Stick A Pineapple Where The Sun Don't Shine - In A Grow Box!

[santb]

Glad you fine Santb cyclone Debbie looked like a real facker from here, not wished upon anybody brother. Hope all our other Aussie friends are safe too, blessings to you man. For $1000 bong I would expect it to be long enough for a stripper to be used as a bloody pole, while still be able to smoke it

Cheers, Pat.. Yeah, the weather, right? Totally flooded and stranded a couple K's away.. Literally; I could walk over there in about 10-15 minutes.. Funny, aint it? Not if you've lost your house.. This is Queensland! We've had a few beauties the last 6-10 years..
I would LOVE to see the stripper/bong..

 

[santb]

Alrighty then; gotta few pics...
Completely forgot last time... I got some of the autos, but not the main attraction. So got some today.. She's looking good. Lots of training on all. I got the autos bent over; they've gone nuts!
(watching Top Gun on TV.. Danger Zone is playing.... All I can think of is Archer...)
It occurred to me today that the First Lady is looking like a spider web, which is cool, cos it's a White Widow (apparently)...
She looks great... I say this about at least one plant every grow, but I'm liking how she looks.. I'm training her as she stretches; I'll let her get a bit of height now, but she responds well. I'm not defoling now, but clipping some leaves, and tucking others... She looks great.
The autos also have responded well to training, and are gonna be pretty good, I reckon. in their small pots..

I ordered a new light... I wrote about it first on Grnwzrds journal, so I'm gonna be lazy and copy/paste...

... I ordered a new light.. No more money for a fan!! Shouldn'ta bought the light...! Not the CMH that I want, but don't have the space for; but a cheap 2 x Cree COB light that I'm hoping will dramatically reduce heat by way of being a good 100 watts less power, plus it has a dimmer... And it perfectly measures up for 2 plants in my cab. At an alleged "24000 Lumens" of "sunlight"-like white light, I reckon I can dim it down to 120-150 watts.. Apparently, these Cree chips are fair dinkum... So I gotta pull the thing apart to check that they are real ones when I get it..sigh..
So, yeah; I'm gonna cross my fingers that the bath-fan does the job for the time being..

So, yeah; that's the story... Can't wait. If all the website bullshit is true, then I've scored well... The white light Crees are popular among the DIYers I've read about in a few threads, so am quietly hopeful of a good cheap light..
As Feral pointed out to me, there's a few people out there doing pretty OK with COBs....

(Top Gun... "You mess up even this much, you'll be flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog shit outta Hong Kong!!" Classic!!)
sorry... Just pissed myself..

COBs; yeah... So. $300 hundred bucks delivered from a well know wholesaling website based in China.. Here's some pics..

That extra knob on the back is a dimmer... I will be using that!! Great way to cut back on heat and bills..
I hope...

According to the specs (2 different sets!!) on the page, this this will fit my box like a glove..except internal..and not fleece-lined.
The 2 COBS will be perfectly placed to be over a plant each, with more than enough light to maybe do a third little one 12/12 from seed or whatever if I want.
It's not the CMH I want, but the reality is that even if I could afford a good one, the cab is too small for the heat without serious ventilation. Again, Fezza confirmed this for me.. I kinda knew, but got told for sure... I found a cheap CMH on the same site for maybe even less than the COBs.. Heat is the issue, and dodgy cheap ballasts are to be feared, apparently.. I don't need my house burning down to save a few hundred bucks...

On to the pics.. Hopefully the uploader was on holiday, and a new, temp uploader is working hard to put all my pics in order, just to impress me; y'know, cos it's a new, temp uploader..

These last two are the autos in supplemental flouro lighting on milk crates on my work bench, getting an extra 3-6 hours a day for now..

There might be one or two out of order. but they are all from the last eight days!! Even the autos; I only started training them about 5 days ago..
All in all, I'm happy with the plants. The nutes are easy and the hempys are chugging along as required.
Looking forward to my light. They only have black at the moment, unless I want to wait weeks for a delivery of white case material, which I don't. Black is fine. I'll paint it myself, if I really need to..

 

[AussieBlueTHC]

Very healthy.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Yeah, looking great. My hempies never really showed any sort of 'explosive growth' at all. Probably because my grow is not hospital clean like it should be and later on most of them got root rot. Yours look amazing.

 

[santb]

Just a quick update update. Forgot to say yesterday; the new light has Cree CXB3590 ships, which are an upgraded version of a popular series of grow chips (from what I read on a couple other sites), and are bright as fuck. Dunno about the 24000 lumens, but the video I saw (from the manufacturer) showed a light bright enough to see from space!
And it's very "white", which, to me, is a big plus.
Apart from any benefits in spectrum to the plant, which may or may not be real; the fact that I can now open the door of the cab when its dark out, and not be paranoid about all the purple spilling out into the night from my unsealed-downstairs.. I always thought that if anyone drives or walks past; or lives nearby and knows what that purple light means, I'm screwed.
This white light will be a bit of a load off my mind security wise. It was a big part of the decision, actually.
As far as budget lights go, I reckon my Mars has done pretty well. I've easily got my money back on it, so I can't complain there. It'll be a spare/back up until I can organise a little veg box (which I want another single COB light for!!); I'll build (when ever I get around to it) a long, shallow, short box and use the Mars on veg-switch only to get a few weeks of growth shaved off overall grow time.. Instead of 6 weeks veg in the main cab, I'll only need to put em in there for 1 or 2 before flip.. I'm hoping to get total "grow" time (in the main cab) down to those 7-10 weeks, instead of 12-15 in the one cab.
Not really a true "Veg Area", as much as I'd like one..

On paper, the new light should be streets ahead of the Mars, even for another budget option. Fingers are crossed.

 

[santb]

Hey, Weasel... You snuck in there again while I was typing for 3 hours!
Cheers for kind words. Pretty happy. Only 2 weeks since flip! Thinking that stretch might already soon be over!
Yeah; that yellow stain scare a couple weeks back came to nothing. Plants are loving life at the moment...
Good time of year here, except for the floods, of course..
Outside temps are around 20-32C. perfect for plants and people! Which means the cab is pretty stable. I tend to under dose my nutes; I'm scared of burning them. The hempy means they have it all the time too, so I mix a bit weaker and they seem to like that..
So far..

 

[Weaselcracker]

I know what you mean about typing for three hours. Gotta get off this thing...
Cool- I never thought about the security issue with the light colour. Mostly I thought about the photo opportunities being way better. You wouldn't believe how many FAQ posts I see where people post pics of their neon purple plants and then ask for a diagnosis on some invisible leaf discolouration they want help with, and it's hurting my brain just looking at their photos. I've never had a blurple light running, but I'd hate to have to be in my grow and be looking at something that looks like that.

 

[santb]

Yeah; I can see how the purple HELP ME! pics would be frustrating!!



I've found in some of my pics (if I may say so myself!!), the purple really makes for some nice bud shots, when the they are nice and fat..
Bit pointless for diagnosis of anything tho'..

From outside my place, the purple is really quite obvious at night.. I mean, REALLY obvious. I try to do a lot in the day but it's hard in flower.. My flower lights come on about 8pm, off 7-8am, so I have to do a bit at night cos of early start work..
The white light will still be very bright, but more easily ignored by 'civilians'. Even to a non-grower, a weird intermittent blurple light must be suspicious at best.. At worst, it's a total give-away in my mind. I've even blacked out the windows with black geo cloth but the tops of the walls, where the eaves would normally be outside, is open (70's era 2 storey house-downstairs was never intended to be "lived" in).. Can't see thru it, but the light creeps out. It's quite dark here, for the burbs; when the cab is open, it sticks out like dogs balls...

 

[Weaselcracker]

Yeah that's stressful shit!

 

[Black Thumbs]

Looking Awsome mate,I don't open my tent once it's dark for the same reason,pretty hard to explain a bright purple light looking forward to see your new cobs in action

 

[santb]

Just a few bonus pics to show off flower development on the First Lady.. These are 24 hours (this morning) after the last of the last lot..
Start of week 3 since flip.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Beautiful.

 

[santb]

Cheers, Weasel... Just about to head over to your place...

 

[Black Thumbs]

Looking heaps healthy mate.Looks like you got hydro under control

 

[santb]

Cheers, Black..! It;s too easy with the hempy. I'm convinced I can do it with the organic ferts that Grizz uses. When I get closer to buying some, I'll hassle him for more info. Life Force range.. Made for soil, but a coco/perlite hempy is close enough! Think grizz said he uses it every 2 weeks, but that might be for soil..
Anyway, the old GH ferts are doing very well. I still don't own any calmag!! Gotta buy more epsom salts, tho'.. Calmag is on the list, Better safe than sorry..

 

[GrizzWald]

 

[santb]

Hey guys... Happy Chocolate Egg Weekend!!
Been flat out with project at home, barely looked at the computer the last couple weeks... Gotta go clear out couple hundred emails later. Sigh.. Mostly Facebook notifications that I'll probly just delete...
Going out soon, so just a quick check in to post some pics from yesterday.. I'll be back later for some visiting..
Pics: End of week 4 since flip.
The Autos (first pics) have really gone nuts. The Polar Express is quite frosty/sticky/smelly already; very stretchy and spindly. Smells quite sweet. Very dark leaves, but not a lot of them.. Some leaves seemed to have not grown.. Looks like I've defoled. I haven't.
The Little Kushy Auto has got some nice flowers, not so many trichs and a very green, weedy smell. More 'standard' looking; bushier, bigger flowers.
First Lady is coming along well also. No visible trichs without a loupe, but she is sticky. Stretch appears to have stopped, and the flowers are setting nicely also.. Lots of pistils. She should be good.

Thinking about popping new seeds.... I reckon 4-6 weeks left on my current girls, so I can get a good 4 weeks veg time in before harvest of current grow, then seedlings get a final upcan, pruning, then in the cab for another 2 weeks, then flip.. Save me heaps of time... I want that GT grown out this year!! (But I want to grow a good LSD, and TNT Kush, first).
New light has been posted, so hoping it will get here this week. When it does, I can use the old light as a seedling/veg "station" under my workbench, hidden with geo cloth and misc. crap piled in front. I realised I don't need a proper "grow" area, or separate cab. Doesn't need to be light-tight as usually no-one will be home, it'll be on in the daytime, and only used for veg. Just a spot to light the plants up the extra 6-8 hours a day, then back in the main (flowering) cab for the rest.
Nice and dark where the cab is so with the door closed, I don't have to worry so much about accidental exposure to flowering plants; as long as I'm careful.

Pics:

This last one is the First Lady after a bit of a tidy up... Nothing dramatic; I want her to do her thing now...

Cheers!!

 

[santb]

Cheers, guys... Pretty happy with the girls; the Polar Express is kinda weird lookin'.. Genetics are Northern Lights and a California Kush...
Pics down the page..
SO! New light arrived today!! A week after posting; 2 weeks since order... VERY impressed.. Bought from a site that pays the vendor after the item arrives, so, smokin' fast mail! Not the same site as the one I got my billy from..but another well known mob.. PM me if anyone is keen to know, obviously pending actual results..
Pics!

These last 3 are the PE... Looks weird. The other auto has nice fat flowers already, this one's all spindly. Looks sativa-ish, but genetics say otherwise... Cali Kush (the strain, not in general, or so I read) has a sativa dominant pheno that presents occasionally... Could this be a reason??
Still got 4-6 weeks left on her, so not too worried about it.. Just strange looking with the no leaves or only half leaves... Or rather, some of the branches only grew leaves on one side. I swear, I haven't stripped any leaves off these autos..!
Just wondering if anyone else has seen this type of growth..
On the upside, she smells FANTASTIC, sweet and fresh and delicious; and she's very frosty already. No matter what she looks like, I can't wait to smoke her.....

The light looks the goods. Nice white light, bright as fuck. Internals are as promised, with the good driver, good solder-less connections, and solid cabling. Decent fans. Decent heatsinks, although they are a bit smaller that I was expecting.
The thing looks good in the hands, and is heavy; a good 5-6 kilos. Me likey.
The dimmer means I can run it at 75% and use half the power. So, good bye heat!
I hope..
All in all, I'm happy for $320 delivered in 2 weeks. Hope the spectrum is all they said... Nice time to put it in the cab, too, with 5ish weeks to go. Fingers crossed!!
Cheers!

 

[FeralA9X]

Looking good bro, hope the light works out well for you

 

[santb]

Thanks, man... Just swapped it over now. Looks great! So bright! Looks weird, no purple.. Penetration seems good; I can see down clearly (in the autos) to the surface of the perlite, just as bright as the tops.
Just fed/watered now, too. Not gonna look for 2 days, next feed, and try not to build my hopes up for an obvious, big improvement...
But I am hoping for a obvious, big improvement!!! Of coures!!!
I realise 2 days is nothing, but you never know....