First time indoor grower need help

Well for sure get a pan on there before you switch to flower it will really help throw the light towards the plant and that alone in flowering will be nice better than plain old light bulb.

The Mylar ceiling is a big plus! I’d still put a pan on that light though. It’s not as important now because your plant is still a smaller young plant/seedling, so I’d advise not to burn your baby with light! Lol

No problem glad I can help in some sort of way :+1::v:

In a three light rotation you can use a 2x4x4 tent with a 2x4 cfl light this would be your clone and seedling tent. The next 2 tents you could go with are 4x4x6 both these tents will be used for veg & flower. The trick here is you want to flower with a higher wattage light then you veg with because your plant will double in size in flower and you need the penetration. The lighting I would suggest is one with an adjustable ballast so you can make it less in veg then full blast in flower. As far as wattage of light a 400w will give you about 8 flowers per plant a 600w will get you 16 and a 1000w will get you around 24. This is why I like the led lights most come with a veg & bloom switch which gives you the lower wattage in veg & higher in bloom. A little more money up front but works very well in a three tent rotation plus its a lower electric bill. You can do this with two tents but harvest would be every 60 days. A 4x4 tent is good for about 4 plants I’ll let you do the math with the numbers I’ve given you. :cactus:

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I like the trick you said to basically double wattage from veg to flower so your yield will almost double

No I think you missed what I meant. Your plant will be twice the size in flower so you need a stronger light. In a why you are right light wattage will increase yield.

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Yes I did mis understand thank you!

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@MacGyverStoner said so… :call_me_hand::fist_left:

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Coverage is the best word I can think of to make sense.

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Your also said penetration, some spreading of the branches will help even more :+1:

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Penetration is how deep the light gets into the canopy.

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so to start with im getting a 4’x4’ x70" tent my end goal will be a harvest every 30 days but as you well know that’s thousands in equipment and such so i will use my rigged up grow room for now for seedling and small grow and early veg with the 400 watt MH/HPS to use for my lighting source then when its time i will put them in the 4x4 under the 1000 watt light dimmable ballast or do you recommend the led if so how big for a 4x4 to cover my veg and flowering i got the 400 watt MH that’s dimmable to 250 should i be running it at 250 for my plants now so I can give them the whole 400 when its time to switch to hps or is the 400 probably to small for a 4x4 ft tent huh see i done stepped off in it now gonna have 10k in this if i’m not careful i’m at about 1500 and still need hood tent and vent lol the nature of the beast. Who makes a good decent priced tent with all the right features and what I would want for my little setup once again thanks for the input great community here for certain.

A 4x4x6’ is a great tent to start out with in the beginning .I do understand what you mean about cost it is a very expensive hobby when you first start out . The 400 watt light you have will work in a 4x4x6 tent but you will need to get an exhaust fan and a hood for your light . MH and HPS bulbs kick off a lot of heat this is another reason I like led lights. I would say the biggest draw back for led lights is the up front cost , but if you are seriously going to do this for a long period of time they will save you money in the long run in electric and bulb replacement and heat issues. I know there are a lot of grower’s in this forum who use the mars hydro led’s me I have 2 platinum p450’s that are equal to a 600 watt MH/HPS (that is each led light both together would be 1200 watts). Now because they are equal to a 600watt light dose not mean your pulling 600 watts out of the wall where as you are with a 600watt MH/HPS. Mine with just the veg switch on is pulling roughly 137 watts and with veg & bloom switch on it’s pulling 387 watts. So you can see I’m only using half of the power of a 600watt MH/HPS with the same results. When your running a bloom cycle of 12 on and 12 off you can run for 2 days with an led at the same cost of running a MH/HPS for one , over time the savings really add up. If you decide to get an led make sure it’s a full 12spectrum led with IR (infra red) and UV (ultra violet) lights.

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got a 4x4x 72" tent today and a proper hood im well in my way got an air cooled hood local store had a steal on them so why not now for fans and filter any suggestions on a good cheap filter fan setup. You guys are literally walking me through the process of setting up for a successful grow and is much appreciated.

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They have links in the section for affiliatesale, you’ll need a 6in to fit a hood I think the one on here is 130 for fan filter and speed control

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Nug-bug is right check amazon for a fan with a speed controller there pretty reasonable. As far as a carbon filter I would not worry about yet not till you get to flowering that’s where the real funk starts. You will need ducting for your fan at what every size your hood intake and exhaust are be it 4" or 6" your ducting needs to be the same size as your fan and I’m sure the place where you got your hood would have the ducting. Setting up fan and ducting there are a couple of ways to do it . Near the top of the tent you should have one hole on each side of the tent run ducting out one of them and attach the other end of the ducting to your hood and at the other end of your hood attach the fan to the hood with a little ducting then a little more on the other end out the other side of the tent. Be sure to tape up all ducting connections with duct tape. Now you’ll need to get some fresh air into you tent take some of the ducting and at the bottom of your tent you should have a hole around the same size as what you had at the top bend the ducting in a upside down U put one side outside the tent the other in with openings facing down this will give you fresh air and block light during dark periods. Congrats on the tent & hood your on your way my friend. :cactus:

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Amazon is a great resource
They have fan and charcoal filter set up for less than 200 and a speed controller for a couple :moneybag:More so I’d start there I bought my charcoal filter for under 40

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The hood i got is sun systems sun grow air cooled 8in the plan is getting another ballast prob a 1000 watt dimmable hps/mh i want something that i can use the 400watt dimmable ballast i got now for seedlings and clones and then when they get big enough to put in the next tent, bump it up to using the 1000 watt dimmable ballast in my 4x4 tent since i got the 8 in cooling hood maybe start on 600 for veg and bump it up to the full thousand for flowering does this sound acceptable to all the OG growers out there am I on the right track? also is it better to put the carbon filter outside the tent and pull air inlet it push the smell out through the filter, I have seen and heard both ways work but what’s the most inconspicuous method at the end of the day that’s what really matters being discreet i got 1 4x4x70" tent in my room as of right now and got room for 1 more 4x4 and one smaller tent in the whole room the measurements of the whole room the tent is sitting in is 15 ft length x 12 ft width no windows in the room but can do what needs doing for vent and air into the room figured i would neck down the hood to 6 in as the stuff on the tent is 6 in and the kit your talking about fan filter on amazon sounds like just what i need to do what i want once again thanks to the whole community you have definitely brought me out of the stone age in a matter of days this is the best community ever all the things i love in one place marijuana and a community around it lol thx again guys…and gals…

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@xxpain4uxx enjoying learning along with you. I’m having a little trouble visualizing what @tee3737 is describing. I’m getting ready to start my first indoor grow and I’m reading all the forums and learning a ton of good info here. Lot’s of good folks willing to help out is a huge plus.

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Hey Bob31. I’m also a 1st time indoor grower. Got a headache with all the stuff you need to learn. I have a small growing area and a 1000w LED light. Is that too much lighting? Disparate need of help.

Hey @bob31 what are you having problems with visualizing I’ll see if I can put it another way so you can. Welcome to the forum. :+1:

Well, my head is sort of in information overload and I have read a bunch of posts and such about ventilation and like everything else they are lots of different ideas as to how it’s done, but very few offer drawings or enough pics to really make it clear for us truly FNG’s who don’t have a clue… So please understand, it’s not your explanation only my comprehension.

Hey @Rdg1951 Maybe we should do a co-post on our “issues” and let these guys get back to helping out @xxpain4uxx ? What ya think?

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