Budley's New Bud Box 3K, Watercooled, CO2, Sealed

[budlydoright]

the new box is 80% complete, the clones are vegging. it's time to move in!

For the last 6 weeks we have been contructing a new sealed box. The bud chamber is 4 X 8 X 5' Veg 4 X 4 X 5' More details on this build can be found by following the link in my sig.

I am currently vegging 20 blueberry clones under a 600 watt MH.

3 Gallon Smart Pots with Botanicare COCOGRO.

GH Flora Nova Grow and Bloom
GH Floralicious Grow and Bloom
GH Flora Blend
GH Kool Bloom Liquid and Dry
botaincare Calmag+
Locally cultivated Mycorhizae Root Inoculant
I'm feeding 1/2 stregnth drain to waste

Lighting
2 Fresca Sol water jackets
1 cooltube w/IceBox
2 1000 watt 1 Eye hortilux 1 Ushio
1 600 solarmax MH Conversion for Veg.
2 Galaxy Select A Watt 400-600-1000 Ballasts
1 Hydrofarm 1000 watt core and coil ballast

Homebuilt chiller, 4200 btu DIY minisplit AC, 8" vortex fan, 6X 20" carbon scrubber, digigro ppm3 Co2 Controller and regulator 20lb. bottle.

My last journal was a vertical setup. I seem to have better success growing flat. This new box takes everything we learned from the last one and hopefully leaves out all of it's shortcomings. We will be prunning much more aggresively this time around and shooting for that 1GPW goal! I hit about .80 last run with 1600 watts.

These clones will be moved into their new home in the next day or two.

Here's their new home. It's a work in progress. They'll be going straight into the flowering chamber.

Please visit the links in my Sig for additional information on the Box or Chiller.
I am happy to answer any questions and will do my best to keep up on this journal over the next 10 weeks.

 

[LotzOfTrycs]

I love the BB so I will definitely be watching this grow. I got some going right now and it is my favorite budz.

 

[4twenty4all]

You are very handy! Thanks for all of the great step-by-step links, you have saved a lot of cash by putting in a little bit of elbow grease. I'll be following this grow. How long do you veg before flowering?

 

[budlydoright]

I love the BB so I will definitely be watching this grow. I got some going right now and it is my favorite budz.

I love the blueberry too. this is my 4th round with it. I do look forward to trying some new strains soon as well. I like the classics. Maybe some WW.

You are very handy! Thanks for all of the great step-by-step links, you have saved a lot of cash by putting in a little bit of elbow grease. I'll be following this grow. How long do you veg before flowering?

Thanks! You know back in the day, you had to so everything yourself. Now we have a whole industry that supports this hobby. Still have to get my hands dirty to fully understand what it is I'm doing!

"For some reason, I have to do it this way. I know it's likely the harder way, but somehow it always works out. Along the way I always pick up something that I can use later. Be it a piece of gear, a bit of knowledge or a scar that reminds me to never do it that way again!" -bdr 2010

I'm not sure how long I'll veg these. I would really like them to have a week of veg under the 1ks before I flip. I need a little more structure to hold the weight I'm hoping to put on these girls. I have been becoming more aggressive in my prunning every go round. I'm determined to grow nothing but bud this round. Had a fraction of the shake last time that I did the first go around as well as a higher GPW.

 

[budlydoright]

Alright, much progress has been made since our last installment. I've installed the air conditioner/dehumidifier/scrubber, all of the elecrical and reflectors. the box is purring like a kitten!

I moved all 20 plants in yesterday afternoon, stopped in last night to check the temps and humidity. Everything is working better than expected. The AC seems to be handleing the humidity at this point. This setup is a 20 minute drive for me and my schedule only permits a nightly visit for about 30 minutes of upkeep so I'm looking forward to seeing how these girls are doing under 65 watts per sq foot of HPS when I head up tonight. Also going to complete the co2 install. Just set up for a timed release at the moment. Controllers going in tonight.

Here they are in the flower chamber. Had to turn off 1 lamp to get this photo. The white box in the middle is my home built ac system; "The Funky Cold Medina"!
I still need to route the hose to exhaust the condensation, thus the bucket to catch the water. Got to get to work on the Veg side, I'm going to keep 2 as mothers so I'll have 9 under each 1k. The plan is to have 16 plants in 3 gallon smart pots under each 1k planted 30 days apart. I can keep the mothers, new clones and currently vegging plants in the 4 x 4 side. I should be able to veg the plants to a decent size them move em over. I guess we'll see how this works out over the next fwe months.

The Funky Cold Medina! She cleans cools and circulates!

Sorry bout the photo quality. phone worked well under 600mh but not under hps. I'll have to get a new camera for this project.

 

[ConqueringLOJ]

Awesome start! I can't wait to see more!

 

[budlydoright]

Thanks for checking it out. I'm going to try a different camera tonight. It's actually an HD flip video recorder. So I should have some still and video. Gave them a nice saturation last night so I look forward to seeing them tonight.

 

[budlydoright]

Plants are really starting to react to the 1ks, I have ramped the co2 up to 1500 the tems to 80 and I'm bringing the feed strength up as well. I will weg under the 1ks for about 1 more week.

 

[trichtone]

Great setup Budly!

I love the DIY aspect to your setup. It looks solid and really functional.

 

[budlydoright]

thanks trichtone.

i just set up a drip system last night and decided to try to vent my dehumidifier water into the drip lines. Should give the plants about 3 gallons a day/20 plants. Kind of cool, it will basilcally give the plants back what they have transpired. I'm thinking it could help keep the water to nutrient balance in check a little.

will post some more pics soon. things are really taking off now that the environment is getting into the zone.

 

[budlydoright]

If you notice, the bucket that was collecting the condensation from the AC is gone. I ran the tube into the drip system. It's been a couple of days and it seems to be working very well/

 

[budlydoright]

A little rundown on the latest activity.

I built a drip system out of lowes type parts. Cut everything very accurately to try to keep an equal flow to allof the pots. It's working pretty good, I have taken the condensation water line from my AC and am running it into the drip system. This is trickier since everything has to be level since gravity doing the work so I'm still tweaking there.

So I feed about 1200ppm nutrient solution, the system then recaptures the water vapor as it's transpired and drips it back into pots. so far it's been keeping my COCO perfect for 3 days. I am doing little runoff at each feeding. I'm experimenting with how often to introduce new solution. It seems like adding water back into the mix at the same basic rate that it is being used will help maintain the nutirent/waterbalance and the PH of the coir.
Almost like it's own little weather system. I can make it rain in there if I turn off the AC!

 

[budlydoright]

A couple update pics:

 

[SanibelGreen]

Beautiful.

SG

 

[KiwiKing]

I have always wondered about your grow. You have said several times that you grow off-site, without getting into any details, where do you grow? (i'm just looking for some new ideas for my new setup)

Also, have you ever tried schnazzleberry #2 by chimera seeds? Its a joint project with dj short and chimera...schnazzleberry is 75% blueberry (not true blueberry) and 25% schnazzleberry #1 (Blueberry x schnazzleberry #1 x Blueberry)...looks suuuuper stoney. supposed to be very narcotic. These are pics of dried cured buds...(not mine)

 

[budlydoright]

I have always wondered about your grow. You have said several times that you grow off-site, without getting into any details, where do you grow? (i'm just looking for some new ideas for my new setup)

Also, have you ever tried schnazzleberry #2 by chimera seeds? Its a joint project with dj short and chimera...schnazzleberry is 75% blueberry (not true blueberry) and 25% schnazzleberry #1 (Blueberry x schnazzleberry #1 x Blueberry)...looks suuuuper stoney. supposed to be very narcotic. These are pics of dried cured buds...(not mine)

i have a large warehouse type facility that is currently being used for storage. it is basically an industrial/commercial space i lease for various business interests i've had over the years. its currently tucked into one of the corners of a storage space on top of the bathrooms so it's like being in a hot attic.

I haven't tried that, looks yummy! This is my 4th go round with BB. I really enjoy it and have abused this strain with no consequences. but c'mon it's all I've smoked for a year. I'm ready for some change, so 've been looking around for something new. Just hate to start with beans again.

gave all of the girls a major haircut, or should i say waxing last night! very aggressive lolipoping basicall took everything except the growing tips, all other branches had to go. They look pathetic, like a wet critter. all skinny and spindly now. if i'm satisfied with the way they fill out when they recover, I'll flip to 12 12. Otherwise I'll groom again and wait another few days.

I'm looking for all top bud here this time, no fluff and as little shake as possible.

 

[KiwiKing]

Sounds good man. With the past crop w/ the frecsa i actually didn't have any fluff at all...like I think there was one lil piece of popcorn. I was really impressed with the penetration. well now that i think about it there were a few small stems with fluff on the L*D but it was topped for 4 colas so they were tiny.

I didn't know you were only growing blue berry. Don't you build up an immunity to it?

 

[budlydoright]

Sounds good man. With the past crop w/ the frecsa i actually didn't have any fluff at all...like I think there was one lil piece of popcorn. I was really impressed with the penetration. well now that i think about it there were a few small stems with fluff on the L*D but it was topped for 4 colas so they were tiny.

I didn't know you were only growing blue berry. Don't you build up an immunity to it?

Did you have the calmag issue? I'm just starting to go through this thing where they look pale. I know some of it is bleaching, but it isn't consistent throughout the hot zones. I'm uping my ppm level considerably this week. I'm still running a pretty mild formula considering I'm running a hot box. I did lower my co2 to 800ppm and raised my lights a few inches. I may dim the ballast down to 600w if it doesn't improve soon. I am really hitting them hard with the lumens 2k in a 32 sq ft 160 cubic ft space is intense. they are growing like crazy just pale in colour.

Yes, you can get immune to it, but it is such good smoke. Really pretty hard to tire of bud this good when you can only afford the schwag. I really do want some new strains but to truly dial in your skills and kit, it's good for me to keep as few variables from crop to crop as possible. Then I can really see the results of changes I've made to technique and environment. I am ready to move on. See how this shit translates to a nich kush!

 

[KiwiKing]

Yeah I had some cal-mag issues. I think every journal I have read with a fresca has had them. I would just add epsom salt and skip the cal mag. Epsom should fix it.

 

[budlydoright]

I've been adding the calmag, I've heard epson salts don't react well with coco coir. Mine are just becoming rather pale. I'm thinking I need to ramp up the nutes. I'm too conservative in the feed department. I gave them a nice feeding last night, I'll see how they look tonight. If there's no improvement, I'll dim down to 600s for a couple of days.