Putting the flower room into overdrive. 1110 Watts quantum boards + 2000 Watts HPS

Yesterday I did my usual morning checks on the nurseries and discovered about 4" of water in the bottom of my clone tent. The tote sprung a leak and it caused a flood inside the tent. Needless to say I was not wearing my happy face. The entire day was devoted, for the most part, to fixing the leak. It was the most awful day I've had in recent memory from beginning to end. Just awful. I completely reconstructed the manifold with new nozzles. I then adjusted the PVC by twisting it with channel locks to an appropriate setting where the spray nozzles were not shooting water up to the edges of the lid. It's really all about proper spray trajectory. That is what creates a leak free clone tote. I made the same error several times attempting to solve the leak issue by doing all the wrong things. Make the water go where you want it and keep the trajectory away from the lid edges. I shortened up the manifold in length and width. That coupled with changing the trajectory of the spray pattern away from the lid solved the leak. If I had to do this again I would adjust the nozzles in the back yard with the pump running inside of a kiddie pool. That way you can fill the pool with water and drop the pump in with manifold and make your adjustments in real time so you can see that the trajectory of the spray from the nozzles is where you want it. This is a very difficult goal to accomplish from your basement and makes a considerable mess even at doing it at the sewer drain. Be it as it is the motherfucker is fixed and not leaking. I'll take pics of the new manifold later.

I'm dissatisfied with the way the plants in nursery B are responding to the 600w metal halide lamp. As a solution I have swapped the 450W quantum board from my flower room and placed it into nursery B. I then took the 600W ballast and hood and relocated them to the flower room in place of the 450W quantum board. I installed a 600W hortilux HPS lamp in the hood. I did this all during lights off with my green headlight. It wasn't a fun process, but it's finished. I've used a metal halide lamp for vegetative growth once before with the same lackluster results. I figure it's best to place the 600W HPS at full power in the flower room with the hortilux lamp which I know will produce great buds, and place the 450W quantum board in the nursery which I know will produce great growth with tight node spacing. Both units are now setup to operate at full power, whereas before the swap I was only able to operate the 600W ballast at 60% power. It makes me feel better now knowing that I'm getting full performance out of both units, and the plants in nursery B will not suffer slow growth due to the poor performance of the metal halide lamp.

Edit: I do still have the 660W quantum board in the flower room. After my next harvest I think I will be purchasing another one of the same model. The flowers underneath of that particular light are just bursting beautifully. I'll report back with additional pictures shortly.
Lights on in about 45 minutes. I'll report back with pictures of everything.

I'll cover the clone tent first. Construction yesterday of the new clone manifold. A day in which I am attempting my best to forget. Manifold turned out great. I will say the pump is over powered. 400GPH would have been much more appropriate. Pushing too much power through the misters causes leaks. That's another issue thing I noticed while making this tote leak proof. I since dialed down the 800GPH pump to 50% and it now works fantastic. Tons of mist everywhere, but not more than is necessary to accomplish the goal of generating roots. On with the pictures!

Yeah...it was as much fun as it looks like. Then having to blow out all the tiny pieces of PVC with a garden hose was super fun. I'm glad this design worked, and god willing I will not be making a manifold again for many years.







Jager clone. I'm just rooting it to throw it in my flower room to show sex. I took a couple off of each jager in my nurseries. They might be males, and I want to know as soon as possible so I can eliminate them from the nursery if I need to. Don't need no banana producing males tying up valuable real estate. The jager's stink to high hell. I really hope they turn out to be ladies. They smell fantastic!



Maui, black widow, and jager clones. 3 blue dream feminized seedlings. 1 just started it's second set of leaves.

And the flower room with the 600W HPS jamming with the two 1000W HPS's and the 660W quantum board.








My pathway to water is getting narrow. The walls are closing in in all the right ways



The next 2 photos are directly under the 660W quantum board.

And the nurseries.





Nursery B with the 450W quantum board at full power.

We are experiencing an unseasonable heat wave in Michigan through Friday and today has been brutal. AC is keeping the flower room at 82 but it's running constantly. I'm not concerned about electric consumption as long as the room stays at 82 and under. Snapped a couple flower room pics today. All is right with the world in there. Humidity during lights off is becoming a problem. I have a dehumidifier running on a timer after lights off until 30 minutes before lights on. It can hardly keep the room under 65%. I kicked on the dehumidifier on the AC and that got the room down to 52%. As the heat wave ends on Saturday so will the high humidity. Bought 2 big bags of #4 perlite to transplant my rooted clones from the clone tote tomorrow and into the dollar store trash cans with a hempy hole. Super cheap and they work great. They'll stay in the small trash cans for about 3 weeks as the root systems develop. Then into the 5 gallon buckets to finish them off in the flower room.

Time to suck the day's dick fellas. The heat wave continues. The flower room is bouncing between 82-84 as a result. I have no plans to reduce power at this point. 82 or under is preferred. Under 84 is acceptable. Over 84 is a problem that requires immediate action and it hasn't occurred yet. I monitor the room continuously. If I wake up in the middle of the night to smoke and snack I go to the flower room just to make sure nothing all is right with the world. Watered today and shut down the clone tote. I'm giving 9 clones away to a friend that I am unable to use due to space constraints which I transplanted into 12 oz cups in dirt. The clones I'm keeping for the next flower cycle were all placed in dollar store trash cans (love me some dollar tree!) with #4 chunky mother earth perlite. I can't remember exactly how many I've vegging presently, but I intend to flower 24 in the next cycle. I believe I have 28 or 29 vegging plants total including the blue dream seedlings. The BD seedlings are most likely going to miss the next flower cycle because they're so small. All good though. I'll grow them into big bushes and take many clones from them for the following flower cycle.

On with the fucking pictures eh?

Ladies under the 660W quantum board are looking fantastic. I am very much looking forward to re-installing the 450W quantum board back in the flower room after this cycle ends. I moved it into one of my nurseries and it wound up bleaching some foliage at full power, so I had to reduce to 50% which is a waste of a light in my opinion. After this flower cycle ends I will purchase another hydro farm high output 8 lamp T5 for $180. In my opinion the plants seem to greatly prefer the T5 and respond better. I may consider a 200-250W Q board which would be more appropriately powered for a 5'x5' nursery tent. When I move the 450W Q board back into the flower room I plan to house it side by side with the 650W Q board to address some light drop off issues I'm having on that end of the flower room presently. I will be unable to add any additional lighting at that point which will put my total flower room wattage at 3710 watts of mixed spectrum HPS and LED. So far I feel the quantum boards are outstanding for flower. I'm on the fence about vegetative growth. I observed tighter node spacing and bushier growth with Q boards, but experienced difficulty finding the "sweet spot" of lighting intensity without burning the foliage. Once I found the correct amount of power to dial the unit down to the plants did well. I really like these boards and I feel my operator error caused the issues I experienced. In the flower room I have not seen a single bleached leaf or twisted leaf due to the intensity of the light. The flower room is a much larger space with higher ceilings, and in these conditions the plants are loving the light. I think it's really all about matching the appropriate wattage for the space your lighting, and there is a very big learning curve if one has never used a Q board before. Getting used to light intensity absent heat is a new concept for HID growers like myself. Even from 3' away from the canopy at a beautiful 78 degrees light bleaching will occur if the light is too over powered for the space you're illuminating. That is something that simply does not occur with HID lights. Strange new world

And the nurseries.

This leggy bitch is the sole survivor female of 4 Jager's. The other 3 all grew pollen sacs. Just chopped down the last male today as I was taking these pics. Topped and tied down. She's gonna be a monster and she stinks quite nicely. Incredibly strong branches. I could hardly even pinch one off to super crop it.




450W Q board nursery




Hydro farm T5 nursery




Clone nursery with Hydro farm T5





Fucking nut sacks. Gone baby gone

Kingbrite 240w double heatsink would do great for your 5x5 and is right around $180.

jonnynobody said:

I finally finished all of the electrical work in my flower room, painted the walls, and installed proper light proofing material between the joists. Installed a new door, because I trashed the last one and it would no longer close properly. Revamped my HVAC and cleaned everything up nicely. Lined the floor with 6 MIL plastic sheeting. I would opt for a heavy duty tarp next time. The plastic sheeting tears easier than I thought and was a poor choice as a floor covering. I've never torn a hole in my grow room tarps before, so back to tarps. They are twice the cost, but clearly worth it.

I moved 19 or 20 plants into the flower room under a 660w quantum boad I got from Alibaba with LM301b chips and Mean Well drivers and a 450w quantum board (spider farmer brand). They'll start the 12/12 flower cycle tomorrow and I will then fire up my two 1000W HPS hortilux lamps for a combined total power of 3110 Watts. This is my first time flowering with an LED light. So far I am impressed with the vegetative growth. The nodes are much tighter than what I'm use to seeing in vegetative growth under my T5.

Here are the pics of the 2 lights up and running. The Alibaba unit is significantly more intense than the spider farmer. I plan to add a co2 burner with PPM controller after the next harvest. I estimate that upgrade will cost about $500, but I hear you can increase production by 40%. Hopefully that's true.

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Is that little green looking light bulb in the groovy lamp so u can see the garden during lights off? what kinda lights are those called anyway that dont disturb our girls when they sleep?

NukaKola said:

Kingbrite 240w double heatsink would do great for your 5x5 and is right around $180.

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Thank you very much for the great recommendation. The 240W Kingbrite unit is perfect for the 5'x5' nursery, and for the same price I was already planning to spend on another 4' hydro farm T5. Good looking out browesky.

MintyDreadlocks said:

Is that little green looking light bulb in the groovy lamp so u can see the garden during lights off? what kinda lights are those called anyway that dont disturb our girls when they sleep?

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Yes it is. I wear my vivo sun green headlights I got off amazon for the most part because they are as functional as they are cheap. $12.99 for a 2 pack. I use them every day at least twice and haven't broken one yet in over 6 months. They're very cheap, but dammit they are quite functional. The light bulbs I also got off amazon in a very affordable 2 pack for $9.68.

jonnynobody said:

Thank you very much for the great recommendation. The 240W Kingbrite unit is perfect for the 5'x5' nursery, and for the same price I was already planning to spend on another 4' hydro farm T5. Good looking out browesky.

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Glad I could help

I like the double heat sink option for only $12 more, allows you to space the two boards to fit your footprint and is much better for square areas since you can place them side to side compared to most QB fixtures which have the boards mounted end to end.

Just read the full journal. Garden looks great. This is my first summer here in mi and I'm glad I got at least one flower room with a mini split before I ran out of money. I still have another flower room to set up but hoping the fall comes soon so can air cool.

Have you thought about 315 cmh for veg?

Apalchen said:

Just read the full journal. Garden looks great. This is my first summer here in mi and I'm glad I got at least one flower room with a mini split before I ran out of money. I still have another flower room to set up but hoping the fall comes soon so can air cool.

Have you thought about 315 cmh for veg?

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Thanks man. It was a lot of work getting it to this point. Good move on the mini split. I'm looking forward to adding one to the flower room before next summer arrives. Adding a natural gas 4 burner co2 generator after my next harvest. Sealing the room with co2 is easy in the winter without a mini, but in the summer it's not possible with the portable A/C constantly sucking it out the exhaust tube. I've heard great things about the 315 cmh units. I think the only reason I haven't tried one is lack of familiarity. Is there a particular manufacturer that makes a nice unit?

jonnynobody said:

Thanks man. It was a lot of work getting it to this point. Good move on the mini split. I'm looking forward to adding one to the flower room before next summer arrives. Adding a natural gas 4 burner co2 generator after my next harvest. Sealing the room with co2 is easy in the winter without a mini, but in the summer it's not possible with the portable A/C constantly sucking it out the exhaust tube. I've heard great things about the 315 cmh units. I think the only reason I haven't tried one is lack of familiarity. Is there a particular manufacturer that makes a nice unit?

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There is a store near Detroit called roots to success. That's where I got my 315s for veg, they were like 160 bucks and came with a growers choice bulb. The brand is sun system model name is flower power or something like that.
That store is no where near me but man their deals on lights can't be beat. I got my gavita de's there as well for 250 each.

Not sure if your Interested but I don't have natural gas here and I have a trolmaster NG C02 burner, it's the small one with like 2 burners. It has a simple controller that came with it. I only used it one day at my old spot before the mini split there quit working and I had to finish out my last run venting and not using the unit. Their is a hook on top of the plastic controller that broke off when moving but I don't think it would mess with how it works. I know you said 4 burner unit tho and this one is only 2 burner.

Apalchen said:

There is a store near Detroit called roots to success. That's where I got my 315s for veg, they were like 160 bucks and came with a growers choice bulb. The brand is sun system model name is flower power or something like that.
That store is no where near me but man their deals on lights can't be beat. I got my gavita de's there as well for 250 each.

Not sure if your Interested but I don't have natural gas here and I have a trolmaster NG C02 burner, it's the small one with like 2 burners. It has a simple controller that came with it. I only used it one day at my old spot before the mini split there quit working and I had to finish out my last run venting and not using the unit. Their is a hook on top of the plastic controller that broke off when moving but I don't think it would mess with how it works. I know you said 4 burner unit tho and this one is only 2 burner.

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Thank you for the offer. For the size space I'm growing in a 4 burner unit will be more efficient and will run less frequently. Good looking out though Did you notice a substantial increase in yield versus without co2 enrichment? If I could achieve an extra 25% yield by just adding a co2 burner I'd be doing back flips at harvest time. I'm pretty excited to complete the upgrade. Then I'll have to get the mini split installed before next summer to keep the burner running through the hot months. It's a work in progress. Hell, I think that'd be a great phrase to chisel on my tombstone. Here lies "A work in progress."

Apalchen said:

There is a store near Detroit called roots to success. That's where I got my 315s for veg, they were like 160 bucks and came with a growers choice bulb. The brand is sun system model name is flower power or something like that.
That store is no where near me but man their deals on lights can't be beat. I got my gavita de's there as well for 250 each.

Not sure if your Interested but I don't have natural gas here and I have a trolmaster NG C02 burner, it's the small one with like 2 burners. It has a simple controller that came with it. I only used it one day at my old spot before the mini split there quit working and I had to finish out my last run venting and not using the unit. Their is a hook on top of the plastic controller that broke off when moving but I don't think it would mess with how it works. I know you said 4 burner unit tho and this one is only 2 burner.

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Today I got up at 5am to have some working time in the garden before my wife and grand baby woke up. By the time my expresso kicked in I didn't start actually moving until 7. Don't judge me. I fucking hate mornings

Today is the day I am tying down and training my vegetating ladies in an effort to create a large bush with an even canopy out of each plant. The earlier training begins the easier it is to achieve the results you're driving for. Branches are soft and easier to manipulate. The older the plant gets it becomes much more difficult to manipulate branches without breaking them. I feel one of my shortcomings is that I don't train my plants as well as I should be, and I intend to change that starting today. I want to improve something I'm deficient in each cycle to continuously improve the garden and it's rate of production. Enough of my babbling. On with the pictures!

CRITICAL MASS: She's quite impressive.



JAGER: Girl's got legs for days. Lots of flower sites too. Very stinky. Incredibly strong branches and stems. I was barely able to super crop the branches with my fingers.


GIRL SCOUT COOKIES: Very stinky strain. Lots of flower sites. I think this is going to be one to watch.




MAUI WAUI:

NURSERY B all tied down:

Nursery A complete. Let the bondage pics commence

MAUI WAUI:











MOONSHINE HAZE #1 X GHOST TRAIN HAZE #1:


PINEAPPLE EXPRESS: Got this from a neighbor a month and a half ago. I was just working in the back yard and started shooting the shit with a dude that lives on the other side of my fence at the rear of my property. Before ya know it we're talking shop trading samples and strains. Smells like banana. I'm not expecting this to be potent, but more of a foo foo boutique strain for it's flavor profile. We shall see Also, I transplanted her into this 5 gallon bucket way too early before a solid root system was established resulting in painfully slow growth. After a month and a half of nursing it back to health she seems to be thriving nicely. Moving forward all clones will be kept in the dollar store trash cans for 4 weeks after they leave the clone tote. That is enough time to properly establish a solid swath of roots. Then they will be up potted to the 5 gallon buckets in preparation for flowering. The final 4 weeks of their vegetative growth will be in the 5 gallon buckets. Up potting too early causes nothing but slowed growth and wasted time.



I've got to knock out one final batch of clones in the clone nursery. I'll report back with final pics and an update of the flower room at lights on. The heat wave has finally ended thank god. Ever since I started growing 12 years ago I fucking hate summers The 450W Q board has been turned up to full power in nursery B. Presently there is no light bleaching on any plants. I'll take pics tomorrow morning to see how the girls handle the intensity. If power has to be reduced I'll do so. I'm hoping they all take the light without issue, but I'm a little nervous about the critical mass and GSC. They do not seem to like high intensity. I'll keep a close eye on those 2.

Clone nursery: The 4 in trash cans are maui waui's that are part of the next flower cycle. The 3 blue dream babies to the left will be bushed out for the following flower cycle. I'm very excited about the BD's. Should harvest them around chistmas time. The other little ladies in dirt spread around the right and front are being donated to a friend this weekend. I clipped too many and don't have the space to properly care for them


I'll report back with a flower room update this evening. Only took me 4 double expresso's to get through this day