The Skunklab - DWC Stealth Cabinet and 4X4 Tent

continuing war on thrips, found everywhere now. note they were zero problem on harvest unless they cost yield. did not find a single one on the cut. tons of ladybugs though.
going after them within the next few days with dr. doom and don't bug me spray. plants will be rid bugs dunkedas transplanted, will also get the rid bugs spray again. will doom bomb everything at some point, and may very well evacuate plants for a few hours and detonate a roach bomb in here. fuck those things. why they be thrippin?

reservoirs cleaned and almost ready for the next run. need to mod the drains to prevent roots growing through.

harvest tally is up to 291g of blue dream so far. this includes 102g of stuff that was peroxide treated for mold, so that doesn't officially count. not bad though eh? especially considering this tally is made as stuff goes into jars to cure. i have not begun to empty the drying rack yet.

tally on sfv og you say?
14.5g so far.
heh.

of the 6 beans planted, two have sprouted and survived. two other sprouted but failed to launch. other two no response.

what up, thrip?

That is a pretty weak SFV yield, but that's becuase the BD totally dominated. I'd like to see what happens if you mount that LED on a different wall of the tent each week as side lighting, or vert 1000w with over head LED.

I had problems with GK initial success rate too, don't know why, some are just mutants too. Love the thrippin picture though, that will forever be going through my head every single time somebody is trippin, fo realz.

final tally on sfv is 101.5g, so little over an ounce per plant. the problem was definitely the domination, but remember .. we were in this to get clones of sfv more than buds. with the problems rooting to begin with it's no surprise that the bd just took over. another large part of the problem was that i did not act fast enough to move bd stalks out of the way, stake and tie stuff, etc. i wanted to see what it would do on its own. now i know, and i'll do it differently next time.
in short, i think most of it, as usual, is driver error. more in the post mortem soon.

i actually really like the two lights side by side. if anything i'd add vert lighting between the pods. maybe someday. all circuits maxxed here now, need more electricity before any expansion.

really though, money would be better spent adding a second nearly identical tent. the blue dream still has maybe up to a qp left in the dryer, which will bring the total to over 20oz on one plant. TWENTY OZ! unreal. i am absolutely certain that i can pull 2lb out of this per cycle with the right driving.

hoping to have the tent back in operation tonight. been a week off, fuck that. going at it with bleach, then moving all existing plants into the cabinet for a close quarters dr. doom bomb. bleach and death in the colosseum and all around behind things etc. still need to clean the outside res too. bet that thing is super nasty after sitting a week ..

oh and bubble bags are pretty cool. picked up a three bag set, got about a quarter out of the trimmings. screening it would have made maybe 2g.

went ahead and emptied the dryer. final dry weight:
Blue Dream - One plant - 532g
SFV OG F3 - Three plants - 101.5g

that's exactly 19oz of blue dream from one plant.

can i get a hell yeah?
yeah.

phenob said:

went ahead and emptied the dryer. final dry weight:
Blue Dream - One plant - 532g
SFV OG F3 - Three plants - 101.5g

that's exactly 19oz of blue dream from one plant.

can i get a hell yeah?
yeah.

Click to expand...

Hell yeah!

damn this tent is a pain in the ass to recycle!

a week and a half into it and just ripped the reservoirs back out. they are made from doubled up roughneck totes, and both outer totes are significantly cracked at the corners, causing them to buckle under pressure. i think they would actually be fine, as the inner res is still intact, but i refuse to look at a fucked up res for 3 months so replacing it. shouldn't be a big deal. put new blank tote over inner one, line up holes with inner holes, done.
also going to add a piece of plywood under the totes so that they don't rest completely on the wire shelving wires. i think this is what caused the initial damage, the corners sitting wrong, focusing the weight on the rounded easy to crack parts.

i would really like to have custom built solid plastic reservoirs before next cycle begins. looking for a shop somewhere around here who can do it. it can't be hard. i just don't want to spend $300 per res and have to redesign something that is working well. if i have to pay that it should be to my spec, not fucking hydrofarm's.

so effectively, nothing interesting going on still. everything cleaned up and awaiting repairs.

also need to find a place to buy some circulation fans. everything is xmas already. going to be 80+ today and every store has two aisles of heaters.
fuck the walmart mentality.
this is not arkansas.

here's an interesting tidbit:

hindu skunk attracts caterpillars. I'm 100% sure of this.
six plants outside. all within 3 or 4 feet of each other. Four blue dreams, two hindu skunks.
Harvested one of each last night, the larger ones. Hindu skunk covered in caterpillars. The blue dream not 8" away did not have a single one. Not a single one.
The HS was, once again, ruined by caterpillars. It gave about a quarter. The blue dream gave what looks like about an ounce. Not one single pillar turd in there.
Looking around the others, sure enough, I see caterpillars ONLY on the HS.

So if you have a pillar problem, pot a Hindu Skunk nearby and let it tank all the damage. This is what I'll be keeping HS genetics for.

Elsewhere in the news, the tent is back up and running with outer doubled-up reservoirs replaced, some drainage adjustments (added an overflow to tank 2 using 3/4" pvc jammed into 1" tubing sections), and added plywood as above. also added three more circulation fans, one in each corner now. target still had some.

sauce in the tent is 200ppm 7.0 to start, add 800-900ml each sensi bloom a & b (vegging a week or so with bloom sauce. we'll see ..), liquid karma, and cal/mag. 6.2ph, 1000ppm, 75f. will ph down some later tonight. Added two freebie myco teabags, one in each inside res. vegging in the cabinet gave super kick ass root mass on each plant, so they are already drinking in the tent. could see signs of this within 24 hours. i expect them looking healthy and beginning to explode today.

tent is:
woody og
platinum bubba
master kush
sfv og f3

larry og is still in the cabinet. it did not have nearly enough root growth to make the cut, it's much, much slower than the others. much lankier and sickly looking too, but i think that's how larry rolls, with the droopy looking leaves you see on some strains. have seen this in other's pics of larry anyway. added another sfv og f3 into the cabinet and letting them veg. i may go ahead and flip them in the cab in a few weeks. we'll see.

Finally some fairly interesting doings from which someone may be able to garner useful info. Lessee here..

Platinum bubba will absolutely not tolerate even midrange ppm for me, burning and twisting down leaves at just 850ppm. Worst I've ever seen. Took clones then removed the plant from the tent. Roots were 1/10th what the other plants had developed, weeks behind. It's outside now and hating the cold. What a whiner.. The clones look healthier now than they did on the plant, and curled leaves are all about gone as soon as the plant was transplanted to soil. Much happier now at what I'd guess is equal to around 450ppm, if that.

Tent is now Woody OG, SFV OG F3, Master Kush, and Larry OG. Larry was way behind but sure has picked up quickly after vegging in the cabinet for a few weeks. Size is comparable to the Master Kush, just not as dense. The Woody and SFV are just exploded, very dense coverage. Used just twisty ties to lst fairly extensively, producing the same effect as a very dense scrog. I will release the lst within the next few days and let em rip. Will also switch plants around to make the best use of available space, since we've seen what a big overgrown plant in this tent can do. Got two now, right on target and looking great. The Master will harvest much earlier than the others, and the Larry will probably produce about like the SFV did last round. That's okay. We'll get maybe an ounce or two from it and plenty of healthy clones. No problem since the big plants will gladly take up any space that Larry doesn't use.

Clones taken four or so days ago from all tent plants. Tent then flipped to 12/12.
** Flower day one is 11/20 **
All plants in tent showed signs of flowering on the very first day after 12 of dark. Neat.

Whiteberry seeds doing great. Two survived, one is as big as any of the other clones, the other still very tiny. Definitely a huge difference in phenos between the two. No sign of sex yet.

Thrips still all over. I haven't bombed yet, still holding the trigger on that. They are absolutely infesting the big pots in the nursery cabinet, all down in the hydroton about like you'd expect. I'm going to see if I can control them with rid bugs just as an experiment. Will foliar then flood the shit out of pots with it. We do not want rid bugs in the res though, so need to coordinate this with changing tent res to flower nutes later this week.

Also experimenting with mosquito dunks vs. thrip larvae. BT in the dunks should kill them. Added dunks to tent tank, using that water on nursery plants. No dunks in cabinet.

should probably start a new thread. will link if so.

Argghh, I'm still battling the thrips too, they are fucking monsters man. Larry and SFV should be very similar, most of the clones that I got that day ended up being pretty damn disappointing, the Hazy OG isn't standing up as well as it was in the beginning, and the Rocklock looks pretty simliar, the LA Con however, is pretty fucking sweet, and was a huge lagger in the beginning. This Blackberry Kush I got from this place called ABC down the road is fucking kick ass. The Diablo OG is weak as fuck, but the Blackberry is a super queen. I recommend picking one up some time, the kid that is in charge of those babies them. I'm interested in trying that woody, but I'm afraid of introducing anything else into my garden. Just harvested a whiteberry, got a qp off one plant, straight fucking narcotic fire, each time I grow it, she shows me more of her potential, I think I've just about gotten it, honestly I think I could have harvested more if I was more careful while training her under the screen. Grape Krush isn't ready for harvest yet but she is a fucking beast too.

In my other garden I've had a few crops finish up, and that has really helped my new situation, the room is stuffed up here, and we are about to chop a OSK, which is what I crossed with my SFV to make seeds.

Thrips are a bitch to get rid of, and will always be present in my grow room to some degree. All of the surrounding property's grass is full of them, as I assume the entire rest of the neighborhood is. Elimination isn't an option, control must be.

In the nursery cabinet is the worst infestation. As we suspected, putting net pots atop a handful of hydroton is just inviting them in, and sure enough, they are down in there like you wouldn't believe. Massive infestation, even though you can't see a single one until you remove the plants and jiggle the pebbles. Funny thing is, these plants show little to absoutely no thrip damage on leaves or elsewhere and, in general, are extremely healthy. Zero problems. It's when those plants get transplanted to the bigger show that the thrips start to come out like freaks at night.

Within the next few days I will Rid Bugs foliar, then put each plant into a bucket as i flood the shit out of the root zone and hydroton with the same solution. Maybe I'll change that and use some pyrethin based something more guaranteed to kill on contact. Would azamax them if I had $4,000,000 to spend on it.

Now that I know where those fuckers are hanging out, I'ma get them under control. I still haven't seen a single thrip in any of my grow room chambers older than super freakin tiny. No adults, no fliers, no prehistoric nymph looking ones like I see on the plants outside. Not a single one, so something is already keeping them under some level of control. It's not lady bugs, even though there are still a few around. I've added mosquito dunks, but it's not them making the difference as these conditions and thrip levels were the same pre-dunks (although I haven't seen a single tiny one in the tent since dunks. haven't looked all that hard though.) Also got anti-fungus gnat nematodes going in soon. Maybe they will be all like "well, it looks like a fungus gnat larvae. Fuck it, let's eat."

One last note on thrips - as with caterpillars, the Hindu Skunk plants seen to catch the worst of the thrips by far, yet more evidence that HS is more useful as insect tank than smoke.

On a different note, here's a project that you've never seen done before:

My EVC-1 controller has power outputs for daytime temp based venting, one for CO2, and one for a night device that turns on as soon as the light goes out. As of now, I set the daytime temp limit to about 85f and CO2 does it's thing all during light hours. At sundown I need to manually wake my ass up at 6am and come out here to crank the evc-1 thermostat down, so that vent fans stay on during night hours. This is my goal, vents on whenever lights are off without my intervention.

I will attempt to accomplish this by modding a simple power cable to have male prongs on both ends. Two of these a few feet long. Then I'm going to take a small power strip and change the male prong end to female, standard three prong socket. Two male/male power cords from EVC-1 vent fan and night jacks, both cords plug into the power strip. Fans plug into female end on the power strip. What should happen now is .. daytime, thermo set, vent operates as per temperature, send power down cord one to find its way to the fan and everything is groovy. Night kicks in, sending power now down the other cord, which also finds its way to the same fan, and everything is groovy while I sleep in for another hour or two.

Doesn't this sound crazy? Theoretically, it should be just fine. Two cords doesn't mean double the power, just means two different places to complete the circuit, flowing the same amount of power even if both were hot at once. Heh .. I hope! Ideally, the evc-1 won't have power hot to both jacks at once anyway, it should be one or the other, but again, I don't think it will matter.

Let's see!

see above reference to electrical stuff. no joy. tripped the circuit breaker but i'm not sure why. one of three reasons i guess .. something in the evc-1 really doesn't like having power come in the out door, the cheap power strip i used didn't like the arrangement, or i'm clueless. suspect #3, maybe i miswired something, although the cheap power strip smells burny. i cannot tell if it is any more burny smelling than it was in the first place.

new sentinel chhc-4 in the tent is fucking awesome. should have purchased one of these from the get go. required equipment from now on. Get for under $500 on ebay.
it's got a serial port on it, so i've got the appropriate cable on the way. Software on the sentinel site is downloadable for free, basically a data logger. Don't know if it does anything else.
i am very curious to see how long a tank of co2 lasts now, and hell yeah no more having to turn on vents manually when the lights go out.
how cool is the ability to save an entire log of your grow's enviro conditions? pretty damn cool.