First grow...after much research

[buddingengineer]

I have a small space that I can grow in. I have a lot of concerns though.

I want to be able to be independentyof dealers.So I want to produce enough for myself, my roommate and be able to entertain without it costing me lots of money. My goal is to be able to produce 4oz every 2 months.

I want the area to be as stealthy as possible, becuase I dont want anyone accidentally finding it.
I want it to be completely self contained.
These are the goals I'd like to be able o acheive.

My space is an area 19inches wide, by 22inches deep and 7 foot tall.

I plan on taking the bottom four feet and placing a 150W HPS in there for a Flowering chamber. The wall would be made out of melanine, so there's going to be alot of light in there. This is a soil grow, but I'd like to build a hydrosetup eventually. The platform that the pots rest on will have venilation holes that allow air to pass up through the chamber. The chamber will be approximately 3-4 inches above the floor and the platform I decigned so that air can pass though but not light. The exuast from this chamber flows into the next and then out though a fan, and carbon scrubber. Warm exaust will come out of the system and then into an adjacent closet which happens to hold the houses water heater.

The top half will most likely hold a 125W CFL to create a mothering and clone room, Again melinine walls and the same form of intake holes.

My first question is how many lumens per foot do I need for the area I have? What is the expected harvest of this type of setup? How much heat does the 150 W HPS produce? How powerful a blower do i need for appoximately 25 Cubic ft?

I'm even considering making the chambers shorter and then having a mother/clone chamber, a vegative chamber, and then a Flowering chamber. But right now I'm thinking of not having a vegative chamber becuase I'll be working from clones.
My idea is that I can keep the mother on a weak nutrients and then grow clones around under the 125W CFL till they equal her in size. And then transfer them into the flowering chamber till harvest.

Is their anything I'm missing?

 

[mushupork5]

50-75 w/sf is a good range to get in, you plants for sectioning out a mother/veg room and a flower room are good. i dont think you will be able to get 4oz every two months with just a 150W HPS. That about .75g/w and might be hard to achieve on your first grow. Supplement the 150W HPS with some T5s or T8s to get the full spectrum of light plus some more wattage. A 245cfm fan (or so) will be PLENTY of circulation to keep fresh air in and temps down. The HPS will get hot, look into the DIY cool tube threads to go with that approach. good luck and i hope that helps

 

[buddingengineer]

I'll be using a remote ballast for the HPS to keep temps down.

I plan on using clones from Sweet Tooth which have a very short flowering period of 6 weeks. So For each plant they'll spend about 2 weeks establishing rooots 4 weeks vegging out (125W CFL)and then 6-8 weeks flowering (150W HPS). So thats actually about 12-14 weeks per plant, but becuase I'll have two chambers thats one harvest every 6-7 weeks.

How do you reach the number of CFM needed for the fan?

I have about 25 Cubic Ft, So if flow was completely unobstructed I would change the air 6 times per minute with a 150 CFM fan. And with your suggestion of 245 I'd be changing the air about 10 times per minute. Although thats assuming that their isnt resistance on the air flow, and I expect to put some sort of carbon filter in their.
I'm trying to figure out details now, so that I'll have a system that runs well every time.

 

[mushupork5]

when you put a carbon filter on a fan it drastically reduces the amount of air the fan pulls through (as does bends in ducting for cool tubes and what not). check out the stanley fan blower mod by Dopest as well. its a great (cheap) mod. regardless, even though you will harvest ever 6-7 weeks (once you get it dialed in) you probably still won't produce 4 ounces every 8 weeks.

 

[buddingengineer]

What type of yield should I expect? assuming I don't screw something up.

 

[Buzzsmirk!]

HI i read u r gonna go soil!! soil is the most forgiving medium and recommended for a nwbs first few grows. but if you went with DWC in that space you will get bigger yeilds by a comfortable margin IMO.
you could squeeze four or five plant sites into the bloom space u r talkin about.
if you go ebb-flo w/ SOG bout ten inches tall you could get a dozen sites.
"yeild" is a term used best relative to past experience.

good luck
BUZZ!

 

[R4st4]

hey i got a freind that dose 150 w grow in much same space as u...last grow he got 157 grams thats aboute 5.6 oz.. but he did scrog tho...dont remember how many plants he had ill ask and post it later.

 

[buddingengineer]

I was actually tempted to do the SWC from the OG stealh Cabinet, but I figure that becuase my space is taller I need to allow for more upward growth which means I should need more space for root.
I can easily build a DWC though.or even a passive hydroponic system with wicks.
Just trying to figure out the most effective means of doing this.

 

[buddingengineer]

Even thugh I'm a newb to actually growing my own stuff. I have over four years of horticultural experience. I've done a lot of work with landscaping and irrigation systems, So I'm not afriad of hydroponics at all. And if I were to get better yields I would definately do it.
I have about 4 feet of vertical space for my Flowering chamber, and 3 feet for my veg chamber. I'm thinking of SOG with DWC. but becuase this is the first go around I'm probably going to go with soil the first run through.
Just bouncing ideas around, I'd love to hear more tips and pointers and peoples experience with the different systems.

 

[dyren]

have you considered a 400w with a DIY cooltube? if your exaust fan is strong enough and you've got a fan blowing on the tops of your plants w/ fresh cool air intake then you could work it. yield will increase dramatically.

or even a 250w instead of 150. supplemented lighting would also work, t5's or t8's as suggested.

 

[buddingengineer]

The grow space is 19" wide by 22" wide. OUtside light is ranges from 32,000 to 100,000 lux, which is tropical exposure.
For my Area I have 0.322 m^2
So for a 150W HPS that produce 16000 Lumen..... my Lux is 49,689 ....which is ok but I can do better.

A 250 W HPS produces 27,500 lumen... lux is 85,403 which is closer to the top end of normal sunlights intensity.

If I dared to put a 400W HPS that produces 50,000 lumens, I would have 155,529 lux which is 50% stronger than the sun. Too strong and the heat will become an issue and even the amount of light would be too strong.I think I might end up putting a 250W HPS in there.

I found a chart over here
http://www.icmag.com/ic/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=150896&sort=1&cat=500&page=1

 

[Guest]

soil is more complicated than dwc... in my humble opinion

 

[buddingengineer]

Is there any way I could do a DWC with a SOG approach?

 

[Guest]

of course... use ice chest they will keep your rez cool and are white inside so you can notice any root problems...i grow in water farms and dwc bubblers

 

[Guest]

ice chest 3 inch. hole saw ice chest homemade hydro in no time flat... add airstones and you are ready to grow...i use gh nutes...and the lucas formula

here is a few shots of what im talking about

 

[CarharttKidd]

I had a similar sized space that I crammed a 400w into once. As soon as I was able to manage the heat, things grew very well. SOG will give you your best yields. Lots of people have great results with SOG in coco.

 

[Guest]

its really that simple to go hydro

ice chest 3 inch. hole saw ice chest homemade hydro in no time flat... add airstones and you are ready to grow...i use gh nutes...and the lucas formula

here is a few shots of what im talking about

 

[buddingengineer]

I think DWC wins this round. My next question is this.
If I use DWC I need to keep rez temps down. What's the Ideal rex tempature. If heat is in issue in the rez. Im thinking perhaps I could use a seperate cooler to store dry ice, and use a heat exchanger made of copper tubbing to help cool the rez. As an added bonus the dry ice will sublime and could be a source of CO2 Supplementation. Now how much dry ice would I need to keep the space at an elevated CO2 level, The dry ice if kept sepreate from the grow area could last about a week. And buying 20-30 pounds of dry ice per week is nothing, looks like I want to keep a cooler cold for a picnic.
So how much CO2 is needed?

 

[Guest]

i have no idea...never used co2