BendBender's 1st Grow!

B

bendbender

New Member
Hello all!

After much waiting (for seedlings and MM permits) I finally got my plants started on August 1st.

I want to gratefully thanks the Skooter Clowns for all of their help and sage advice. Being a nOOb sucks and they have been a truly great help to get me going and sort out the confusion of a first timer. I am going to be following the way they grow... Its simple and very effective and their buds are INsAnE!!!!!!

Additionally I want to thank Roseman for his great article (all 9 gazillion pages of it).

OK lets get this thing going!!!!!

I am renting a house in Oregon so My criteria were:
-I dont want to attract any attention to my grow (stealthiness)
-I must be able to disassemble my grow tent and venting system if needed
-I want to be able to produce 2 pounds a month
-I want to grow stanky buds!!

The first hurdle was to make a way to suck in air and expel air without cutting and holes in the walls, ceilings or floors... the only option was to use the window along with a window AC unit to maintain temperature.

I designed an insert that could be placed in the window frame that has a stealthy 2 1/2" gap that isn't really noticeable from the outside.

After some head scratching I figured it out;

Here is how it turned out from the inside....

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And here it is from the outside... Notice the gap of about 2" to allow the air to flow in and out. There is foam inserted in the gap to reduce dust and noise and to hide the opening....
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The construction is from cheap roof sheathing. 2 X 3 lumber was used to separate the intake and exhaust sections, then 6" and 4" holes were cut on the interior. Also take note that the interior sheathing was cut slightly larger so it fits in the window track. Of course the large hole is for the window AC unit. I used rubber fender paint on the interior which isn't really necessary.
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Here is a picture of the exterior sheathing...
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and one more shot of the interior frame...
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Careful alignment of the 2 sheets is essential to allow for it to properly fit into the frame. I measured the window track dimensions and the interior window opening 4 times before I cut and screwed everything together. to my astonishment, it fit perfectly.

Next lets build a tent....
 
The tent is straight forward...

I used 1" PVC conduit for a frame, more of the cheap roof sheathing for the floor and ceiling, and blackout canvas to wrap it up.

Although the blackout canvas is really great stuff, it is very expensive and very rigid and hard to work with. The Skooter clowns used Panda film which in hindsight I may go with next time. One thing about the blackout canvas is the reflectivity is a bit higher and it is virtually indestructible.

I started by making the floor and ceiling... 39" deep and 48" wide. The floor is lined with 2 X 3 lumber turned up so the 3" side makes a nice tub to catch spills. The blackout canvas was glued to the floor and left with about a 2" extra lip that sticks up above the 2 X 3.
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I made a muffler and a carbon filter with instructions found on 420magazine.com and hooked them up...
I used high output PC fans that were $10.00 each and they move about 130CFM... nifty.
here is a link Newegg.com - Scythe DFS123812-3000 "ULTRA KAZE" 120 x 38 mm Case Fan


The light has 6" flex vent with one of the PC fans sucking air through a muffler from the window vent, going through the light and back out to the exhaust side of the window vent. The Carbon filter is using one of the same PC fans but reduced to a 4" vent... I have since learned that this is inadequate and needs to be revised. I am planning on building a closet with more of the cheap roof sheathing and stapling the blackout canvas to the sides and increasing the the carbon filter flex vent to 6" in addition to having one or 2 of the PC fans pushing air into the wooden closet.

Here are some more pics...

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I am hanging the lights on a pully system using a "jam cleat" thingy that I found at harbor freight.

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additionally I am using dryer vent backflow preventers for the 4" flex vent coming from the carbon filter.

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So far I am fairly unimpressed with my design... The carbon filter has far too little airflow and my tent doesnt seal very well so I cant force cool air into the tent. I am trying to save a few bucks by not buying expensive turbine vent fans but I may need to if I cant make these PC fans work right.

One other note... I bought 400/600 switchable digital ballasts as I was planning on using 400 HID for vegging and 600 HPS for flowering... I have since discovered that this was a bad purchase as I am going to be vegging for 2 or 3 weeks and just staying with the 600 Watt HPS for the vegging/flowering cycle... I am following the Skooter Clowns on this aspect of the grow.

OK the room has been thoroughly cleaned, plastic sheeting layed down, the tent built and vented and the lights hooked up....

Unfortunately there was a 3 month wait before I got any cuttings to start my grow!

So I waited.... next the fun begins!!!!
 
OK so Its August 1st and my babies girls are here!!!!

I have 3 different strains

on the left - Purple Kush (2)

in the Middle - White Rhino (2)

On the right - Marshmallow (3 of them)

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I am using General Hydro Nutes... Micro, Gro and Bloom. The first week was seedling strength, second week I doubled the dosage. Lights were on 24/7.


I made a sprinkler cloner using 9 micro sprinklers and a harbor freight 285 GPH fountain pump (for $15.00 this pump is great!). If anyone wants more detail of the "Clown Cloner" let me know. I will be happy to take more pics of how I built it. It can easily sprout 18 cuttings with the storage box lids that I have.
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I am using 27 gallon storage boxes that I found at Lowes... they are black with yellow tops and are very sturdy. I painted the tops with primer and the oil-based rustoleum which is very durable. The cloner lid has 18 - 2" holes and the main grow lid has 6 - 3" holes.
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For sprouting I built a light hood that holds 4 67 watt CFLs (2700K). I threw a 80 mm PC fan in it to blow the warm air out through the window vent. Again if anyone wants details of how it was built I will be happy to provide more detail.
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After 1 week the roots started to appear....
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The roots are almost 3" long 3 days later... By the end of the week the are almost 12" long and are ready to be moved to my Deep Water Culture (DWC)
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Finally A quick pic of my temp and humidity monitor... $8.00 at wally world... wOOt! The upper temp is at the surface at the lid, the lower temp is the probe that is in the water.
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Next we are gonna pump these little girls up into full blown Ladies!
 
OK, So after 18 days of cloning the switch was made to the DWC. I am using 15 gallons of water at 5.5 PH and aggressive growth mix on the General Hydro Nutes (1170 PPM).

Here they are on day 24 of growing... the White Rhino is going nuts! the one in front is about 9" tall and about 8" wide. but alas the purple kush and the marshmallow aren't growing as good.
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Here is the feeble little purple kush... stem is thick and roots are 15" long
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and the marshmallow that is growing but looks kinda sickly
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A pic of the roots of the soon-to-be-monsterous White Rhino
They are over 2 feet long as of August 26th!!
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I plan on running the 2 White Rhinos for another week or 2 and then moving them to their tent and starting to flower... more on that later.


On last thing is I plan on making hard-sided grow rooms instead of tents... more on that to come. I will be making a small cloning tent and possibly a third growing room.

Thanks for looking at my grow... Id love to hear any comments!

And again thanks to the Skoots for all their help!!!!
 
Full strength aggressive from the GH calculator is pretty scary stuff! The Rhino has claws on the leaf tips, can't tell from the pics if they are browning. I love GH so far, their pH buffering is superb, but their calculator runs way hotter than I am comfortable with. I run the calc at 3.5g per actual 5g of water (70%). Are you showing any signs of overnuting on the tips other than the clawing?
 
Hi basement...

thanks for checking out my grow...

I am seeing the tips turning down. I may dilute the nutes a bit.
The White Rhinos and one of the Kushes are growing fast however.

thanks for the advice.
 
Heya Bender!
Very nice set up buddy. I'm lovin' the stealth window set up and the roof sheathing on the floor, the filter set up....the whole nine yards! You did a real nice job gettin' it together like you've done it before. Very impressive.

You are doing something that we hadn't tried before and that is mixing strains in a tub. We've often wondered how well that would work especially early on in their growing stage.

Very nice set up and your journal is off to a fantastic start. Keep up the great work Bend...:thumb::nicethread::bravo::goodjob:

+reps
 
Bend I was giving your situation a thought (geez my head hurts)...about your Purple and Marshmallow and anything else not keeping up with the White Rhino.

You may want to take them out of the DWC tub and put them back in the cloner box. If you can take the cloner "guts" out of that tub and convert it, for a short period of time, into a mini DWC so you can nurse them separate from the Rhino. Once they are healthy you can then sex them and make them moms if female and then get some clones off of them.

The reason for this suggestion is that, even if at this stage, the difference in size and the plants' needs are going to be vastly different for the entire grow process. While their need, as far as nutes, will eventually be the same (full bloom mix) they will never be the same height or even close enough to be manageable.

In controlling size in height you will want to keep the light as close as possible to the canopy (I know you already know this) and plants of different heights make that VERY difficult to do. Anyway this is probably the biggest reason we don't mix strains in a single grow and why we built 2 tents, so that we can grow 2 different strains at once. :tokin:

Very psyched for your first grow. I can't wait to see how well you do. VERY COOL!:smokin:
 
Howdy Skoots!!!

thanks for the reps!

I was a bit leery as to mixing strains as well but I can get more cuttings as needed from my buddy. One of the Purple kush never did do well from the start... My main interest is in the White Rhino anyway. Are you familiar with these strains and if so, which one do you like the best, second, third.

Im going to be redoing my tents and making hard-sided cabinets so if my Landlord comes over I don't have to worry about tearing everything down again... I would just have to take down the ventilation and remove the AC/venting thingy. I can also control the airflow better as my fans arent cutting it (Im leaving the front flap all the way open to keep the room cool).

As far as keeping the light close to the canopy, I have adjusted the height to the surface temperature. WHen I move the light closer than it is now the temp gets over 80F... where it is now Im at 77/78 F which the plants seem to be loving.

I do have a question>>> The plant's tips are curling down (aggressive nutes mix 1180 ppm)... and on basement-grow's advice I am thinking of reducing the nutes by 30%... what do you think?

thanks for the help everyone and I will get pics when I build the new cabinets.
 
bendbender said:
Howdy Skoots!!!

thanks for the reps!

I was a bit leery as to mixing strains as well but I can get more cuttings as needed from my buddy. One of the Purple kush never did do well from the start... My main interest is in the White Rhino anyway. Are you familiar with these strains and if so, which one do you like the best, second, third.

Im going to be redoing my tents and making hard-sided cabinets so if my Landlord comes over I don't have to worry about tearing everything down again... I would just have to take down the ventilation and remove the AC/venting thingy. I can also control the airflow better as my fans arent cutting it (Im leaving the front flap all the way open to keep the room cool).

As far as keeping the light close to the canopy, I have adjusted the height to the surface temperature. WHen I move the light closer than it is now the temp gets over 80F... where it is now Im at 77/78 F which the plants seem to be loving.

I do have a question>>> The plant's tips are curling down (aggressive nutes mix 1180 ppm)... and on basement-grow's advice I am thinking of reducing the nutes by 30%... what do you think?

thanks for the help everyone and I will get pics when I build the new cabinets.
Click to expand...

I was that you were using "aggressive" nutes mix. What is that? Looking at the GH chart which week are you at? This is the part of the chart we are using. I don't know what you mean by aggressive. I believe you should be on week 3 (which is grow) on this chart

GH_Chart.jpg
 
Forgot to answer ya...We're not familiar with any of those strains. Sorry...but if White Rhino is a White Widow mix then you should love it. We loved the White Widow. I've read a lot about the Purple Kush but have never grown or smoked it (heard great things btw).

Ya if you can not worry about the Kush or Marshmallow because you have access to more when you need it I would think about pitchin' them and concentrate on getting max yield for your effort with the Rhino. Get that first nice grow under your belt then try the next strain and so on and so on lol


:tokin:


bendbender said:
Howdy Skoots!!!

thanks for the reps!

I was a bit leery as to mixing strains as well but I can get more cuttings as needed from my buddy. One of the Purple kush never did do well from the start... My main interest is in the White Rhino anyway. Are you familiar with these strains and if so, which one do you like the best, second, third.

Im going to be redoing my tents and making hard-sided cabinets so if my Landlord comes over I don't have to worry about tearing everything down again... I would just have to take down the ventilation and remove the AC/venting thingy. I can also control the airflow better as my fans arent cutting it (Im leaving the front flap all the way open to keep the room cool).

As far as keeping the light close to the canopy, I have adjusted the height to the surface temperature. WHen I move the light closer than it is now the temp gets over 80F... where it is now Im at 77/78 F which the plants seem to be loving.

I do have a question>>> The plant's tips are curling down (aggressive nutes mix 1180 ppm)... and on basement-grow's advice I am thinking of reducing the nutes by 30%... what do you think?

thanks for the help everyone and I will get pics when I build the new cabinets.
Click to expand...
 
whoa! that chart is totally different than mine!

I am using the expert mineral recirculating chart from GH...

it says to use 15 Gro, 10 micro, 5 bloom

GH_nutes_recirc.jpg


I guess I need to switch to your ASAP then eh?

I just looked on the GH site and I cant find your chart... weird. I did find a drain/fill chart that has similar doses as yours.
 
The chart we use is on their site here:
GENERAL HYDROPONICS

About the very middle of the list there and is called "Flora Series Feeding Schedule"

I don't want to say your chart is wrong because I have no idea what the differences are or more importantly why they are different. But this is the one we've used from day one when we started with DWC.

Hope this helps :blunt:

bendbender said:
whoa! that chart is totally different than mine!

I am using the expert mineral recirculating chart from GH...

it says to use 15 Gro, 10 micro, 5 bloom

GH_nutes_recirc.jpg


I guess I need to switch to your ASAP then eh?

I just looked on the GH site and I cant find your chart... weird. I did find a drain/fill chart that has similar doses as yours.
Click to expand...
 
Ahh OK... I didnt see that part of their site. Im gonna follow that then
thanks skoots


Thanks for the info basement. Im surprised they have all those different schedules listed there. I havent used the calculator before but I tried it just now and its cool.


Great to hear vapoorize... thanks for the info.. Holy Crap! those buds are... well... kinda white! and they look very dank!
 
Nice set up and grow you got going there bender....those roots are looking mighty healthy...and as we say, healthy roots make for a healthy plant.

Boy does that rhino sound tempting to grow..
I'll have to keep a close eye on your grow and see how they make out.

I'll let you know if I think your temps are running a little low...as we all know I like them up in the 130's..:rofl:
 
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