HID Grow - Revenge of the Kittens

[Steve McStoferson]

Re: CriMson's HID Grow- Revenge of the Kittens

Thanks for that info... The cool hoods may be an answer to the ceiling heights.. But one does lose alot of light ,What is it like 25 to 30 percent because of the glass, I forget something like that maybe less.. but using 600 maybe thats ok, what I lose won`t be a plm....

Thanks again....

the actual light that you lose is very minimal as long as you keep the glass clean, it would be less than 10%. It does however filter out the UV rays that MH bulbs emit, which is really only useful if you're flowering with it, as UV is known to increase resin production.

A solution to that if you don't want to have glass between your lights and plants, is get the aircooled reflector, and run it without the glass, but with the fans and ducting running.. with a 600W lamp, this would pretty much be what I'm doing but on a fancier, more efficient scale. There would be no glass to block light, and the air movement through the reflector would take a good amount of heat with it (not all of it, but a decent amount). My light doesn't really get hot when the MH is in there, but the HPS makes it pretty warm. If i don't have a fan on it, the reflector gets hot to the touch after an hour of use. With the fan on it, the reflector is just warm, and you can keep your hand 4" away from the bulb without any discomfort.

Just some things to consider..

I wanted to go with an air cooled hood at first, but decided against it because I wanted to utilize the UV that the MH puts out, and also because it's cheaper to not get an air cooled hood. Down the road I might end up getting one, but in the near future it isn't really practical for my needs.

 

[mr belvedere]

Re: CriMson's HID Grow- Revenge of the Kittens

great journal, will follow for sure.

 

[hogs]

Re: CriMson's HID Grow- Revenge of the Kittens

Thanks... Now can ya tell me how I give ya a rep or more so this Newbie can throw some your way thanks again...

 

[Steve McStoferson]

Re: CriMson's HID Grow- Revenge of the Kittens

belvedere, thanks for stoppin by!

Hogs, just click the little scales icon below my name, it will open the rep box.

Feel free to stop by and ask anything anytime bro

 

[CharlieMopps]

Re: CriMson's HID Grow- Revenge of the Kittens

Damn bro, reading up on this site has deff worked out good for you. Those are some monster buds you got growing. Keep it up Crimson!!! +rep

 

[Steve McStoferson]

Re: CriMson's HID Grow- Revenge of the Kittens

Thanks Charlie, good to see you around again! You have anything growing at the moment?

 

[CharlieMopps]

Re: CriMson's HID Grow- Revenge of the Kittens

Thanks Charlie, good to see you around again! You have anything growing at the moment?

Now that you mention it, yea, i have a lil girl growing on my desk in front of my window. I'm waiting for the temps in the northeast to get into the steady 70's and ima put her in a secret spot outdoors.

 

[Steve McStoferson]

Re: CriMson's HID Grow- Revenge of the Kittens

nice dude, I want to get my feet wet with some outdoor growing this year, but I might not be motivated enough to actually follow through with it. I'm digging this indoor thing for the time being

 

[Steve McStoferson]

Re: CriMson's HID Grow- Revenge of the Kittens

I've been so lazy lately I haven't gotten up early enough to snap some pics before the lights are off.. I'll get some new pics up soon I promise.

Last night I checked the trichs on all 3 plants, and they are all mostly cloudy. I only saw maybe 20% clear, the rest were cloudy. Didn't see any amber yet, so we will give them a bit longer. I cut a small branch off each plant and trimmed to dry. The closet I'm hanging them in is perfect, and it takes quite a while to dry fully.. I'm looking at 1.5 weeks until it's fully dry. By then it should be pretty much time to harvest. Projected harvest is in 11 days. The trichs on the Sativa are the same as the others, so who knows if giving it some more time will help. They are definitely getting a lot fatter now and really putting on weight. If they don't slow up in 11 days, I'll give them a little extra time.

I smoked a decent amount of that branch I chopped last week. I have a good 2g nug left that is fairly dry. All I can say is wow, this stuff packs one hell of a punch. Me and my girl smoked a bowl of it after work last night and I was stoned for a good 4 hours before we decided to smoke another. Smoked that one and it was lights out. I had the worst cotton mouth I have ever had, I had to sleep with gum in my mouth lol.

All in all, great weed, I can't wait until it gets a good cure. I also can't wait to try the other 2 strains.

 

[Lil Neutrino]

Re: CriMson's HID Grow- Revenge of the Kittens

Had to sleep with gum in your mouth...or you woke up to find the gum still in your mouth? Sounds like some good shtuff you got there, amazing what a good cure can do.

 

[Steve McStoferson]

Re: CriMson's HID Grow- Revenge of the Kittens

well I was getting cotton mouth so bad I had to keep getting up every 5 mins to drink water, so i opted for the gum instead.. Then I just drifted off and didn't wake up until around 5am, which is when I took out the gum lol. It's amazing how long the flavor lasts when you're not chewing it haha.

Stay tuned for some pics.. I gotta resize them then I'll throw them up

 

[Steve McStoferson]

Re: CriMson's HID Grow- Revenge of the Kittens

New pics from this morning..

46 days of flowering

Notice the sativa cola and how it is just growing wider and wider and isn't even a nice bud shape anymore lol. No complaint's here.

Here is one of the new babies.. They're really starting to put on the hairs.

 

[Steve McStoferson]

Re: CriMson's HID Grow- Revenge of the Kittens

The plant I'm smoking right now is the one in the far back, not the Sativa or the monster cola, but the frost machine lol. The buds smell very nice on the plant but once dried they have pretty much no smell. I dried one of the buds and noticed last night it was dry enough to smoke so I had a couple of bowls of it and put the rest in the jar. This morning I opened the jar to burp it a bit and get some fresh air in there, and it was very stinky. It's amazing how little time it took for the bud to start smelling delicious. I can't wait to smoke some tonight!

I have another branch of each plant drying now to test potency. It won't be ready for at least a week though and I don't want to speed dry it. By the time it's dry I should be almost ready for harvesting at least one of the plants. Just waiting on that little bit of amber to show in the trichs

 

[OldMedMan]

Re: CriMson's HID Grow- Revenge of the Kittens

Wow! You've been busy! Better late than never. I at least got here for the harvest. What a great grow Buddy.

 

[Steve McStoferson]

Re: CriMson's HID Grow- Revenge of the Kittens

Thanks for stoppin by bro. I have been pretty busy, I upgraded as much as I could since last grow. New lighting, soil, nutes, timer, and pots. I have been more organized and it is paying off for sure. I barely got 12" plants last round, and they grew for the same amount of time.

Only things to improve on now are genetics, nutes, and skill.

I'm loving to grow more and more

 

[OldMedMan]

Re: CriMson's HID Grow- Revenge of the Kittens

Thanks for stoppin by bro. I have been pretty busy, I upgraded as much as I could since last grow. New lighting, soil, nutes, timer, and pots. I have been more organized and it is paying off for sure. I barely got 12" plants last round, and they grew for the same amount of time.

Only things to improve on now are genetics, nutes, and skill.

I'm loving to grow more and more

Yea! I remember that last grow. I think both of ours were equally bad!
Can't say we didn't learn anything thou. Just look at us now.
Really nice grow and journal my friend

 

[Steve McStoferson]

Re: CriMson's HID Grow- Revenge of the Kittens

hell yeah dude, we keep learning and growing better, there is no way prohibition will win.

I cut another couple of branches off the frosty one in the back, the one with the dying leaves. That plant is barely able to support itself anymore. I checked the trichs on the 2 branches I chopped and they are like 90% cloudy. Some damn fine smoke though. The two branches when trimmed up weighed 26g wet with the stems. The buds are really fat, I can't wait to chop it all down and harvest. When checking the trichs, I saw a couple of amber ones, but not enough to chop the whole plant down yet. I would say that by the end of this week it will definitely be done.

More pics this week. I was lazy all weekend and too stoned to really do much. Had a bit of car maintenance to take care of. I also switched the timer to 11/13 to get the girls ready for chop time

 

[OldMedMan]

Re: CriMson's HID Grow- Revenge of the Kittens

That's what I'm talking about! Can hardly support herself

OK! Here's to you!
Don't have any Kush yet, just some BlackJack from that pitiful last grow!

 

[Steve McStoferson]

Re: CriMson's HID Grow- Revenge of the Kittens

Well, one of our ladies were decapitated last night because she was found guilty of smelling too nice. My girl and I spent a good hour or so trimming and making the buds look pretty. She had lost probably 90% of her fan leaves and was struggling to keep standing. The trichs on the cola were 90% cloudy and there were a few traces of amber here and there, so I figured she was ready. It already is a decent couch lock stone, so I didn't want to lose any of the current head effects from the Sativa side. The lower buds are still around 60% cloudy with no traces of amber, so I left most of the lower branches on there and just snipped the main cola and the surrounding stalk buds.

The main cola itself after removing as many of the side buds as I could weighed to 60g wet. The rest of the buds we trimmed up came out to another 69g wet. Earlier I had cut a couple more branches which came to 26g.

All together so far, I would say half of this plant has been harvested and I have 162g wet weight. There is a lot of weight left on the plant, so this is looking to be a nice harvest. I would guess around 3-4oz total once dry. The Sativa should weigh up even more with another couple of weeks!

I'll try and snap a few pics of the current batch that is drying.

 

[3lions]

Re: CriMson's HID Grow- Revenge of the Kittens

That's a serious harvest my friend, congrats. + reps. (dam, sorry, tried)

Cant wait for the smoke report..


Interesting thoughts about the lights earlier too. I am going to step up to 600w in a new flowering only room, 1.5m (I will post my thought in my journal about this later I think) and have been going back and forth over whether to go cooltube again, or go with an aircooled hood or a adjustable spreader type.

To make things interesting I have now 'aquired' an airecon unit so in theory it may not matter about the cooling system so much BUT I don't want to be running expensive air con 24 hrs a day of course. Just want it to click in when temps are high and keep it stable.

Options now really come down to another cooltube system (I can save money by using my current extractor system which wont really be needed in the veg only tent) or air cooled hood orrrr the quality system of adjustable spreader with the air con on more regularly presumably. The spreader has better light and footprint overall so would like to go that route but again, unsure how much air con effort this will require to keep temps down.

So, what are your thoughts?