I tried to post this last night but I think my internet connection barfed, anyway, here I go.
Hi All,



I'm a new medical card holder from CA working on my first grow. I have frequented the clubs in SF and Oakland and love the quality and availabilty, but the costs add up very rapidly. When I made up my mind to grow, I started reading a lot and got so overwhelmed that I didn't know where to start! I wanted to try hydro since it appeals to the scientist (and minor control freak) in me. Plus, I live in a condo. I live alone, however, I have a cleaning lady and I would like to keep things as stealth as possible so as to avoid any unnecessary attention. I'm a professional, as are many of us, and my treatment is none of my coworkers or whoever else's concern.



Anyway, I decided to order the mini cool cab because I was overwhelmed with all of the factors that I had to consider and decided that spending a little more than I was comfortable with would help me get a better result in the long run. I had a couple of bagseeds that I was planning on starting when the cab arrived, so after I placed my order, I eagerly awaited receiving it. Shortly after I placed the order, I decided to start looking at clones as an option, since the bagseeds were of dubious quality and unknown sex. They could also have been hermies, and as a first time grower I really didn't want to deal with that.



Fortunately, the first place I asked had clones (and every place I've asked since in SF has said no). These clones didn't seem like ordinary clones to me (tiny branches rooted in cubes), they were decent sized little plants! I put down the money and went for it. It was in a 4" pot and I had waited a week since my order, so I was expecting it any day. There was one small problem that you keen observers may have noticed - it was in a 4" pot in SOIL. I'm a first timer, and transplanting from soil to hydro seems like a really really bad idea for me.



Quick thinking, I'm going to grow in soil (the folks at the co-op seemed to think growing in "water" as they called it was a sin against nature). I can sustain her in the pot with no problem, my cab will be here in a few days with nutes and meters and I'll be able to balance out any potential damage I may have done. It also has HID (400W MH and HPS), which would speed up any growth issues I caused by growing with 23 watt CFLs. I actually wasn't really expecting that there would be many issues since the clones were sitting under one or two t5's on a shelf when I bought them. The woman who I bought it from said that I could probably get by for a couple weeks in the 4" pot, which seemed great to me.



A day passed (I escalate this story quickly), and I was not comfortable in the bathroom that I set up in. It was good for night, but I decided I wanted to switch back and forth between the bathroom and a spare bedroom with south facing windows (lots of sunlight = free grow light ). Again, this is only a temporary measure until my cool cab arrives.



I decided that I want better light because I burned a leaf with a light that got too close. I had a bunch of daylight 23W CFLs around my house and could only find two suitable fixtures. So, I headed to my local hydro shop. My wonderful girlfriend was nice enough to accompany me, despite her protests that all of this is "boring." She's a trooper though .



The guy there was very helpful, and suggested that I grab a 2' 4 bulb T5 instead of the CFL hood that I was leaning towards. I also decided that since I was going to be doing a soil grow, I needed a pot and soil. I asked for something as foolproof as possible, since this is my first attempt. He pointed me to a 1.35 cu yard bag of Ocean Forest. I asked if he had anything smaller. He pointed me to a bag that appeared EXACTLY the same size, and said that it was slightly cheaper but had the downside that it had almost no nutes, while the Ocean Forest could easily survive 2 or 3 weeks without adding anything. I decided that this was the approach I would go for since I didn't want to have to buy nutes in order to save a few bucks on soil.



When I got home with the T5, I decided that my approach of moving back and forth was not going to work with a T5 because of the pain of hanging and moving it. I have a closet that's about 10 or 12 feet wide and has 3 sliding doors and dividers (not total isolation, it's a closet organizer with two poles in this section, like for hanging shirts). There were shirts on the top rack and nothing on the bottom but a cardboard box with some junk in it. I shifted the shirts to one side and put my t5 with the plant on top of a TV tray. Now we're in business. I've got a veg area and when my box gets here I'll be ready to flower and take some clones to veg again. It's better than I planned! The t5 was there, and I added those same two lamps for supplementary light.



One lamp mishap burned a leaf a bit and my girl was just reaching the lamp (about 13" tall) when I decided to try to figure out a way to maximize yield by exposing as much surface area to the light as I could. I decided supercropping seemed like a good idea and bent some of the stalks. That worked well, so I tried a couple more. Then I tried one too many and broke it. Oh well, lesson learned, wait till the branches get bigger before you abuse them. Supercropping didn't expose as much surface area as I had hoped, so I started researching LST. By this time, by the way, it had become obvious to me that the prediction of being able to grow her in a 4" pot was off by about 12 days (she said 2 weeks, it was really 2 days). I turned her over to see if any roots were poking out and the entire outside of the dirt was roots. The plant was rootbound, so it was time for me to sack up and transplant. I went to sleep for the night and transplanted the next night when I got home from work. Anyway, all transplanted into a nice 3 (or is it 2?) gallon pot, we've got our new home. I'm starting to think maybe this will be my mom and I'll start vegging clones in the box as soon as it arrives. This closet setup is good so far, but I want more light, so I go to walmart (I have, in the past, despised walmart, but I must admit, that now that I know what I'd need to put together, I could build an entire setup in one trip to walmart with the exception of maybe soil and nutes) and pickup 2 42 W CFL bulbs with a plug in fixture and a Y socket. I also grabbed a thermometer with humidity, 3 mylar blankets, two cases of coke zero, some canning jars, and two boxes of goldfish. I wanted it to be as obvious as possible what I was doing to show my disdain for Walmart. In retrospect, I may have gone overboard, and it was actually a good deal for a budget setup (which is exactly what I set out on, that is rapidly becoming not a budget setup).



The lights were bright as heck and beautiful but my plant was starting to stretch to one side. I came to the conclusion that I was not evenly lighting and would have to go for more power (yes, I made a "Home Improvement" reference). So, I headed for the only hydro shop that was open (it was 6 pm and I made an impulsive decision). The nearby hydro shop closes at 6 so I was SOL, except that there's a shop near San Jose (about 25 minutes from me under ideal conditions). I would go there! I didn't want to go another day without the light that is required (by the way, today marks the 2 week anniversary of my placing the order and I still have not received a ship notification or any indication that they plan to ship).



I got to the hydro shop 40 minutes later (6 pm = not ideal), and went in to the shop with an agenda - i wanted a 400W setup with an MH light (I'm worried about heat and I'm considering permanently vegging in this closet). He told me I should get a minimum 600W light. I hemmed and hawed and I went with a 600W and a 6" Xtra sun reflector. It was HPS, and I mentioned that I really wanted an MH. He said that the bulb for MH was 50 bucks more and HPS was fine at that strength for veg, and on my next grow I could do it right and see the difference. This is rapidly getting out of control. When I got the reflector home, I realized something. It's HUGE. I said screw it, installed it in my closet right on the middle light pole (I took out all of the clothes and the box, I don't want a fire). I measured and it looked like I had the requisite 1.5' of clearance to the top of the plant. When I turned on the light, I got a sense for the amount of heat I was looking at. Lots. I started experimenting with different configurations of fans (I settled on crappy oscillating desk fan blowing over the bulb and high speed fan from costco sucking in air from the floor) and mylar until I settled on one that I thought made sense. My plan was to go like this for a night and then go to a computer store and buy a fan the next day. I checked the temperature, cranked up my AC (it's only temporary, after all), and went to bed with a very bright light on coming out of the closet. Did I mention it's my bedroom closet? Yep, wonderful, I know.



(Argh, I'm rewriting this because I got logged out)



When I woke up, the temperature was 93. I was not a happy camper. I noticed that the airflow was insufficient. This hood is too big. I called the store, they told me that I could exchange for a 19" cooltube (my request) with a slight increase in price. I headed down after work and grabbed it (along with the cord - why didn't it come with one?). I also stopped by the other shop and grabbed an inline booster fan (but no ducting). It is not super powerful, but it's quiet and inexpensive enough.



Now, we're at 78-83 and getting much better airflow. Way past bedtime, but I'll post some pictures of where I've gotten.

First Day (4/25)-

Figuring out the light configuration in the bathroom


One more (I think I caused a little heat stress here - I tried to add some humidity by running the shower for a bit but when I saw a couple brown spots, I started ventilating.



Because I was wasting so much light, I decided to look for ways to contain it. Had another idea - floor of a closet with a disposable cooler. This was the second day, I believe. Because I was still relatively short on light, and my plant was standing relatively straight, I decided to use some thread and pins to tie down the bigger branches (with fan leaves mostly).

Top view - as you see, we're still in the 4" pot at this point

Side view - light is not close enough at this point.

This was last night, right before I started writing (a couple of days ago, I started bending branches for supercropping). I transplanted the next day (oops). No shock, though. I have burned a couple of leaves with cfl bulbs, and after I got the HPS, I took everything out but the T5, the HPS and 3 fans. A couple days later, I did LST for one day to get the light as low as possible (I bent down the top, and got lots of new buds standing up).

Here are the two main fans. I have one little oscillating fan just out of the frame above. The bottom fan is pointed straight up. The top one is no longer in that spot. I moved it to the other side of the light, to pull air in from the cool side of the closet.

Here she is, 1 week in. One or two low branches stretched under the cfls, but now they are growing new bud sites under HPS. Remember, I'm trying to keep her bushy because I've got a mini cool cab coming (HOPEFULLY).


Here's a shot of the oscillating fan. I clipped it to an old closet pole (basically a big dowel).


Here's a shot of my light mounting job. I used a couple of old keyrings to attach the yo yos to the cooltube. It's hot, but I'm hoping I can survive as is until I can figure out a better configuration.


Here's the clearance I have above. I've got the yo-yos tied to the remaining closet pole at the top (using a knot to secure a light seems weird to me)

hey my friend got one of those at hope net. basa is a cool club i think.they always at least have 10$ grams of bubble hash if nothing else but they usually have a good selection

__________________
i once knew a chick that could puff a joint or cig with her cooch and even suck up water when she was in the bath.
lol she was such a slut

Nice! She's been a great plant so far, and despite my total lack of preparation, I am amazed at how much progress we've made in a week. I'll be sure to check BASA out, thanks!

5/5/2009 - I just took these. I'm trying to decide if I need to spend some more money on a MH conversion bulb or if I'm good as is.


Top is looking back up, I LSTed today with some string at the 4th node from the top.

Responding well to the LST, so far. Everything look okay?


One more closeup

Adding a couple more pictures (opposite angle) I added a 27W full spectrum CFL desk lamp today.

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I found out my cab is going to be shipping tomorrow. I am going to call to find out what the hold up was. I went into the city today looking for clones. They were all out, but they had white widow seeds, so I grabbed a 10 pack. Conveniently enough, there is a hydro shop across the street, so I grabbed a tray of 50 rapid rooter plugs, a humidity dome, some cloning solution (she talked me out of clonex for a newbie, I got a dip 'n grow setup), and a 6" duct to hook up to my cooltube and booster fan. I am still figuring out the best placement to keep my heat under control. Heat is in the low 80s (80-83), but I end up using the AC more than I'd like to keep everything cool. I'm hoping that the situation will improve in the mini cool cab. I will probably put the 600 in there for flowering this plant and use the 400 it comes with to veg in the closet (I'm going to take some clones and veg them in the closet, then move them to hydro in the cab. I might just take the tub out and put it in the closet, then move it in when I'm ready. I think I'm going to wait a bit to sprout the seeds, making sure I can get a good clone to maturity first.

5/7/2009 - Cab finally shipped today. Apparently they are going to send me some nutes for my trouble. That's nice of them, but I'm still upset by the lack of communication throughout the process. Oh well, what can you do? I took away the desk lamp because it's a little too hot in there for my taste. It's only 83 or 84, but I am running the AC to keep the temps down throughout the house. I closed all the vents except in the room with the closet (and the one with the thermostat) so that I have to waste as little as possible. I am hoping to swap the 600 w for the 400 w that comes with the cab so that I don't have to worry about cooling the closet as much. The cooling in the cab will be more effective than my rig in the closet (I added a computer fan to the other end of the cool tube). Here are a couple of pictures

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Heh, guess I sound like a broken record, but heat is my major issue right now (definitely showing some heat stress). I'm going to have to get CO2 if I can't get it under control.

I just did a bit more LST, trying to use space more effectively (more like a bush than a bonsai). Here are some pics after. I'm using regular twine for the LST and I drilled holes in the rim of the pot. The wire you see is a coat hanger (first pic) which I bent into a hook shape and then bent again to hold on the pot. I'm not sure it's strictly necessary at this point, it was originally to prevent the LST from pulling the stem/roots out of the soil. Pic 3 shows the string and the holes.

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