Live Stoners 1st time grower

[Sleepy T]

Hey everyone. New to growing and soon to be back smoking regularly for the 1st time in 20 years (job)!!
It’s been painful watching my wife for the last several years, but my state is now on board, and I’m going to apply for my card this morning . I’m thinking this will greatly improve my quality of life..

Never grown before. I have plenty of friends that have, and some wife’s family who works at a commercial grow out of state. So they should be good resources. I started getting my set up together. Going to be growing in a 4’ x 5’ closet downstairs.

After much deliberation and reading, I settled with the Kind XL600 LED. It was on special for just over $400 and seems like a good name in LED? Damn.. there are so many lights to choose from! I am hoping this will a good one to start and be good enough for 4 good auto flowers? I will hopefully add on later. Got some free FogDog seeds on the way..

I have a humidity/temp controlled 6 inch vent fan, gonna supplement with some oscillating fans and hope the temps are good in the white closet. Gonna start with a couple bags of Biobuzz light mix and some 3 gallon fabric pot. I haven’t settled on nutrients yet.. I was looking at the AN products but seems they don’t work too well with city water with high TDS? Need to read/inquire more on that.

What do you experts think about the set up? Any ideas/additions? Any good recs on nutrients for possibly higher ppm water (gonna test when meters come in)??

I stumbled upon this site during my research.
It looks like a fantastic resource. I look forward to growing with you folks..

 

[armanidog]

Welcome.
Sounds like a good plan. Look at the pinned threads in the various sections.
You may need a two story tent:

Keep us up to date.

 

[Sheriffatman]

Welcome @Sleepy T , best place to be , you’ll want for no other forum , everyone and everything you need is right here, just shout out when you need anything. My starting water is 0.5 down here in the southeast uk. That’s a lot higher than I want so I cut it 50/50 with bottled water this brings me down to 0.3. I bubble both tap and bottled water for roughly 24 hours before using it. Good luck with your grow Buddy and stick around .

 

[Bruce Campbell]

New grower too - I still need to get up to speed on water quality / nutes. What meters are you using to check water quality? Just TDS and/or pH, or do you check specific chemical levels?

 

[Sheriffatman]

I just check my ec / ppm of feed and run off. Ph last thing always.

 

[CannabisMingus]

Ask questions. Great and helpful community here. My suggestions:
1. Learn about temp, humidity, and VPD.
2. Read this:

Tutorial - A word on Nutrients

The proper use of “salt” based fertilizer to grow Auto Flowering Cannabis. Salts: Natural and man made any chemical compound formed from the reaction of an acid with a base, with all or part of the hydrogen of the acid replaced by a metal or other cation. Learning how to use salt based...

www.autoflower.org

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

@Sleepy T Welcome to AFNBio-Bizz light mix might be a little bit hot to germinate in so make a divot in the pot and use a generous handful of seed starting soil. Plant the seed 1/2 inch deep and keep the pot evenly moist. Make sure to have an air gap under the pot and remove all run-off to your outside garden or waste.

What you need to learn about watering will come with practice. Here are the basic rules: Never let the soil dry out. Soil and or coco can become hydrophobic if allowed to dry. This means it repels water. This in turn will create dry pockets in the soil and the roots and microbes will die there. If your soil - coco have accidentally dried out use a surfactant to help re-wet it. I like yucca powder. Don't let soil remain soggy by watering too much too often. Root rot, damping off, molds, fungus gnats and other problems start in soggy soil. When you do water water the entire pot. How to learn when to water starts before you plant the seed. Fill your container with fresh soil/coco and weigh it (heft it) this is the lightest weight and consider it a dry pot. Now slowly water until the soil/coco will no longer absorb the water and run-off begins; weigh the pot (heft it) this is the maximum water, the wettest the pot can get. The difference between wettest and driest is the maximum water weight, for ease of explanation lets just say the water weighs 20 pounds. When the pot loses 10 pounds (half of the water weight) it is time to water again. There is an art to watering.

With high PPM starting water be careful not to add too much calcium, you actually should not need any for the entire grow because the Bio-Bizz has Dolomite lime as an ingredient. The nutrients you decide on will also have calcium.

A 3 gallon pot will run out of nutrients about the 3rd week of growth.


That light will work for about half of your space or 2 plants.

There is so much to learn to become a good farmer so jump in and have fun!

 

[Sleepy T]

Ask questions. Great and helpful community here. My suggestions:
1. Learn about temp, humidity, and VPD.
2. Read this:

Tutorial - A word on Nutrients

The proper use of “salt” based fertilizer to grow Auto Flowering Cannabis. Salts: Natural and man made any chemical compound formed from the reaction of an acid with a base, with all or part of the hydrogen of the acid replaced by a metal or other cation. Learning how to use salt based...

www.autoflower.org

Good read. Looked at our water quality report and just got my meters. Need to get some distilled water to calibrate but initial results are showing pH around 7.8 (higher than I was thinking) and ppm around 100 for my tap water (lower than I was thinking). Will see what it looks like after cal.

 

[Sleepy T]

@Sleepy T Welcome to AFNBio-Bizz light mix might be a little bit hot to germinate in so make a divot in the pot and use a generous handful of seed starting soil. Plant the seed 1/2 inch deep and keep the pot evenly moist. Make sure to have an air gap under the pot and remove all run-off to your outside garden or waste.

A 3 gallon pot will run out of nutrients about the 3rd week of growth.


That light will work for about half of your space or 2 plants.

There is so much to learn to become a good farmer so jump in and have fun!

Thanks for the watering tips ManOGreen. Wife’s cuz who works at a commercial grow says that’s how they check for watering. The weight check. I was wanting to go a little bigger on the LED, but budget isn’t there for that right now. I know the Kind XL600 has a smaller footprint wrt par values. While I don’t necessarily want to crowd the plants, I was hoping it might be big enough for 4 small autos? That’s the limit my state allows right now. Would it make more sense wrt quality and yield to only have 2 or 3 tops vs 4? Should I start with 4 and keep the best couple? While this is as just as much a hobby for me and Ali enjoy the science, (I’ve successfully brewed beer for years). I would still like to maximize my total yield every few months. Hoping to get around an oz.+ if quality nugs per plant. Not sure if that is realistic? But that would keep my wife and I good and hopefully get a good return on my investment after about a year.. I plan to add more lights not too far down the road.

 

[Sheriffatman]

Dont let your metres dry out, and regularly calibrate them, I calibrate with ph 7 tablets in 20ml of water.( the same water as I will be using). Then I get a small piece of tissue and soak up some of that solution , then put the tissue in the lid of my metre, it’s only a £10 metre and never let me down in months of use.