I am working on my first ever grow and I made a lot of mistakes, I want my next one to be 2 separate 5 gallon containers with coco and perlite medium, I have 2 “1000w” led lights humidifier, fans and the basics. Can someone point me in the right direction for materials, mediums, nutes, etc. I appreciate all the help.
Let me direct you to my latest journal: scroll down to June to start skimming the topic. It’s Promix but similar enough to be worthwhile.
In the meantime let me tag @Not2SureYet as he is a mad coco grower.
Fun and Games on the Central Coast
This was yesterday: indoor plant with sunny days outside.
I’ll get 14 ounces off of her.
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What brand and type of lights did you get exactly? How large is your grow space? Any restrictions?
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And thank you for answering.
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If you give me the brand name and wattage that would be helpful. These lights have extremely misleading advertising which throws a lot of grows into confusion. You HAVE to have light: lots of it to build dense flowers. Not so much in veg when the plants are in their growth phase: of course not enough will cause a stretchy plant and too much will tend to be dense and bushy.
Here are a few generalizations to ponder:
Autos in 3 or 5 gallon, photos in 5 or 7 gallon.
One plant will cover around 6 square feet (like pictured above) and with those lights you will need 50 actual watts per square foot of light and not what the “equivalent” is. The more expensive the LED’s in general the less power you actually need. My advice for that space is one plant, photoperiod. Our lighting expert is @dbrn32 but he’s in and out right now dealing with family.
You need a decent PH meter and PPM meter. Along with that should be PH up and down, and Reference Solution to use to check your meter. PH is the most critical thing to get right or wrong IMO.
Some kind of control over your water. If your municipal water supply is crappy think of investing in R/O. This solves all kinds of potential problems. Especially in media like coco.
I like the General Hydroponics nutrient line as it’s well made, economical and fairly easy to follow. I am using the entire “Flora” line with the exception of their ‘Rapid Start’ and ‘Dry Kool Bloom’. You can see the result above.
Autos will be a problem in a 60" tall tent as you have very little control over what they will do. Photoperiod plants are more desirable here as you will almost certainly have to train it using such techniques as supercropping, FIM’ing and in my case a SCROG. You can look up these in the guides on the forum or use search. @merlin44 is a good resource on SCROG’s.
Timers and fans and dehumidifiers, a 6" exhaust fan and thermostat or timer, light hangers, trays to catch water, measuring spoons, pouring and measuring containers, buckets etc.
That should be enough to get you started. If you need any advice simply tag one of us using the @ sign: @garrigan62 is extremely knowledgeable in general and a great resource.
Welcome by the way.
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They don’t have a name on them except wyzm, they use about 115w each with the fans on. I did have a homemade light rig with 10 sockets I will see if I can find it. My city water is around 7.0-7.2 ph and it reads 400ppm on my tds meter, I have a zero filter I use for that. But I will look at RO water, as I understand that there is not as much of a buffer in coco. I am going to start looking at prices to show my wife and see if she will let me start gathering items.
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Myfriendis410 has you pointed in right direction. Your lights are probably going to keep you from maximizing what your space will do. They will grow weed though. If you hadn’t purchased anything I would recommend getting something better, but since you already have them you can give it a go. You can always upgrade later once you get your feet wet.
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Ok, and ya I wish I would have waited, but I had already started my soil grow and the rig I built definitely was not enough light so I got these 2. Thanks for your input, I can use as much as possible.
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Dude! I had NINE of those blurple lights running haha! With @dbrn32’s help I went from 1,400 plug watts to 720 with BETTER results. They will work okay for veg which would give you time to do something before you flip to flower. You might look at getting one more like a Viparspectra 450 to add to the ones you have; I have seen good reports using that light.
You are doing exactly the right thing to poll other growers on what you need before buying. There is a LOT of experience floating around. Read some guides, read some journals, look at the seed guide and ask questions. A bunch of us (myself included) wasted a ton of money to get re-routed to the correct path haha.
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I’m trying to learn lol and I really appreciate the knowledge that you guys are passing on to me.
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Welcome to the forum @CoyoteCody If you choose to go with the gh flora grow trio. You may want to buy them separate. You will want to get the micro for hard water if you are not going to use RO water. it really does make a difference. I now mix my water. 50/50 tap and ro and my ppms are about 270 to start now. Any more than 200ppm and the hard water micro should be used for the flora series. I have only tried a few different brands of coco. I have went through 6 of these bricks below and had no issues with them. I can also get them at the locally. I have tried the natures coco coir. Unfortunately. ordering from amazon gets you husk chips and not coco coir. I have ordered this through out the year and they send the wrong stuff every time. I will be trying a different brand I got locally for my next grow.
here is what I see as the bad for you. My viparspectras get warm. They also need a lot more space between the light and plants compared to the QBs and such. So @Myfriendis410 is dead on there with the height issue. If you were to use a scrog. It would knock of some of the plant height. @nd @dbrn32 did the same with me. I was running 6 viparspectras before he pointed me in the right direction. Of all the vipars I had. The 450 was the best. I could grow one nice reasonable plant under it and had it come ok good.
If you use perlite or vermiculite. It is far more cost effective to get a big bag as the the small 2 to 5 lb bags. I was using this here till I found I could gt it here at the local hydro shop.
@Myfriendis410 nailed it. Ask a lot of questions like you are doing and you will not only save more money. You will get real world advise for what other like and use.
https://www.amazon.com/Viagrow-VCCB5-Coconut-Block-Soilless/dp/B0106PTZ2M/?tag=greenrel-20
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0094F1RLI/?tag=greenrel-20
I think you are going to like coco 
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Thank you, I am leaning very hard towards the gh trio, it seems pretty straightforward and easy to use. I watch a lot of YouTube videos and noticed that a lot of people are using coco with great success and yield, and I’m slightly impatient and I hear it grows a little faster in coco. My tap is around 400-450ppm and when I filter it through my filter it’s at 0ppm and pretty neutral. I was thinking of trying Bush doctor coco loco mixed with perlite, but I will check out the one you posted as well, unfortunately we dont have a hydro store or any good garden shops here, town is too small. I will have to talk to @dbrn32 when they are on about my lighting, I wouldnt mind a DIY course.
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Haha i just came by to welcome u and maybe drop some lit bombs but MyFriend as usual is on the case. Welcome to ILGM n best of luck with ur grow. Whenever DB gets a chance he’ll def hook u up. DIY is the way to go for now. Bang for ur buck at its finest.
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Thanks for the warm welcome. I feel like I already know 100% more than I did just a few days ago before I joined lol.
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Aint that the truth! Knowledge is power. And this site is a fountain.
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Garigan65 here and watching and welcome to our world og growing here at ILGM and to our communty of aweso fokes.
These fokes have you well covered you can’t do any better my friend. If ya need any thing fell free to ask, but not cash?..ok. lmap
B safe
Will
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Thank you.its going to be a little while before I start still have to get everything together, and I still have to flower my soil grow.
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Home improvement stores that carry gardening equipment may have coco too. It is kinda slim around me right now, but in spring time most of them had several coir based mixes. If you have a hard time you could also consider trying a peat based mix like promix.
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Ok I’m sure lowes has it, if not I know that that have peat based products for sure. I just flipped my soil grow today so I still have a little while to find some.
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