GC's First Indoor Cabinet Grow

Governmentchz

Well-Known Member
This is not my first grow, however it IS my first indoor grow start/finish and it IS my first LED grow, and it IS my first grow of any kind in 20+ years so bear with me. Please offer suggestions, criticisms, opinions, as all viewpoints are welcomed.

Journal Log

This is a "hempy" bucket grow (perlite/vermiculite, 80/20 with lower reservoir filled with all perlite) in black 3.25 gal buckets. A single 3/16" hole drilled 2.5" from bottom. All grown in the HydroponicsGroup Bud Buddy cedar cabinet. Cabinet equipment includes a 4" inline fan drawing on a 14" CanLite carbon filter. One 6" clip-on fan, one 4" axial fan mounted on a flange drawing from the central A/C to moderate temps.
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Day 1, September 22nd — Seeds placed in wet paper towel and placed on warming mat.
Light — None


Day 2, September 23rd - Seeds showed signs of germination 23 hrs. Placed in germination plugs (Rapid Rooter) on shallow saucer and ¼ " water. Foil was folded and placed around the plugs to stabilize them on the saucers.
Light — 4 bulb x 2 ft T5 panel @ 10" height
Photoperiod — 24/0
Water — RO (10 ppm) pH adjusted to 5.8 after mild nutrient mixture.
Nutes — General Hydroponics Floraduo A @ 1 ml to 1 gal for root development as recommended by GH.

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Day 3, September 24th — Plugs placed in buckets

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Day 4, September 25th — Sprouts broke surface. Both sprouts had not shed their outer shell and it was removed with tweezers. There was also a thin membrane left behind that was preventing the first leaves from opening which was also removed with tweezers. Within 3 hours, leaves had opened. Plant 1 had significant stretch, Plant 2 opened yet remained quite short comparatively. At 6 hours after removing shell materials, secondary leaves were showing.
Light — 4 bulb x 2ft T5 @ 6" height
Photoperiod — 24/0
Water — RO (12 ppm) Adjusted to 5.8 after nutes. Waste was pH 7.6
Nutes - General Hydroponics Floraduo A @ 1 ml to 1 gal for root development as recommended by GH.

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Day +1, September 26th — Plant 1 stretched slightly more and secondary leaves were fully opened. Plant 2 remained short, secondary leaves were mostly open. Both seedlings looked healthy. Though the lights covered the entire area, plants still showed lean towards center of light.
Light — 4 bulb x 2 ft T5 @ 6" height
Photoperiod — 24/0
Water — none

Day +2, September 27th — Plants switched to LED.
Light — Mars II 140x5w @ 30" height
Photoperiod — 19/5
Water — RO (10 ppm) adjusted to 5.8 after nutrient added
Nutes — GH Floraduo A @ 2 ml/gal (156 ppm). Like a dummy I got too excited about switching lights and didn't measure pH. Waste was 7.2 and started coming out of drain hole showing res was still 2/3 full prior to watering.

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Day +4, September 29th — I checked on everything every 4-6 hours. Everything is running well, though temps remain a bit high @ 85f. I cracked open the top vents by sliding over the plywood covers and temps dropped 2 degrees to 83f. Plants were noticeably more sturdy today and both look healthy. P1 is still more robust and is growing twice as fast as P2 today.
Light — Mars II 140x5w @ 30" height
Photoperiod — 19/5, lights out at midnight, on 5 a.m.
Water — none. Reservoir under ½ full.

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Day +5,September 30th - I got home today to find Wife had turned the A/C up to 80 because rest of house was too cold. Cabinet temps had reached a scorching 97 degrees!!!! I cranked air back down to 75 and opened the cabinet to cool everything off. Temps had come down to 80 in 20 minutes. Checked buckets for water (lifting and tilting). Both were empty or close to empty. Mixed 1 gal water + nutrients and fed ½ gal to each. Plant 2 started to trickle. Plant one barely trickled indicating ½ water used.
Light — Mars II 140x5w @ 30" height
Photoperiod — 19/5, lights out at midnight, on 5 a.m.
Water — 1 gal RO water (10 ppm) adjusted to 6.0 after nutes added
Nutes — 2 ml floraduo Part A, .5 ml Part B, .5 ml CaliMagic ( 356 ppm)


Day +8, October 3rd — Since my area is light-sealed and some efforts at silencing having been done, I find (as I did when I built pc's quite often), I want to tinker with it to make it better. So...I'm looking for some studio-quality acoustic tiles I can cover the inside of the bedroom door with, but where I want more sound stealth, I can't bring myself to spend >$200 to silence the door. My cabinet is well put together and breathes well while still offering decent stealth. The fact is I want to make it quieter, so while the plants just rock along reaching for the res, I conjur up all these ideas. Still searching for answers though.

The res has at least anther day's worth of water so I will check it closely tomorrow and stretch it one more day so I can to tend them Saturday morning.

One still shows solid growth, yet the other, while appearing healthy, is just going to be a midget from the looks of it. If the bigger one remains healthy, I will definitely snag a couple clones before I put them into flower. I plan on just letting them grow and see what happens and how well they fill this cabinet as a maiden grow.

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Temperature remained at 78-80 degrees (lights on) for the last few days. I had the cabinet open for awhile though and I am not venting out of the room so the room temps effected it by a few degrees as this picture shows. Central A/C is set to 75f btw.

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Day +9, October 4th — Checked buckets and top was fairly dry. A tilt/check on the bucket showed the res was <1/4 full. I decided to go ahead and feed them. Drew water, mixed nutes, balanced pH and fed. Temps holding at 78-80, can filter system turned off. Inlet fan on door cracked open.
Light — Mars II 140x5w @ 30" height
Water — 1 gal RO water (10 ppm) adjusted to 6.0 after nutes added
Nutes — 3 ml floraduo Part A, .5 ml Part B, 1 ml CaliMagic ( 380 ppm)

Day +10, October 5th — Top watered this a.m. with leftover soup from last night (held back about a quart so I could get top watering along with the res reach the roots are still doing). I'm trying to get into a morning check/feeding routine. If I can't, I'll simply rotate the light schedule this coming week to get lights on at 5 p.m. instead of 5 a.m. so I can more efficiently get to a perceptive "morning" feeding routine for the plants. My lights go out at midnight, and I've been checking/feeding around 4-5 p.m., so they're getting at least 6 hours of lights after feeding. I'd like to have them getting fed in the a.m. to better utilize my nutes, so photoperiod rotation will begin tonight.

I also grabbed some pics under normal lighting.

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Welcome.
 
subscribed. is there any reason why you are using 19/5 for a lighting schedule instead of 18/6 18 hours of light and 6 hours of darkness?

No, not really. Those are the hours I'm up though so maybe it just seemed easier and would lessen the liability in the event of a failure of some sort. I try do do my watering/feeding on weekends, though I still check them each morning to make sure everything is running the way it's supposed to.
 
Nice start so far Gov

Have you considered the GLR lighting? My plants kick ass using it and it will save you some juice.

basically you do 12 on then 5.5 off and 1 on and then 5.5 off.
 
Nice start so far Gov

Have you considered the GLR lighting? My plants kick ass using it and it will save you some juice.

basically you do 12 on then 5.5 off and 1 on and then 5.5 off.

I'll go check it out right now.

O.K. So, correct if I'm wrong, but what you describe is the GLR, or "Gas Lantern Routine". I've just read some stuff, but still not nearly enough to understand or verify it's positive impact yet. How long, or how many grows have you used with it?
 
Thanks for tagging along and for the input so quickly. It's nice to have some people I can share it with as I strongly adhere to the "tell no one" mantra. But being my first trip, I had/have many questions of my own that are often best-answered in these journals. You guys are some of the best growers I've seen and even just some reassurance can help as I've discovered myself.

My inside dimensions are 2.5'D x 3.5'W and it is 6.5'H.

I planned on growing both plants without much training, topping or anything just to see how they fill it out. I may pull a few branches down, but want to see how they grow.

Yes, I got this light from sara directly and can only agree they both (the Company itself as well as Sara & Co) gave me a GREAT price, even better service and the product seems awesome so far.
 
with no topping or training you'll probably want to flip the light cycle while the plants are pretty short. only 6.5 ft to work with, you want to keep the plants at least 1.5ft from the light. so you can calculate height needed for light and mount , add height of your buckets, add your 1.5ft safe distance and subtract that from your 6.5 ft space . that will give you a target plant height. do you have any strain info?
:goodjob:
 
From their description: "Barneys Farm 8-Ball Kush is a mostly indica marijuana cross from the Barney's Farm seed collection. The origin of this strain goes to the Afghan and Pakistan mountains. Over years, Barney's Farm's seed breeders tried to combine the best qualities from the both parents in order to create an easy growing cannabis with heavy bud production. 8 Ball Kush is definitely a success of many years of selective inbreeding. Cannabis Seeds of this marijuana variety are extremely easy to grow. They are very resistant to mold and mushroom and cope fine with stress. They show a good 90% germination rate and produce healthy seedlings which can be put under a 12/12 light cycle straight away. Seeds of 8 Ball Kush are suitable for indoor and outdoor growing. When grown indoors, plants of this cannabis show great results in all sorts of setups, pots, soils and hydroponics. Matured plants are typically indica - they are really petite, just 60 cm, with a well developed x-mas tree shape. It's very easy to manage and manicure these plants - they don't seem to need any special care. Flowering takes just 55 days, a mild spicy/hash aroma appear already at the beginning. It become more intense while maturing, yet, will not smoke you out of your home. Outside harvest starts at the end of September. 8 Ball Kush cannabis is a great yielder. 450 gr. per m2 is amazingly high for such a small plant and is guaranteed even under unfavorable conditions. Bud form compact sticky groups between, they are very dense and contain at least 18% of THC and 1.4 % of CBD. This balance makes her high very powerful, corporal effect

Sex: Regular & Feminized
Type: (Mostly Indica)
Flowering: Photoperiod
Height: Medium
Area: Indoor & Outdoor
Genetics: Afghanistan / Pakistan Origin"

Being an historically short strain, I haven't bothered to get the calculations recorded yet on allowable growth height. I'll do that tonight as I have all the data already collected. I just need to verify a couple.
 
Well, I just checked and I will have 50" between the light and top of buckets once the light is drawn all the way up. If, as you say, I should maintain a 1.5' safe distance, that leaves me with ~32" of growing room. Given the 3x anticipated growth reach in flower, I will need to keep these guys under 15" or so before I flip them. That's good to know.
 
I'm Sub'd and agree with the others, nice clean setup and good info right from the start of your journal, keep up the good work.
Plants are looking awesome, and I'm also looking forward to your results with the Mars II light. I'm in the market for another 2 lights in the not so distant future, and these are the front runners so far I think. Crawdaddy has a journal using them with great results.
Good luck with your grow.
 
I'll go check it out right now.

O.K. So, correct if I'm wrong, but what you describe is the GLR, or "Gas Lantern Routine". I've just read some stuff, but still not nearly enough to understand or verify it's positive impact yet. How long, or how many grows have you used with it?

I have used it on at least 4 grows now and the growth is fantastic, especially after you make the switch to 12/12.
 
I'm still very early in (approaching 2 weeks) and as long as they do well, I'll keep them at current photoperiod until I switch them to 12/12. If nothing else, it will serve as a "control" grow to prove to myself I can still do it, then secondly some base data for experimenting next time through.
 
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