Variety Grow - Perpetual, "Mini" ScrOG's, DWC in a Cabinet (First Timer)

[jsgamber]

great work on those beveled doors, that shit is tough to cut straight, so i know angled was hell. great idea with the plastic boot

I'm a man of many talents. I've hung enough drywall to own all the basic equipment including a 48" drywall T-square. It's hard not to make them perfect!

On to the morning update. Just checked in on the girls. They're sprawling out! There are no signs of nute burn at all so I bumped up the nutes by 150PPM. Hopefully tomorrow will let me bump them to the max.

The last topping I made didn't take. I think I was being too careful and missed the growing tip and only got leaf! Not this time! I'm going in Gumball style!! I went through all of the plants and topped the main stem as well as any branching nodes which had growing tips and two or more nodes of their own. I need as many spread out nodes that I can get and quickly. Keep your fingers crossed.

Skywalker #1

Skywalker #3 - She was the one I pulled from the netpot and could only coil her roots up in the clay pellets. Two roots found their way!

Blue Dream - No roots have dropped yet after the big whack.

Skywalker #2

The full cab - All ready to button up for the day.

 

[TitoM]

awsome comeback bro keep it up ill be watching

 

[Ractagon]

sick! Awesome job getting those plants back up to health like that. I like your idea with the A/C.
thumbs up

 

[gumball]

lookin great gamber, awesome recovery!!! i see bud porn in you future

 

[jsgamber]

awsome comeback bro keep it up ill be watching

sick! Awesome job getting those plants back up to health like that. I like your idea with the A/C.
thumbs up

lookin great gamber, awesome recovery!!! i see bud porn in you future

Thanks everyone!! Cool temps yesterday so the AC never cycled on!

Yesterday I made a HUGE dent in garage reorganization. I completely cleaned off the workbench, swept, re-sorted everything basically into "construction" and "grow". Then I looked at the cabinet and pulled out everything I have on hand to complete construction. Needless to say I have a TON of leftover 4" PVC tubing and fittings. I'm thinking once I'm done with the build, I'll take the spare stuff and take it over to the Habitat Restore.

Now this was the beginning of the reorganization. I'm going to move things around a bit, pull everything out of the garage and then do a full sweep, dust and vacuum the floor. Then I plan on washing down all of the walls with a solution of bleach, water and detergent. Then on to the floor. I'll use muriatic acid to wash down the garage floor. Then for the final bug spraying.

I'm not planning on doing this until I finish the construction to avoid having to clean up again!

So to celebrate my cleaning, I'm going to reward ALL of us! STAY TUNED TO THE EVENING REPORT!

The daily update

Skywalker #1 - Not only has the runt caught up but she may have taken the lead!!

Skywalker #3 - The close up is one of the points I topped yesterday.

Blue Dream - still waiting for roots

Skywalker #2

 

[Ractagon]

very nice!

 

[gumball]

So to celebrate my cleaning, I'm going to reward ALL of us! STAY TUNED TO THE EVENING REPORT!

i am happy you got so much accomplished, and things are working out for ya, but where in the hell is our reward and the evening report???

just kidding, have a good night Gamber!!

 

[jsgamber]

very nice!

Thanks Bro! Stick around, it's about to get interesting!

i am happy you got so much accomplished, and things are working out for ya, but where in the hell is our reward and the evening report???

just kidding, have a good night Gamber!!

Ok. Ok. So the evening report turned into an early, early morning report. But for good reason! But first a funny...

Being an IT consultant has some benefits!! I was on a 2 hour conference call today and it turned out my involvement was minimal except to answer a few questions. So I put the phone on speaker and went back to growing weed while earning a few bucks at the same time!

So here's what I did today (some while on the phone):

• Ordered and new 400w ballast and another 400w Phillips CMH bulb!
• Spent 30 minutes rinsing Hydroton
• Mixed up 10 gallons of 600PPM veg nutes, Mag/Cal and SM-90 in two 5 gallon buckets
• Washed 4 water tanks out and sterilized
• Constructed 4 more 2" foam lids with Panda film covering
• Took a drive to my dispensary for some....oops almost spilled the beans
• Mounted my 250w ballast on a plywood base and wired up the orange plugs (tomorrow I'll construct the sheet metal case)
• Wired up the light socket with orange plugs
• Wired up exhaust fans to the top chamber
• Wiped out the cool tube, cleaned the glass and installed the 250w MH bulb.
• Polished the Mylar and wiped down the bottom of the top chamber

Here's what I didn't do:

• BUY FUCKING AIR HOSE!!!

New water and rinsed out hydroton sitting in pH 5.0 water

I bought 2 wash bottles at the hydro store. One for my pH down and the other for distilled water to help rinse stuff off.

So have you figured out our Reward.........?

 

[jsgamber]

F13 - Flo x Blueberry​

Good night!!

 

[gumball]

good night busy bee!! sounds like some awesome stuff. these babies should be gold with all the problems you have already worked out with the last 4.

 

[TheJointProject]

That's one hell of an update bro! Someone's been workin their ass off LOL!
Girls looking good to bro.
can't rep ya again just yet, but i'll got ya.
quick question, how do you attach your screen to the tubs? I know you've been taking them off and putting them on to train them, just wondering how exactly you're doing it. I'm thinking about trying to attach a screen to my tubs on my next go-round, but because of the perpetual nature of the project, I'd need to have separate screens for each tub.

On another note, I'm gonna be harvesting my mother plant tonight!! can't wait to see what she gives me! I'm gonna take your advice on the pics and make sure I get some good ones on here for ya'll.

 

[Danielsgb]

Nice, getting it dialed in now.
Daniels

 

[jsgamber]

So if you guys haven't figured out the reward, it's to see me, finally, after 1 year with two, completely dialed in cabinets with plants growing in them!! Hey, I'm a giver, arent' I?

So for the morning update.

Formal introductions are in order. RIU, here are my F-13 girls! I was a bit concerned last night that the rock wool cubes were far too wet!! As you can see, two of them are wilting. The problem? I believe they are over watered and starving for oxygen!

Let's get them in hydro! The big bucket is full of rinsed, pH 5.0 Hydroton.

Upon taking a closer look, there's mold on the paper wrapping the cube. That's not good.

Cut away the paper and put a layer of clay pellets in the net pot.

After filling the pot with pellets, I flushed the net pot with tap water. Hopefully the chlorine will kill off any mold and take away whatever crap is sitting in the rock wool.

Installing the air stones and tubing (after taking a trip to Petsmart for the air hose). I filled the tanks by pouring my nute water in through the net pot. So how do you fix an over-watered plant in hydro? By watering it MORE of course...with oxygen rich water. I'll be flushing these girls twice a day with my manual version of RDWC. We'll see if this doesn't cause them to perk up!

And they are in!! I guess 75* will do for my air temps!

Man this shit is hard work!!!!

 

[gumball]

great stuff buddy!! so how are all the temps, upper and lower?

 

[jsgamber]

great stuff buddy!! so how are all the temps, upper and lower?

You and I were wondering the same thing!! I was just writing things up waiting for temps to settle out after closing it all up. AC is cycling on twice an hour for 5 minutes.

Temperature Report:
AC Thermostat setting for plenum: 68*
Outside: 72*/25% RH
Garage Ambient: 73*/29% RH (the AC heat exhaust is currently running into the garage, again, until I reroute the PVC exhaust)
Middle Cab 400w CMH: Lower: 66*; Upper: 74*/38% RH
Top Cab 250w MH: Lower: 66*; Upper: 69*/36% RH

I just reset the thermostat to 70*.

A quick note on humidity. Remember all the bullshit experimenting I did with DIY humidifiers about 6 months ago? I've discovered that a rolled up bath towel can hold a gallon of water! Each cabinet has 4 bath towels soaked. I figure an 11% rise in RH is not too bad considering. Hopefully once the onshore flow from the ocean comes back, outside RH will go back to 50%. One thing I have noticed is that a 10% rise in humidity will drop air temps by about 5*-6*.

 

[gumball]

Those are great temps JS!! And just think, you were so close to getting things dialed in and complete before your hiatus!!

 

[jsgamber]

That's one hell of an update bro! Someone's been workin their ass off LOL!
Girls looking good to bro.
can't rep ya again just yet, but i'll got ya.
quick question, how do you attach your screen to the tubs? I know you've been taking them off and putting them on to train them, just wondering how exactly you're doing it. I'm thinking about trying to attach a screen to my tubs on my next go-round, but because of the perpetual nature of the project, I'd need to have separate screens for each tub.

On another note, I'm gonna be harvesting my mother plant tonight!! can't wait to see what she gives me! I'm gonna take your advice on the pics and make sure I get some good ones on here for ya'll.

Almost forgot there was a question on the table. I'll be using plastic zip ties to hold down the screen. I do have one screen per tank, hence the term ScrOG'ette. So far the girls haven't been resisting the screen by setting it down on them. I've also been laying down 8lb wet towels on the screens so that pretty much was weighing them down. The problem was, I was getting nervous about snapping a plant plus I was running out of space to lay down towels.

So using some plastic strapping, I hung 4 loops from the top of the cab. I take two towels, make one wet without dripping, and one sopping wet. I roll the sopping wet towel inside the damp towel and then suspend it from the loops.

 

[cruzer101]

Nice dude, Lookin good, I noticed you washed your hydroton and soaked it in pH 5.0 water. That's not needed, its rockwool that needs to soak. Especially if you rinse it with tap afterwords, thats kinda redundant don't you think? Your gonna soak that rockwool with high pH tap water. Besides the chloramines in the water isn't gonna help any. What I would recommended is to Wash off the dust off the hydroton with tap, dont do that final rinse under the tap but use some r/o ph 5.7 and only hit the hydroton leaving some air in the rockwool cube. I think it will be faster and give the girls a better start.

As soon as those roots hit the water they are gonna explode man.

 

[jsgamber]

More BUGS! I keep noticing gnats still swarming around and dead gnats on top of the tanks (I guess those HotShots are working!) And now yellowing roots at the base of the netpots even though the roots in water are nice and white. Then on SOG #3 I spot more suckers on the roots! FUCK, where are they coming from? We have only 3 non plastic plants in the house. I can't believe they are coming from my plants so where? I walked through my entire yard and looked at every plant and found just the usual ants and lot's of bees (they like my desert flowers).

Then I had a thought, and not a very good one. Remember my flooding neighbor who doesn't take care of her shit such as broken sprinklers? She hasn't been home much lately including tonight. So I walked into her back yard and .........

It's a fucking LIVING nightmare and it's 20 feet from my lower garage (INTAKE) vent. SHIT!!!

I dare not do anything to this mess like throw bleach in it, I'm trespassing enough. So now I have to go talk to her because this is ridiculous!

Taking a breath and a ......

Okay I have a package of vent filters that I was going to use on the cab in the early design and they fit perfectly so I put 3 layers over the vent and then sprayed it with bug spray.

Even though it's close to a water change I re-treated the tanks with a dose of SM-90 and sprayed them with the 5:1 mix. Then I took Daniels suggestion and sprayed down the tops of the tanks with Neem oil.

 

[jsgamber]

So here's what I was working on before I got interrupted by bugs. Ugh!

I picked up this insulated ducting at Lowes to solve the issue of the AC heat exhaust heating up the ducting and radiating back into the garage. I'm using it as a sleeve to cover over the existing PVC ducting.

The run from the external vent with the new turn and then it will drop down to the AC unit.

In typical fashion I'm short by 4 feet. I'll have to figure something out but 25 feet of radiating PVC is covered.

My temporary setup. Not too bad.

Here's the middle cab just before closing up.

F13 #1 & #2. #1 is very thin stemmed and green but she still has some spring so we'll just keep watching.

F13 #3 & #4.

Laying down so I can get both cabs in the frame!