researchkitty
Well-Known Member
(This is the discussion thread for my journal located here: https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/316440-kittys-6000-watt-ebb-flo.html )
.....here's the first post to get the discussion thread going, the first real post and the photos are on the thread linked above! Thanks for posting and +rep to all good comments and suggestions!!
Hello. Welcome to my grow journal. I welcome all comments and constructive criticism! +++rep for those who post good questions or for those with good suggestions!
**** HELP **** If you find something I've fucked up, or could be doing better, tell me!! This journal isnt for my bragging rights, its so I can teach newbies and experts can teach me!!
I've grown in the past with other methods, and now that I moved into a new home, thought it would be time to try a new system out and expand a little more. The room you see was dug out of the side of a mountain underneath the foundation of the house. The room was then leveled, slab poured, dried, and voila, a nice little grow room. Right now there's only two 1000w lamps, there will be 4 more on the way for future cycles. Right now, this is just the first cycle, and in the photos you'll see seedlings that are in their first week of veg. I generally wont be vegging in this room, but since there's nothing flowering, why not for now.
Hardware!
- 2000w lamps (upgrading to add 4000w more over the next 4 weeks for 6000w total, to accommodate a 3-cycle harvest)
- Generic air cooled hood
- Carbon filter attached to a Vortex 8" then downsized for the 6" holes and attached to a variable speed fan controller.
- No air intake to the room yet, will add one later.
- "RastaGrow" Ebb & Flow system with all the buckets.
- Exhaust goes through ventilation of a 3 story home
- Nutradip Tri-Meter for pH/ppm/temp.
- Humboldt Nutrients Grow/Micro/Bloom and ProZyme, Flavorful, Big Up Powder, and a few others (all on their 8wk moderate feeding chart)
- Also add H2O2 and Sea Cal / Sea Mag (Humboldts version of CalMag)
- Hydroton as the medium
- There is no RO water as tap water here is 40ppm.
It's actually fresh mountain water since this is a very remote and quiet area.
The strains I'm vegging right now are all from Nirvana. Their seeds have been very reliable for me over the years. I plan to make a mommie for each of the strains as once the other 66% of the flowering lights are installed, the other 4000w worth, there will be 3 harvest cycles.
- Northern Lights
- Bubblicious
- White Widow
- New York Power Diesel
- Snow White
Normally I wouldnt want to flower so many varieties under two lights, but with a new system I want to test each strain immediately. After a while, it'll be one strain per light that way I can guarantee a nice and even canopy.
I wouldnt recommend the RastaGrow system over a CAP ebb & flow system, the RastaGrow has shitty hosing, DIY boxes all over it, clumsy wiring, etc... Reworked a lot of it to meet my standards. They didnt even have a secure way to attach the hoses to the pumps without them slipping off. Changed the hoses to blue clear and flexible hosing, fixed their floats, fixed the wiring on the timer, etc... Yikes. I do really like the colorful pots, makes it easy to identify strains if you utilize them to your advantage! Each light will flower 9 buckets, and I plan to experiment down to only 4 buckets per light by using Uncle Ben's topping method and an undetermined amount of veg time.
In each of the 2.5 gallon buckets, the growing medium will be Hydroton. Looked at the Sure-to-Grow's pot inserts, but everyone gave them negative reviews, I wish that they would work because it'd be a lot less work filling new pots up. The reservoir is 55 gallons in capacity, but I'm only filling it up to 40 gallons right now. There's simply no need for the extra water waste while the plants are tiny little superguys. Today (3/28/10) the plants are all about 3"-4" in height and on day 11 of vegging.
You'll also notice that the filter and vortex fan are suspended from the ceiling by ropes. This is to keep the noise and vibrations a fan can make suspended, thus non-existant. It also allows me to move and re-position the fan and filter without having to rewire walls. All of the lights are also suspended with rope along with the filter/fan, and all can be adjusted in height by retying it down at the post.
Inside the reservoir, there are two large airstones keeping the water perfect. There's also an temperature set aquarium heater set to 71(f) to keep the res water at the perfect temperature too. In addition, I use H2O2 as many have suggested here on RIU to ensure that the water is the best it can be. (Did you know H2O2 has a pH of 2.1? It also makes your finger skin flake off if you touch it.
)
I chose Humboldt Nutrients because of reviews and simplicity. Their 5 or 6 part YouTube instructional videos sold me on their technical knowledge and exactly what each product was meant for. At first I wanted to go just Grow/Micro/Bloom, but ultimately splurged on the full line of nutrients. Their Humboldt Roots comes in a 50ml jar for $25, and for two lights, you use one jar every week for the first 5-6 weeks of total veg/flower time! You can tell the potentcy though as soon as you uncap it and the odor comes out. Good god that stuff stinks!!
Why did I get an 8" and then duct it down to 6" for the light cooling? I want to ensure that I have over-adequate cooling, so the theory behind this was to get a bigger fan than needed, and use the variable speed fan control to keep it about half speed and then in the summer if it gets toasty, I have additional CFM I can put through without making an existing fan in the grow room obsolete.
There isnt any CO2, I'll address whether or not I'll use it later, have a long time before flowering actually starts. I think I want to flower when these ladies get 24"-30" tall. The extra few pots that arent connected to water lines are for 3 mommies that are just borrowing some veg room for now. There's two plants that look a little whimsical, so I may toss a few more seeds down to get better Mmommies.
Please remember, I'm not an expert at growing, I just know what I know from having done it a good bit and from researching and reading and watching videos etc.... If you have any input or suggestions, I'm ALL ears!! +++rep for those who post good questions or for those with good suggestions!
Thanks for stopping by. I will be updating this thread every few days with new photos, construction of the new light upgrades, construction of the new vegging & mommy room, and some HOWTO's for other Ebb & Flo users over time.
Kitty (That's the nickname for one of my dogs, you can imagine, he isnt large)
https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/316440-kittys-6000-watt-ebb-flo.html
.....here's the first post to get the discussion thread going, the first real post and the photos are on the thread linked above! Thanks for posting and +rep to all good comments and suggestions!!
Hello. Welcome to my grow journal. I welcome all comments and constructive criticism! +++rep for those who post good questions or for those with good suggestions!
**** HELP **** If you find something I've fucked up, or could be doing better, tell me!! This journal isnt for my bragging rights, its so I can teach newbies and experts can teach me!!
I've grown in the past with other methods, and now that I moved into a new home, thought it would be time to try a new system out and expand a little more. The room you see was dug out of the side of a mountain underneath the foundation of the house. The room was then leveled, slab poured, dried, and voila, a nice little grow room. Right now there's only two 1000w lamps, there will be 4 more on the way for future cycles. Right now, this is just the first cycle, and in the photos you'll see seedlings that are in their first week of veg. I generally wont be vegging in this room, but since there's nothing flowering, why not for now.
Hardware!
- 2000w lamps (upgrading to add 4000w more over the next 4 weeks for 6000w total, to accommodate a 3-cycle harvest)
- Generic air cooled hood
- Carbon filter attached to a Vortex 8" then downsized for the 6" holes and attached to a variable speed fan controller.
- No air intake to the room yet, will add one later.
- "RastaGrow" Ebb & Flow system with all the buckets.
- Exhaust goes through ventilation of a 3 story home
- Nutradip Tri-Meter for pH/ppm/temp.
- Humboldt Nutrients Grow/Micro/Bloom and ProZyme, Flavorful, Big Up Powder, and a few others (all on their 8wk moderate feeding chart)
- Also add H2O2 and Sea Cal / Sea Mag (Humboldts version of CalMag)
- Hydroton as the medium
- There is no RO water as tap water here is 40ppm.
It's actually fresh mountain water since this is a very remote and quiet area.The strains I'm vegging right now are all from Nirvana. Their seeds have been very reliable for me over the years. I plan to make a mommie for each of the strains as once the other 66% of the flowering lights are installed, the other 4000w worth, there will be 3 harvest cycles.
- Northern Lights
- Bubblicious
- White Widow
- New York Power Diesel
- Snow White
Normally I wouldnt want to flower so many varieties under two lights, but with a new system I want to test each strain immediately. After a while, it'll be one strain per light that way I can guarantee a nice and even canopy.
I wouldnt recommend the RastaGrow system over a CAP ebb & flow system, the RastaGrow has shitty hosing, DIY boxes all over it, clumsy wiring, etc... Reworked a lot of it to meet my standards. They didnt even have a secure way to attach the hoses to the pumps without them slipping off. Changed the hoses to blue clear and flexible hosing, fixed their floats, fixed the wiring on the timer, etc... Yikes. I do really like the colorful pots, makes it easy to identify strains if you utilize them to your advantage! Each light will flower 9 buckets, and I plan to experiment down to only 4 buckets per light by using Uncle Ben's topping method and an undetermined amount of veg time.
In each of the 2.5 gallon buckets, the growing medium will be Hydroton. Looked at the Sure-to-Grow's pot inserts, but everyone gave them negative reviews, I wish that they would work because it'd be a lot less work filling new pots up. The reservoir is 55 gallons in capacity, but I'm only filling it up to 40 gallons right now. There's simply no need for the extra water waste while the plants are tiny little superguys. Today (3/28/10) the plants are all about 3"-4" in height and on day 11 of vegging.
You'll also notice that the filter and vortex fan are suspended from the ceiling by ropes. This is to keep the noise and vibrations a fan can make suspended, thus non-existant. It also allows me to move and re-position the fan and filter without having to rewire walls. All of the lights are also suspended with rope along with the filter/fan, and all can be adjusted in height by retying it down at the post.
Inside the reservoir, there are two large airstones keeping the water perfect. There's also an temperature set aquarium heater set to 71(f) to keep the res water at the perfect temperature too. In addition, I use H2O2 as many have suggested here on RIU to ensure that the water is the best it can be. (Did you know H2O2 has a pH of 2.1? It also makes your finger skin flake off if you touch it.
)I chose Humboldt Nutrients because of reviews and simplicity. Their 5 or 6 part YouTube instructional videos sold me on their technical knowledge and exactly what each product was meant for. At first I wanted to go just Grow/Micro/Bloom, but ultimately splurged on the full line of nutrients. Their Humboldt Roots comes in a 50ml jar for $25, and for two lights, you use one jar every week for the first 5-6 weeks of total veg/flower time! You can tell the potentcy though as soon as you uncap it and the odor comes out. Good god that stuff stinks!!
Why did I get an 8" and then duct it down to 6" for the light cooling? I want to ensure that I have over-adequate cooling, so the theory behind this was to get a bigger fan than needed, and use the variable speed fan control to keep it about half speed and then in the summer if it gets toasty, I have additional CFM I can put through without making an existing fan in the grow room obsolete.
There isnt any CO2, I'll address whether or not I'll use it later, have a long time before flowering actually starts. I think I want to flower when these ladies get 24"-30" tall. The extra few pots that arent connected to water lines are for 3 mommies that are just borrowing some veg room for now. There's two plants that look a little whimsical, so I may toss a few more seeds down to get better Mmommies.
Please remember, I'm not an expert at growing, I just know what I know from having done it a good bit and from researching and reading and watching videos etc.... If you have any input or suggestions, I'm ALL ears!! +++rep for those who post good questions or for those with good suggestions!
Thanks for stopping by. I will be updating this thread every few days with new photos, construction of the new light upgrades, construction of the new vegging & mommy room, and some HOWTO's for other Ebb & Flo users over time.
Kitty (That's the nickname for one of my dogs, you can imagine, he isnt large)
https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/316440-kittys-6000-watt-ebb-flo.html
