2nd grow SunHutXL 600w Coco SmartPot

[bongzilla610]

So my first indoor grow was using a BCNL Producer box- I ended up with mold/bugs/heat issues/light issues/ timer issues and ended up with 10oz dry. It was fun but the producer wasn't my style I like to experiment and whatnot and with the producer (especially the old style one I was using) leaves you stuck with a cookie cutter grow and left little margin for alteration. So I decided to put together another setup.

This is a link to my first journal with the Grow Box https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/566304-my-first-try-hydroponics.html

I sold the box for more then I paid for it so thats about the only thing that was good long term about it.

Oooon to this grow..

I picked up a Sun Hut XL for $40 on craigslist still in the box.. Its 4x4x7 so a little bigger then I wanted but for $40 I'm not complaining.
From the last grow and from misc stuff laying around I have...

24" foothills filters carbon filter
SunLeaves 600w ballast
Dual outlet air pump
oscillating fans

I bought..
Active Air 4" 185 cfm fan for odor control only
5 pack of 3gallon Smart Pots
50L bag of canna brand coco
a few airstones (gonna be mixing my nutes in a tub and hand water- might end up with a drip system later but hand watering for awile)
Humidity/Temp gauge
Sunmaster 600w HPS
Apollo Horticulture cool tube with reflector hood
about a dozen light sockets
a handful of cfl's for veg and extra lighting (some 23w some 45w)
some beans from attitude

I still need some wire to wire up all the light sockets, a 6" fan to cool the HPS once I start using it, some tubs or something to keep the smart pot mess contained, a new ph and ppm meter and some other stuff. Still need some supplements as well.

I Love Advanced Nutrients (even though its all I've used and have nothing to compare it to) so I'll be using it again.
Heres the list.

Advanced Nutrients pH Perfect Sensi Coco Grow Part A and B
Advanced Nutrients pH Perfect Sensi Coco Bloom Part A and B
Voodoo Juice
Bud Ignitor
Bud Factor-X
Rhino Skin
Overdrive
Bud Candy
Big Bud

Some nutes were leftover from previous grow but I picked up a few of these new.

Since I have more room in the tent- hopefully I can do a better job at including more photos with my updates...

I mainly keep these journals for personal reference and to also possibly help others with comparable issues/ setups. dunno if anyone will read it or follow it but input is allways appreciated.

More to come.....

 

[bongzilla610]

So I gave it a TON of thought about what to grow for the maiden cycle in the new setup and decided to just run some auto's I have from freebies for the first run. That way I can find the flaws in my setup without killing any expensive ladies.

the auto's I'll be running this cycle
i have 5 buddah purple kush
one delicious seeds northern lights blue

I only have 5 pots so i'll be cutting the weakest looking one from the team once they fill out the solo cups a bit.

I dropped them in shotglass til they sunk and now have them in party cups
I cut the bottom of the solo cups off and taped them back together, that way I can keep them grouped tightly under a cluster of cfl's and just pop the bottom off and drop them into smart pots in a few weeks.
I filled the solo cups with moist/wet coco dropped the water logged seeds about 1/8-1/4" under and put them back in the box.

the incubator (ish) box I have them in is a tub with a few inches of water and another tub inside that, If I remember its a 72 degree thermometer so its not much warmer them ambient temp but it definitely keeps it consistent.

I'm gonna put together the sockets and wiring for my cfl's and get them hung tomorrow. I'll snap some photos of the setup and misc stuff and try to post them tomorrow evening.

 

[bongzilla610]

So I sprayed out the inside of tent with alcohol and then sprayed the whole inside/outside with a plant safe 3 in 1 insect/disease spray from a local box store.

I rigged up a pvc frame light holder. Its setup for 4 bulbs and I have 4 splitters so I'll be able to run 8 bulbs, Theres a few pegs left on my connection bar so I can add another 4 sockets and 4 more splitters which would let me run 16 bulbs in this fixture.

For now I have 4 45watt just to make sure it worked and everything.

I grabbed some pullies but I need some thinner cable to use the pully setup, for now I just have it hung with thick wire for testing purposes.


Oscilating fan in the front left corner for air movement and to help strengthen the stems

Fan/filter rig




connector bar, all grounds on 3 with incomeing ground split by 3 same with power wire. Have it all done with 16ga lamp cord. If I end up going to 16 bulbs i'll need to swap out power cord and incoming side to a thicker wire cause that would be alot of juice for a 16ga lamp cord and cheapo plug

outdoor sockets with pigtails- I drilled holes in the top of the pvc to push power cords thru, the tight fit was a bitch to get wire thru but as such it hold the lamp wires suuuper tight. I then just wrapped everything in electrical tape just to keep moisture off the connection- just incase

will mount eyelets on the top of pvc to run my hanging wire up to the pullys with

for now its just wrapped around the pvc



I need to dig out some better zip ties, its not alot of weight but I worry about the thin white ties snapping somehow and dropping assembly onto the plants once they are under it.



Ignore the wild bird seed bags in the bins. this is what I have my party cups sitting in for now, its a constant temp due to the bottom bin having water in it and the top bin is zip tied down putting water up the sides as well, it works well- I just put the lid over the top - it won't close tight cause of zip ties to it allows air to exchange. moving blanket gets placed loosly around whole thing to keep light out




Thats all the updating for now, I misted the cups a tad this afternoon to keep top layer of coco damp.

should have alot more stuff I need by next weekend so i'll update again then.

 

[bongzilla610]

Worked out of town yesterday and today so the cups didn't get ANY water for like 36 or 40 hrs even though i they wern't that wet to begin with.
I unziped my tent expecting to see ridiculously dry cups and no sprouts- but a sweet shocker was inside. All 6 seeds popped and sprouted to about 1.5" tall. I was stoked considering I didn't pre-treat my coco with any nutes and originally watered them with untested tap water
I gave the coco a 10ish second mist each from my sprayer and I'ma gonna let them suck the coco to near dry before watering again.

heres the first pictures of the ladies, its a top shot so its hard to see the height. i'm definetly stoked on 6 for 6 sprouts in under 3 days...


I took the lid off and turned the oscillating fan on low pointed at top of bin just to give the plants little wiggle as it passes. I also lowered my lights to even with the top of the bin. I'll wait a day or two before I really get the bulbs close. The lights are setup at 18-6 cycle and i'll be keeping it there for the duration of the grow.

 

[bongzilla610]

couple of days ago I dropped the girls into the smart pots.

heres a picture of one from a few minutes ago




pretty sure its overkill but i've got 2 airstones in my res even though i'm handwatering to coco




after I transplanted them I had them under the cfl's for 2 more days




combo meter arrived today


I saturated canna coco coir with full strength nutes before dropping seedlings in.
I watered with a 20ish% solution today, as soon as 3rd set shows i'll jump to 50% then build to 100 over the few waterings that follow.

currently PH 6.09
PPM 490
Temp 69 (in shade roughly in middle of tent) its about 74ish it plants in direct light

As you can see in the photo- I ended up not wanting to scrap the weakest looking plant so I just kept it in a party cup and will let it grow in it. party cup grows are allways fun plus it gives me a good chance at side by side total growth photos to show how important adequate room for root systems really is.

I've decided to try a SCROG grow so i'll be putting a net together in the next week or two.

thats all for now

 

[bongzilla610]

two weeksish since I started germinating, I let them suck up all the moisture for 3 days and let it get pretty dry. I fed them today with 50% solution and made a 5 gallon batch of full strength veg solution. I like making it in advance to give it time to aerate in the reservoir and to give the ph perfect time to do its thing before any final adjustment just before I water.
heres some pictures of how they are looking

had a tiny bit of leaf curling on one or two of them- I'm allmost positive its from letting them dry up, I just watered so we'll see in a few hours or by morning. if they don't straiten out I'll flush the hell out of them with 25% but i'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

 

[Stevieh]

Am subbed to this

check mine out ...

https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/751804-fourth-grow-doing-journal-pop.html

peace .....

 

[bongzilla610]

took a quick shot today. they are looking fairly healthy and growing as expected. the one on the right seems to think this is a race for height. the only thing I could think of is placement under light so I switched them around putting the shortest one where the tallest one was and so on down the line.

18 days since I dropped the seeds.

 

[Stevieh]

Looking good Bong

I see what you mean that ones took some advantage than the others

Lets see if it was the light or it's just a good fast starter

 

[Stevieh]

Like the lights you made ..... Sweet

 

[bongzilla610]

Like the lights you made ..... Sweet

I was trying to figure out a cheap way to make a fixture that I was only going to use for a week or two- got the sockets for under $3 each, a peice of pvc pipe for like $5, a bunch of t's and shit for like $3 and the wire bar for like $2, 4x2 way splitters for like $2, I had the lampcord laying around... so like $15 total

 

[Stevieh]

I was trying to figure out a cheap way to make a fixture that I was only going to use for a week or two- got the sockets for under $3 each, a peice of pvc pipe for like $5, a bunch of t's and shit for like $3 and the wire bar for like $2, 4x2 way splitters for like $2, I had the lampcord laying around... so like $15 total

Yeah mate there good and cheap


I got my mate to knock me up two things as well - A plug lead and lamp holder just need to get those two way bulb splitters can't see them anywhere.... Not looked online - Any one hangs each side of my Hps with 35 watt cfl in will be two in each.. Will put pictures of them on my journal at some point .... How's your plants man ?

 

[bongzilla610]

No real update. Havn't looked at em since I watered last night. I'm hoping tomarrow when I unzip I see a little leveling out of the plants.

I'll prolly run to home depot this weekend and get some netting for the scrog. I gotta do a little reading into how far off the pots to put the net and stuff but I'll prolly have it in the tent next weekend or something.

 

[Stevieh]

No real update. Havn't looked at em since I watered last night. I'm hoping tomarrow when I unzip I see a little leveling out of the plants.

I'll prolly run to home depot this weekend and get some netting for the scrog. I gotta do a little reading into how far off the pots to put the net and stuff but I'll prolly have it in the tent next weekend or something.

You gonna do a scrog, nice, interesting to see

 

[bongzilla610]

Decided to after I saw a thread on autoflower.net by "think different - dutch passion" he got just under 23oz off 1000w 4x4 scrog ... best auto grow I've ever seen.

 

[Stevieh]

Decided to after I saw a thread on autoflower.net by "think different - dutch passion" he got just under 23oz off 1000w 4x4 scrog ... best auto grow I've ever seen.

I am gonna check that out 23oz ????? WOW

 

[bongzilla610]

https://www.autoflower.net/forums/f61/think-different-scrog-4x4-flood-drain-table-co2-10930-15.html

 

[bongzilla610]

So since the one girl shot strait to the sky I threw together a cheapo net for the scrog. I used some 1/2" pvc, some plastic garden netting/fence stuff I had laying around and some solid core plastic coated wire. floor space is at a premium in my tent so i hung from ceiling- basically ran wire thru the pvc and hung tightly from the top of tent- the pvc keeps it from getting pushed up and the wire keeps it from being pulled down, I drilled 4 holes in my support board and ran wire corner to corner.

it ended up really tight, it maybe has 1/4" of side to side play when pushed. Its not perfect but it will work for a quick autoflower grow.

the actual usable diameter of the screen is 36" x 36" leaving me enough room to squeeze around it.

the net itself is 12" from substrate to net. a little short but with auto's It should be about perfect (hopefully)

the tallest plant is 14" and I'm letting it get another inch or so taller before i pull it back thru and redirect it.

 

[Stevieh]

Well done bong that looks the business ......
man that one plants shooting up ..!

 

[bongzilla610]

thanks man, that one is twice as tall as some of the others.

the others range is height from 6-9" not including the solo cup