Getting started and requirements: assistance please

D

Daddio68

Active Member
Hi all,

Brand new here and to the growing world!
I’m out of Canada and looking for some assistance in getting set up!

1. Have the feminized auto flow northern lights on the way

2. Going to use 5 gallon smart pots

3. Be using a #4 sunshine soil

4. Have the advanced nutrients: grow, micro and bloom

5. I’ll be growing 1-2 plants to start in living room with 2 - 6’x6’ windows


Questions...
1. Is it a must to use a grow light. I have very large windows in living room... is that enough?
- If light is best, is there a chart that shows different distances for the different stages of growth?
- what wattage to use when not in a grow tent?

2. Is it recommended to use other nutrients/fertilizers such as nirvana or big bud then what I indicated I already have?

3. Can I start my germinated seeds in the 5 gallon pots or is it better to start them in those lil peat moss pots?

4. Do those grow tents make that much of a difference, worth investing?

5. I’ve read not to use full strength on the nutrient I noted above....
- how much do you use of each?
- which one at which stage?
- how soon does one start fertilizing?
- I assume a flush is required.... how often... after each stage or monthly... other?

5. Anything else recommended to get started?

Looking forward to great advice here...

Thanks in advance!
Daddio
 
Daddio68 said:
Hi all,

Brand new here and to the growing world!
I’m out of Canada and looking for some assistance in getting set up!

1. Have the feminized auto flow northern lights on the way

2. Going to use 5 gallon smart pots

3. Be using a #4 sunshine soil

4. Have the advanced nutrients: grow, micro and bloom

5. I’ll be growing 1-2 plants to start in living room with 2 - 6’x6’ windows


Questions...
1. Is it a must to use a grow light. I have very large windows in living room... is that enough?
- If light is best, is there a chart that shows different distances for the different stages of growth?
- what wattage to use when not in a grow tent?

2. Is it recommended to use other nutrients/fertilizers such as nirvana or big bud then what I indicated I already have?

3. Can I start my germinated seeds in the 5 gallon pots or is it better to start them in those lil peat moss pots?

4. Do those grow tents make that much of a difference, worth investing?

5. I’ve read not to use full strength on the nutrient I noted above....
- how much do you use of each?
- which one at which stage?
- how soon does one start fertilizing?
- I assume a flush is required.... how often... after each stage or monthly... other?

5. Anything else recommended to get started?

Looking forward to great advice here...

Thanks in advance!
Daddio
Click to expand...
I can't say for sure on the living room I'm pretty sure it's better for the plants to have a constant light cycle. I also can't speak too much on auto I've only ran it once with photoperiod strains so she didn't like it. If I'm not mistaken you want to use an 18/6 light cycle for auto but there is a lot of info on this site about that.

What I can say is a tent is worth the investment when it come to pest control and a good environment for the girls. Easy to set up and take down and you don't have to build in the room. I never use full nutes. What I personally do is start off with 1/3rd of what is recommended then move up from there. That's what help me gauge about how much veg nutes or flower nutes it's using. I watch the tip burn on some of my new pics you can see slight burn. I also skip my feedings. I'll feed plain water then the next feeding nutes if they show signs tip burn I just add regular water with a small amount of nutes on the feed days.

I personally just plant my seedlings in a soil with low nutes like happy frog. This doesn't burn them as much as a hotter soil would. As far as "flush" goes read about and and just experiment with what works for your plants. Haha watch out when mentioning that word "flush" you will get bombarded with a bunch of different opinions.

I recommend using a little bit extra pearlite for added aeration in the soil, adding mykos to the soil and certain sugars. Read about what strains your running and watch them closely see what they like and SCROG or tie down methods are great to now. Sorry for the rant haha good luck.
 
Oh snap almost forgot. The lighting is crucial! It all comes down to your needs and how much are you willing to spend. The size area you have either a small build or a tent with the right lights and air flow, temps you will have some preeeettty girls haha.
 
you Definitely cannot grow with the light from a window. You’ll get tiny little nothing plants with even tiny buds, especially growing autos.

Tents, like rucifer said, allow you to control the environment and make better use of a grow light if you decide to buy one. You can keep your temps right in that 60-70 range and because they’re lined with Mylar you get decent reflection back to your plants.

The nutes you bought will work just fine. Just start with way less than the recommended dosage per gallon. 1) because it’ll be a small plant and 2) because it’s an auto. It’s going to be kind of hard to know when you should shift your ratios towards the flower cycle again, because they’ll be autos.

Wattage on a grow light really depends on how much space you’re trying to cover and the type of light you buy. For 1-2 plants, you could probably do a 400 or 600w HPS. Or if you want to buy LED, you could probably buy like a 200w Quantum Board kit from HLG.

As far as how much nute to use and when, I would start feeding after week 1, and I would start with 1/4 the recommended strength. It should say on the bottle how much to use.
You’re going to want to buy an oral dose syringe for pulling up tiny amounts of nutes, a ph pen for knowing what ph your feed water is, and also ph up and down for adjusting the ph to the right range after you’ve added nutrients.
As for how often to flush, I really can’t say because I’ve never personally used that nutrient line. But for me, I don’t flush, I just do two plain ph’d waterings in between feedings and I don’t get lock out.

Rucifer talked about training methods, I would advise against that for your first cycle. Let the plants grow naturally at first so you can understand what you’re dealing with.
 
Welcome to the group Daddio.
Yep... as already discussed. The window thing isn't going to pay off I'm afraid. Just the fact that the household lights will be on and off periodically after the sun goes down is enough to almost guarantee a hermaphrodite. Your best option without dropping a wad of cash is to put it outside and do an outdoor grow that is away from any outdoor lights.
 
Thanks folks for the info..
Always fun going through the learning curve!
Have to do some more investing I think... get one of the grow tent kits or something

Cheers and thank for the quick responses!!
 
Daddio68 said:
Thanks folks for the info..
Always fun going through the learning curve!
Have to do some more investing I think... get one of the grow tent kits or something

Cheers and thank for the quick responses!!
Click to expand...
If you’d like I can point you in the direction I went in. 500USD investment and I pulled 5oz off my last harvest. Looking at hopefully double that this go around.
It would be less for you, I bought an extra tent and light for veg area so I can go perpetual
 
Daddio68 said:
Hi all,

Brand new here and to the growing world!
I’m out of Canada and looking for some assistance in getting set up!
<cut some out>

5. I’ll be growing 1-2 plants to start in living room with 2 - 6’x6’ windows


Questions...
1. Is it a must to use a grow light. I have very large windows in living room... is that enough?
- If light is best, is there a chart that shows different distances for the different stages of growth?
- what wattage to use when not in a grow tent?
<cut out more>
Click to expand...
I cut out most of your msg since I wanted to comment on this part only. And, I am commenting based on growing with a photoperiod plant and not an autoflowering.

Just me, but I think that it would be possible to grow a plant or two with the light from two 6'X6' windows but I think only if those windows face south or south-east. Any other direction and I doubt that you would get satisfactory results. Even a south facing window will cause some lose of bright light in early morning and late evenings when the sun is actually a bit to the north of a true east-west line. You would be able to grow a healthy leafy plant but I doubt that the flowering stage would produce enough to make you truly happy and probably not justify the cost of the seed, growing media, water and supplemental feeding.

One problem off the bat is that the North American continent is already in a daily decline in the number of minutes of day. This started with the first day of summer. In my section of Michigan which happens to be close to Windsor, Ontario I figure my outdoor plants will start to enter flowering sometime between Aug 3 and Aug 11. Even outdoors we loose enough of that early and late light because the sun is so close to the horizon and gets blocked by trees, buildings, fences, mountains, hills or whatever depending on where you are at.

On the other hand, you should be able to pull it off if you put a decent grow light in the window and have it come on for several hours in the morning and again in the afternoon. Putting a grow light in the window might attract the wrong kind of attention even if it is legal. Also, you will have to have full exposure which means no curtains, blinds, shears or anything else to block the sunlight.

I do have several plants on my patio which has a southern exposure. The plants are shaded most of the time because of a large tree but they still get more light than they would from my 6'X8' doorwall even if I hired a contractor to cut the tree down. I have grown something on that patio in '17 and '18 plus this year. I have compared flowering between those plants and the ones in my hobby grow room and know what to expect so I am not dissappointed, just happy if results are better than I expected. Plus I enjoy the experimenting.

Have a good day and be careful if you are in an area experiencing this horrendous heat wave that is sweeping across the continent this week.
 
chefdgreen, that would be great... just browsing amazon for tents and kits
They have a complete one there by iobonics for like 560cad.... think it’s a bit cheaper buying tent separate and the then all th good for inside as the kit withbis about 360cad... c/w full spectrum quantum 500w led panel.... thought it seems like a good sea....
 
SmokingWings said:
I cut out most of your msg since I wanted to comment on this part only. And, I am commenting based on growing with a photoperiod plant and not an autoflowering.

Just me, but I think that it would be possible to grow a plant or two with the light from two 6'X6' windows but I think only if those windows face south or south-east. Any other direction and I doubt that you would get satisfactory results. Even a south facing window will cause some lose of bright light in early morning and late evenings when the sun is actually a bit to the north of a true east-west line. You would be able to grow a healthy leafy plant but I doubt that the flowering stage would produce enough to make you truly happy and probably not justify the cost of the seed, growing media, water and supplemental feeding.

One problem off the bat is that the North American continent is already in a daily decline in the number of minutes of day. This started with the first day of summer. In my section of Michigan which happens to be close to Windsor, Ontario I figure my outdoor plants will start to enter flowering sometime between Aug 3 and Aug 11. Even outdoors we loose enough of that early and late light because the sun is so close to the horizon and gets blocked by trees, buildings, fences, mountains, hills or whatever depending on where you are at.

On the other hand, you should be able to pull it off if you put a decent grow light in the window and have it come on for several hours in the morning and again in the afternoon. Putting a grow light in the window might attract the wrong kind of attention even if it is legal. Also, you will have to have full exposure which means no curtains, blinds, shears or anything else to block the sunlight.

I do have several plants on my patio which has a southern exposure. The plants are shaded most of the time because of a large tree but they still get more light than they would from my 6'X8' doorwall even if I hired a contractor to cut the tree down. I have grown something on that patio in '17 and '18 plus this year. I have compared flowering between those plants and the ones in my hobby grow room and know what to expect so I am not dissappointed, just happy if results are better than I expected. Plus I enjoy the experimenting.

Have a good day and be careful if you are in an area experiencing this horrendous heat wave that is sweeping across the continent this week.
Click to expand...

Thanks smoking wings
Getting some good advice already.... all appreciated!
 
Daddio68 said:
Hi all,

Brand new here and to the growing world!
I’m out of Canada and looking for some assistance in getting set up!

1. Have the feminized auto flow northern lights on the way

2. Going to use 5 gallon smart pots

3. Be using a #4 sunshine soil

4. Have the advanced nutrients: grow, micro and bloom

5. I’ll be growing 1-2 plants to start in living room with 2 - 6’x6’ windows


Questions...
1. Is it a must to use a grow light. I have very large windows in living room... is that enough?
- If light is best, is there a chart that shows different distances for the different stages of growth?
- what wattage to use when not in a grow tent?

2. Is it recommended to use other nutrients/fertilizers such as nirvana or big bud then what I indicated I already have?

3. Can I start my germinated seeds in the 5 gallon pots or is it better to start them in those lil peat moss pots?

4. Do those grow tents make that much of a difference, worth investing?

5. I’ve read not to use full strength on the nutrient I noted above....
- how much do you use of each?
- which one at which stage?
- how soon does one start fertilizing?
- I assume a flush is required.... how often... after each stage or monthly... other?

5. Anything else recommended to get started?

Looking forward to great advice here...

Thanks in advance!
Daddio
Click to expand...
Some more basics... Sunshine mix #4 is NOT soil. It is a soilless mix and it must be run as if you were in a hydro situation, therefore your pH requirements are to adjust all fluids into the 5.5-6.1 range. You will need an accurate way to measure this.
Your mix is simply perlite and sphagnum moss... it has no nutrients in it. You must start feeding right away, the general advice is at 1/4 the recommended amount until you see how your plants handle it. Flushing is required periodically to remove salts from the medium. Do not skip this important step. Grow tents are great, especially if you need to contain the smell... and the smell of 2 plants can easily take over a household. There are many opinions on successive uppotting or to just start in the final sized container... old school says to successively uppot so as to build a strong rootball. Read my article on how to properly water, and why we successively uppot for further thoughts on this. Additional nutes are to supplement a thriving plant... the regular grow stuff is to supply basic needs. If you get to a point that you have thriving plants with no other problems, only then consider supercharging the grow with additional nutes. The sun through a window does not have enough energy to make our plants happy. You could easily suppliment that light with an additional 1000w LED light for not a lot of money, and that would not only give you the amount of light you need, but you will also be able to control the light period if you are growing photoperiod plants, or if you simply wish to supply more hours of light than the sun outside provides.
 
Daddio68 said:
chefdgreen, that would be great... just browsing amazon for tents and kits
They have a complete one there by iobonics for like 560cad.... think it’s a bit cheaper buying tent separate and the then all th good for inside as the kit withbis about 360cad... c/w full spectrum quantum 500w led panel.... thought it seems like a good sea....
Click to expand...
I would definitely buy separate. A lot of times the lights that come with the tent kits are pretty lacking unless you’re looking at a mars hydro kit. Also you won’t need to invest in a carbon filter (that is if you’re even worried about smell at all) until like week 1-2 of flower.

@Emilya talks about successive up potting, but that’s more for photoperiods. With autos you want to plant them into their final pots (generally) because any disturbing of the root system leads to smaller yields. They don’t have the ability to stall for recuperating.
 
Thanks chef green
If you could make some recommendation on what I’d need for my tent would be appreciated... I’d prolly go with some type of charcoal and fan to help with the aroma
Cheers!
 
Daddio68 said:
chefdgreen, that would be great... just browsing amazon for tents and kits
They have a complete one there by iobonics for like 560cad.... think it’s a bit cheaper buying tent separate and the then all th good for inside as the kit withbis about 360cad... c/w full spectrum quantum 500w led panel.... thought it seems like a good sea....
Click to expand...
For tents, Amazon has a deal right now for a 3x3x6 for 90 bucks by Viperspectra. It will probably have a few pinhole sized light leaks, but in my experience those really don’t matter, I’m sure it’s a solid tent. For two plants i wouldn’t go bigger than 3x3 and I wouldn’t go smaller than 2x2. check out horticulture lighting group for their quantum boards, they work really really well for veg and flower and they don’t put out almost any heat.
 
You can always skip the tent if you have a decent closet. I was gonna purchase a tent but I've instead built a 2x2x4 grow box with scrap wood and lined it with Mylar sheets. Then I turned my closet into my veg room and have a separate closet to.flower. WHile I could have just did it all in one closet I did it this way for convenience and to always have a cycle of plants going. Lighting is up to you but for controlling heat and your electric bill a LED is the way to go. While a tent makes things easier this is always another way to go to. Whatever is more convenient for you.
 
ChefDGreen said:
For tents, Amazon has a deal right now for a 3x3x6 for 90 bucks by Viperspectra. It will probably have a few pinhole sized light leaks, but in my experience those really don’t matter, I’m sure it’s a solid tent. For two plants i wouldn’t go bigger than 3x3 and I wouldn’t go smaller than 2x2. check out horticulture lighting group for their quantum boards, they work really really well for veg and flower and they don’t put out almost any heat.
Click to expand...

Looks like I can’t ship those tents to Canada via amazon...there others such as vivosun same size on for 140CAD
 

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