1st Indoor grow / New grow room

[culdaria]

Greetings, after having found this site and doing extensive reading I decided to try it myself, I am looking for comments, I feel I am on the right track so far. The grow room is 2'x4' constructed and sheeted in plywood inside and out with R19 insulation inbetween. The interior dimensions are 5' wide, 3 ' deep and 7' high. It is sheeted in white poly and is a sealed room. My lighting is a 600w cool tube, drawing in fresh outside air and being expelled back out through 6" insulated duct work. I have installed a Frigidare 5000 btu window unit and is plugged into a Lux win 100 programmable thermostat and is maintaining a temperture of 78 degrees with a humidity reading of 55 percent. I also have installed a co2, 20 lb tank, enrichment system with timer and am maintaining 1300 ppm. I started 4 feminized White Widows, they are one week old, are in a soil mix and are in 6" pots. At ready are 4 sterilized 5 gallon buckets, with drainage holes, plastic screen in the bottom and 2" of gravel to transplant in with the same soil mix. I have the lighting on 24/7 and when they hit 16" tall was gonna flip the lights to 12 on and 12 off, with the co2 on only at lights on. Does it sound as if I am on the right track so far? Ive learned alot since I've got on this site and realize I will learn alot more during this grow, I would hate to screw it up!!! Any comments????

 

[amstercal]

Hey. I'm no expert, not even close. I'm not a soil person either, but I assume you're checking ph at least for now and ppms once you start adding nutes. And you used a good sterile soil, right? And you checked to be sure your space had no light leaks with the lights out, right? Other than that, it sounds like you mentioned the points I would have thought to ask. Just be sure to hang with your plants often, checking for bugs, changes in leaves, hermies, etc etc etc. And familiarize yourself now with sexing the plants so you're prepared for after the flip.
Maybe include a pic of your space if you can? Hope that helps and maybe one of the experts will give this an eye for you. Happy Growing!

 

[culdaria]

Thanks for the reply, yea so far I think I've got everything covered, sterile soil, no light leaks, proper ppms, I ve grown before outdoors but this is all new to me doing the sealed grow room. I found this site a couple months ago and thought I would give it a try. The only thing I think I didn't think of was co2 enrichment, beings its a sealed room I was afraid they would use up all available quickly, so I purchased a set-up plus monitor. I have like I said good humidity range for right now {55%} but now am thinking this will probaly be an issue later when they get bigger and begin to flower. I have been looking this eve on the web for a small dehumidifier to put in the room...but don't have much room to spare.. like I mentioned before 5'W x 3'D x 7'H . I guess I'll make my mistakes, but hope I'll learn quickly, this site inspired me to start this, had alot of questions but no one to ask, seems like there are many different opinions and ideals on the posts, some of the grower slang is hard to understand.....

 

[amstercal]

I'm very new to the site too. I know that there's a glossary under the FAQ section. If you mean the acronyms, they can definitely get hard to remember, but you could put up a post with a list. I'm sure someone would tell you what they meant. People seem pretty cool here and it would probably help others. Maybe even be a sticky if it got good response. :-)

You can usually run temps and humidity a little higher with CO2 enrichment and there are a lot of growers who advocate for higher humidity. However, there's one thing we didn't cover... Do you have some fans in your space? The air movement will help with the humidity and your plants will want the breeze. A couple of fans will probably be easier to place than the dehumidifier and you wouldn't probably want a dehumidifier so close to your plants anyway... you could end up drying your soil out more than you'd like. Again, though, I'm no expert and I'm sure some HVAC person would have better advice for you. Fans are a MUST though--floor and/or wall depending on where your a/c pushes the air already. Stagnant air is not your friend.

 

[amstercal]

oh and yes, if it's sealed, co2 is an absolute must. it would be like burying you alive otherwise, only a matter of time. and keep an eye on your tank levels. when they get big, they always surprise me with how much they suck up. keep reading. i'm sure anything you might have missed is on a post here somewhere!

 

[seabass212]

oh yeah. your in for a killer ride. Start them happy and they will end up happy and so will you my friend. roll one for the farm. haha

 

[culdaria]

You know its funny you mentioned that, I didn't have one in there, I put a new one in after I got home from work this evening but reading the directions that came with it said not for 24/7 {its a cheap one} so I'm headed to the grow store after work tomorrow to purchase a good one. Hopefully like you mentioned it with further reduce humidity levels for later when they get bigger and transpire more, not to mention better air circulation. I was just going off of what I've read in here that optimum humidity levels should be between 40% to 60% max, I said earlier mine seemed to hover right around the 55% level but there still babies, thats where I started to have a concern. We've had tons of rain around here this spring and early summer, plus being in the upper eighties, its been cooking the humidity up sky high in these parts. Back to the dehumidifier, they are adjustable, I had planned if needed to get a small one, and set it on a lower setting, keeping a eye on the humidity gauge to around what I desired but again maybe I hope I won't need one.....

 

[culdaria]

I'll find out tomorrow when I get home from work if the fans help lower the humidity level

 

[culdaria]

I started them thinking I would'nt need it........but then read here somewhere a couple times that they can use up their natural co2 shortly in a sealed room, thats when a day or so later I purchased a co2 set-up, it makes alot of sense!

 

[culdaria]

Seabass, I'm trying baby....thats what the whole deal is about, get them happy and in the end I'll be happy too! (: Its a learning experience though and I'm still in nursery school but I'm starting to pick it up. I guess the proof will be in the pudding.

 

[amstercal]

Probably just opening up the door a couple of times a day would prevent them from suffocating if you didn't have CO2 (I don't think they could use up your space quickly at all), but not worrying about the possibility of their suffocating is a lot easier, IMHO.

I would guess you'll be fine on humidity. The plants themselves have no beef with higher humidity--I think many people run their rooms in the 70%s and I've never seen a plant die just because the humidity spike to the 80s. The concern is mainly that you will develop powdery mildew or some other type of bud rot. Nothing worse than moldy girls. I don't know how big of a concern any of these would be in Ohio, but keeping good air circulation (a/c and a fan or two have always been sufficient in the closet grows I've seen and i live near the ocean) and probably skipping the foliar feeding or any other type of spraying when the humidity is high will help any problems you might have.
And if you develop powdery mildew, there are many ways to deal with that.
Again, maybe some experts want to review your situation though. I'm so not HVAC savvy.
And i don't think the nursery school feeling goes away any time soon, at least not for me. still learning things like a toddler many grows in.

 

[culdaria]

I work alot, mostly six days a week, I leave around 6:00 am and normally don't get home till 5:30 or a little later, then the home chores, grass, trim...pool,...whatever and other stuff. I get around to the grow, once in the evening , maybe twice, so the door is closed mostly all day, thats why I elected to do the co2 route. I'm glad I did, seems like the right path to follow....

The fan install definitly seemed like it helped alot, the girls, when I checked them this evening, just looked really good and lively. I thought the air blowing in from the a/c unit would suffice but it seems I was wrong. I was surprized to see that the humidity level was at a all time low of 50%, a 5% drop, today was the first day this summer that the outside temperture hit 90, the grow room temp dropped to 72 degrees with the a/c on the same setting as previously, I think the new fan did that too, so I lighten up the coolness of the a/c just a tad to get the room back up to the mid to upper 70's. So thankyou for reminding me about the fans air circulation, it really helped! Can't wait to throw the switch to 12/12 !!!! I've still got 5 more W.W seeds left for the next round, I'm gonna stick with them for awhile and try to get it polished to a good act, then switch to something else, don't have a clue what it'll be, I'm to focused on this grow
right now..........Again..Thankyou, its cool to have someone to talk to about it, I pretty much do the work thing, then home to my family, so its fun to discuss this with someone other than myself and also it opens up my mind to more possibilities and options I would'nt otherwise have thought of........

 

[amstercal]

Glad to have helped. Yeah, I think this place is awesome. Especially when issues come up, it's nice to see that others have them and how they deal with them. I feel like I've read for days on end here and still have so much more to read. Love having all this info at my fingertips. Good luck!