My First Grow, Coming up

[Vagabond]

I am going to start my first grow in a few months and was wondering what everyone recommends for lighting and nutrients. Right now my basic idea is to use my storage closet in the apartment I will be living at to store roughly 5 seeds. Three of the seeds will be Apollo 11s by Spice Brothers. The other two I believe are white rhino seeds, I got them from a friend about 6 months back and what to see what they are. Each plant will have its own 5 gallon bucket. I was also wondering if I should start more than 5 seeds in case some don't sprout or if some turn out to be male. If I do this, would it be worth it to use something like two seeds per bucket and clear out the males?
I was wondering what kind of wattage I would want for this. I was thinking like 2 MH/HPS 1000 watt lamps. Is this too much? I think I have the basics of this stuff down, but I am completely unsure what wattage is best for lamps, at least a min and a max I guess. As a note, the close I will be using is about 7 feet to the ceiling and about 5 feet deep. What kind of nutrients does everyone find to work the best? I do plan on using a soil medium. How does everyone prefer to start their seeds as well and then transfer in to what?
Thanks for the help and information

Vagabond Reviewed by Vagabond on 02-06-2006. My First Grow, Coming up I am going to start my first grow in a few months and was wondering what everyone recommends for lighting and nutrients. Right now my basic idea is to use my storage closet in the apartment I will be living at to store roughly 5 seeds. Three of the seeds will be Apollo 11s by Spice Brothers. The other two I believe are white rhino seeds, I got them from a friend about 6 months back and what to see what they are. Each plant will have its own 5 gallon bucket. I was also wondering if I should Rating: 5

[Vagabond]

could anyone please help me out here?

I really need to know what sort of stuff I need to get buying.
Right now I am heavily considering the light system especially, that seems to be the most expensive part and I don't know what is the best way to use the lamps, I wanted to use an HPS setup and for veg use the MH, but I just read that is not nearly as efficient. Does anyone have a clue? Thanks

[Vagabond]

This is the light setup I am thinking about using: HPS/MH system on ebay. Would this be good or should I try to go with something with higher lumens on the MH conversion bulb? I am on a somewhat tight budget and would rather not spend over 300 bucks on just the lamps. I will most likely get a cooling fan for the reflector as well as a roll of mylar. Any thoughts?

[turtle420]

This is the light setup I am thinking about using: HPS/MH system on ebay. Would this be good or should I try to go with something with higher lumens on the MH conversion bulb? I am on a somewhat tight budget and would rather not spend over 300 bucks on just the lamps. I will most likely get a cooling fan for the reflector as well as a roll of mylar. Any thoughts?

Seems good my man,

Spend as much $ as you can in lights...

Is it soil or hydro?

[Vagabond]

soil, I have not yet decided on soil or nutes yet though, I don't really understand what npk is best for what yet

[turtle420]

soil, I have not yet decided on soil or nutes yet though, I don't really understand what npk is best for what yet

Yeah, I don't understand either the NPK charts. I know what they are, but I don't know... you know.

When I have a problem, I psychically connect with Garden Knowm and ask him.

If that doesn't work, then I read the instructions...

[Vagabond]

lol instructions...

[Vagabond]

So there I was balls deep in Earl May's when I realized that I am completely clueless on soil mixtures and nutrients. I have read quite a few FAQ on the topic, but most seem really vague, for example on this site it says "2 parts moss, 1 part perlite, 1 part sand and four gallons of soil." I don't know what the hell this is supposed to tell me but to me it means if I have 8 gallons of premixed fertilizer, moss, etc. then I can just mix it with 4 gallons of soil and be well off.
The other problem is I can only seem to get my hands on top soil and not potting soil without pre-added nutrients and perlite. This wouldn't bother me so much, but none of the potting mixes I have found have the ingredients listed, amounts, and nutrient content listed. The other problem is that even if I used the top soil (which I would really rather not) I do not know what kind of premixed solid fertilizer to choose. I have several videos downloading on the subject. One of the videos used a 12-6-6 fertilizer. Other FAQ have suggested fertilizers with a lower nitrogen ratio. Could anyone please help me figure out a good soil mix and solid fertilizer?

The list of supplies I have bought so far:

Vermiculite (for starter pots?)------ 8.8L
Perlite (for final pots?)------ 17L
Spaghnum Peat Moss------ 8.8L
DiptoGrow Liquid Rooting Concentrate------ 60mL
Polished Stones------ 5lbs
3.5 inch^2 x 4 inch deep pots (for seedlings)------ 18
120w Spot Bulb(not sure exactly on the name here, but it is for seedlings)
Pill form pH testers
pH up
pH down (sulfuric acid I believe)
Spray Bottle
Seeds------ only 5 Apollo 11 f2s from Spice Bros. so far, trying to get more variety (no luck yet)

I know I need soil and sand and am going to buy the lamp listed in an earlier post as well as mylar and a duct system for the reflector.

I did not buy any fertilizers, because I realized no matter what I got it was going to be wrong. They had fish emulsion, but the NPK ratio was weird, about 2-4.5-2. That is probably wrong, but is this the correct fish emulsion that I have seen so many people recommend? It seems to be too low on N to work well. Besides the soil mix and nutes I have the supplies almost covered (as you can see a few things to buy yet), a few small things like the negative ion generators I have not worked on much. I will probably have to order that specifically on the internet which I'm trying to stay away from as much as possible due to credit card databases. If I have to get nutes of the internet though I am not too bothered by it, especially with the little luck I am having in town.

This paragraph is the basic plan I have. I will start the seeds using the tried and true moist paper towel method. When they germinate and have a nice taproot I will transfer to the vermiculite soil mix in small pots under the 120w cfl(I think) until they are about a week old and then put them under the 1000w lamp with probably at least 3 feet from the plant tops for between 18-24 hours a day (rather worried about energy costs), question here as well: Will the liquid root hormone I bought work for this or do I need to get a powder for the seeds? Once I feel they have outgrown those(two weeks should be enough) I will transfer to some 12" pots (lip to lip) that are about 15" deep with the perlite soil and gradually bring the light down to 15" above the plant tops. I am not 100% sure about the water schedule, from the videos I have seen they just spray the soil and the plant itself (doesn't spraying the plant with lights on cause the plant to burn?), but I read that 200mL watering solution every 2-3 days is recommended. I would also like to bend the plants to improve bushiness, but I can't decide between that or the sea of green(which I don't yet fully understand, still studying this stuff). I will pick out all males as I notice them, make hash with that and female cuttings. Once I see a cola I would also like to create multiples per plant, but this seems tricky so maybe not. That would be everything that comes to mind at the moment.

Any help with anything would be infinitely appreciated, if I get a nice mother I wouldn't mind sending out cuttings if anyone will tell me what to put them in for mail delivery. Thanks again *super excited*

[YASoob]

idk man. if you buy those 2/ 1000watt light, your bill is gonna be really high. 1000watt light fixture uses 1100 watts per hour

example: 6 hrs x 1100 watts / 1000 x $.04 kwh x 30 days = $7.82

18 hr x 30 days = $23 month (4 cent a month)
18 hr x 30 days = $150 month (26 cent a month)

[Vagabond]

I am only getting a single 1000w lamp. The energy costs shouldn't be much of a problem, but if it costs more than a hundred bucks just to run the lamp I might have to rethink some of this.