Space/Light/Plant numbers

[Butty]

High chaps and chapettes (or should that be chapess's...pffffft! fucked if I know) anyhoo, I could do with a bit of advice. My flowering room is just over a metre square with a 400w hps (grolux), I am planning on doing 4 plants per cycle with 4 weeks (ish) between sets but, I'm just wondering if there's going to be enough light to be having 8 plants at a time in there. Would I be better going with 3 plants per cycle?

[chip]

Hi Butty and welcome to UK420!!

Its difficult to say exactly how many plants you can get away with in your 1msqr growroom. I've had maybe 30 odd plants under a 400w before, but that was growing using the sea of green technique (SOG).

Are you growing from seed or clones? Soil based of hydro set up? What strain are you growing? Do you prefer to grow big plants or many small ones? Do you have a seperate vegging room? It also depends on how much time you are prepared to spend on looking after your grow. What about ventillation?

The more information you give us the better the advice will be.

From what youve already said it sounds like you'll be on an 8 week turnaround with 4 plants flowering, 4 coming out and 4 going in to flower. Is that the 'rotation' you intend to have? You could easily grow 8 decent sized plants a time under a 400, that would mean nearly 1 plant persquare foot.

Get back to us and we'll see what we can suggest is a good way for you to go.

Chip

PS. If this is your first grow, welcome to the club, ditch the dealer!!

[Butty]

Cheers Chip

Ok here's a rundown of what I've got. The growroom was pretty poorly planned and really just thrown together at the last minute 'cos I had 5 days until my first cuttings arrived.

I've got seperate, foil lined rooms for flowering and vegging, flowering room is 117 x 117 and the vegging cupboard 117 x 82. The veg cupboard is lit with 4 x 4' flouro's (again poorly planned 'cos the only way I could fit the lights in there was to have them upright on one of the walls) but I'm planning on geeting a 150 w hps for the vegging room (any thoughts on that idea?)

I'm currently growing from seed and clone, my first 4 where clones from which I've taken 12 new clones, I also have 3 mr nicex superskunk seedlings and 1 x 3 week old sage again grown from seed. The overall plan being to rotate the variety on each cycle. ie: 4 super skunk coming out, 4 sage in flower, 4 ssxmrnice going in.

EDIT: I knew there was summat I forgot....growing in soil, using "Bio Biz All Mix" from Growell and light mix for the seedlings/clones. The 4 I have in flower now are in 6 liter pots but after they're finished I'll be using 10.5 liters.

Nutrients I'm using are Canna Vega/Flores, Canna PK 13/14, Nitrzyme and Formulex at appropriate times.

Due to the soil being of high quality I've not been feeding for a week or two after each re-pot, but not sure if thats the right thing to do, just thought it better to be safe than to chance overfeed.

I thought 12" going in would be a good size but again, I'm totally open to suggestion, this is my first serious attempt and apart from some advice from a friend who's been growing 12 months and a fair bit of reading on 't' net, I know absolutely jack shit so, all advice VERY gratefully recieved.

Ventilation: In the flowering room I have a 4 inch bathroom type extractor (I think it's 50 ish cfpm) and an 10 x10 inch inlet vent on the opposite wall, also I have a 10 inch swivelly fan thing for circulation. At the moment I'm having to rely on good ventilation in my vegging room as I've spent up on everything else I've bought but that will be getting remmedied soon.

The temps in both rooms are holding fairly steady around the 28 deg mark but, I havn't been able to get hold of a humidity meter yet so I'm having to judge that by the "feel" of the air. The flowering room feels pretty dry while the vegging room feels fairly humid.....sorry, thats the best I can do for the moment.

Hope that covers it, if not, give me a slap round the head and I'll get posting with any more info that might be needed.

[chip]

Right then Butty

Well, youve got plenty of light to grow the planst that you want in that space. there is a formula for working it out but its slipped my mind at the moment. Just from a rule of thumb point of view, it all sounds good.

I can't help you on the soil mix/ferts etc because i am primarilly a hydro grower but i have experience growing stuff organically outdoors. Any stuff from growell is good, and as long as you follow the instructions you'll be fine. However, its definitely a good idea to hold back on the ferts after youve re potted, and also some growers dont actually feed their plants any ferts until they go into flowering. So i think less is best unless they start to show symptoms of deficiency!!!

12'' going in...Do you mean from veg to flower?? If so, then yes. They will probably double or even triple in height depending on the strain, once you flower them. Youve got some good genetics there, so good luck!!

Your ventillation may be a little inadequate once things are really going, but you could maybe invest in some more extraction etc after the first succesful grow.

A word of warning, where youve got your inlet, make sure that no light can get into your flowering room when the light is off. I've got a bit of a thing about light pollution, as some of the others will point out, but it is worthwhile making sure youve got no light seeping in. Best thing to do is once everything is set, get into your growroom with the light off, wait for a few minutes and then check to see if any light is coming in. Personally, i make sure there is NONE AT ALL, but others disagree. But i always think, better to be safe than sorry. There's nothing worse than seeing beautiful fat resinous buds start stretching and loosing their density and potency because youve got a light leak.

Hope all that helps

Sorry its taken a few days but ive been unable to log on

Catcha later

Chip

[Butty]

Cheers again m8. I think you're right with the extraction....it's starting to struggle a little bit now, as for the vent , what I've done is drilled a large square of holes and fixed a shallow box on the inside which vents downwards with the opening being 9" below the drillings, does the job with preventing light pollution and to increase airflow it opens directly behind my circulation fan.

Any suggestions for a more suitable extractor?

[chip]

You could add another extractor fan of the same type, but blowing in rather than sucking out. It just depends on how much you can spend.

Highlander will be along soon to tell you all about LTI fans etc, they are top notch and well worth the money.

Chip

(wheres highlander??)

[Butty]

Hi Chip

Thanks for the advice, I think I'll try the intake fan idea...I may be able to pick up another bathroom fan for no quids

Unfortunately cost is an issue right now but hopefully, I'll have a few quid spare before too long. I messed up big time by not doing any real research before building my room, even tho' I got my HPS for free I still ended up spending over £250 just on the room (I think it was actually closer to 300). I made the fatal mistake of leaving it all 'til the last minute. So instead of a nice simple, relatively cheap, frame supporting mylar, I've ended up with a T+G shed built in my loft . Hopefully next year, I'll rip it all down and re-build, this time armed with a little experience and, some solid advice from you guys I'll end up with a quality setup.

Cheers

EDIT: oh yeah while I think on....I'll be doing a spot of breeding before too long....I've got a male Sage so if all goes to plan I'll have some Sage, SageXSuper Skunk and SageXSuper SkunkXMr Nice seeds ...... just thought I'd mention it I'll be looking to start the pollination program in about 8 weeks time so if yer interested, give me a shout and I'll let you know when they're ready B)

[chip]

Maybe we could trade a few seeds at some point. I got quite a mixture building up at the moment.

skunk x afghan

skunk x afghan x white rhino (WR)

Blueberry (BB) x WR

WR f#1 (only a few of these)

WR f#2 (loads of these)

Generals daughter x WR

K2 f#1

Good luck with your grow.

Chip

[Butty]

Cool !! Definitely be interested in doing a few swapsies m8. Nice one!

EDIT: woops spellink!!

[TrichomeUK]

High there,

I've speed read the thread, and can recommend the following:

in that space, 600W HPS, most efficient bulb (90,000 lumens), top yields.

A 400 will produce weaker plants, with no-where near as much bud (55,000 lumens).

For venting, go for a 420m3/hr out, and if you can afford it another 420m3/hr RVK/"LTI" fan.

www.hometech.nl and www.smokeys.nl do these fans very cheap.

Have you also thought about a 110x110cm flood and drain table (SPAM REMOVED)

Or maybe 2 x 424 NFT hydro tanks?

Going hydro needn't be difficult (It's EASY!), and will really max-out your space.

All the best,

t:uk

[Highlander]

Chip Butty, sorry Butty,

If you already have a 400w light for your 1msq room i think it will be all right. It is roughly 37 lumens per square foot, though as trike says a 600 would bw more efficient.

Personally what i found was that light spread was restricted by the actual shade, I remedied mine by cutting away at the end panels(if you have them) then flattening the shade a little this will divert the focus of the light from the centre, giving more light to the plants around the edge and it should also allow youbto lower the loight a little as the centre wont be as hot. If you have an lti fan(if you haven't then a 5" or 420cum 6" if noise is not a problem) should be used to cool the room. To make this more efficient you could drop down some ducting and fix it to the side of the shade so it draws heat directly off the bulb, allowing you to go lower still.

ps i would recommend tying down the main colas ,as you pnly have 8 plants they will bound to be bushy with plenty of side growth, so that again your light absorbtion will be more efficient.

Doing these things will garuantee a bigger yield.

pps. what size pots are they in? I have found that those 10" flower buckets are really good as you wont need to water that often and yes again they will help with yield.

ppps. oops you last postedon this thread on Aug 15, i hope this thread's not dead

[TrichomeUK]

Remember Highlander: it's better to have a larger fan running at 3/4 than a smaller fan running flat out.

-Reduces noise and wear on fan.

All the best

[Butty]

Thanks HL

I'm using 10 litre pots mate (don't know what they measure TBH) but, I'm seriously considering a growtank from growell. I butchered the lamp within about a week or two of getting it, primarily so that I could get the ballast out of the room to get the temp down but I did remove the end plates and opened out the shade a bit but TBH, with it being my first grow I'm playing safe and keeping it 18" from the tops at the moment.

Cheers Butty