AK-47 1000W Closet Cooler Grow

Hey man nice job. Alwayz wanted to see what a thousand watt lamp could do in a true Dwc. Simple well thought out some real good ideas def skribed to see this thru.

Soaker hose as air diffuser? That's a great idea! And so cheap to replace. Do you have to anchor it down so it won't float up or does it stay put?

I did have to weigh it down, currently done with a few rocks from outside. At first I had taped it down like I did airlines connected to stones, but that didn't last, the hoses were floating up after a few days with the plants already in there, so I carefully placed some rocks to hold it for now.

I plan to use some 1/2" electrical conduit hold downs next round. That's my made up name, I dunno what they're really called, but they're shaped like a U with a screw hole on either side. I'll just hot glue them down like I use for almost everything in the grow closet.. held together with hot glue and tuck tape.

How you like Serious Seeds?

I've only ever had serious seeds AK47 and Bubblegum. Seems great to me.. but I don't have a lot to compare to.

From all the things I read before and after purchasing them, serious seeds seems to be one of the best for sure, though a little pricey. I'd really like to try some Kali Mist soon too, and some type of kush, but there are so many.. it's such a marketing maze now.

Hey Fellas! Doing my usual weekly update. 28 days in now, week number 4. This is the best growth I've seen in any crop so far. I attribute it to to the larger tanks for the roots to grow, they were bound before, and also keeping temps up around 68-69F seems to really induce the plants to drink more and grow faster than the lower temps of ~62F I was keeping before. Doing some research I found out that while dissolved oxygen levels decrease with higher temps, the roots perform their chemical eating reactions faster in higher temp water.. basically in hotter water they have a higher metabolism... so it's a delicate balance to keep the DO in the water and keep the metabolism up.

Can't wait to run my bubblgum girls next time. As you can see the AK47 is some bushy ass shit! The bubblegum is way less leafy, trimming takes a tenth of the time, and the bud is more dense. I only grew it once before when my skills and experience were leaving much more to be desired compared to now. Really looking forward to see what I can do with it. Bubblegum clones have started vegging now, I'll have some pics of them soon.

Shafto said:

Hey Fellas! Doing my usual weekly update. 28 days in now, week number 4. This is the best growth I've seen in any crop so far. I attribute it to to the larger tanks for the roots to grow, they were bound before, and also keeping temps up around 68-69F seems to really induce the plants to drink more and grow faster than the lower temps of ~62F I was keeping before. Doing some research I found out that while dissolved oxygen levels decrease with higher temps, the roots perform their chemical eating reactions faster in higher temp water.. basically in hotter water they have a higher metabolism... so it's a delicate balance to keep the DO in the water and keep the metabolism up.

Can't wait to run my bubblgum girls next time. As you can see the AK47 is some bushy ass shit! The bubblegum is way less leafy, trimming takes a tenth of the time, and the bud is more dense. I only grew it once before when my skills and experience were leaving much more to be desired compared to now. Really looking forward to see what I can do with it. Bubblegum clones have started vegging now, I'll have some pics of them soon.
View attachment 1638223View attachment 1638207View attachment 1638206View attachment 1638208View attachment 1638209View attachment 1638224

Click to expand...

I love your set up man, very well thought out.

Thanks Beansly.

I've got just regular buckets in my veg cab right now, which runs cooler than my bud closet, but I can't keep the buckets cool. Had it down to 62F last night and I got up early before lights out to check again, 75F! son of a bitch... Gonna have to set up some coolers in there too.

OK... Don't cheap out like I just did today and go for the styrofoam coolers.

I just bought some to redo my veg cab. After watching the Canucks beat Boston (thankfully) I have been in the grow area ever since.. I just finally finish and think I'm done for the night, all the connections all done up and everything flowing, rocking and rollin' no leaks at the joints.. but wait, there's water slowly pooling at the bottom, wtf?

...Yeah, it was seeping right through the walls of the styrofoam coolers.. fuck me, wish I didn't cheap out, looks like I got some more work ahead of me tonight.. already 12:30 and I just wanna drink a few more beers on the couch with a few vape bowls.. son of a bitch.

Anyway.. got everything drained and back apart now, waiting for the styro containers to dry, and my plan is to make a liner in them with tuck tape. I'll see how well it works and decide how long I'll use this crap till I just get some real coolers.. bad time of year to buy them, start of summer, marked up like crazy.

Looking good shafto nice healthy clean and organized gonna have to reread the thread I guess wasn't sure if this was rdwc or not lol now I'm completely not sure keep up the good work man

Oh man... I finally finished at 4AM... what a nightmare that was! I ended up finding some plastic totes that fit well into the coolers, it was a battle indeed, but I eventually won.

I'll post some pics soon to show what I'm talking about.

Thanks onthedl. What made you think it's not RDWC? It is indeed! Water pumps into the grow coolers from the red control cooler, and then drains out of the grow coolers right above the bottom of the netpots, and flows back into the control cooler.

Just started watching your grow shafto. Im interested in what you've done for your bookshelf. Im planning to build or purchase something also. What did you end up doing? Id love to see pictures. http://www.hiddenpassages.com/woodfold.shtml is where I would think about getting it from.

Whats the advantage of rdwc over just dwc? And what do you mean by the syrofoam coolers? They look like the plastic ones to me. Thats similar to what Im using too. Im subscribed. Im moving in a few months and will have a room very similar to yours in size it looks like. A 5x7 ft size room. Im going to have to split with vegging though. You wouldnt happen to have any pictures of your veg area too would you?

I will take some pictures of my bookshelf and wall setup as soon as I get the room cleaned up a bit.. it's a disaster right now!

I admit though, it's a bit ghetto, the mounting of the magnets and such, though it does it's job of holding things together. I would like to find something better than common weather stripping too, something a little more industrial to use to seal it up. Also thinking that maybe a zipper and some fabric would be best. Since I'm in the process of getting my licence to cultivate, I'll up upgrading my space and such as soon as that happens so I haven't been in a huge rush to upgrade since it's working well as it.

RDWC has multiple advantages. Moving water means more dissolved oxygen. Having a separate res that recirculates into your grow containers means that you can hold more water, which means more nutrients. You can also add nutrients and water into your control res without disturbing the tops on your grow containers. If you ever use frozen water bottles to keep your temps down, in one single container they an touch your roots and freeze burn them. If you have a separate control res then it's no problem. With a single container, your water levels drop as the plants drink, when levels drop, cord roots form bellow the net pots, which take away from yield. With RDWC you can have your grow containers drain out at the height you drill the drain holes and stay there.. while only the control res drops as water pumps out of it.

My coolers in the bloom area are regular plastic coolers. The styrofoam I was talking about was what I tried to use in my veg cab when I redid it. It was just using black buckets but I couldn't keep temps down. I was throwing twice as much ice at it than my bud coolers that have 4X the water and less heat in the room, and I couldn't keep them cool. Luckily the plants still look fine, and I'll sure they'll recover now with proper temps.

Here are some pics of my new veg setup. Those are my moms in the back, Serious Seeds AK47 and Bubblegum. Extra bubblegum clones in front.. about to turn one into the next mom and throw rest away. 2 Plants in the veg are both bubblegum. You can see what my solution ended up being with the coolers.. I just found plastic totes to fit and am using the styro coolers as insulation only. Just checked temps tonight and it was all good so I think I'm ready to go now.

Your the king of syrofoam man.

Haha, Thanks Beans, makes good insulation ya know?

If I were to do it again though, I'd just go with straight up plastic coolers. After you add the plastic tote to the styro cooler, it's not much different in price anyway.

Temps seem to be all good now.. really looking forward to running this Bubblegum when the AK is done.

I think they should work fine now with the plastic inside. I think I'd have to be pretty rough to break them. The styro wouldn't even hold water.. the seals held, but the styro itself seeped water right through the sides and bottom.. it was useless.

Just gotta get some foam tape to put around the drain fitting and such to insulate it up.

Hmm, any link to your air pump? I got one of these, http://keepalive.net/portable.htm but the pump seems to generate too much heat since it sits inside the res. What was that going into your air pump container? A watercooled fan or something?

I like that idea of rdwc, Im thinking either that or flood tables since thats easy. Did you follow any links to build your set up? Thanks

I got it from ebay, just search for "45 watt air pump"

That bait oxygenator looks like it uses the venturi effect, not an actual air pump, but a water pump with an air snorkel on the water inlet, the vacuum draws air in, the impeller chops it up into tiny bubbles, and shoots it out with the water. You can make one with any water pump by adding an air snorkel with a valve to adjust on the water pump inlet. I might actually give this method a go next time.

I think DWC/RDWC is about as easy as it gets. Pump water into grow container, drill hole at height you want water to stay at, so it can drain back into the control res where it's being pumped from. It recirculates and stays at perfect level. Most likely next time I will ditch the air pump completely anyway, and upgrade my water pump for more circulation.

I didn't follow any links specially to build it, but if you want to do some research on DWC Heath Robinson in the master who basically invented it as we know it with an accidental flood in his containers while he was away, which produced more growth than he expected, so he continued experimenting with it, you should google him. As far as I know, he has the largest harvest off a single indoor plant ever, 76 oz, and grown with only 1500W of power (that's 1.4 gram/watt), no AC, no CO2, no air pumps, just high water flow and single part ionic nutes with pk13/14 added in, super cheap and simple for nutes.

more pictures! more pictures
great grow + 1 reputation point good sir