first grow: northern lights; advice requested

[Scarlet Sky]

less than ten dollars a month. my power consumption prob is not due to my grow, but to appliances, and possibly a bad meter. i use the flouro's, two 400w mh, and a 1000w hps, fans (including one 750w) and air/water pumps, and it runs me about 50 a month or less

[uzybear]

well that's encouraging.

i'm also moving from a desktop to a laptop, i don't run ac, microwave, and keep lights off as much as possible.

my main concern right now is keeping a low profile. i'm asking myself how it would look to have my window almost fully curtained off except for one big fan.....i gotta work on planning on keeping things on the down low

[uzybear]

another q: will the hps make much noise? my appt building doesn't have particularly thin walls, but i do have neighbors on each side, and above and below

[Scarlet Sky]

the hps will not make noise. the ballast may have a slight hum, but nothing noticable from more than a few feet away.

[uzybear]

now the balast, does that regulate the flow of electricity to the hps?

[Scarlet Sky]

yes, your hps consists of a bulb and socket, an ignitor, a capacitor, and a transformer. the transformer boosts the power, the cap regulates voltage, and the ignitor ignites the sodium.

[uzybear]

my current leaning is definitely toward having both a veg and flower room and cloning a female so i can harvest every couple months. using flouro or cfl for veg room would be essential as it might be harder to get airflow to the veg room if i had only one big fan in the window. two fans would fit but i'm concerned it would look suspicious.

i'm talking out loud here, hope y'all don't mind


but if i had the flower room close to the window with direct constant blowing air, and the veg room farther away (and have to rig some air for that as well)


.......hummm


cloning seems quite simple. if i understand right, all i need is rooting compound and perhaps some rockwool cubes? or can i dip cutting in rooting compound and put directly in soil? the vids i've been watching have been predominantly hydro, and i'm sure i don't want to do that because of flooding risk

[Scarlet Sky]

yes you can put cuttings directly in dirt.

[uzybear]

thanks your help is greatly appreciated; thanks for taking the time

about time to start shopping exciting

[Scarlet Sky]

and another soldier joins our side in the war on drugs