No PICS, sorry.
So I'm about to start a new DWC cabinet SCROG having done my last one almost 4 years ago. Damn! Seems like it was yesterday. This was a big success, I yielded enough from a single plant and a runt to keep myself in daily smoke for over 2 years. The yield was very close to 1g/watt which is, in my book, the benchmark for high yields.
I'm wanted to share what worked for me, a first time hydro grower on that grow. Especially since Overgrow is now defunct, because it was overgrow that led me step by step through the process by being able to look at 50-60 different set-ups of people doing the same thing.
Basic stats:
Mills Pride C-13 Cabinet with 6 4" ABS double elbows in the bottom for vent intake
400w hps with a 6" vented hood on chain/hooks for adjusment
centrifugal fan mounted outside the cabinet using 6" dryer duct
rubbermaid tub for reservoir
dual output walmart aquarium pump and two 8" stones.
SCROG screen setup about 10" above the top of the res. Constructed from a craft shop frame elements and light utility/baling type wire
NL#5 genetics
netpots/clayballs
Lucas forumula using Gen Hydro nutes.
I started from seed with 6 sprouted in paper towels. I placed the folded over papertowels with the seeds into a small tupperware and set that on top of a small heat source to keep it warm. Meanwhile I was building out the cabinet setup. I did this all in an apartment...not recommended, but it worked and I was in Alaska which helped since it's quasi legal there. Even so, the biggest noise was from air rushing through the fan ducting, so I wrapped a sleeping bag around the ducting and put the fan inside a box (also covered by the sleeping bag) which helped a good bit.
After the seeds sprouted I put them into peat pots (a mistake, but I couldn't get any rockwool or similar). These I kept in a small container with a small fan blowing on them under 24hr CFL light. Once they had a couple sets of real leaves, I moved them to the netpots/clay balls while still in the peat pots, and put the res level about halfway up the netpot (tops of netpots were flush with res lid). With the bubbler running, it would splash enough water to wet the entire net pot without keeping it submerged.
I used very light nutes at first, something like 1/4 strength (I had a spreadsheet and notes detailing every single thing I did, but lost it in a hard drive failure a few years ago). PPM readings started about 200, and were boosted around 500 over a week and a half. Light cycle at 18/6.
In the beginning I was having major issues controlling pH. The pH-down I was using took about 12hrs to finally stabalize and it took me a few weeks to learn how to gradually adjust it. I attempted to keep my pH between 5.5 and 6, and it ended up staying between 5.2 and 6 for the entire grow, normally being about 5.5.
My first real issue was that the peat pots disintegrated and all the peat ended up in the res. No problem, just totally switched out my res solution after a week and that got most of the junk out. I never changed the entire solution again except when I switched to flowering.
I gradually boosted my nutes by topping up the res with full strength lucas mix, gradually going from 500ppm to 1000ppm.
I had a slight issue with tips curling and getting crunchy that I never really got a handle on, but it didn't get any worse in the end. When pre-flowers showed I had 4! males. Doh! That revealed a major weakness with going from seed...now I had 4 plants of 6 that needed to be culled, but the root systems were all entertwined. I just got out what I could without mangling the female's roots and left some remnants in there. I was afraid it would instigate root rot, but never became an issue. I did add some peroxide at one point when detecting some browning of roots (which was probably the remnants of the culled males' roots rotting).
So one female was a total runt, goofy phenotype unlike the others. The other was very healthy and had a huge healthy white root mass. I was totally amazed at how fast the thing was growing. I kept the HPS about 6" off the top of the plants, which was feasible due to the 6" vented glass enclosed hood.
I'd have the fan on constantly while the light was on, and while it was off I'd have it come on for 10 min every 40 min to control humidity. This helped alot.
As the plant vegged, I pruned once, and then once more a couple weeks later. I trained under the screen and when it was 75% full, switched to 12/12. This was after about 35 days of veg. I continued to train new growth under the screen during the stretch. I gradually boosted nutes up to the 1200-1500ppm range.
After 30 days in 12/12 I had a freakin x-mas tree farm going in there. Virtually every hole in the screen (about 2.5" x 2.5") had a fat cola developing. This covered the entire dimension of the cabinet. After 62 days flowering, the trichromes were about half cloudy/half clear so I harvested. Colas were about 8-12" at this point. The yield was unreal to me, having only grown in soil before.
After two evenings of trimming, and a few days drying, I had about 6 half gallon jars packed with buds. Net weight was 390g. I think the best memory was while starting the harvest, I scraped some clear scissor resin into a pipe and took a hit...it was super fruity tasting and having not smoked for a few months I was fucking blasted.
Two plus years of stoney fly fishing, mountain biking, skiiing, etc ensued. Now I can legally grow my own and am about to start a new cabinet project. I will start this one with clones (much easier) that have rooted in rockwool or cocofiber. If I can get NL5 I'll probably use it again because the smoke is pretty good, but the plants are very tolerant of errors and easy to grow, compact, etc.
Maybe this will help someone, if nothing else I helped me remember everything I went through and to get ready.
Happy growing.
So I'm about to start a new DWC cabinet SCROG having done my last one almost 4 years ago. Damn! Seems like it was yesterday. This was a big success, I yielded enough from a single plant and a runt to keep myself in daily smoke for over 2 years. The yield was very close to 1g/watt which is, in my book, the benchmark for high yields.
I'm wanted to share what worked for me, a first time hydro grower on that grow. Especially since Overgrow is now defunct, because it was overgrow that led me step by step through the process by being able to look at 50-60 different set-ups of people doing the same thing.
Basic stats:
Mills Pride C-13 Cabinet with 6 4" ABS double elbows in the bottom for vent intake
400w hps with a 6" vented hood on chain/hooks for adjusment
centrifugal fan mounted outside the cabinet using 6" dryer duct
rubbermaid tub for reservoir
dual output walmart aquarium pump and two 8" stones.
SCROG screen setup about 10" above the top of the res. Constructed from a craft shop frame elements and light utility/baling type wire
NL#5 genetics
netpots/clayballs
Lucas forumula using Gen Hydro nutes.
I started from seed with 6 sprouted in paper towels. I placed the folded over papertowels with the seeds into a small tupperware and set that on top of a small heat source to keep it warm. Meanwhile I was building out the cabinet setup. I did this all in an apartment...not recommended, but it worked and I was in Alaska which helped since it's quasi legal there. Even so, the biggest noise was from air rushing through the fan ducting, so I wrapped a sleeping bag around the ducting and put the fan inside a box (also covered by the sleeping bag) which helped a good bit.
After the seeds sprouted I put them into peat pots (a mistake, but I couldn't get any rockwool or similar). These I kept in a small container with a small fan blowing on them under 24hr CFL light. Once they had a couple sets of real leaves, I moved them to the netpots/clay balls while still in the peat pots, and put the res level about halfway up the netpot (tops of netpots were flush with res lid). With the bubbler running, it would splash enough water to wet the entire net pot without keeping it submerged.
I used very light nutes at first, something like 1/4 strength (I had a spreadsheet and notes detailing every single thing I did, but lost it in a hard drive failure a few years ago). PPM readings started about 200, and were boosted around 500 over a week and a half. Light cycle at 18/6.
In the beginning I was having major issues controlling pH. The pH-down I was using took about 12hrs to finally stabalize and it took me a few weeks to learn how to gradually adjust it. I attempted to keep my pH between 5.5 and 6, and it ended up staying between 5.2 and 6 for the entire grow, normally being about 5.5.
My first real issue was that the peat pots disintegrated and all the peat ended up in the res. No problem, just totally switched out my res solution after a week and that got most of the junk out. I never changed the entire solution again except when I switched to flowering.
I gradually boosted my nutes by topping up the res with full strength lucas mix, gradually going from 500ppm to 1000ppm.
I had a slight issue with tips curling and getting crunchy that I never really got a handle on, but it didn't get any worse in the end. When pre-flowers showed I had 4! males. Doh! That revealed a major weakness with going from seed...now I had 4 plants of 6 that needed to be culled, but the root systems were all entertwined. I just got out what I could without mangling the female's roots and left some remnants in there. I was afraid it would instigate root rot, but never became an issue. I did add some peroxide at one point when detecting some browning of roots (which was probably the remnants of the culled males' roots rotting).
So one female was a total runt, goofy phenotype unlike the others. The other was very healthy and had a huge healthy white root mass. I was totally amazed at how fast the thing was growing. I kept the HPS about 6" off the top of the plants, which was feasible due to the 6" vented glass enclosed hood.
I'd have the fan on constantly while the light was on, and while it was off I'd have it come on for 10 min every 40 min to control humidity. This helped alot.
As the plant vegged, I pruned once, and then once more a couple weeks later. I trained under the screen and when it was 75% full, switched to 12/12. This was after about 35 days of veg. I continued to train new growth under the screen during the stretch. I gradually boosted nutes up to the 1200-1500ppm range.
After 30 days in 12/12 I had a freakin x-mas tree farm going in there. Virtually every hole in the screen (about 2.5" x 2.5") had a fat cola developing. This covered the entire dimension of the cabinet. After 62 days flowering, the trichromes were about half cloudy/half clear so I harvested. Colas were about 8-12" at this point. The yield was unreal to me, having only grown in soil before.
After two evenings of trimming, and a few days drying, I had about 6 half gallon jars packed with buds. Net weight was 390g. I think the best memory was while starting the harvest, I scraped some clear scissor resin into a pipe and took a hit...it was super fruity tasting and having not smoked for a few months I was fucking blasted.
Two plus years of stoney fly fishing, mountain biking, skiiing, etc ensued. Now I can legally grow my own and am about to start a new cabinet project. I will start this one with clones (much easier) that have rooted in rockwool or cocofiber. If I can get NL5 I'll probably use it again because the smoke is pretty good, but the plants are very tolerant of errors and easy to grow, compact, etc.
Maybe this will help someone, if nothing else I helped me remember everything I went through and to get ready.
Happy growing.
