Toolage 87's Indoor Grow Garden

[massah]

The last picture you posted makes me think of the first time I grew in my basement trying to utilize one of the dual 4' florescent fixtures with 40watt bulbs in it alone throughout the entire process, just swapping out the bulbs in "flowering" stage to a different bulb type. They were extremely stretched, 4 plants, got about an 8th total of all 4 plants. I feel like I completely wasted my time over that 4 months.

Yeah your plants look healthy, nice color to them, but you will not get anything but tiny buds off it If you want to get a better result, make a smaller box, and do LST or SCROG keeping that lamp or lamps as close as possible to get as much light into them, paint the walls flat white to reflect as much as that light as possible into the girls. I hated it when people told me that, but man this 3rd grow I finally grew up to using some HPS and its a world of difference so far...

 

[Toolage 87]

The last picture you posted makes me think of the first time I grew in my basement trying to utilize one of the dual 4' florescent fixtures with 40watt bulbs in it alone throughout the entire process, just swapping out the bulbs in "flowering" stage to a different bulb type. They were extremely stretched, 4 plants, got about an 8th total of all 4 plants. I feel like I completely wasted my time over that 4 months.

Yeah your plants look healthy, nice color to them, but you will not get anything but tiny buds off it If you want to get a better result, make a smaller box, and do LST or SCROG keeping that lamp or lamps as close as possible to get as much light into them, paint the walls flat white to reflect as much as that light as possible into the girls. I hated it when people told me that, but man this 3rd grow I finally grew up to using some HPS and its a world of difference so far...

I'm not going to flower those plants. They are going to stay in veg for life. I have a 70w HPS light that I will use for when I get clones off of them to flower. I don't care if they stretch because I'll be cloning them so its not a big deal.

 

[Toolage 87]

----- September 6th, 2011 Update -----




Hey all. I haven't been feeling 100% lately and I found out that there's a 25 hector fire near me so I will see how things go. I did a pic update of the plant in DWC. I changed the water in it and gave it a 2ml of B-1 Thrive (1-1-1.5) and 2ml of Insta Green (3-0-0). I did a pic of the rootball on my DWC plant. The roots don't look white but that's because where I took the pic the lights give off a red kind of light. Also I did a bit of leafing to it since it needed some.
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[Toolage 87]

----- September 16th, 2011 Update -----

Hey all. Yesterday I when out and bought a few things. I know things don't look as good before but I am trying to get things setup as fast as I can and put in money that I can to get it setup faster. I bought some PH Up , PH Down and a LED Panel. I figured that I should control the PH level of my hydro and worry about the lights later because well we all know PH in hydro that is out of whack even a bit can cause a lot of problems. I was told that they PH of the hydro for veg should be at 6.5 and for flowering it should be at 6.2. How true is this PH range that the guy told me that they system should be at?



----- 13w , 0.19 Amps - 12"x12" , Cost - $20 -----



----- PH Up and PH Down , $8 Each -----

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[Toolage 87]

----- September 16th, 2011 Update -----

Hey all. It is update time. I got some thing and I did a little changing to my setup so here it is.



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[Toolage 87]

Here is a before and after pic of how things look before and now.

View attachment 1793614​

 

[KawiZZR]

Unfortunately I don't think that LED is gonna be good for much of anything man. It may be helpful for veg but will have very little penetration and you'll probably see a lot of stretching still. Also, try to tack up some white poster board or something around the sides to keep the light in.

 

[Toolage 87]

Unfortunately I don't think that LED is gonna be good for much of anything man. It may be helpful for veg but will have very little penetration and you'll probably see a lot of stretching still. Also, try to tack up some white poster board or something around the sides to keep the light in.

Well for penetration isn't a problem really I'm only trying to give light o the tops. Also I've raised the plants higher so their tops are very close to the LED panel. Like I said its still work in progress. the panel is 13w and I don't have plane paper around of any kind. Never had to use it. I have one of those foil of some kind that you buy at a camping place up so the light is getting reflected back in. Also I have 1 3.5w LED light hanging in the middle of them. I've also been leafing the lower leafs that have new growth there and the new leafs are big enough that they can start taking in their own energy and letting the light get to the bottom leafs.

All I know is that BC Ice isn't easy to grow in soil. I've pretty much planted and forgot about the BC ice in my DWC system besides adding water and some plant food here and there.

 

[bigbillyrocka]

What's up buddy?! Looking good. Those blue walls make me think of your place as a tropical fish supply store. I just got another 400 watt hps lamp and ballast for my grow. Final 2-3 weeks maybe so I'm gonna blast em.

 

[Toolage 87]

What's up buddy?! Looking good. Those blue walls make me think of your place as a tropical fish supply store. I just got another 400 watt hps lamp and ballast for my grow. Final 2-3 weeks maybe so I'm gonna blast em.

Not much just been doing some measurements and such of the closet space that I am gonna be growing in. The wood part is just half of the 2 part bottom peace. The top part will also be a 2 section build for many reasons. Also I might build a little clone box separate from the veg and flowering spot. So far I just need some wood to build the top section and the bottom section that I am working on that I have set up to hold my lights up higher and more safely then I had before.

 

[billcollector99]

what happened to your 70watt bulbs?

 

[Toolage 87]

what happened to your 70watt bulbs?

I had to stop using them because I couldn't hang them safely so I changed back to the low wattage bulbs and LED panel for now until I get my cool tube use able or if I found a hood that I could mod and use a fan to suck the hot air away from the lights above them.

 

[billcollector99]

I had to stop using them because I couldn't hang them safely so I changed back to the low wattage bulbs and LED panel for now until I get my cool tube use able or if I found a hood that I could mod and use a fan to suck the hot air away from the lights above them.

those bulbs shouldnt put off enough heat to warrant a cool tube...

 

[Toolage 87]

those bulbs shouldnt put off enough heat to warrant a cool tube...

I know but the cool tube lets be to be able to hang them safely because with out the I have to hang them with the dome using the power cord and chance then falling down. I can't use the hangers that came with the dome because it way to close to touching the bulb and if it touches it I'm worried about the bulb braking. I was having a hard time trying to hang the dome with out it falling and it wouldn't stay there on its own so I chose not to use it and be on the safe side. Once I get my closet sections built I will be hooking them back up but use the cool tube to hang them.

 

[KawiZZR]

Since you're planning to use cooltubes anyway, have you considered switching to higher wattage bulbs?

 

[Toolage 87]

Since you're planning to use cooltubes anyway, have you considered switching to higher wattage bulbs?

Going higher isn't an option there's a wattage and amp draw limit that I can only get and the flowering spot won't be big enough to use a higher wattage light and having to deal with temps in the summer that gets into the 30C range makes it harder to keep inside cool and 60 amp draw though the whole place is the limit and I want to run lights off a solar system and low wattage is the only way.

 

[Toolage 87]

----- Hardware Update , October 26th, 2011-----

Hi all. Today I went out and got a Aero Cloner so here's what it looks like and what came with it. Its a 80 site cloner. I asked the guy and he said that the 20 site and 80 site were the same price so I went with the 80 site. It cost me arond $205 to $220. For those of you that are gonna tell me that I could build one for less I know that I could have but it was easier for me to just buy one and if the bump brakes down or w/e I can just replace the insides of it. Over time I might turn around and buy the stuff that I need and grow using Aero Ponics but as of now its soil and dwc.

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[billcollector99]

Hefty purchase there, should do the job nice though. That propogator works pretty well from my experience

 

[Toolage 87]

Hefty purchase there, should do the job nice though. That propogator works pretty well from my experience

Well the plants that I have were hurting since their nute demand is alot different from house plants well from this strain that is so I pretty much took them for as many clones that I can and they never wilted even after 24 or 48 hours so its looking good. If this works then it can pay for its self for cloning because you wouldn't have to keep buying seedling soil or w/e for it and if you can find a way to put the rooted clone into rockwool then its gonna be cheaper.

I decided to shell out the money because I've seen and heard people get good results with a Aero Cloner and I've had it with trying to clone in soil and I had 5 seedling soil things go moldy and the clones that I had in it probably causing it and wasting rooting gel that is probably good. Also the good thing is because once the cuttings have rooted you can hit it with a little of liquid feed that helps stimulate root growth it can give them a nice root mass before planting them.

Also around here because I am getting into growing my own fruits, veggies and herbs this rig can help pay for its self easily because stores around here don't sell herbs or seeds during the winter and that's when money can be made.

 

[Toolage 87]

----- November 5th, 2011 Update -----

Hey all. Today is gonna be a non pic update but I have some very awsome news. After 3 attempts with trying to clone my BC Ice in soil and failing and losing plants because of it being a hit and miss strain for me. I only had 12 of them left and of those 12 I killed off 7 of them when I took them for clones of the good veg that was left on them and that leaves me with about 5 plants. I know that doesn't sound good at all but the best part is I managed to take 17 clones from the 12 and some of the ones that got killed off because I took the last part of their growth to clone most of them are gonna live. I know alot of you still don't think it was not worth killing off 7 of them but it was either do that and get 1 or 2 clones off of each of them and hope that they root (witch I had a better feeling for them of rooting on my new Aero Cloner then in soil) or wait and hope they get better. Also doing this I have possibly saved my self $50+ for having to replace a strain in seeds even though I do plan on getting more seeds of it.

The Aero Cloner will increase my power bill by $1.87 per month witch isn't bad and my 26w tube florescent light uses $1.87 to so that's $3.74 per month of it running 24/0. I asked a question in another thread on how long an Ice strain will take to root and someone said 15 to 20 days. At day 8/9 my cuttings were already showing the root bumps but also had roots showing. I hit it with 1ml of Super B+ (0-2-1) and those bumps turned into little roots and its day 10 and the roots are getting longer and more of them are showing roots. So by days on how long it took to root in my Aero Cloner over a soil cloned ice strain i saved my self around 5 to 10 days.

All in all if the cloner worked out this good I might be able to get away with a lower wattage tube florescent light or CFL and I will even try out my 13w LED panel and see how that goes. If it goes well I can cut my light power bill for cloning from $1.87 to around $0.25 to $0.94 per month with the light going 24/0 and if I can get away with using a single 3.5w LED light.

So in the end I might be able to turn the whole cloning thing that I am doing into some thing even greener and could even possibly run it off of solar power.
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