When am I using too many watts?

[greentard]

Using too many watts for a grow is one of the indicators that can get the police on your case. I was just wondering how many Watts a typical household uses in an hour/day. How many Watts of power before you are obviously doing something out of the norm.

If anyone knows of an ways to produce Electricity without leaving a sign, post some Ideas. I thought about a Hydrogen Generator, they exist, and can be converted from existing Internal Combustion Engine, but Hydrogen Supply is not readily Available. There is ofcourse Solar (which is a waste when using Photovoltic panels as they do not produce as much Energy in their short lifetime to make up the amount of energy needed to create them) and also Wind (not very reliable).

[...gas...]

i know people who use big arse generator s , bit noisey , many thanx

[...gas...]

petrol 1 that is

[PharmaCan]

During the summer I run my air conditioner about 6 - 8 hours per day. My neighbor runs his a/c 24 hours per day in the summer. My summer bill goes up about $100/month with the a/c use. So my neighbor's bill probably goes up $400 - $500. The point is, there are many different levels of power consumption throughout identical homes in any neighborhood. You'd have to be using a whole lot of electricity to catch anyone's attention.

[stinkyattic]

1k per bedroom, plus one for the house. If you have a 3 br home, keep your grow below 3k total (lights & climate control) and limit consumption in the rest of the house.

I actually want to install a couple wind generators at my place lol... just feed back into the grid and run the meter backwards in times of low power use.

[stickyinsalem]

OR...just buy little cheap ass cfl's for your entire house....a 24 pack of 13 watts is like 20$ at lowes....then buy cfls for your grow...they work great and use little wattage.....easiest thing to do....i did it....my electric bill actually went down....

[onequickmove]

cfls are much less efficient than hps for growing

cfl's tend to get 65 lumen/watt; a 600w hps can get 150 lumen/watt; that's a massive difference

agreed with replacing the lights with cfls, but i wish folks would stop passing false info about how "efficient" cfl's are for growing. they're not very efficient, they're just cool

[stinkyattic]

And if we are talking HEAT, tube flouros are REALLY cool. Personally, I prefer them. A T5 fixture is KILLA.

[stickyinsalem]

how did i pass false info?
i simply said they WILL do good for a grow....dont kick me in the face and call me a retard when it is proven that cfls do work....not saying one bit that hps lights arent better for the grow....but anyone that is on here will tell you that if your itchy about your electric bill...use cfls....next time read what i said.....and if they arent very efficient for a grow....why did my grow produce 3 oz's for 2 plants....not great....but still worked good enough for me....

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Al B. Fuct]

how did i pass false info?
i simply said they WILL do good for a grow....dont kick me in the face and call me a retard when it is proven that cfls do work....

Nobody 'kicked you in the face and called you a retard.' :rolleyes: It was the CFLs critiqued, not the messenger. BTW, you're quite right that putting CFLs in the rest of the house will drop the household consumption and mask the grow usage. Good idea. We did the CFLs and solar water heat. The solar water heat reduced our bill by the same amount that my 2.5kW SoG op (http://forum.grasscity.com/advanced-growing-techniques/156593-get-harvest-every-2-weeks.html) raises it.

onequickmove's comment that there's a particular romance on in the cannabis growing community in general with CFLs at the moment is true. They're cheap and available, leading them to be used in a lot of 1st time grow situations. Some new growers think more of CFLs than they really should. They're not 'the future' or even 'the next big thing' as some think. CFLs produce low-intensity light, just like tubular fluoros; if you need foliar penetration and high bud density, you need the high-intensity discharge of HPS lighting for flowering.

CFLs are great for lots of purposes in every grow, particularly for seedlings, clones and slow vegging mums. In a grow space that can't be ventilated well enough to keep temps down with an HPS, CFLs might be used to flower at the expense of yield and densty. However, there's small HPS lights out there these days (60, 75, 150, 250W etc) which are well suited to micro grows and will produce the density of the big mothers, but won't support many plants owing to their low output.

In terms of attracting attention to your op, the 1kW/bedroom + 1kw/house rough guide sounds pretty reasonable. I've been running a pair of 1000 HPS and a 400 as well as a few fluoros for 7-8 years now with no quibble or query. I DO pay the elec bill on time, every time, though. I reckon the power co just thinks I'm a good customer. ;)

[TheGreenFog]

Great post Al B. I'm starting to like ya already. :)

Yea, I think another way of saying what onequickmove was saying is...

if you were to put the same replace your 400 watt HPS system (~55,000 lumens) with 400 true watts of CFL lights (~26,000 lumens), you would be drawing the same amount of power/electricity (400 watts), but you would be giving your plants less than half of the lumens than you had with your HPS. This means that the HPS is at least twice as efficient as the CFLs.

As was already stated, CFLs are mainly used when (a) you have a small startup capital and need to buy cheaper lighting fixtures...or (b) when you are trying to combat heat in a place where you would not be able to cool a large HID lamp. CFLs run cooler, but cannot compete with HPS in terms of penetration, quality and efficiency. CFLs penetrate a maximum of ~6 inches. A 400wHPS should penetrate ~18 inches. Big difference.


Just some info. Maybe a little clarification? Be cool.


The Fog :rastasmoke:

[PharmaCan]

There's also the hassle factor. To have good light you need a lot of cfl's and, if you are using them properly, the lights constantly need moving because they are only a couple of inches from the plants and the plants are growing that much everyday.

I just moved from a box with cfl's to a cabinet with MH's and the cabinet is soooo much easier in terms of dealing with the lighting.

But.... I have the cfl box all set up with timer and fans and everyhing so I'm sure going to keep it and I can have an isolated growing environment anytime I want.

[TheGreenFog]

More good points, Pharma. Definitely. The moving of the lights if you are using multiple CFLs is a definite hassle. They're great for cloning...decent for veg & mothers, but not ideal for bloom.

Hey, Pharma. You can use that box to flower males and then harvest the pollen...pollinate one of your females...stock up on seeds incase anything ever happens that makes you break down or get rid of your mothers. *knock on wood*


The Fog :rastasmoke:

[PharmaCan]

More good points, Pharma. Definitely. The moving of the lights if you are using multiple CFLs is a definite hassle. They're great for cloning...decent for veg & mothers, but not ideal for bloom.

Hey, Pharma. You can use that box to flower males and then harvest the pollen...pollinate one of your females...stock up on seeds incase anything ever happens that makes you break down or get rid of your mothers. *knock on wood*


The Fog :rastasmoke:

You know, Fog, I was thinking of this but, where the hell am I going to get a male of the same strain? Are herme seeds viable? I suppose I could stress the hell out of a plant and try to force it to go herme. The two strains I have now produce killer weed. I've smoked bud from the same mothers. I would want to keep the strain pure, so seeds are a bit problematic - at least in my limited knowledge.

And I'd have to move the box far away, like to a different address, because of the potential for the pollen to get into my ventillation system.

[TheGreenFog]

Yea...you could force it to hermie but like you said, I would be weary of using those seeds and being confident that they won't go hermie. However, if it is stress that is causing the hermie to show and not the genetics, then you should be pretty safe when you get the seeds. They will theoretically be feminized as well.

I'm sure you could get ahold of some seeds for your strains and find a male, though. I forgot what you're growing. Master or Bubba or OG Kush or something, right? You should be able to get some seeds somewhere. Or get a different strain and cross the bitch. :weedpoke: Either way, it was just an idea to use your spare box. And on the subject of CFLs, you don't have to have strong light to flower a male for pollen...so CFLs are ideal for that. :D

I hear you about the possible pollen contamination...and since your vent system is so pimp :pimp:, using the house a/c and all, you would want to be careful for sure. ;)


The Fog :rastasmoke:

[PharmaCan]

I hate to hijack this guy's thread, but he's only made one post soooo....

I've got MasterxBubba and White Widow.

I would want to keep males far, far away from any grow. But once one has some male pollen collected it appears easy enough to fertilize a select number of buds for seeds.

Well, right now I need to master the art of growing but, as time goes by, I'm sure experimenting with seeds and genetics is just a natural step in the process.

[TheGreenFog]

Yea, true. And I think it's no problem about the hijack. Basically it's a spin off of the CFL/efficiency/how many watts...subject, so it's all relevant. Not really a jackhi...plus...he needs to come back and post! ;) hehe

So how's the weather? lol


The Fog :rastasmoke:

[AsianStoner420]

lol dude ur getting paranoid as flock:D

[Al B. Fuct]

PharmaCan, I'm not so sure that the rigamarole of getting pollen to make seeds is all that necessary to an ongoing, continuous output op. I'm not otherwise sure of your purposes for doing this.

I sprouted 5 Sweet Tooth #4 (Spice of Life seeds) beans about 5-6 years ago- and have been using the stock ever since. I replace mother plants with one of their progeny about every 4-6 wks.

Here and there, I've seen cautions about taking clones of clones of clones forever and ever- but I've had no problems. ST4 still produces like it always has, since the first batch I flowered many years ago.

TGF said:


if you were to put the same replace your 400 watt HPS system (~55,000 lumens) with 400 true watts of CFL lights (~26,000 lumens), you would be drawing the same amount of power/electricity (400 watts), but you would be giving your plants less than half of the lumens than you had with your HPS. This means that the HPS is at least twice as efficient as the CFLs.

Spot on. Well said. BTW, thanks for the compliment, :)

However, even 26K lumens of CFL is still low intensity light. Suffice it to say that a CFL lumen is not quite equal to an HPS lumen; kinda apples and applesauce.

Here's a 250W HPS rated for 28K initial and 25K avg lumens (http://www.elights.com/philhpslam25.html). Remote the ballast outside the op airmass and I can't see how this would put more heat into the op air than 400W worth of CFL. Could very easily be cool-tubed for a micro op.

I'd put a 150W HPS (http://www.elights.com/philmedbashp.html) (avg 14K lumens) up against 300W worth of CFLs in a small flowering situation any day of the week.

The purchase cost is similar, the running cost of HPS per lumen is much less, and HPS tube replacement is MUCHO cheaper at $20, compared to the cost of big self-ballasted CFLs.

Yes, CFLs have a purpose- but flowering isn't the best use of them... and the REALLY BIG CFLs (80-100W actual consumption and higher) are simply not a good choice compared to HPS or MH. If you think you need a huge CFL, what you probably need is a small HPS!

[PharmaCan]

PharmaCan, I'm not so sure that the rigamarole of getting pollen to make seeds is all that necessary to an ongoing, continuous output op. I'm not otherwise sure of your purposes for doing this.


I'm not a real greedy kinda guy, in fact quite the opposite, and it would please me no end to be able to share a good strain with others. Seeds would be the easiest way to do that. Not any kind of commercial venture but just sharing, giving good strains to nice people who will grow them. That would be one motivation.

Also, having any kind of a grow op pretty much means that you are married to that op 24/7/365, unless it is completely automated. Anyway, with the amount of time one devotes to this hobby, I'd think it might be fun and interesting to cross some strains and seeds would be about the only way to do that.

But, who the hell knows what the future will bring. It's all pretty much speculation until you get there and do it.

[Al B. Fuct]

Makes good sense! Gone are the days when you could reasonably safely send clones around in the post... seeds are about the only practical way to share anymore- and good onya for being so community minded. ;)

Yes, you're quite right... a grow op does chain you down to some degree, but there's a lot of things that can be automated.

Watering clones isn't one of those where I've managed any automation yet. Unfortunately, due to the continuous output nature of my op, I can't think of a whole week that's gone by where I have not had cuttings in the clonebox.

However, my mums and flowering areas can go for about 6-7 days without being touched on their own reservoirs. I have recently added a system that recovers water from my dehumidifier and puts it in the tanks automatically, timed to top the tanks in between the times that they are flooding my trays to avoid overflow. This extends the unattended operation to about 12-13 days at a stretch.... provided the dehumidifier continues to trap water at the usual rate of 10L per day... and nothing silly like an air bubble in a pump stops a tray from being flooded. Real buzzkill, that. Frequent checking of the op is the only 100% sure thing.

If you haven't planned your watering system yet, flood types are the most reliable. They're mechanically simpler than most other systems and simply can't clog like systems that pump nutes through small spray or drip apertures. Much less maintenance.

[PharmaCan]

Well, they make misters for misting people outdoors. The technology exsts, you just need to adapt it. I bet if you set something up in a medium sized aquarium tank you could have a little rain forest for your clones.

You know they gotta have the kind of stuff you would need for terrarium geeks.

Otherwise, damn, sounds like you got the other stuff fine tuned. But if you're taking pure H2O from the air and putting that into your reservoir, how do you keep the ppm's up in your reservoir? Or do you just let them lag for sake of a holiday?

[Al B. Fuct]

Well, they make misters for misting people outdoors. The technology exsts, you just need to adapt it. I bet if you set something up in a medium sized aquarium tank you could have a little rain forest for your clones.

I actually don't keep my clones (http://forum.grasscity.com/grow-journals/156518-batch-clones-rockwool-post1648974.html#post1648974) in a terribly humid environment. If I did an automation for watering the clones, I think I'd do something that more closely mimics what I do by hand, which is essentially putting in 25-30ml per 40mm cube per 24 hours. Doing this accurately will require a bit of MacGuyvering... flooding the cubes like a miniature flood drain has crossed my mind but that prevents use of an electric heat mat. Running a little tube to each of 30 cuttings doesn't sound appealing either, even if I could get 25ml evenly out of each of them. I'll smoke a cone and it'll come to me. :D


Otherwise, damn, sounds like you got the other stuff fine tuned.

It once was more closely dialed in, but a recent rebuild in a new location (moving a grow op is a real serious nightmare you really don't want to have too often...) has changed some of the conditions... and I have yet to get it as well tweaked up as it was before the move. New location required a much longer run of exhaust duct which necessitated a centrif blower, which meant the intake had to be upgraded, etc etc etc etc.



But if you're taking pure H2O from the air and putting that into your reservoir, how do you keep the ppm's up in your reservoir? Or do you just let them lag for sake of a holiday?

I don't use the 'holiday' system unless I absolutely know I'm going to need it. No one can tend my op but me; a recent hospital stay for some minor horseshit would have been a lot more trouble without it.

You're quite right, adding essentially distilled water from the dehumidifier to top the tanks fully will drop the ppm. A fresh tank is about 1400-1500ppm. A topped tank at the end of 2 weeks can be as low as 800-900ppm owing to what the plants have eaten. Each 820mm^2 flood tray, holding 23 plants each, has a 125L tank. If I DON'T top the tanks with water, the ppm will stay bang-on 1400-1500 to the minimum level (deep enough to keep pump submerged while tray is flooded). Depending upon the temps of the air I can draw in the op, 125L will run each tray for about 9-10 days (at absolute max before pumps are uncovered).

In the last incarnation of the op, the tanks were only 100L. The water use was faster than the nutrient use with the smaller tanks, causing ppms to bump up during the course of a week. Unless the tanks were topped up with plain water to bring them down, they'd jump up to 1600 by the end of about 7-8 days. Just 25L greater tank volume made the water % consumption match the nutrient % consumption.

I couldn't have calculated this ideal tank volume if I'd tried- but even a blind dog finds a bone now and again, eh? :D

[TheGreenFog]

Spot on. Well said. BTW, thanks for the compliment, :)

However, even 26K lumens of CFL is still low intensity light. Suffice it to say that a CFL lumen is not quite equal to an HPS lumen; kinda apples and applesauce.

Yea, that's kinda where I was going with that when I said the whole penetration part, but thanks for putting 2 & 2 together for me. :)


If you think you need a huge CFL, what you probably need is a small HPS!

This is EXACTLY what I was thinking! And even with a CFL grow, you are going to have to figure out a way to ventilate, so why not just get an HPS and ventilate that? :rolleyes:


I went and saw some of your stuff over at GC and your set up looks very nice. I like the SOG & it's definitely nice to have a harvest every couple weeks. :) Welcome over here, man. We need more people who know their stuff...and actually post it. ;)


If you haven't planned your watering system yet, flood types are the most reliable. They're mechanically simpler than most other systems and simply can't clog like systems that pump nutes through small spray or drip apertures. Much less maintenance.

I completely agree. If you haven't seen my logs, the flowering room is flood & drain, veg/mother is drip, and clones are hand watered. The problem with the drip (using the apertures) has been clogging due to using organics. Removal of the drip apertures helped, but it still clogs up and that is a disaster waiting to happen if the grow is left alone for a couple days at a time.


Watering clones isn't one of those where I've managed any automation yet.

I was recently thinking about this same thing and came up with an idea pretty much like what Pharma was saying...


Well, they make misters for misting people outdoors. The technology exsts, you just need to adapt it. I bet if you set something up in a medium sized aquarium tank you could have a little rain forest for your clones.

I was thinking about just setting up a small res and pump with a little mister hitting the top of the cloning dome (for a small # of clones) an then raining down on them. But hell if Al B. didn't just remind me about watering the individual rockwool cubes. That would require flooding or dripping like he said...shoot...well, on goes the saga. I'm going to smoke a nice Hashplant/Northern Lights joint I have ready and rolled and ponder it s'more.



So, do we call this thread officially hijacked now??? lol :p


The Fog :rastasmoke:

[PharmaCan]

So, do we call this thread officially hijacked now??? lol :p

The Fog :rastasmoke:

Heheheh - Yeah, I think so. :pimp:

I'm not sure what kind of system I'm going to use. Right now I'm using coco, which has it's ups and downs. But I'm limited by law as to the number of plants - so I'm thinking I'd be better off with fewer, bigger plants. I have 9' ceilings, so I've got plenty of height. The growroom will be approx. 12' x 10'. I just need to decide on the most efficient use of the space. I'm figuring on 2/3 of the room being for plants that are in their final 30 days of flower and 1/3 for plants in their first 30 days.

[Al B. Fuct]

Thread fully burgled. :D


even with a CFL grow, you are going to have to figure out a way to ventilate, so why not just get an HPS and ventilate that? :rolleyes:

Yep. You do have to wonder where the break-point is where an HPS is too small to be practical (and I have my doubts about the 60 & 75W HPS units) or a CFL too large to justify its existence compared to a near-sized HPS or MH. I think that point is somewhere around 100W for CFLs. I've seen 300W single unit CFLs and just wondered "why?" (edit: I say the same thing when I see a BMW X5 or a Porsche Cayenne, too... :D )


I went and saw some of your stuff over at GC and your set up looks very nice. I like the SOG & it's definitely nice to have a harvest every couple weeks. :) Welcome over here, man. We need more people who know their stuff...and actually post it. ;)Thanks much. :) I'm an Overgrow refugee, still looking for a place to settle. Been flopping around several dope forums lately, and I'll tell ya, if assholes had wings, some of these (unnamed) joints would be international airports.

I've been trying post the cloning & SoG bits I have on GC over here on cannabis.com; I've uploaded (http://gallery.cannabis.com/showgallery.php?cat=629) the images (http://gallery.cannabis.com/showgallery.php?cat=630), but I can't work out how to embed images inline with text on this forum. IMG tags appear to be disabled. The IMG button is missing from the WYSIWYG text editor. Those two essays make much more sense with the images embedded in the text instead of appearing at the end of the post in a clump.


a disaster waiting to happen if the grow is left alone for a couple days at a time.eek, poor you!

I am always torn on a performance v. reliability issue when I think about my op which runs 8" x 8" pots of loose rockwool floc. Each pot of rockwool will soak up about 2L of water, enough to get through 2 lights-on cycles without a pump run (i.e. water pump failure). I know there's no possible way as much O2 gets to roots in rockwool than in other systems like drip, NFT, DWC, aero, etc etc.

However, the other, higher performance systems are often highly prone to disaster unless babysat. DWC can kill plants if there's a simple power outage lasting more than a few hours, due to lack of air pumped in the nute buckets. If I built a DWC, it'd have an uninterruptible power supply for a PC as part of the plan!

[Al B. Fuct]

I'm not sure what kind of system I'm going to use. Right now I'm using coco, which has it's ups and downs. But I'm limited by law as to the number of plants - so I'm thinking I'd be better off with fewer, bigger plants. I have 9' ceilings, so I've got plenty of height. The growroom will be approx. 12' x 10'. I just need to decide on the most efficient use of the space. I'm figuring on 2/3 of the room being for plants that are in their final 30 days of flower and 1/3 for plants in their first 30 days.

man... the plant count thing is both blessing and bummer. If it's anything reasonable (wot is it, 6 in veg, 6 in flower in Cowlifornia? pretty reasonable) you can keep yourself and probably a good bit of your neighbourhood stoned if you plan well.

Even powerful HID lighting can only penetrate foliage so deeply, so tall plants are not the friend of the indoor grower, even if you have the blessing of 9ft vertical to work with. You won't find any HID lighting (short of that found on your local football stadium, perhaps ;) ) that will give you solid buds 9 ft below- at least not without cooking the tops.

Maxing the yield for just 6 in flower under artificial lighting begs for flattish, wide plants, meaning mainstem pruning early in the piece, or even a SCRoG op. SCRoG can be a lottttta work and time is spent on vegging plants which you will later flower. Takes away space one might normally use for flowering. Nothing is more light efficient than SCRoG due to training the plants to a screen- but light efficiency is not your top concern if you have kilowatts of MH & HPS hanging around, is it? :D

[Al B. Fuct]

In terms of the watering system, if you have comparatively few plants, more sophisticated watering systems become practical.

I have a fondness for aeroponics, where an airstone or bubble curtain and air pump are used to create the nutrient mist. Bubbles breaking the water surface send up a very fine spray. This is a much more reliable proposition than forcing nutrient through small sprayer apertures. Roots hang well above the water level. If they get long, one might work out a way to support them on some sort of plastic netting to keep them out of the water but still be exposed to the nute mist in a mist chamber of some sort (big rubbish bin? plastic storage container?). In case of power or pump failure, plants can be handwatered for as much as a day or two before the lack of air pumped in becomes a problem. The humidity will remain high enough in the chamber to support plants if lights are also off.

[PharmaCan]

When you take 2' off the top of the room for lights and vents and 1.5' off the bottom for pots, suddenly that 9' is down to 5.5' - so that's the max height of any plant. I can actually have 12 plants in veg and 12 in flower cuz I'm growing for my sis too and there's a provision for that in the law. So I'll have 12 plants and just need to decide what will be the most efficient to way to farm them.

I started my plants in a 2'x2'x4' growbox with a whole bunch of the small cfl's. When I added a 125W cfl, they really loved it. The 125W was reasonable enough - $40 - and the plants liked it, but you get any bigger than 125W and they start wanting over $100 for the bulbs and that's just not cost effective compared to HID's.

Need to do research...

[greentard]

I would like to thank Stinky Attic for the most direct answer to a question I have ever seen, she has great teaching skills. Skills often overlooked by society. I would like to thank the people who took this thread in other directions as it answered other questions I was going to have in the future in regards to when to use Flouros and when to use HID. I am still trying to make up my mind on what to use on a mother plant. In the near future I am going to be cloning for the first time in my life. I was wondering what the best Lighting system to use on a mother plant. Small HID over head and Flouros on the sides to encourage Lower Branches? This will be a learning experience and I had better breed me some seeds for when I screw up (which is inevitable).

[PharmaCan]

Dayum - kinda takes the fun out of jacking a guys thread when he thanks you for doing it. LOL

[Tomthehippie]

http://boards.cannabis.com/indoor-lighting/102517-faq-how-save-electricity-whilst-growing-just-lower-your-power-bill.html :)

[Al B. Fuct]

When you take 2' off the top of the room for lights and vents and 1.5' off the bottom for pots, suddenly that 9' is down to 5.5' - so that's the max height of any plant.

Figure also that a watering system will go below the plants. A flood system tray is about 2-2.5' tall to provide room beneath for a res tank.

You really don't want a plant much more than about 3' (1m) tall. That's about the depth limit for foliar penetration of a 1000HPS.


I can actually have 12 plants in veg and 12 in flower cuz I'm growing for my sis too and there's a provision for that in the law. So I'll have 12 plants and just need to decide what will be the most efficient to way to farm them.damn, lucky you. :)

12 in flower still is too low a plant count to consider using SoG in the standard fashion. I put twice that many clones into flower in my SoG every 2 weeks. Plants grown in true SoG style only yield about 3/4-1oz per copy, but if you're harvesting 23 every 2 weeks as I do, you make up for the low per-plant yield a bit. ;)

You'll certainly be vegging the plants you intend to flower to make them large enough to raise the per-plant yield to something decent. I suspect you'll either be tying down the mainstems or pruning the growing tips off mainstems themselves in early flowering (perhaps in wk 1-2) to make the plants bush out a bit.

[Al B. Fuct]

I was wondering what the best Lighting system to use on a mother plant. Small HID over head and Flouros on the sides to encourage Lower Branches?

No need for the fluoros. Mother plants will be pruned back regularly, whether you are taking cuttings or just need to shorten the mums to keep them out of the lights until you do need a batch of cuts. When you cut the mums back, the lower branches will grow to fill in the material above them that you have cut off.

How MUCH light you throw at your mothers is dependent upon how often you need batches of cuttings. If you only need 2-3-4-5 cuttings every 3-4-5 weeks, you can run the mums under CFLs or tubular flos. I need to regenerate 10 mums to donate 30 cuts every 2 weeks, so I run a 400HPS 24/0 on them.

[PharmaCan]

Figure also that a watering system will go below the plants. A flood system tray is about 2-2.5' tall to provide room beneath for a res tank.

You really don't want a plant much more than about 3' (1m) tall. That's about the depth limit for foliar penetration of a 1000HPS.

LOL - yeah, so that 9' headroom gets eaten up real quick. However, with the amount of space I have and the limits on the number of plants, I think larger plants are the way to go. If I have to devise some supplemental side lighting, so be it.


12 in flower still is too low a plant count to consider using SoG in the standard fashion. I put twice that many clones into flower in my SoG every 2 weeks. Plants grown in true SoG style only yield about 3/4-1oz per copy, but if you're harvesting 23 every 2 weeks as I do, you make up for the low per-plant yield a bit.

So, figuring an eight-week growing cycle, and two weeks veg, you've got what, five trays? Obviously you have a lot more space than I. I'll have essentially 10'x10' for flowering. I'm figuring approx 2/3 of that space for plants finishing their flowering and 1/3 for plants starting their flowering. That should give me a harvest about every four weeks.

I thought I read somewhere that California has a sog provision in the law that goes by the total square footage rather than number of plants. (It was like 6 plants OR 99sq.ft. in a sea of green.) Anyway, I need to check into that.

[Al B. Fuct]

I think larger plants are the way to go. If I have to devise some supplemental side lighting, so be it.

Yes, larger plants definitely are the way to go for you with the limits you must work with. However, I think you can reduce the effective plant height through pruning or cleverly tying branches down rather than trying to mix HPS & fluoros to deal with the lower branching that is shaded or gets insufficient light because the plants are too tall.


So, figuring an eight-week growing cycle, and two weeks veg, you've got what, five trays? Obviously you have a lot more space than I. I'll have essentially 10'x10' for flowering. I'm figuring approx 2/3 of that space for plants finishing their flowering and 1/3 for plants starting their flowering. That should give me a harvest about every four weeks.

My entire op is 7' tall x 8' wide x 9' long. My 4 flowering trays are 820mm^2 (~2.7'^2) and each hold 23 x 8" dia pots. The mother tray is only 1' x 3'. Because I don't need to veg the clones I'm going to flower, I need no vegging space outside of what is afforded to the mums. You, on the other hand, are going to need some space both to veg mums and also to veg up the plants you're going to flower. You can probably do your vegging in that very fine cabinet you recently built. They won't be very large at that point and won't need a lot of space. The plants will continue to grow vegetatively a bit for the first 3-4 weeks of 12/12 but stop gaining height and then start to bulk up with buds after then.

It'd be possible for you to obtain a harvest every 2 weeks as I do, but you're going to have plants in veg for a week or two elsewhere before they can go into your flowering area. If you're stuck to 12 in flower at any given time, you'll put 3 young'uns in to flower every 2 weeks and harvest 3 mature plants every 2 weeks.


I thought I read somewhere that California has a sog provision in the law that goes by the total square footage rather than number of plants. (It was like 6 plants OR 99sq.ft. in a sea of green.) Anyway, I need to check into that.

oooh, that'd be good if it works that way. Do let me know how that works out.

[PharmaCan]

Al - The cabinet I just built is exclusively for flowering. The 10' x 10' room will be exclusively for flowering. I've got a small box with cfl's for the mums.

I'll be happy to harvest every 30 days or so. Every two weeks seems so much like... a job.

[Al B. Fuct]

hmm, ok. I thought the cabinet with the series cooltube was going to be for MHs and vegging, sorry for the confusion.

You're probably going to be vegging each plant to be flowered for about 2 weeks and will have to find some space for them for that period.

Your wish for a monthly harvest means you'll do cuttings once a month; those will take about 10-12 days before they're ready to go under big lights to veg for 2 weeks and then on to the flowering area, where you will be taking out the same number of plants as you put in.

A sample sked could be to take cuttings on the 2nd-3rd day of the month, to be rooted & ready for veg on the 12th-15th, then vegged until the 30th, when they can go in to flower and mature plants can be harvested.

Keep in mind that the harvesting job is the most time intensive and tedious part of the whole gig. I elected to harvest every 2 weeks to break up the job a bit. I initially was harvesting 2 trays at a time 1x/month but manicuring 46 plants and having 46 more to go in at the same time was just too much work in one go.

You'll have fewer rootballs, but there's every reason to think that you will get just as many buds and as much weight as I do. It'll be a very big job once a month.

[PharmaCan]

hmm, ok. I thought the cabinet with the series cooltube was going to be for MHs and vegging, sorry for the confusion.

You're probably going to be vegging each plant to be flowered for about 2 weeks and will have to find some space for them for that period.

Your wish for a monthly harvest means you'll do cuttings once a month; those will take about 10-12 days before they're ready to go under big lights to veg for 2 weeks and then on to the flowering area, where you will be taking out the same number of plants as you put in.

A sample sked could be to take cuttings on the 2nd-3rd day of the month, to be rooted & ready for veg on the 12th-15th, then vegged until the 30th, when they can go in to flower and mature plants can be harvested.

Keep in mind that the harvesting job is the most time intensive and tedious part of the whole gig. I elected to harvest every 2 weeks to break up the job a bit. I initially was harvesting 2 trays at a time 1x/month but manicuring 46 plants and having 46 more to go in at the same time was just too much work in one go.

You'll have fewer rootballs, but there's every reason to think that you will get just as many buds and as much weight as I do. It'll be a very big job once a month.


Al - The cabinet with the cool tubes is for vegging - I just sometimes have trouble thinking and typing at the same time so I wrote flowering twice. LOL

I plan to veg in the cab then every month harvest and replace 1/2 the crop, like you were saying.

[Al B. Fuct]

ah, ok. Clears that up. ;)

heh, I can't wait until your first harvest. If you were at all worried about growing a bit of dope turning into something like a job, your fears are gonna be confirmed- in spades. :D You're doing about as big an op as one person can handle and still have a life outside the grow. Once everything is running, the daily maint only takes about 15 mins tops, but come cloning and manicuring time, you're gonna be one hard-working stoner.

Everyone should have such troubles, though. ;)

[PharmaCan]

Yeah - I doubt it'll be as much fun as crawling under a house and cutting into a nasty old sewer line, but somehow I think I'll manage.:S5:

[Al B. Fuct]

Well, all I gotta say is this- it's a pretty good job, especially if working from home is all you can do. However, it's one of the LONELIEST jobs you can have. No bullshitting around the water cooler, no commiserating with your next-door neighbour about what a bitch work was last week... but no boss and no stress, either. ;)