grow set up questions

[chadthorton]

this is my first attempt to grow so i have some questions about everything

my set us is in a 3 by 3 by 9 closet, i'm growing nirvana ak 48, i plan on painting the walls white or should i use mylar

LIGHT?
i'm buying everything off of insidesun.com.
1. what type of light should i use after they sprout and for veg?
2. should i use 250 watt mh or 400 watt for my space?
3. when the veg is over and i want to flower should i use a 250 hps or 400 hps
4. do i need to buy another light or just get an hps bulb

AFTER GERMINATION?
5. what size pot do i need to plant them in?
6. how many should i grow for this area? 3ft by 3ft by 9ft
7. do i need different types of soil for getting it to sprout and the veg process?
8. what should the light cycle be in this stage


VEG?
9. should i let if veg for 4 weeks or 6 weeks?
10. what should the light cycle be in the stage?

sorry so many questions and thanks for the help, i'll post pics and other questions as they come

chadthorton Reviewed by chadthorton on 11-16-2006. grow set up questions this is my first attempt to grow so i have some questions about everything my set us is in a 3 by 3 by 9 closet, i'm growing nirvana ak 48, i plan on painting the walls white or should i use mylar LIGHT? i'm buying everything off of insidesun.com. 1. what type of light should i use after they sprout and for veg? 2. should i use 250 watt mh or 400 watt for my space? 3. when the veg is over and i want to flower should i use a 250 hps or 400 hps 4. do i need to buy another light or Rating: 5

[bejay]

will try to answer some of your questions but not nearly all of them you could use as much as 600 watts of lighting in that space for flowering you could use a 400 but it is a little weak for the space at under 50 watts per sq ft.
you want to use a hps for flowering for veg you can use flourecents for a few weeks or a small mh like a 250 or you can even use a hps and still have decent results.
mylar is worth using and will do a better job at reflecting light back to the plants.
all hid lights produce quite a lot of heat the higher the wattage the more heat they will produce and an air cooled reflector or tube hooked to a blower or fan helps to keep the temperature down also makes the light more effective as you will be able to keep it closer to the plants so before you buy a light you might think about how you will ventilate the light and room.
mh bulbs will not work on hps lights and vice versa but they do make switchable ballast systems that do allow you to change the bulb of the same wattage from mh to hps.

[harris7]

my set us is in a 3 by 3 by 9 closet, i'm growing nirvana ak 48, i plan on painting the walls white or should i use mylar

LIGHT?

1. what type of light should i use after they sprout and for veg?
T5's are best for seedlings IMO but there not really worth the money.


2. should i use 250 watt mh or 400 watt for my space?
250 will be Way too low. 400W would be 4000lm/sqfoot, which is still kinda low you watn above 5000

3. when the veg is over and i want to flower should i use a 250 hps or 400 hps\
400W hps would give you 50 000lumens (i think) which would give you 5500lm/sq foot. you would not want to go lower than this. i would go for 600W more light more buds. near linear relationship and 600W produces mroe lumens/watt

4. do i need to buy another light or just get an hps bulb
you will need two different ballasts. Unless you want to get conversion bulb for the veg stage.

AFTER GERMINATION?
5. what size pot do i need to plant them in?
What do you watn to be the biggest size? Then try to minimize how many trimes you need to transplant to get there. I transplant once or twice. For clones and seedlings

6. how many should i grow for this area? 3ft by 3ft by 9ft
depends on your method. Ie sea of green, super cropping, giant trees.

7. do i need different types of soil for getting it to sprout and the veg process?
you want weak soil for seedlings so you dont burn them. then it's up to you

8. what should the light cycle be in this stage
18/6 or 24/0, its up to you

VEG?
9. should i let if veg for 4 weeks or 6 weeks?
you will want to veg for much longer, me thinks. you will be surprized how small your plants will be after 4 weeks. Also, it depends on your growth method

10. what should the light cycle be in the stage?
18/6 or 24/0 its up to you

[OmegaVermelho]

1Lights.

- Get a dual spectrum 400 or 600w and a few cfl´s for germination only...

2After Germ

- Big pots = big root mass = big yield
- After u germ the seeds u have a 4 week period called seedling stage after that another 4 weeks in Vegetative stage...(8 weeks is considered optimum but u can force flower early)...during seedling and veg the photoperiod should be between 18 and 24h..