sativacat
New Member
Hello folks!
I am new to this hobby and have been really enjoying reading up on all the information on this and a couple of other forums. In the end I decided I was going to focus on one forum and try to share what I could on that (this) forum. First I want to thank you all that have shared your knowledge and experience making it possible for a newbie like myself to point and click their way into a first grow. The passion some of you show is infectious and I do believe I have become infected!
My goal is to grow for personal use. I forget where I read the following words though I have adopted them as part my mission statement. "No smell, no tell, no sell."
To this end I decided that a grow tent would be more than enough for my small self.
I have ended up with the following:
My Setup:
Lighthouse Hydro Tent 2.6'x2.6'x7'
topledgrowlight.com 96x3 LED Light
4" 190cfm inline fan
Variac AC/AC transfomer to drop fan voltage (reduced sound!)
18" carbon filter
3 clip fans from a national store you all know and love
Beans from Attitude
- Black Skull Seeds Five-o (Sativa)
- Pyramid Seeds Alpujarrena (Indica)
- Delicious Seeds Cheese Candy (Hybrid)
- World of Seeds Medical Collection Northern Lights x Big Bud (Indica)
What I have learned and I would like to do about it.
* Even with a very tall closet for my grow I probably could (should) have gone with a 5' tent. Time will tell how big my sativas get.
* The 190cfm fan is damn loud. A variac running at 50-60v makes it whisper quiet.
* The cheap chinese light is louder than expected and may not have enough light. Planning on replacing for budding.
* Impatience is a bitch. I keep checking on my little seeds to see if they have peeked their cute little green heads through the soil yet. I am glad I picked up 2 quick blooming strains for the first grow (The first two on the list above).
* I am indeed paranoid. I am intent on keeping as low a profile as possible. I thought long and hard before deciding to create an account here and post anything at all. Let alone photos. Ive installed an encrypted camera app on my phone should I decide to document with photos. Pix are encrypted with AES256 and I have yet to take the time to figure out how I am going to get them off the phone and onto here. Any documentation on my computer is stored on a truecrypt encrypted SD card and I am accessing this forum via TOR. I suspect that many of you will call me out on all this as silliness though before you do allow me to preemptively defend myself. It makes me feel better! -- So there.
* Waiting for seeds from a seedbank is annoying and I lack patience. If all this proves successful I will likely use my cheap chinese light in a second, smaller tent as a cloning and/or seed making tent. I'm curious about the whole colloidal silver process and would like to give it a shot.
Power Use:
While I didn't expect to be using a lot of power I was surprised to see just how little this tent would be using as-is.
The following numbers are monthly operational cost:
190cfm fan @50v = $1.80
190cfm fan @90v = $4.50
Chinese light in veg mode, 18 hours daily = $8.55
Chinese light in bud mode, 12 hours daily = $8.45
3 Clip fans = $3.27
Comes out to a whopping $13.52 for veg and $16.22 for bud.
This is assuming running the fan at the higher speed during bud.
This adds up to a 7.3% increase in my overall electric bill during the hot summer. Seems negligible! I didn't expect negligible!
Questions for the Wise:
* Grow tent has some little pinhole light leaks in the zipper stitching along majority of the length of the front zipper. Is this enough to worry once I start budding?
* I think it would be best to replace my light with something along the lines of a 400-500w LED come bud time. I am looking at the Blackstar 2.0 480w as having a good light to cost ratio. Does anyone have this light? Does anyone have any better suggestions?
* Has anyone tried running one large fan and filter with two tents linked together? I don't expect a heat issue with LED lighting and the ambient temperature in this room. I figure it might be possible as long as the second smaller tent is only running clones and not seeds.
* How do I tell if running my fan at 50v is providing enough airflow?
* Paranoia Mode: Ive separated my purchases as much as possible using multiple brick and mortar and online sources so as not to raise any possible flags. Does anyone else do this?
Again, thank you all! =>
I am new to this hobby and have been really enjoying reading up on all the information on this and a couple of other forums. In the end I decided I was going to focus on one forum and try to share what I could on that (this) forum. First I want to thank you all that have shared your knowledge and experience making it possible for a newbie like myself to point and click their way into a first grow. The passion some of you show is infectious and I do believe I have become infected!
My goal is to grow for personal use. I forget where I read the following words though I have adopted them as part my mission statement. "No smell, no tell, no sell."
To this end I decided that a grow tent would be more than enough for my small self.
I have ended up with the following:
My Setup:
Lighthouse Hydro Tent 2.6'x2.6'x7'
topledgrowlight.com 96x3 LED Light
4" 190cfm inline fan
Variac AC/AC transfomer to drop fan voltage (reduced sound!)
18" carbon filter
3 clip fans from a national store you all know and love
Beans from Attitude
- Black Skull Seeds Five-o (Sativa)
- Pyramid Seeds Alpujarrena (Indica)
- Delicious Seeds Cheese Candy (Hybrid)
- World of Seeds Medical Collection Northern Lights x Big Bud (Indica)
What I have learned and I would like to do about it.
* Even with a very tall closet for my grow I probably could (should) have gone with a 5' tent. Time will tell how big my sativas get.
* The 190cfm fan is damn loud. A variac running at 50-60v makes it whisper quiet.
* The cheap chinese light is louder than expected and may not have enough light. Planning on replacing for budding.
* Impatience is a bitch. I keep checking on my little seeds to see if they have peeked their cute little green heads through the soil yet. I am glad I picked up 2 quick blooming strains for the first grow (The first two on the list above).
* I am indeed paranoid. I am intent on keeping as low a profile as possible. I thought long and hard before deciding to create an account here and post anything at all. Let alone photos. Ive installed an encrypted camera app on my phone should I decide to document with photos. Pix are encrypted with AES256 and I have yet to take the time to figure out how I am going to get them off the phone and onto here. Any documentation on my computer is stored on a truecrypt encrypted SD card and I am accessing this forum via TOR. I suspect that many of you will call me out on all this as silliness though before you do allow me to preemptively defend myself. It makes me feel better! -- So there.
* Waiting for seeds from a seedbank is annoying and I lack patience. If all this proves successful I will likely use my cheap chinese light in a second, smaller tent as a cloning and/or seed making tent. I'm curious about the whole colloidal silver process and would like to give it a shot.
Power Use:
While I didn't expect to be using a lot of power I was surprised to see just how little this tent would be using as-is.
The following numbers are monthly operational cost:
190cfm fan @50v = $1.80
190cfm fan @90v = $4.50
Chinese light in veg mode, 18 hours daily = $8.55
Chinese light in bud mode, 12 hours daily = $8.45
3 Clip fans = $3.27
Comes out to a whopping $13.52 for veg and $16.22 for bud.
This is assuming running the fan at the higher speed during bud.
This adds up to a 7.3% increase in my overall electric bill during the hot summer. Seems negligible! I didn't expect negligible!
Questions for the Wise:
* Grow tent has some little pinhole light leaks in the zipper stitching along majority of the length of the front zipper. Is this enough to worry once I start budding?
* I think it would be best to replace my light with something along the lines of a 400-500w LED come bud time. I am looking at the Blackstar 2.0 480w as having a good light to cost ratio. Does anyone have this light? Does anyone have any better suggestions?
* Has anyone tried running one large fan and filter with two tents linked together? I don't expect a heat issue with LED lighting and the ambient temperature in this room. I figure it might be possible as long as the second smaller tent is only running clones and not seeds.
* How do I tell if running my fan at 50v is providing enough airflow?
* Paranoia Mode: Ive separated my purchases as much as possible using multiple brick and mortar and online sources so as not to raise any possible flags. Does anyone else do this?
Again, thank you all! =>
