Just saying hi, and welcome to ILGM! Youāre in good hands.
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Iāll tell you where you can also learn a LOT other than from the great people of this forum if you are a visual learner. YouTube has great resources but one guy in particular that is super easy to watch and has a closet grow is āmr. Canucksā
I have spent hundreds of hours watching and re watching his content. Another good person is āfrom seed to stonedā.
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Welcome! I was looking over your list, and under your lights, where it asks for temp, you wrote night 7pm to 7am. I assume that is your lighting schedule? So your putting them to flower? I just want to get clarification.
i strongly suggest to start small and expand when u have some experience.!
3,000 watts of HPS for a beginner might be over-whelming.
maybe start with one 1000w HPS and run a few grows, then get another for a few more grows, then get the 3rd.!
HID lighting is good, but it is also a lot of heat to manage,
i swapped from 800 watts of HID to Quantum Boards,
now i m using 3 of theseā¦
https://growerslights.com/collections/horticulture-lighting-group/products/horticulture-lighting-group-135-watt-quantum-board-led-kit
HLG has many options to fit your grow areaā¦
https://growerslights.com/collections/horticulture-lighting-group/products/horticulture-lighting-group-135-watt-quantum-board-led-kit
maybe get one or two 135w QBās for a few plants now and expand over time.!
dbrn has a good point,
a perpetual grow would produce more in the same space with less light/heat.!!
this would be a great place to startā¦
https://www.ilovegrowingmarijuana.com/guides/?_ga=2.36185955.230466269.1555643127-54039342.1522159480
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I was told to put them on a 12hr cycle
For veg , and to do it overnight so that itās cheaper on hydro.
So regretting getting into this now. 
To be perfectly honest didnāt even know having the 2 separate rooms was an option. I sorta got thrown into this way too quickly, picked Up my 17plants that I donāt want to die. Iāve been given sooo much info and everyone goes against the previous advise. To the point I had a guy selling me 4 T5 HO 6bulb systems telling me they are great from veg to flower and I had nothing to worry about.
Yes I was wanting to transfer them to these very 5gal bags. But was told to leave them for another few weeks to build the roots.
So if I get 1 HPS system will it be enough for my 17plants.
Iāve read so much on so many things my eyes are crossed and brain a little frazzled.
Would it be beneficial as I build to have multiple types of lights ?
The HPS then a QB on each side ? If I can build a little sower Iād prefer that over draining so much money at one time.
Also does this site have a instant message option. I couldnāt respond to all you amazing helpful folks as the system said I had to wait 24hrs I had hit my limit of posting.
Thanks to everyone for helping this clueless girl 
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A 12-12 cycle will throw them into flower time. If you want them to grow more you need to increase light time to more than 12hrs. At least until you have repotted them.
Take a deep breath; one step at a time and it will be fine.
No IM function on the public forum: this is to prevent sharing private information.
The T5ās are okay, not ideal, for vegging your plants. MH/HPS or LED will take you to the finish line much more effectively. If you choose LED stay away from Amazon and their āblurpleā lights. There are MUCH better options available.
If you go with MH/HPS, you will need to manage a fair amount of heat rejection. If you are in a hot climate or your setup is in an uninsulated space that could pose more problems. A/C is an option but every piece of equipment you add to the space is more electricity. I prefer LEDās for my setup as Iām in a garage space. Using diy LEDās that are FAR more efficient than MH/HPS and way less heat to manage. The downside is itās fairly expensive technology. The upside is itās a big savings on electricity.
You have CMH, MH/HPS, Fluorescent and LED for the available platforms.
@dbrn32 raises a good point if you want to do a perpetual grow. Your plants require the most space and light once they are in flower so you could concentrate just on dedicated flowering lights.
The amount of space you use will be determined by the size of your plants. You have complete control over that. Bigger plants take up more space but yield more than smaller ones. Small ones you can flip multiple times per year for more yield. (@MattyBear does this)
Unless you want to flower off your plants you need to increase the light duration to something like 16/8 to keep them from flowering. This is what is meant by āphotoperiodā. Autoflowering doesnāt care. Photos do. Also; get them out of those Solo cups ASAP. Do NOT use soil that says anything like āneeds no fertilizer for 3 monthsā or āmoisture controlā. You want something optimized for cannabis like Fox Farms or Roots Organics.
Donāt give up or get overwhelmed. It is a common thing to see a bunch of (sometimes) conflicting advice. I would strongly recommend you reach out to someone here as a mentor and follow their advice until you have some grow time under your belt. Weāve all been the nervous mom and it really gets much easierāmore zenāthe more you do this. Learning what not to stress over is a big part of it.
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Also, you can get them out of the red cups when you feel like doing the jobā¦they are ready. AND relax, these plants are forgiving, and if you never lose one or two it would be surprising. Lights, water, room to grow is your main goals right nowā¦things will come together; promise.
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Myfriendis410 has you pretty well hooked up on info here.
Plants will flower as soon as mature on 12 hour light schedule. This is pretty much immediately with clones, and 4-5 weeks old on plants from seed. Thereās a couple of funky things you can do around that, but more advanced growing techniques. You should probably go for basics while you get your feet wet, and look at more advanced stuff later.
Same goes for lights too. Donāt really look at lighting as required per plant count. You want to make sure lighting will do job required for the area youāre growing in. Then you determine what size plants you want from there. Again there are more advanced growing techniques that size of plant desired can vary a lot. Some may run 20+ small plants in a 4x4 space, others may run 1 really big plant in the same space. But the lighting requirement for the space doesnāt change. You can grow seed to harvest under fluorescent, but you wonāt be happy with results of flowering plants under a small fluorescent fixture like that, not even a little with 17 plants.
Weāre way behind here already having plants. I would get them on longer light schedule asap. From there, you need to get a space setup. I donāt care what you use for lights, thatās all going to come down to how much you want to spend. If youāre going with hps rig, a 1000 watt hps will do up to 5x5 area. Thinking about breaking available space down to multiple growing areas, you have 5ā on short wall right? So 5x whatever will be your spaces should you decide to move perpetual.
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the posting limit is just when u r new.
un-frazzle girl, u r in the right place now.!
unfortunately not, i would keep the best 4-8 plants and cull the rest.
u can do this, the benefit would only be for vegging and flowering in the same area.
then u could run the QBās for veg and add the HPS for flower.!
definitely the way to go, both for sanity and funds.!!
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Thank you ,
Mine is also in a garage , while I learn then will rent a farm space or greenhouse when I increase to my 244plants.
Increasing to 16hrs ,
Over the next 2 day will head to the greenhouses tomorrow for 5gal and soil.
Iām going to do more reading on nutes within the help files here and see whatās readily available to me without relying on mail orders.
Thanks again. Iām a gardener and have quite the green thumb donāt know why Iām so stressed, I guess itās the importance of the plant, time invested and costs associated.
Much thanks to you all. 
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May I ask how you guys feel about Dyna Gro. Iāve seen some pretty sophisticated nutes. But seems this brand is easy and simple for newbies and from my readings gets pretty good results.
Until I get the experience in to know what the plant needs by way of its appearance.
What did some of you start with that you were happy with before becoming more experienced. ?
Anything simple I may be able to grab from
A greenhouse while I figure out what to use and wait for shipment as it seems everything is mail order.
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Dynagro will be fine. It doesnāt get a lot of plugs because itās cheap, or doesnāt have a fancy label or something. You may have to search outside of the forum, but I think you can find some solid results using their foliage pro with pro-tekt and maybe one other bottle.
Synthetic nutrients all use the same handful of components to make them. There are a few that wonāt stay in suspension together, thatās why you see multiple bottles. But thereās no reason for you to start off with several hundred dollars of nutrients. Get basics covered and add anything else you need later.
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Outstanding!
Big grow for the first time, congrats!
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