Gastanker's 600+w Organic UV Grow

[Gastanker]

Sorry if you've mentioned it and I missed it.... but ... does the thicker glass (from the DIY cool tube) keep temps lower than that of standard-size thickness? Seems to me it would..

The thicker the glass the better the insulation. Thicker glass also increases the amount of IR that is absorbed/blocked. I'm not sure what standard thickness is as I have never owned a store bought cool tube. I want to say that the glass on my other reflector is 1/4" as well.

 

[Gastanker]

I think I'll switch to 12/12 tomorrow. The plants are getting pretty bushy and I always forget how much they stretch in flower. The cool tube and vertical lighting is working like a charm. With just a tiny bit of training I've ended up with a nice cup shaped canopy with a ton of tops. My ugly burnt plant is finally looking a bit better and the tiny plant that went into the 10 gallon aero pot is now the largest of the bunch.

The two bomberry and the little white russian are chugging along and will be flowered out with the rest as small plants. I'll be taking cuttings from them all in a week or two so that they can be the large plants next round.

Up till now I have added no nutes other than what I put into my own "super soil". Today I top dressed with 6-11-0 bone meal and spiked the res water with Cal/Mg

 

[mrorganics]

Looks amazing man, did u top, you have a bunch!!! Of tops. I'm gonna top all mine for 4 main colas cept my auto, but yours look great, very filled up tent for 4 plants, should be a decent harvest. What's the reason your doing vertical lighting, I think it'd be wasting a lot of light. I think with the cool tube u couldx have he air coming up thru the tube that way u can get more usable light without the ducting absorbing it. Plus the canopy could grow into that space. Just my 2 c

 

[Gastanker]

Looks amazing man, did u top, you have a bunch!!! Of tops. I'm gonna top all mine for 4 main colas cept my auto, but yours look great, very filled up tent for 4 plants, should be a decent harvest. What's the reason your doing vertical lighting, I think it'd be wasting a lot of light. I think with the cool tube u couldx have he air coming up thru the tube that way u can get more usable light without the ducting absorbing it. Plus the canopy could grow into that space. Just my 2 c

Didn't top at all. I take my cutting after the plants are already in flower for a couple weeks which causes each potential calyx to grow out into a top.

I was looking at a 'why go vertical' thread and started to do the math... growing vertically drastically increases the light utilization as well as canopy size - the surface area of a cylinder is much much greater than that of a square.

Here are some snip its from that other thread:

You are looking for maximum light use as well as maximum growing surface area. If you have a 1kW bulb hanging vertically and lets say your plants are 5' tall and 2' from your bulb. That's 4*Pi*5 = 62.8 sq ft of vertical canopy with peak coverage at 13,000 lumen (120,000/9) and the poorest around 7,500 lumen

With the 1kW up top you cover a 4x4 area - 16sq ft of canopy with around the same # of lumen - I need to keep my hood at least 2' away to illuminate a 4x4 footprint.

The white is the brightest light. Both are 1kW light fixtures one pointed downward in a reflector and the other hanging vertically. You will notice that the left one has much more surface area covered in white.

Check out Heath Robinson's Trees - Critical Mass tree grow x 2

Soon I'll be modifying my cool tube so that both ends are ducted. I do slightly loose out on the bottom rays but it's made up in surface area.

 

[genuity]

always a good grow,i to like the vert growing,it just makes sense

 

[Gastanker]

Oh, another reason for my venting the tube from the bottom is my tent (I agree it would be better from the top while I don't have both ends ducted up) - I only have 4" vents and half of them are up against a wall atm Would rather go straight from the 6" tube to my 6" fan via the front flap than use a several 4 to 6" converters and a bunch of 4" duct that would have to wind over my fluoros and out a bottom corner vent This tent in my closet in my bathroom isn't exactly ideal unfortunately.

 

[Psychild]

not to mention you have fluoros on both sides of the tent. You pretty much have about 80-90% coverage this way.

edit: and in my opinion front and/or back fluoros would be overkill anyway...you have the perfect light setup. If only they had a 1000w CMH bulb

 

[hammer6913]

anxious to see ur boberry tanker. mine is fricken huge. ima try to get an update tomorrow. ima thinkin shes ready to chop. my microscope doesnt work reall good. ima let it go a couple days yet. nice idea for ur cooltube. catch ya later bro.

 

[Gastanker]

Just got back from a week abroad smoking some super heady sativa on the big island. Thankfully it rained at home almost every day I was away and to top it off my watering system worked beautifully except for one plant that seems to have received a little less than the rest.

These are 1 week into 12/12 now and starting to show flowers.

African daisies, sunflowers, and cucumber coming up:

Cilantro and my other herbs

Butternut squash

Kale

Variety of tomatoes and tomatillos

Lettuce, chard, greens, kale, carrots, and radishes

Bok Choi that i need to start cutting along with chard, eggplant, and basil

Raspberry

These are about 5' tall. I just screwed on the last extensions so this rack is now ~8' tall. I'll be placing the next shelf tomorrow.

lettuce again

This tomato isn't getting much larger but man is it packing on the fruit.

Looks like my organic amendments are working

 

[mrorganics]

Hey tanker how long did you veg to get those bushes, I wanna set up a perpetual to run 9 all together and pull 3 every 3 weeks, you have a very similar setup to me, and I'm havin issues settin up a perpetual because I forget how long it takes to veg into the size I want.

 

[Gastanker]

Hey tanker how long did you veg to get those bushes, I wanna set up a perpetual to run 9 all together and pull 3 every 3 weeks, you have a very similar setup to me, and I'm havin issues settin up a perpetual because I forget how long it takes to veg into the size I want.

Those were cut when my last batch was ~1.5-2 weeks into flower. By cutting them just after they have entered flower you get a really really bushy plants when rooted and reverted back into veg. I started them on 12/12 about a week after I cut my others which means they rooted and vegged for 6-7 weeks. If you are flowering 9 at a time under a 600w I would veg considerably less, maybe 2-3 weeks.

 

[Copycat]

cool i grow in happy frog soil too, but im running 2 400W HPS in a 3'x5'x6.5' tent for flower, and 400W MH and 8 24w HO T5s in a 3.5'x3.5'x6' for veg. YOUR LADIES ARE LOOKING GOOD

 

[SmokeAL0t]

Clean your inbox bro....

=]

 

[Gastanker]

Clean your inbox bro....

=]

There should be room.

 

[Psychild]

Everything's looking good over here! Man, that lettuce looks great, wish I had some of that to munch on Lol.


Just thought you should know I decided to grow Tomatoes because of you lol. kind of just an experiment though...want to try and grow some in party cups just away in the corner of my flowering cab. Bought a hybrid cherry tomato strain.

 

[Gastanker]

Everything's looking good over here! Man, that lettuce looks great, wish I had some of that to munch on Lol.


Just thought you should know I decided to grow Tomatoes because of you lol. kind of just an experiment though...want to try and grow some in party cups just away in the corner of my flowering cab. Bought a hybrid cherry tomato strain.

Fucking awesome on the tomatoes. I bought all my tomatoes this year from the local college and several are crosses of their own so it will be interesting to see how they all turn out. Here in California we get pretty good produce but there is still no comparison between home grown organic and the ones you find in the local grocery store. It's also amazing at what you can grow in a party cup. I started my veggies WAY too early last year and ended up with a whole garden in my tent growing out of cups -

And cheers to one of this year's hybrids -

 

[Psychild]

Holy crap, that's awesome! You know I was thinking when I was looking at all these awesome seeds to buy .....do you think 5-6 mint plants would help mask the smell of the weed, or just make it stronger?

 

[Gastanker]

It would make the smell stronger but more minty... Hmmm, not sure. Might make your pot taste nice and clean

 

[Psychild]

It would make the smell stronger but more minty... Hmmm, not sure. Might make your pot taste nice and clean

What if you planted the mint sprouts in the same pot as your weed plants, or would that take up enough root space not to want to do that? Seems to me like it might mix the smells and maybe not smell quite so much like weed....plus I'm pretty sure most small mint plants don't have a huge root base.

 

[Gastanker]

What if you planted the mint sprouts in the same pot as your weed plants, or would that take up enough root space not to want to do that? Seems to me like it might mix the smells and maybe not smell quite so much like weed....plus I'm pretty sure most small mint plants don't have a huge root base.

I'm not sure how deep mint roots grow but do know that they grow like weeds. Mint can pretty easily outgrow pot if planted at the same time but if you planted it once the pot was already established and cut it back frequently then it might work. I wonder if you could layer a pot - get your pot plant nice and established and then place a piece of felt or something over the top of the soil, add a little more soil on top of that and plant the mint in the top layer. Might be able to separate the roots this way.