1 week of building and 2 weeks of combing the internet.. here's what
I put together.



So lemme see..

Altogether she's (1800 x 980 x 700deep)
Main Compartment is (1600 x 800 x 700)
Mom's compartment is (1170 x 160 x 700)
Upstairs is (120 x 950 x 700)



-Main has a 400w HPS, 2x 240w intake fans
(old car fans.. hella powerful)

-Mom has a 23w (110w) energy saver

-Upstairs houses 2x240v extractors capable of moving 300 & 410m3
of air per hr respectively.. and my dinky little ionizer. (thanks Al)



I've designed it for a Vscrog system but as a first time grower I wanna
get a straight scrog or 2 under my belt first.. and the more I think about
it the less I think I need that little mother compartment. I might rip it
out to make room for more plants and just keep making new cuttings...
I'm talking about the little compartment on the right of the proceeding
image. The photo doesn't show it, but I can access it independantly of
the main unit.



Mom, I'm told she's Strawberry Skunk, showed up ready to flower
(so I'm told) and I thought the best thing to do was let her get to
budding while I get some clones ready to grow. Right now she's
on 24hrs of light while I get my shit together. The plan is to let
her grow this week while I get the screen in then go to 12/12
maybe a week or 2 after that. Here's Mom..



I've got a small chilly bin wih an aquarium set up (heat, pump etc)
which I plan to use for clones. Haven't cut them yet.. I figure it's
too early and well, the idea of cutting my baby still terrifies me.
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ow

Had Mom for a few days now and have just been watering her
as required. Detected some yellowing and curling on the tips
lower leaves so I fed her some guano with her water yesterday.
(mixed about 10ml to a litre)





Also found a nasty little split in the main stalk which I figure
happened in transit so I've patched her up with a pipe cleaner
for lack of any better ideas.



I'm trying to keep it organic and have picked up some guano
(supergrow) , some castings, and some rootblast for when
I put the clones into soil. I'm suddenly realizing I have no idea
how much to feed or when (don't overfeed..don't overfeed..don't overfeed)
so I'll stick to guano 2xweekly until I have a better idea. More
phosphorus during flower right.. hmmm now what's organic
and water soluble with a high phosphorus content?

Tracked down the final pieces required yesterday, digital
thermometer, hygrometer and a PH meter for the soil. They
won't show up till next week but I'm saving like $150 by
picking them up second hand so until then, it sure feels like
it's about 23deg in there.. but kinda dry (overkill on the
ventilation maybe?) so I'm misting the plant every day
and checking the soil's moisture daily. Figure I'll just have
to pay close attention until the gear shows up..

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So, what's the verdict? How'm I doin?

Ideally I'd like to see my unit putting out about 1/3 of what
this cat is doing.. damn that seems like a sweet little set
up he's got.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNNs68j8Ql4)

Then when I've got that down I figure I'll try Vscrog and see
how far I can push my yields. Probably a little ambitious for
a guy that hasn't raised his first plant yet, but what the hell...
it's just a weed right? Just a bloody fantastic marvellous
super fantastic little space travel enabling weed!

Looking forward to your advice,

Jzzz

Looks nice man, you can find some more on organics and mixing organic fertilizers here:
http://www.rollitup.org/view.php?pg=...article&id=576
http://www.rollitup.org/view.php?pg=...article&id=341
http://www.rollitup.org/view.php?pg=...article&id=575

The picture of circumcision scarred me for life, as did the Penn and Teller episode of Bullshit on Circumcision

Your setup looks very nice, excellent work and good luck.

One other cheap addition you might want to think of is CO2 supplementation with sugar and yeast, just mix about six cups of sugar with a half gallon of water and a tablespoon of yeast, let it sit for a day or two shaking it up every once in a while and it will start producing CO2, then just turn the fans off every once in a while and shake up the bottle and let them bathe in the extra CO2, hugely increases growth.

Thanks!
Got that recipe will get there... eventually.

One big thing I learned during this process, you don't need to
be a cabinet maker to grow!! If I'd got a prefab shelving unit
(armoir, whateva) and modified it instead of building everything
I'd have saved myself time and money.

welcome to the forum. I'm totally confused, maybe not high enough yet. Is this supposed to be your total grow cabinet or just your mother/cloning area? Look at your pictures. 4 plants the size of that mother will have it full, I assume you know that. And you did say you are going to expand. With the ventilation you have setup, I would say you are ready to expand right now dude.
In building this cabinet the way you did, you have what I wish I had built first. A good cloning/ mother area. I did what most of us probably do and concentrated on getting some plants into flowering as soon as I could. If I had benn more intelligent I would have realized the most important part of a grow operation is having clones ready to go into a flowering room.
You have what looks like a good mother, clone the bitch. Use the space above or below. I saw the reference to Al so I know you have seen the space he uses for 30 clones. Your cabinet is about as big as the space he uses for his mothers and clones. And since your going soil you won't need the space for pumps and reservoirs. Of course this all depends on how much room you have to expand. VV

Nice looking operation there, Jaz. How is it stealth wise? Does your cabinet allow light to escape? I see you are using white paper to line the insides (my grow area has white paper too). Did you decide to pass on the mylar?

__________________
I grow only tomatoes and for my personal use. Any inference otherwise from my posts is completely false.

Current grow: http://www.rollitup.org/grow-journal...rly-misty.html

My 1st grow: http://www.rollitup.org/newbie-centr...h-me-luck.html

indonesian bat guano is high in phosphorus and is also good for roots, not just flower. your mother should be pretty high in P so when you take cuttings from her, they will root more effeciently, too much nitrogen and you will have cuttings that take forever to root and stay nice and pretty. i use the stuff when i mix up my soil, i never watered with it, i would sprinkle alil on the top and mix in a couple inches or so. or disolve in water. good shit though lol

It's the total cabinet. I was given the mother (on mother's day no less) and told she was ready to flower. Instead of waiting for clones I figured I'd grow her (I'm outta bud) while I wait for the clones to be ready.. that's why there I've got my only plant in the grow cabinet. I put in the little side compartment for mothers and clones, but I haven't started cloning yet.

Was planning on 6 plants in the main compartment when she's in full swing. Gonna get a scrog or two under my belt but I designed the unit for a Vscrog.. I have 5 square feet of grow space as is, will have almost 18 if I run her vertical.

With New Zealand law the fines are relatively low if you're busted with 10 plants or less.. that's pretty much where I want to be, but I wanna really push my yields.

Haven't seen Al's setup, but he was kind enough to tell me the ionizer I was given is a piece of shit and to keep it in the exhaust where it can't damage my plants.

A little bit, I built the front door outta cheap ply and it's bowing a little in the middle. Gonna have to rebuild it at some point, for now she's 95% sealed.. was hoping that having more air flowing out of the unit than coming in would pull the door shut a bit but it doesn't seem to be doing so.



It's in a locked place where nobody needs to go so I'm fairly sweet. The fans are a little noisy for my liking but only noticeable when you are in the room. I've got some egg cartons and some foam to put up in the exhaust cabinet, that should help too.

Really though, if someone asks you what your 6 foot locked cabinet is and why it hums what the fuck are you going to say? It's my machine for space travel? I had some time on my hands so I built myself a big warm plywood fridge? The best excuse I can come up with is I'm brewing ginger beer in there.. nobody knows how to brew ginger beer.

A friend recently told me that his mates put an old bar fridge outside the grow room and everyone assumed that was where the sound was coming from.. that sounded clever.

Luckily for now I have zero odor, she's almost air tight (door issues) and I'm venting it into a great little spot. Once I start flowering I'll hustle together a bucket fan set up and look at carbon filtering if req'd.

chur chur..

Thanks for your comments..
Jzzzeazy





grow you little bitch grow!!

entering screen phase one..



surveillance unit deployed..

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Jazer PMed me:

I've never had a preying mantis in my grow op. What's google say about what they eat? If they eat children, send me a few.

The side compartment in your cabinet looks kinda small for a mother. I'd have at least 3-400mm square for a single mother. Could be a good candidate for a 1-plant veg grow hidden inside a couple hollowed out old stereo speakers stacked on top of one another.

150mm wide might be big enough for a few clones, but I think you'll have a hard time finding a seedling/clone heat mat to fit the floor of that space.

I can't see any ventilation in the side space. Fans in there yet? What & where?

Fluoro lights need to drop right down, perhaps within 50-100mm of the tops of your clones. If you use that space only for clones, it could be half the height it is.

I'd be taking cuttings off the plant you have and keeping that one as a mother and flowering the new clones instead of trying to flower that big plant in that cabinet space.

However, if you are already flowering it, the choice is kinda made if it's been flowering for more than a cpl weeks. Tough to get cuttings to set root off a plant fully into flower.

You said something about 'clones being ready' - do you have more plants coming?

You've said you're going to do organic in soil... I think the yield would improve significantly if you go hydroponic. It's not as hard as you think. All you'd need that you don't have is a nutrient meter and a pH meter for liquid nutrient solutions (the sort of pH meter for soil won't do in liquids), a medium like rockwool, nutrient solutions and a small bottle of pHDown.

You don't have a lot of vertical space, but you do have enough to do just about any sort of system, when you consider that a reservoir tank has to go under the tray the plants live in.

You could do a bubbler, a small flood/drain, or you could do a pumpless wick system. The wick would be the most newb friendly.

__________________
How not to grow dope - 'Not Your Father's Marijuana' / 'new super cannabis' / 'extra potent hydro' myths busted
DIY batwing reflector - DIY power panel to keep electrics safe and neat - DIY low-temp 3-day bud dryer - Get a harvest every 2 weeks - Photoessay: A batch of clones in rockwool - Project Big Blue Bastard: DIY 5-tube, 100 watt UV ioniser

...and don't even THINK about asking me how to hide your grow from your MOM. This is an adult sport. Give it up until you grow up.

I was worried about that. Will lose the side compartment and
put the clones on a shelf. I like the speaker idea, would it
require ventilation?

Hadn't picked that one up yet, cheers.

huh? wot? What problems I am going to have
putting her in to flower in a big space?

Also, I can't understand why waiting for the clones to take
root and go through veg would be preferable to my current plan of..

-cut 7-8 clones now and in 3 weeks or so they are ready to veg.

-While they are taking root my current plant starts putting out bud.

-When she finishes budding I transfer the clones to the main cabinet and grow them.

-When they are ready to flower I put one aside for a new mom and flower the rest.

I've got the same total grow time and I'm smoking again within a month.
I thought I was being smart, have I overlooked something? Am I trying
to pull too many clones off the girl?

She's still on 24 hrs.. was going to give her another week
so and go to 12/12 once those secondary and tertiary bud
sites get up to the level of the screen. They're about 1"-2"
beneath it at the moment.

No, in fact I thought I was just getting a couple of clones
to start with. Imagine my surprise when my mate comes
through with a whole plant and tells me she's ready to flower.
Got lucky there.

Didn't realize it improved yeild, definitely something to
consider. Still planning on learning to crawl before walking..
or swimming.. or spending more money.. know what I mean?

Thanks for the reply Al.
Jzzzzr

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