Tiger Balm's First Grow - Soil, AMS free, Mandala Satori, and AMS Medijuana

[Tiger Balm]

I've been reading everyone's grow journals plus the tutorials found here. So, with no further ado, and with confidence that this giving community will hover like guardian angels, here I go.

My grow room is a half-bathroom 69" x 54" with both sink and toilet removed. The sink was clogged with paint (young son was housepainter one summer and cleaned his stuff there) and the toilet leaked, so no sacrifice. I painted walls with flat white, and covered the window/outside wall with sheet styrofoam from the big orange.

I taped 12" x 14" for plant area to see if I had room to walk into room and comfortably work. Seems fine. From my reading here, I won't put in 10 plants, i will do maybe 4 and do Low Stress Training or ScreenOfGreen.

Then, I worked on the window. The windows to the rear all have bamboo? roll-up blinds. To keep the same innocuous look but get excess stuff out of the way, I trimmed the blind to fit within the window casing.

I then covered the window and wall with rigid styrofoam board, one side with reflective foil.

It wasn't totally light proof, so i taped the edges with silver duct tape.

Then, I added a flexible faucet hose to the cold line for ease in filling watering pots.

Now, let's see if all this actually shows up as a post!

 

[scumbragger]

Don't stop now...for a minute there I almost thought I found the Hop Scotch thread...LOL....,Have you tried AMS Before?

 

[Tiger Balm]

I have some Medical and they threw in the randoms. I tried growing 3 of the Medical outdoors, but the stealth location shaded them too much. So, I'm learning with the random seeds before sprouting the remaining Medical.

 

[Spike69]

very nice grow roomI'll be watching

 

[Tiger Balm]

Thank you very much! i appreciate your attention to this grow.

 

[Spike69]

sure thing tiger got to watch to learn and support each other.

 

[Tiger Balm]

So, here is the support structure for the lights. It's overengineered, but it's cheap. I used (4) 2" x 4" x 96" and some random hangers.

The base of the frame runs the length of the room but just short of the faucet and drain pipes (5' 6") and extends 30" into the width of the room.

And the height is 5' 10" - I could have made smarter cuts and gotten more height but, oh well.

I have some seeds soaking - one white widow (I hope), 2 misty (maybe), 2 bagweed, and 4 random seeds from AMS. The AMS seeds are dark with black stripes - does that sound familiar to anyone?

I labeled the AMS as skunk - i should change that to random. And the random label should be bagweed, now that i think about it.

 

[Spike69]

looking good I wouldn't label ams seeds bag,sometimes you buy you get free 1s and thats what I would label free ams seeds cause they are gonna be good or at least better than bag weed.

 

[Tiger Balm]

Oh, yeah - the lumber was $7.29 and the rigid foamboard was $9.85. I also boarded up a fireplace with the rest of the foamboard. They also had CFLs on sale for 40cents, so I got 6.

Then I went to the hydro store and dropped $555 on the following:
Fox Farms Happy Frog potting soil - 2 cu/ft (with micorrhizae!)
Black Gold perlite
Rapid Rooter peatpots
Fox Farms Big Grow, Big Blooms, and Tiger Grow
Fox Farms Open Sesame, Beastie Bloomz, and Cha Ching
Clearex
Lumatek 400W convertable
All Sysem Cord Set
Xtrasun Aluminum hood (cheap)
Generic HPS
Generic MH

I also bought for $200 - $300 a Hannah pH/ppm tester, the control solutions, and a large bottle of pH down and a small bottle of pH up. Actually, i think that pH up is a waste of money, but oh well.

 

[Tiger Balm]

Thanks, spike69 - i'm going to relable those to give due props where deserved.

 

[Spike69]

you are more than ready for your grow bro,you have got everything it will be fun to watch,my widow is growing like crazy,and widow is fast,before you know it hairs and tris all over,its fun.lol

 

[Tiger Balm]

Thanks, Spike69! It's all due to careful reading of everyone's grow diaries and the How to Grow Marijuana tutorials. Read and Learn, and now Do.

 

[Kwsmoke]

Hell yeah, i'm in for this one! Good job so far and good luck!

 

[Tiger Balm]

I appreciate your support, Kwsmoke. Now the boring part waiting for the seeds to germ.

 

[The Weed]

Tiger Balm Will be watching and cheering! Nice work, great selection of nutes, soil and equipment. Right on.

 

[Spike69]

I tell you that room all wht.,water supplied you are set and with all the stuff you have and that you need,your ready to go this is where you'll need patients,you see what my thread is named,now I'm in a position I will always have at least 1 in flowering cause thats where I have the most fun.lol

 

[Tiger Balm]

Thank you, Weed!
I studied the Nutrient Poll thread, and saw that nothing bad was said about the nutes there, so I was pretty open to whatever the hydro store had. They didn't have Advanced Nutrients, but did have GH and Fox Farms. I decided to go with a matched setup.

 

[Tiger Balm]

The generic MH and HPS bulbs mentioned above are actually GE. They were $35 and $32. If I'm successful, I can always upgrade to bulbs with a more pronounced blue and red spectrum, in the $100 range.

 

[Tiger Balm]

Yeah, spike 69 - that takes experience and skill! I hope to get there.

 

[Spike69]

and I'm looking forward to your fun too.lol