30K is a decent budget to get started. I started a 12 lighter with less than 10K. Bought everything used off Craigslist. Granted I am in California and used grow equipment is plentiful.
I used a coco/perlite mixture. 9 plants per 4×4 flood tray per 1000 watt HPS. Elevated the trays with milk crates and tapped a drain with bulkhead fittings (now called ebb & flow I believe). I ran drain hoses to a manifold that sucked the runoff through with a transfer pump. Lined the walls with panda paper and the floors with 2 layers of Ramboard.
Couple of crucial items to utilize;
Run power from 30A dedicated breakers to light control boxes on 220V for every 4 lights. This is the safest load for each 4K watts in a residential setting.
DO NOT buy control boxes with built in timers as they fail without warning. Instead buy the $5 ancillary timers that the boxes can plug into and the timer plugs into the wall.
When hanging lights and ducting/filters from the ceiling you can first secure a couple 2×4s from wall to wall screwed into the studs in the ceiling. This will make it a breeze to secure your hangers to a “stud” and leave the ceiling as clean as possible.
There are a million other tips and I’m sure they’ll come to mind as you progress. Good luck and God speed!
Here’s a couple pics of my first indoor cycle back in 2017
Hello fellow Michigan grower. I know @Demontrich knows his stuff and can offer a paid consultation. It is my specialty and I can do a paid consult as well.
What’s your budget?
8 foot ceilings would lend itself to 630 CMH or ~550w LED panels. I can figure wattage and HVAC if you choose to consult as well.
8’ ceiling with a 630 should need a 4’ canopy distance. If you use 315’s, and spread out the hoods. You can have a closer canopy, better spread of light. Or go the led panel route.
I’ve done hps in ac hoods, 315 cmh in ac hoods, and about to run gavita pro 1700e.
Edit
Currently with my 315’s, I’m at 1.5’ canopy distance with zero issues. I time the stretch perfectly. Every run it’s like this.
There haven’t been a ton of advancements in LED’s. I’m using 3500k+660nm panels that are a generation old and I’m getting better yields (1.8 gpw) than anything newer that has come out that I have tried.
My neighbor is the one who runs them. Im strictly outdoor garden. There about 2 years old. After watching 1000 w hooded meta/hps over the years, the rapid really keeps up and with barely any heat give off.
Rapid LED fixtures are 3k or 4k with 660nm. That’s good. $169 for 85 watts. That’s very expensive. The going rate is less than $1 per watt for LED’s these days.
Barrina has been a staple for commercial greens growers for a while. The spectrum for the price is really going after cannabis growers these days. $99 for 200 watts with one of the best specturms on the market. That’s 50 watts per square foot with canopy space at $0.50/watt.
Barrina LED Grow Light, 200W, 2FTx2FT Sunlight Full Spectrum, High PPFD, Grow Lights for Indoor Plants on Amazon.
As a general rule, you need 30-50 watts for grow lights in flower with a good spectrum. The Barrina fixtures are 50 wpsf, so they are on the high end of light requirements for penetration.
So, I recently shuffled things around, and I now have an area where I can do a 4x4 flower area. Small I know, don’t care.
Problem is my area is severely height limited, like 5 feet total lol. I’ve heard a ton of positives about cmh, and I think I’d like to try it out, but don’t know it I can get a way with it with my ceiling height.
With my leds, I end up about 8 inches or so from the top of my canopy. Can I get away with using something like a big kahuna hood in my tiny space?
You will have bottlenecks, you just need to consider how to stave off said bottlenecks and if unavoidable, which bottleneck is less…bottlenecky
My recommendation (always) is 2 largeish flower rooms, one small veg room - Depending on the flower time of your plants you may or may not have. One flower room staggered behind the other by about 3wks. LEDs allow for such less heating issues and if you have proper HVAC you might not even have to opt for an AC. Most LEDs including the photonteks have 4x4 footprints so that’s about 1k per, so that’s a large chunk of the budget right there, an OK expenditure if you don’t focus on high tech everything, which in my trashy ass opinion isn’t always needed except the lights.
So with that, you have bottleneck 1 - space. I always recommend putting up solid drywall and frames so you can seal off the edges and make HVAC 1000000x more efficient and flexible but that makes your prior space planning imperative which kind of lends to flower time as well. With LED technology stacking small veg space is now possible though so keep that in mind. With decent airflow you can literally make a shelf for 2 sets of just out of clone veggies. maybe overkill if your max is 72 though as your average 1gal pot is about 6x6in. Also if you’re doing 72 plants you will have to consider that this will be split x3 rooms which rougly leaves 24 per room, and if you’re also considering veg sizes this will make it a bit more of a pain in the ass also since to make it totally smooth you’d want 24 baby veg 24 large veg to just pop the bitches over real quick-like whenever it’s hack time.
I feel like if you already have the construction tools, a truck on the ready for room building supplies and don’t need to hire out labor you should make it under budget. Now I will give you the best advice I could ever give anyone. YOU ARE IN AN ESTABLISHED STATE WITH PLENTY OF RICH KIDS THAT RAN THEIR SHIT INTO THE GROUND AFTER ONE GO-AROUND AND ALSO SUCCESSFUL GROWERS THAT UPGRAYDD (extra d for a double dose of pimpin`) WHICH YOU SHOULD TAKE FULLLLLLL ADVANTAGE OF! CRAIGSLIST WILL SAVE YOU THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS… I am notoriously cheap and won’t buy new unless safety is a question so yes that had to be capitalized. I know it has been said before but really needs to be underscored. There are so many shitty growers out there that quit immediately because it just didn’t come naturally.
As mentioned before, IPM should always be in your mind. With proper RH, temperature (mites fuck like crazy at temps 85+), and preventative measures you will not have huge issues as the chemical end of IPM is only the ‘OH FUCK HOW DID I LET IT GET THIS FAR?’ option. It took me an embarassingly long time to figure this out mainly cuz cheap so make sure the humidifiers and proper controllers are in the budget for all rooms.
Aaaaand end my espresso based rant.
Feel free to tell me to can it if it’s too spoony. I come from linux forums and shit, i know the deal
If buying used equipment, it’s a roll of the dice you dont potentially bring in unwanted issues. Russet mites, broad mites, spider mites or PM. Bring in those issues and you might as well not even bother growing.
I always need to use my ac. In 10yrs of growing in a basement setting, I’ve always needed it.
