Operation: Dr. Rockso




Alright ladies and gents, I'm Krygor and this is my absolute first attempt at growing anything in my entire life. Up until a few days ago I never seriously considered starting my own little gardening endeavor, however in my area, bud is very expensive and low quality. In addition, I need a new hobby because I've found myself with far too much free time.

I decided to approach my first Grow-Op using CFLs as I was in no position to front the money it would cost to purchase a decent HPS or MH light and the things scare the hell out of me anyway.

My first attempt at a grow room didn't turn out quite as I had envisioned it:






After a few criticisms from forum members and a little bit of help from an unexpected paycheck, I ran down to my local Hydro store and acquired some slightly superior materials:








Now my first major problem was the fact that the room I'd chosen to grow in doesn't receive any heat from my furnace. So with the door closed, the temperature would dip below 40 degrees F. I was mortified thinking I might have to shell out huge amounts of cash to remedy the situation, cash I had already dedicated for additional CFL's. Fortunately, I found this gem at Sam's Club for $45.00:



Now originally I'd decided to just use some seriously low grade potting soil, the stuff that's like $2.00 for a 40lb bag. Fortunately I had some unexpected funds reach me so I was able to pick up a $20.00 bag of FoxFarm Soil & Fertilizer Company Ocean Forest potting soil. I'd read several posts on these boards praising the quality and I recently learned that earthworm castings are a big deal so I figured I'd start my first grow off right with some premium soil.

More specifically about my lights, a couple of days ago I went to Lowe's and thought I was getting one hell of a deal by picking up 2 Bright Dreams 40 watt CFLs which each put out 2600 lumens for $8.00 each. That's a cost of $0.00308 per lumen. However I dropped by Sam's Club today and picked up a 6 pack of GE 26 watt CFLs for $13.00. Each GE bulb puts out 1700 lumens. That's a cost of $0.00127 per lumen. So at the moment I'm working with 2 x 40 watt and 6 x 26 watt CFLs at a total of 15,400 lumens. I'm planning on adding about 6 26 watt CFLs every week until harvest time so by the end of my first crop I should have a very handsome lighting array.

Now I'd been looking for actual Mylar for a little while now, and just my luck, the local Hydro store happened to carry some at a price I found reasonable. For $24.00 I got a 25 foot x 4 foot roll of beautiful mylar. Now while I've only been able to hang about 20% of it so far because I've run out of duct tape, it appears as though it'll be more than enough to cover all the walls of my room along with the table surface.

So after setting up some of the basics, I cut open the bag of soil and poured it into four 4 gallon planters, a small step up from my clear plastic 16 ounce cups. The soil looks, smells, and feels great. I can tell my ladies will have a blast nestling inside of it. I can already tell it was well worth the $20.

Now by this point you're probably wondering where the name "Dr. Rockso" comes into play. Well, I didn't have the money nor the patience to order some premium seeds and as I've already explained, the buds in these parts are a far cry from Cannabis Cup contenders. About 3 days ago I started germinating 10 random bag seeds I'd been storing initially to use for cooking purposes. They've been germinating under my furnace panel using the paper towel and ZipLock bag method and I should be ready to plant in 8 or so hours. As I laid in bed the last few nights, unable to sleep as I worried about how I would finance my grow room and what I was going to call my previous bud when I was ready to show it off, it struck me that the only appropriate name for such an underdog strain would be Dr. Rockso. If that name doesn't ring a bell at all try Google'ing it.

I'd imagine by now you're likely tired of this novel so I think I'm going to stop for tonight. I'll be keeping a very frequent eye on this thread so if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them however as I myself am very new to this, I'd appreciate any and all tips, pointers, criticisms, and general comments as Rollitup accounts for 98% of my grow knowledge and the Showtime series "Weeds" is responsible for the other 2%!

well you aren't going to learn anything from showtime, so stick around here

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http://www.sachydro.com/**Cali's Sea Of Green/purple**--*CALI'S Bong Rip Thread*--

Alright, I finally had enough seeds germinate to plant them so I threw my bag seeds into their 4 gallon pots under a bout 1/4 - 1/2 inch of soil, gave them a good watering with some gallons of distilled water I purchased at the local grocery and then set to work using up the rest of my Mylar following Russor's advice to use staples rather than duct tape



(I had walked into my grow room late last night to find 50% of the mylar hanging down from the wall, peeling away from the adhesive.)

While I was at work, I came up with a schedule of sorts of how I would like my grow to go as well as at what rate I'll be purchasing and setting up additional lights:

Seeds Planted 02/03/2008 @ 7:45pm
Week 1 Light Array: 2x 40w CFL & 6 x 26w CFL
Week 2 Light Array: 4x 40w CFL & 12 x 26w CFL (+ 2 x 40w & 6 x 26w)
Week 3 Light Array: 4x 40w CFL & 18 x 26w CFL (+6 x 26w)
Week 4 Light Array: 4x 40w CFL & 24x 26w CFL (+6 x 26w)
Week 5 Light Array: 4x 40w CFL & 30x 26w CFL (+6 x 26w)
Week 6 Light Array: 4x 40w CFL & 36x 26w CFL (+6 x 26w)
Week 7 Light Array: 4x 40w CFL & 36x 26w CFL
Week 8 Light Array: 4x 40w CFL & 36x 26w CFL
Week 9 Light Array: 4x 40w CFL & 36x 26w CFL
Week 10 Light Array: 4x 40w CFL & 36x 26w CFL
Harvest 04/13/2008 @ Midnight
Cure / Dry for one week
Enjoy 04/20/2008 @ All Day


According to Grow Room Tools, from Week 6 to Harvest my plants will be receiving 11336 Lumens per Square Foot, which is slightly more than what our sun puts out.

Now given the fact I desire to harvest these plants in just a mere 10 weeks, I will be vegging at 24 hours light 0 hours darkness. I feel comfortable doing this because even if half my crop turn males, I'll still be happy with this as my first grow and it'll mean all the less work to harvest and tear down to prepare for my REAL grow which will be some Grade A strain immediately after this harvest.

With all that in mind, of the 10 weeks total I'll be farming this crop, how many weeks each do you think I should allocate to Vegging / Budding. I was thinking 4 weeks vegging & 6 weeks Budding. Thoughts?


*edit* Also just rigged a ghetto co2 generator using the yeast mechanism: http://www.rollitup.org/marijuana-pi...hp?n=12819&w=o

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All Posts Are Completely Fictitious.
http://www.rollitup.org/cfl-growing/...dr-rockso.html

just a thought to try and save you some bucks, go to ebay and search for cfl's. There are 50 packs of 24w,25w,26w, all pretty much the same but they are only $25 and then $15 shipping. So $40 for 50 bulbs. I got some of the 24w. They are warm white too, the ones you want for budding. Buying cfl's at full store price is just too expensive. At the rate your spendin on those bulbs you might as well get an hps. Take some time and do some searchin. Hope that can help.

I appreciate the advice but there are a couple of reasons why I don't purchase stuff on eBay. The most predominant reason being that most auctions rape you on shipping and handling. In most cases a 6 pack of bulbs will cost $10 to ship from say, maybe 300 miles away. I've already looked into it. On top of that, I don't want to have to deal with the possibility of lights being damaged en route to me. In addition, I don't like having packages sent to where I live as first they'd probably be sitting out in the open for everyone to see / snatch up / be suspicious about / think "hey why's that neighbor kid always getting all these packages delivered." At the moment I'm paying $2.30 per bulb. I'm pretty content with that value, and given the amount of good fortune and success I've had these past few days I could only think it greedy to ask for more of a break on that price.

Nonetheless, thanks for your advice though, I'm sure there are a lot of growers out there who could stand to benefit from eBay, however there are just too many circumstances which would make it a hassle for me.

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All Posts Are Completely Fictitious.
http://www.rollitup.org/cfl-growing/...dr-rockso.html

pics of ur light setup, i wanna see those 40 clfs in action...

I don't have 40 yet, the germed seeds were planted 2 days ago. At the moment I'm only working with 8 bulbs but I should be adding 12-18 bulbs this Friday. I'll be sure to snap some pics then. In the meantime here's what the room looks like at the moment:

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All Posts Are Completely Fictitious.
http://www.rollitup.org/cfl-growing/...dr-rockso.html

It's been exactly 48 hours since the germinated seeds were planted. Sadly none have broken through the soil yet but that's probably because they're busy becoming legends in their pots.

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All Posts Are Completely Fictitious.
http://www.rollitup.org/cfl-growing/...dr-rockso.html

Alright well I visited the store and came back with 12 more 26 watt 6500k CFLs and some other goodies. This brings the current total of lights in the room to 20 ( 2 x 40w Soft White CFL, 6 x 26w Soft White CFL, 12 x 26w Daylight CFL.)






The current light array is putting out 34,600 lumens. To give you an idea, this current setup is roughly 1/2 of what it will be in the end. Stay tuned

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All Posts Are Completely Fictitious.
http://www.rollitup.org/cfl-growing/...dr-rockso.html

I love the title. CACACACACACA-yaaaa. Can't wait to see how the grow goes.

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