NEW...NEED A SMALL INDOOR GARDEN

hi long time reader first time posting... :trooper:

i need to make a small indoor garden i am looking to grow 9 big plants in black buckets 5 gallon. i saw at walmart. i have a grow area of about 3 feet by 4 feet feet wide and 7 feet high.. i am getting a 400hps when i get the loot and i will use about 8# 100w light cfl for the grow stage and just leave them on also in bloom stage with the 400hps or is that ok? i am thinking about using a trash can from walmart for the water reservoir. i was wondering how much plant food do i give them when and what is the step by step on that i am getting a ph stick thing off ebay. my biggest fear is over feeding them and they die:( this well be in a basement for 72 temp all day everyday so is that ok.. i am also building a carbon filter that i learn off this website to make:) and i need to know where to buy a low cost exhaust fan for my filter. the cheapest one i can find is about $100 for a fan ! ! ! as this is my first grow i am sticking to a soil-less mix and stay out of hydroponics is that right???

Any help would be awesome thank you for your time :greenthumb:

jay

800w of cfl eh? that seems a bit extreme; you might consider a metal halide if you need that much output; maybe a 400w hps and 400w MH in the grow room? you could even set teh HPS to run less than 18 hours during veg, and the MH to run less than 12hours during flower if you want to save a bit of electricity

anyway, if you can use an HPS then i don't see why you need that much cfl; if you cool an hps, you can probably cool a MH as well. or you can just go with less cfl's. that seems like a lot of wasted energy and cost to me

you basically just need to do as much reading as you can


i'd say:

1. read what you can (also you can get grow videos, my favorite)
2. ask SPECIFIC questions once you get basics down

there are also general suggestions for a similar size space in the closet area; bigbongboy has a nice one


also you might consider a veg room and a grow room, and cloning, i would heartily reccommend it


i'm doing northern lights, in closet, closet split into two with one side veg and other flower. probably 200w of cfl in veg area, and i'll have a single 250w hps in flower. only going to flower a couple plants at a time. i don't need a ton of bud, and this way i'll have new harvest every couple months (with clones).


rather than buying a ton of expensive lights for ONE big grow, why don't you spread out the cost of all that equip (which could cost you upwards of a grand) over many grows? it seems you've got a great location (basements rock), and plenty of space. there was a vid you can torrent called "growing cannabis" or some such (don't know if you can buy it, but you can torrent), and the guy set up a very nice, simple grow room in a basement (was hydro though) with about a 5x5 space for flower and for veg. used 400w hps for flower, and a couple 100w's of flouro for veg (i'm partial to buying two 2-tube flouro enclosures, and putting one cool white T5H0 52w flouro tube and one warm white in each reflector


anyway, good luck

well i just order the seeds they are Northern Lights x Dutch Treat cross :trooper: the only reason i want to use that much light with cfl is they are cheap and make very little light "my whole house has them":thumbsup: should i use less cfl's or just forget and look into a mh 400w the cheapest i can find is $170 or $45 buck worth of cfl's ??? i need very big plants so you tell me 800w of cfl's or a 400w mh lamp???:what:

thanks for the fast reply:greenthumb:

the 100w cfl lights only use 26w of power so i figured that it would take a lot of them to put out the lighting power that i need i am only using 208w for all the cfl's...