Dave's Dual Area 51 Grow

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greatbranch

Well-Known Member
All of the ladies are BIG and GREEN! That 2 foot restriction DOES suck. When I started, I remember thinking 2'x2'x5' would be MORE than enough space. Then, I figured twice that would SURELY be all I need. Now, I am dreaming about what I could to with a whole room. I think this is the natural progression of the disease. :bigjoint:
 
daveroller

daveroller

Well-Known Member
greatbranch said:
All of the ladies are BIG and GREEN! That 2 foot restriction DOES suck. When I started, I remember thinking 2'x2'x5' would be MORE than enough space. Then, I figured twice that would SURELY be all I need. Now, I am dreaming about what I could to with a whole room. I think this is the natural progression of the disease. :bigjoint:
Click to expand...

It does suck, but at least it's a little deeper than the 18" deep cabinet I was using before. I am so tempted to expand into the rest of the bedroom, but I'm not quite that diseased yet. :blsmoke:
 
daveroller

daveroller

Well-Known Member
Ready to set up auto waterer…



…next time I change the water. All I did was drill a few holes and attach cable clamps to the hoses inside each container so that they don’t pull out accidentally. And the clamps release real easy for when I change the water.




This is the 2.5 gallon bucket that holds up the water jug.




 
daveroller

daveroller

Well-Known Member
greatbranch said:
That is pretty cool! I hope it works!
Click to expand...

So far so good. I've had it set up for a day or so. Tiny water bubbles collect inside the tubing, but nothing that could ruin the siphon action. And with plants constantly drinking water, it will be flowing... very slowly, but still flowing, so that might reduce the amount of air bubbles. It'll be nice to keep the water level constant all the time.

I guess one problem could happen when the water pump is working to feed water up to the Perlite bucket. The res water level drops about an inch or so when that happens. So if the RO water from the jug flows in to raise the level up, the res's water level could go up an inch higher than normal. That'll be interesting to watch, to see what happens. I don't want any overflows!
 
G

greatbranch

Well-Known Member
daveroller said:
So far so good. I've had it set up for a day or so. Tiny water bubbles collect inside the tubing, but nothing that could ruin the siphon action. And with plants constantly drinking water, it will be flowing... very slowly, but still flowing, so that might reduce the amount of air bubbles. It'll be nice to keep the water level constant all the time.

I guess one problem could happen when the water pump is working to feed water up to the Perlite bucket. The res water level drops about an inch or so when that happens. So if the RO water from the jug flows in to raise the level up, the res's water level could go up an inch higher than normal. That'll be interesting to watch, to see what happens. I don't want any overflows!
Click to expand...
The drain delay through the perlite...I see. If the res gets filled quickly from the backups, by the time the pumped liquid comes through the perlite again, it could be too much. I think the bubbles might actually save you a little there. The volume is low enough that it might not be a problem - might just be a matter of getting the heights of everything worked out well in the beginning. I LIKE IT!
 
daveroller

daveroller

Well-Known Member
Closet Full of Weed!







All 3 plants are sucking up nutes like crazy. I have to add more nute in between water changes, because the tds drops so fast. I also need to keep adjusting the pH up every day as the plants eat their food. I’ve never had plants eat so well before. No signs of nute burn or deficiency that I can see.

I think that adding that Overdrive stuff by Advanced Nutrients, containing Magnesium, really helped the plants thrive and stay healthy this time. (So far so good.)

The canopies are about level now. I need to raise one of the panels, the one above Lusinda. I also need to lower the shelf on the left wall of the closet, so that I can put an oscillating fan on it. (I need to get rid of the floor-standing fan because I’ll put the auto-watering jug where it is.) I want to put the other Cree 18 watt LED bulb between the plants to give them some more light from underneath.
 
daveroller

daveroller

Well-Known Member
greatbranch said:
The drain delay through the perlite...I see. If the res gets filled quickly from the backups, by the time the pumped liquid comes through the perlite again, it could be too much. I think the bubbles might actually save you a little there. The volume is low enough that it might not be a problem - might just be a matter of getting the heights of everything worked out well in the beginning. I LIKE IT!
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm hoping that the water gets replaced from the backup slowly enough that it won't completely replace the water that's still up in the Perlite. If it isn't slow enough, I can try some skinnier tubing to slow it down.
 
werm11

werm11

Well-Known Member
Damn they had a slow start but once they hit a certain point they really shot off. They're bushes now. That closet doesn't look as big anymore haha.
Hey is this the 18w Cree that you're talking about?

http://t.homedepot.com/p/Cree-100W-Equivalent-Soft-White-2700K-A21-Dimmable-LED-Light-Bulb-BA21-16027OMF-12DE26-1U100/205054835/

I need to get a few to supplement my panel but I had a question....I notice they don't give out as many lumens as some of the cfls that I have. Does that mean the cfls would be a better option? Also how hot do they run compared to cfls?
 
daveroller

daveroller

Well-Known Member
werm11 said:
Damn they had a slow start but once they hit a certain point they really shot off. They're bushes now. That closet doesn't look as big anymore haha.
Hey is this the 18w Cree that you're talking about?

http://t.homedepot.com/p/Cree-100W-Equivalent-Soft-White-2700K-A21-Dimmable-LED-Light-Bulb-BA21-16027OMF-12DE26-1U100/205054835/

I need to get a few to supplement my panel but I had a question....I notice they don't give out as many lumens as some of the cfls that I have. Does that mean the cfls would be a better option? Also how hot do they run compared to cfls?
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's the Cree bulb. I got 2 of them for side lighting. They do get warm, but you can hold them between your fingers without feeling to hot. I don't know what CFLs you're comparing to them, but I know they produce more lumens per watt than CFLs. I've used 200 watt CFLs in the past and they're really hot and use a lot of watts. That's why I switched to LED.
 
daveroller

daveroller

Well-Known Member
Tabitha & Libby stretched a bit more than I’d like since I began the flowering phase. I think that Libby, the Haze plant, stretched the most with some long, bare stems between nodes. :???:



Here’s how tall they’ve all gotten:



You can imagine the fresh pot aroma that comes out of the closet every time I open the door. Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!

 
G

greatbranch

Well-Known Member
daveroller said:
Tabitha & Libby stretched a bit more than I’d like since I began the flowering phase. I think that Libby, the Haze plant, stretched the most with some long, bare stems between nodes. :???:

Here’s how tall they’ve all gotten:

You can imagine the fresh pot aroma that comes out of the closet every time I open the door. Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!
Click to expand...
Lovin' it, Dave! If you're like me, you can't help but do a little dance and giggle when you see them every morning!
 
daveroller

daveroller

Well-Known Member
Had a pretty serious problem with one of my two smaller plants when I changed the water last Friday. Tabitha the Tahoe OG plant stretched out a lot and when I pulled her out of the closet a bunch of her branches just flopped over. You can’t really see it in the following pics, but I was afraid that she might not survive. Some of the branches kinked or snapped off completely. For one day I just stuffed her back in the closet with the branches leaning against the wall.





Libby, the plant that shares a pot with Tabitha, seemed to be fine. So I put up a chicken wire fence around the part of the bucket on Tabitha’s side and tied a string around both plants to keep them standing up. You can see a little of the chicken wire in this photo:



One of the bad things about hydro is that the roots sit in their own shit & piss. That’s why it’s important to change the water regularly.

 
daveroller

daveroller

Well-Known Member
Tabitha’s bouncing back.



She’s actually getting too tall now. I need to raise that light panel.



All 3 plants are flowering now:





Thinking about how I’m going to set up the water tank in this closet. I’ll need to set it up where I can reach it and then slide the whole thing into this space in the closet:



I’ll probably need to get some longer pieces of tubing to do that.

Here are my two 18 watt Cree bulbs providing a little extra side lighting:




 
vitamin_green_inc

vitamin_green_inc

Well-Known Member
I like that. I hadn't thought of attaching those mini reflectors to the pot like that, or to my tent poles. I just hang them around like CFLs lol. Yours is much cleaner
 
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