150w HPS Closet Cabinet Grow

bobharvey

Well-Known Member
Technically this is my third grow. This first was a single male. My second attempt gave me 3 females out of four seedlings, unfortunatley one was a hermi. My last grow I used 4 23w and 1 42w cfl for flowering. The yeilds were skimpy, very fluffly leafy bud. So I decided that cfls are awesome for small seedlings and early vegative growth but not so hot for flowering any respectable bud.

So now I'm using a 150w HPS from HTG supply. The cabinet itself I got from Lowes for like 39 bucks. I'm having some problems with the temperature levels. I bought a 4 inch computer fan from Amazon.com along with another Jorge Cervantes book and an Ed Rosenthal book. I will be getting a better ventalation fan as this small computer fan doesn't pull enough air. Anyways the plan is to reveg one of the plants from my last grow and get at least one more mother from these seedlings. I will add cfl's to the vegetive chamber but just enough to keep a one mother alive. I have enough room in my flowering chamber to have 8 positions. Two clones will be added every two weeks. I will take as many clones as I can and just weed out the best two. Then I will have a very small perpetual grow. And maybe enough weed to leave as gifts for random strangers.
 

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cbraaszsy

Well-Known Member
My neighbor used to grow with a 150 , he gave it to me now as he cant grow anymore, i already had his 600 that he didnt use b4 that. but he grew some very good weed(same strain as mine as i got my clones from him) with only the 150. His cabinet which i now have but dont actually use (very good cabinet just not big enough for my use) was 24" x 26" x 24" deep )26 is height. (the box also had a veg chamber which i didnt add to the dimensions) Curious to see how you'll do with the 150 , Subscribed!

you may want to look into SCROG (screen of green) technique.. as you can increase your yield utilizing your space more efficiently.(way more work involved though)
 

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bobharvey

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you may want to look into SCROG (screen of green) technique.. as you can increase your yield utilizing your space more efficiently.(way more work involved though)
I'm familiar with the idea, I have never tried it. However I'm going to use the SOG theory with this grow. I plan on growing single colas on each of two plants. I also plan on training the main stem with twisty ties. My two females on my last grow was an experiment. One I topped resulting in 4 main shoots. The other I just grew a single cola. This was done under probably the most bare minimum of light possible. The end result was that the main cola plant weighed more than the yeild of the topped plant.

The first picture is of my flowering chamber. I still has work that needs to be done. I have flat white spray paint for the inside and flat black for the outside. The second picture is of the temperature inside the cabinet. The room temperature is on average 20 degrees cooler. So I'm going to need another fan to help regulate this when the temperature heats up this summer. Either that or I will just run the light on 12/12 when it's nighttime outside and the temperature is cooler. The seedlings themselves do not seem to mind the heat. The revegging mother is looking great with new growth appearing every day.

Well that's all for now. More pics and information tomorrow.
 

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bobharvey

Well-Known Member
The revegging plant has been doing so for about 3 weeks now. The first week was constant 24hrs of light. The last two weeks have been 18/6. The seedlings are on about day 3. They have been under the same 18/6 light regiment since they broke the soil.

I'm using Expert Gardener Organ Mix soil, and Miracle G perlite. Perlite is added at the bottom of the inch or so and mixed about 25% within the organic soil itself. I'm not using any nutrients at this period of my reveg because my plant transitioned from flowering to vegetative growth quiet easily and mainly because my plants will never stay in the vegetative state for long. When I switch my clones and seedlings to 12/12 I will introduce MG Bloom Booster as per directions. I water with plain tap mixed with about a tablespoon of h202 per gallon and the ph of water escaping the bottom of the pot is right at 7.0.

The cabinet is averaging a 20 degree difference between the air outside of the cabinet and the inside air while the light is on. The temperature at night is maintained at 70 degrees thanks to central heat and air. I will set my flower cycle to run when it is nighttime so that heat won't be an issue. But I will also be getting another vent fan to remedy the problem.

I will be watering only when the top of the soil on the revegged plant is completely dry. This is because i don't think i cut enough root off when i started so now the leaves look a little droopy because it is sucking up too much water. But I will only water when it's dry so that the roots seek the soil out more evenly. This plant will only be used to take clones then it will be, sadly, discarded.

Now, my four seedlings we germinated with two plates and washcloth. I put the beans in jiffy pots so i could easily transplant when the time came. One is about a day older than the others and that's because I found one seed in my house then the next day I bought a shitty bag lmao. We'll see what kind of random genetics i'll get. I will probably not grow the original plants out, i'm interested in keeping the flowering plants short and clones are known to be shorter.

Since this jornal will be documented from this day forward it will show the process that it takes to start a perpetual grow. At least that is the hope. I will document my cloning process and will be open to experiments that people want to see. One will be a jiffy pot vs diy aero cloner experiment. And another will be mollasses vs no mollasses during flowering (though this has been done).
 

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cbraaszsy

Well-Known Member
The first picture is of my flowering chamber. I still has work that needs to be done.

^^^^ it never stops :)
 

bobharvey

Well-Known Member
I know the feeling. Eventually I'll just use this as a vegetative chamber by removing the shelf. Then I'll have a seperate flowering chamber with a bigger HPS bulb. We'll see how many buds I can cram in this small space.
 

bobharvey

Well-Known Member
Since I'm not doing a this grow all at once it's really hard to say. I'm going to be adding two clones every two weeks. The whole grams per watt per 60 days might not work the same. This is just for personal consumption. I go through about a half ounce a month so if I could get a half ounce of two plants every two weeks, I'd be making way more than enough for just me. I really don't know what to expect the only 150w grow's i've seen aren't done the way I'm planning on doing it. Pullin Weeds has a small perpetual grow that I've tried to model my grow after but yeild is not important to me. I'm not gonna be a drug dealer or patient healer. I'm doing this for me and I should be able to pull off at least an ounce between the two plants. LST will be a major factor. We'll see....thanks for stopping by.
 

cbraaszsy

Well-Known Member
I think you can pull that.. a bit more even.. my neighbor did the exact same thing 2 plants every 2 weeks. i was doing the same thing with mine to but ran into some cloning probs. Will probably start doing that again with the plants i have vegging now
what are the actual dimensions of your box btw
 

aintgottabhwd

Well-Known Member
U had to get a 265cfn blower to cool my cab. I was wondering how long did it take your seeds to break soil. Mine are on day five and they havent sprouted yet WTF
 

bobharvey

Well-Known Member
as a rule i germinate seeds before i put them in soil so i don't wonder when they'll pop out...my seeds germinated in about 3 days and popped up 2 days later...it depends on the seeds too...but if you're that worried then i bet they'll pop out tomorrow haha
 

cbraaszsy

Well-Known Member
hey bob 92 is not IDEAL when i first started i had real probs with heat 96 was about the highest. Your plants just wont do as well as they could.. they'll still grow but they'll grow slower when temps get below 66 and over 80 they grow slower so most people would aim for the ideal temp if at all possible.. i did and my plants look better than i've ever seen them
just saw your post about temps being at 70 should have read b4 hand
 

bobharvey

Well-Known Member
Alright I have been extremely lazy the past few days, I took the pictures but didn't feel like going through the hassle of loading on here. But I just finished a philosophy paper and feel like i have some motivation left over...so here we go.

Here are the demensions of the cabinet. L*W*H = 12.5"*26"*32"

The Flower Chamber
14.5" From Bulb to Floor
26" Wide
13" Deep

Veg/Mother Clone Chamber

About 11" from socket to Floor
26"Wide
13" Deep


Okay 3 of the 4 seedlings had roots growing out of the jiffy pots so I transplanted them to the small pots. I put newspaper to cover the drainage holes, the moisented it with water. I put about 2 inches of perlite to improve drainage and help aerate the soil. I also read on the soil that is has some perlite in it. But I put just a handful more. I watered all the seedlings with warm tap water, making sure to water all of the new soil so that the roots would seek the soil evenly.

I also seemed to have managed the heat issue. As you have seen the cabinet was staying in the high 80's and sometimes in the high 90's depending on the room temperature. On average it was 20 degress hotter. So i decided to try something. I put a cold 1.5L bottle of water the cabinet with the plants. My idea was that heat energy would be used to warm the temperature of the water in the bottle. Idk if it is actually working out or not but..the temperature is now 82 degrees today.

Here are some pics..i transplanted the seedlings about 2 days ago the latter pictures will be the ones from today.
 

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bobharvey

Well-Known Member
my revegging plant is taking forever to grow out and has been in the process of revegging for a while now. I actually only had one bud left on one of these plants and decided I would try to reveg her as an experiment. The things is that I didn't want to stress her out so I didn't pump it full of nutrients. Instead I watered with just plain tap water and gave it a very small dosage of Nitrogen and put her in organic soil. So her transition was pretty smooth. They say that if your plants revert easily than they should clone easily. Of course idk who "they" are and I don't know if that's even true. Just something to ponder on...
 

bobharvey

Well-Known Member
Switched seedlings to flower on march 31.

I fixed my heat problems by dropping the shelf another notch. I mad a temporary veg chamber for my revegging milf and clones. During the day i keep the mother and clones under the hps, they sit under cfl's for 6 of the 12 hours that the other 3 are in the dark.

Here are some pictures.
 

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