, and i'll test it to see if it's quiet enough before i purchase the speed control. I'll also get a small fan for circulation inside, thanks alot for your help, and goodluck on your grow! what strain/s are you growing? have you done any training on them to try and increase yield, such as lst, or monster cropping? trying to get some opinions if anyone else wants to jump in on training your plant, is it ok to do with an auto-flower? thanks again!

 

[ninjaezgrower]

re: Do I have what I need to grow successfully? & Question on inline fan

I have a current grow where I am growing 2 feminized White Widow seeds from Greenhouse Seed Co. I have a very similar setup to yours.

My tent is 48in x 48in x 78in

Lights 2 x 300 watt LED Lights, 100x3 diode type, full spectrum including IR. with the same light hangers your using

each plant is in a 3.5 gallon DWC bubble bucket holding 2 gallons of water

I use General Hydroponics 3 part series nutrient line and CALMAG, since I use RO water

1 4in inline fan with carbon filter connected to top of tent, I use the vents on the bottom to draw air in and a small circular blower fan in the bottom of the tent angled upwards to constantly blow on the plants

And a digital timer for the lights, along with a 4 outlet 254gph air pump.

With the 2 white widows I have both bent branches down and used string to hold the bend. and Topped both white widow plants.

I have also taken clones from these plants a couple weeks into flower, or monster cropping, and heres the results from that

These monster cropped clones are now 16 days old, roots came out of rockwool cubes in only 6 days then had explosive growth since then. This is in my cloner box, not my grow tent, The plants I will talk about next are in my flower tent and sorry for not having any pics to post of those, and how they are tied down and the toppings, as well as my auto I have growing, but the light doesn't come on for a few more hours and I just started my journal today. You can stop by anytime later though if you would like to see them.

One of the white widow plants I started tying down early in veg, I mainly tied down one side which cause the plant to tilt at an angle, which ended up being a 33 degree angle making it grow almost horizontally. I topped the plant when it had 3 nodes, however due to the angle of the plant and it growing that way, it essentially scrogged itself, I now have 3 main shoots, instead of 2 from the topping, and massive amount of growing nodes due to all the light the plant has received. This plant is a monster.

The second plant has been topped and tied a couple times but grew straight upward, it has 2 tops, but nowhere near the amount of growth nodes as her sister.

From here on out I will try to make each plant scrog itself, seems much easier and healthier on the plant, since this one has had no signs of stress from growing at this angle. just my 2 cents

Lastly, to cover autos, I have a Big Bang Auto in my grow, theres a major problem with auto plants, They are finicky as hell! Use only 1/4 strength nutes or you will nuke the plants and they will die.I have nuked and killed 4 plants this way, its a good way to throw away money if your not paying close attention. Do not every cut, trim, top, or fim, an auto. Any amount of stress on an auto causes severe stunting in growth. Which makes the yield literally worthless considering you may pull off a stunted auto an 1/8th of an ounce, now compare that to the cost of the nutes used, the electricity used, and the fact you could have had a feminized plant in there that same grow space instead that could have yielded ounces or more. in my opinion autos are not worth the money, unless you are the damn plant whisperer. If you top or fim them its even worse, since it is an auto it lives out a predetermined lifestyle, that's why their flowering time is so short, when you top or fim a plant you need to give it a week to recuperate from the trauma, with autos you don't have that time to make up so it severely messes with the plants time schedule and yield.

Sorry for the long post and wanted to tell you that you have a great setup, post some pics of it and make sure to do daily updates, everyone on this forum is great and they would help you from seed to harvest. Good Luck!

 

[wootin]

re: Do I have what I need to grow successfully? & Question on inline fan

Awesome! thanks for all the useful info from a grower, i thought it only made sense for it to pull the air out since it has the filter for the smell but i wanted to make sure, I will head to home depot tomorrow and look for an inline fan and carbon filter instead the way more expensive one i was going to jump on online, which was like half the cfm of yours, and i'll test it to see if it's quiet enough before i purchase the speed control. I'll also get a small fan for circulation inside, thanks alot for your help, and goodluck on your grow! what strain/s are you growing? have you done any training on them to try and increase yield, such as lst, or monster cropping? trying to get some opinions if anyone else wants to jump in on training your plant, is it ok to do with an auto-flower? thanks again!

The carbon filter you'll have to get online, I got mine on amazon, IIRC around $75 ish, 6"( I wouldn't bother with the 4"). Most people run much higher than 250CFM fan hence they use the speed control(Veggie state you don't have to run very high, but peak flowering it's nice to have the option to crank it up, there are more advantages in being able to control your airflow). Originally I thought about going the same route, but I had a 250CFM fan so I tested it first. In my case, it was fine, no detectable skunky smell

Strain is rebel god(Cinderella 99 x Rare Dankness' Rugburn OG) and I got three females out of 8 plants. Figured it's a waste to grow males next time so I'm making Feminize seed with this first grow. I sprayed the two bottom branches with 20ppm colloidal silver and as of yesterday, the pollen sacks are popping, I will run my fan under these and pollinate my crop. My buds are a lil far into flowering but I think I'll still get a few hundred seeds this way.

I only top them once and use jute strings to tie here and there to make sure they grow evenly. My tent is 90% utilized so I think it's close to getting max yield.

Will snap a few pics tonight if you're interested.

 

[growersteve]

re: Do I have what I need to grow successfully? & Question on inline fan

thanks alot ninja wow love your setup and plants look great, i subscribed to your grow journal!. Ill be sure to post pics as soon as it all arrives, so im starting with feminized autoflower afghan, no training, got it, good thing I ordered from mjseedscanada, with a promo code from a quick search, I received 5 free feminized white widow seeds so those pics are very inspirational Ill do the white widow for my second grow and save the training for then, can i expect more yield typically growing a regular/photo rather then an auto? thanks alot guys! very big help!

oh i just read your post wootin, for sure id like to see that that sounds awesome id love to have some of those seeds haha thanks alot!

 

[ninjaezgrower]

re: Do I have what I need to grow successfully? & Question on inline fan

Remember those are just the monster cropped clones, Ill post pics of their mother tonight when light comes on. You should create your signature and put the link to your grow journal on it so people can easily see and get to the journal to give advice and feedback and to see how everythings going.

 

[wootin]

re: Do I have what I need to grow successfully? & Question on inline fan

One of the three, I think she'll put out a lot more than I estimated.

Pollens after spraying colloidal silver for two weeks.

 

[growersteve]

wow looks great still waiting on a couple things before i start my grow journal. the grows on here + doing my research makes me wonder why i got autoflower maybe ill start with the fem white widow seeds because i wanna get a good yield, what would the light schedule be for veg and for flower? "flipping" is often reffered to on the forum, is that when you change the light schedule to flower?
happy growing!

 

[sixspeedv]

Hey Steve im new around here as well. Your setup is exactly what I have been looking to get. That size tent fits perfectly into my closet in my office and have been planning do exhaust air via a 440CFM exhaust and cut a hole in the ceiling and dump the heat into the attic. I am actually contemplating 2 of the 600 watt original series mars lights or the 3 panel reflector that is almost the length of the entire tent.

Id love to see pictures of your setup to give me an idea of how much space is left with the light, filter, and 5 gallon bucket in there.

 

[wootin]

wow looks great still waiting on a couple things before i start my grow journal. the grows on here + doing my research makes me wonder why i got autoflower maybe ill start with the fem white widow seeds because i wanna get a good yield, what would the light schedule be for veg and for flower? "flipping" is often reffered to on the forum, is that when you change the light schedule to flower?
happy growing!

From seedlings, I run 1 CFL per plant(100W 1600lumens cfl daylight bulb) until they're about half a foot then I switch over to LED. I used 24/7 for my first grow. I will try 18/6 on my next grow and see if there's any diff. LEDs are so efficient that the electricity's savings isn't much.

I flipped mine when they started showing sex(two days of complete darkness then 12/12). This is easy to see and it shows they've reached sexual maturity. The males come earlier and usually by the time you see your first female, you can weed out most of the males. You won't run into this problem since you're running fem seeds.

Yield depends a lot on how much trainings you do and how many plants you got going. It's possible to fill your tent with one plant with trainings, or just plant 4 and top em all once for minimum stress and ease of growing for your first time. In my experience, this is the faster route to harvesting since you only shock your plants once vs trainings. For us, we're restricted by growth space so as long as you fill your tent with colas, you're good!

 

[ninjaezgrower]

alright theres a few things you wanted to cover so ill start with yield of autos vs photos. Photos will always produce a higher yield than an auto plant, autos live out a set life cycle, so they can only veg for so long limiting their growth potential. A photo period plant can stay vegging as long as you want, as long as its in veg it will continue to pack on weight, be careful though cause of the stretch during flower so you don't want to veg it too much. As long as you keep the light schedule between 18/6 and 24/0 it stays in vegetative cycle.. Now autos do have a great quality in that they live out their lifecycle in a predetermined amount of days, meaning they are quicker to harvest. So if you need to grow quick bud, that's the way to go.

Light schedules, veg is 18/6 - 24/0. Flower is 12/12 - pure darkness, depending how much trichomes you want. last few days I always leave them in pure darkness. Yes flipping is when you take it from veg light schedule to flower light schedule, and reveg is when you take it from flower cycle back to veg cycle. This is done when monster cropping. Those clones I posted last time have been reveged and are back in veg cycle.

You have to do your research on the strain your growing as well, Not just what they say on the breeder or seedbank site, when they tell you its 22%THC and flowers in 8 weeks, That is under maxxd out growing conditions, Im talking hydroponics, with perfect nutrient feedings, and over 1000 watts of lighting per plant, and giving each plant atleast 2sqft growing space. Read grow journals and watch youtube videos of people growing the strains your interested in. You will be surprised to find that some strains do not do well if topped, and some don't do well with different types of LST work, So before growing out a strain make sure you have a gameplan for that particular plant that would increase its yield rather than stress it or possibly kill the plant by over stressing it, I have had plants not recover from being topped and it stopped all growth from where I have topped it and was forced to flower without any new growth. That sucks my friend hope it never happens to anyone else. But it can and that's why you need to do your research on each strain before growing.

Sorry for the long posts you asked a lot of questions, and I wanted to give you some advice I didn't have before I started growing. Now I am not an expert grower but the advice im giving is based on my own experiences with trying different techniques and different strains.

I would recommend growing out the white widow it will be easier than the auto, but it will take longer to harvest. From my experience with the white widow, she is a very resilient plant, she can take cold temps as well as hot temps, I have mine always around 85F when the lights are on and in the low 70s to high 60's when its dark. She does very well with LST work, supercropping, Topping and FIM. You can put those LED lights down to around 8 in above the plants once you get about 3 nodes on it, but to sprout the seeds, keep the lights around 18in above the top of the soil or bucket since your using LED.

Hope that helps

 

[growersteve]

Thank alot for the info and advice, and same here sixspeedv, my tent fits perfectly in my closet and slides back into the corner for a perfect grow-tent spot! very thankful for all the help on here its all very useful info for me on my first grow, getting very excited, i almost have everything i need to start my grow journal , how do you guys like the setup so far? lookin good?

steven2fast's Library Slideshow

 

[growersteve]

check out the link to photobucket in my previous post for the pics of my setup so far, my tent is 36lengthx20widthx63tall inch milliard, the inline fan w/ filter will sit on top where it will still slide into my closet to save space. For LENGTH, the tent is 36in my light is almost 22in so its about 7 inches to the side of the tent on each side. for WIDTH, the tent is 20in wide, my light 10.5 inches so almost 5 inches to the tent on each side. as you can see there is plenty of space, and the light seems to cover alot, will add more pics soon, hope this helps,

 

[sixspeedv]

Thanks for the pics steve that really puts my future setup into perspective! Just going to go with the 1 5 gallon bucket right? Any plans to scrog? I wish they made this tent 2 feet taller! Curious to hear about your temps with the light on and everything all sealed up. Are you going to run just the veg spectrum for veg or both?

Thanks again cant wait to see more

 

[growersteve]

no problem, thanks guys, i will be starting with one plant, fem. white widow, one 5 gallon bucket with drainage holes, and a container under for run-off, still waiting on the humidity monitor/temp and i will try to answer that. Found a tomato trellis i had in the garage 9$ , cut it in half and took it apart with small bolt cutters, doubled it, messin around trying a diy scrog, , what do you guys think? will probably tie it up on each corner to secure the sides when i'm ready for it in my tent
https://vid24.photobucket.com/albums/c17/steven2fast/setup video/20150731_122442_zpsbw1cyxgd.mp4

As for the veg/bloom switches, you beat me to my next question sixspeedv, what do you guys think? should i run both veg/bloom from germination to harvest??

 

[wootin]

no problem, thanks guys, i will be starting with one plant, fem. white widow, one 5 gallon bucket with drainage holes, and a container under for run-off, still waiting on the humidity monitor/temp and i will try to answer that. Found a tomato trellis i had in the garage 9$ , cut it in half and took it apart with small bolt cutters, doubled it, messin around trying a diy scrog, , what do you guys think? will probably tie it up on each corner to secure the sides when i'm ready for it in my tent
https://vid24.photobucket.com/albums/c17/steven2fast/setup video/20150731_122442_zpsbw1cyxgd.mp4

As for the veg/bloom switches, you beat me to my next question sixspeedv, what do you guys think? should i run both veg/bloom from germination to harvest??

If you're rolling with one plant, I wouldn't do veg/bloom from start especially since you got that nice net setup! Adding another month to veg your plant and some simple LST would probably close to double your harvest. Also one plant calls for 10 gallons container IMO because mine is drinking a gallon+ of water a day! Imagine the growth!

I'm harvesting top heavy colas on one of my lady now since I'm using the bottom for seeds. Wet weight comes in at 5oz! so this plant is putting out about 10oz of wet buds.

 

[growersteve]

wow thats good to know thanks for the advice, and sorry i should be more specific, for the power switches on the light,so i should only have just the veg power switch on during veg, and just the flowering power switch on for flowering? or should i turn both veg/bloom Power switches on for both the veg stage and flower stage of my plant and simply just flip from 18/6 to 12/12 when im ready to flower?

 

[wootin]

wow thats good to know thanks for the advice, and sorry i should be more specific, for the power switches on the light,so i should only have just the veg power switch on during veg, and just the flowering power switch on for flowering? or should i turn both veg/bloom Power switches on for both the veg stage and flower stage of my plant and simply just flip from 18/6 to 12/12 when im ready to flower?

IMO, more light is better than less, what you have to figure out is how much better it is. For your case, test run in one mode then next grow do both, unless you do a side by side controlled experiment, there's no answer to this question.

So I would say more is better. Since your LEDs life's expectancy is the same across the board for your light, I would just run them both. It doesn't hurt to have more light! it also makes things less complicated.

Once you're ready to flower, I would black it out for 24hrs then use a 12 /12 that suits you. I.E. I turn mine on since weather is cooler at night and off during day time.

 

[growersteve]

awesome thats what I need thanks alot man, thats a good idea using a 12/12 like that I'll probably do the same to match day/night.So ill start with both lights on my first grow and maybe my second grow ill do it differently for the control just to see, I cant wait to get started just waiting on my soil to get here and I will FINALLY have everything grow journal coming soon guys, thanks!