1st Indoor; 250w; Aero; Cabinet

Howdy

I'd like to start by extending thanks to all who are here helping. I have been able to learn quite a lot in the last few weeks reading and reading and reading on this forum. Answered hundreds of questions for me and also led me in the right direction for all of this to go as smoothly as possible.

I've had 3 outdoor grows in the past, sadly had to cut the last one short for personal protection, so I've moved my operations indoors at a different location. Never tried this inside before, but have definitely seen the results of some quality operations in the past, and have been into gardening for years, and developed a fairly green thumb over time. I'm always interested in learning more though, so I welcome your help if you have a suggestion.

I'll be growing in an old wardrobe of mine, aeroponic system, 4 or 6 grow sites, with a 250w MH/HPS light. Exhaust fans at the top next to the light, Intake fan in the bottom corner. The space inside the closet measures 24w"x23d"x46"h. I'm thinking I should stick to 4 sites so as not to crowd the plants. (Input on this issue is appreciated.)

So the story of this grow starts off with me telling a grower friend of mine that I wont be growing outdoors and have considered starting an indoor grow. I started putting together my parts and pieces for this aeroponics system in this wardrobe, and last week he brought me 2 1week old lil bagseed fellas and said happy growing, so now I'm trying to put everything together to get this system really started.

I'll have to transplant them from the soil they are in to the hydro system. I have been reading here on RIU and have seen several examples of success with this type of transplant.

I dont have the cabinet complete yet, but it should be within the week. The light is ordered and on its way, and I will be going to my local hydro shop this week for the last pieces of the puzzle that I will need. I will also be ordering some seeds, as these two plants are bagseed and I have no guarantee that they will even be females. Im thinking about autoflowering varieties... Suggestions??

I will post pictures of the cabinet and aero system as soon as I get it together, but I do have a couple of pictures of the little tykes in their current environment.

Age:: 2wk
Light:: 2 - T12 24" OttLite Floros
Cycle:: 20/4
Soil:: Local Organic mix w/25% perlite ratio, no added nutrients as of yet.

One of the plants is obviously much healthier than the other, and I'm somewhat wondering if the runt of the two will be able to survive the transplant. I may wait until they are about a week stronger to move them. Suggestions?

Thanks for reading, I'll update when I have information or pictures worth updating for.

Any comments, suggestions, or questions are welcomed!

Here are the pictures of the cabinet progress thus far. I have wallpapered the walls white. The grow "rails" you see will be drilled to accomodate 3" net pots. The pvc sprayer assembly will be supplied from below the growing deck, where the drawer area is presently. The reservoir (gray bucket in pictures) will take up the space of the top 2 drawers after I gut them. The drawer faces will remain. The bottom drawer will remain functional and I will use it for storage of supplies (meters, spare sprayers, nutes, etc.).

The deck will have 2 holes drilled in it for drainage of the net pot rails. They will be elevated in the rear to drain out these holes back into the reservoir.

I will have 2 fans in the top corners of the rear wall exhausting air, and one in the bottom front corner of the right wall for intake of fresh air. Odor control will likely be achieved with a mist (ozium, ona, or something similar) as there will only be a few plants growing.

Power lines will be run out the back wall of the cabinet. I am considering a CO2 "system" consisting of 2L bottles with a yeast+sugar/water solution.

I am still on the fence as to how many grow sites to incorporate into this system. I am thinking 4 would be better than 6, mostly because I will only be using a single 250w light, maybe with a couple CFLs supplementing.

Again, comments welcome.

WooHoo! Okay, so I finished putting everything together for the cabinet, now all I lack is a good light. Should be here soon. I plumbed the sprayers in, plumbed the drain, and set up the rail/irrigation system this afternoon.

I installed the 50CFM exhaust fan (bathroom vent) as well, but need to run some ducting over to the left side of the cabinet, perhaps with an in-line filter??

The top drawer is just a drawer facade, the middle drawer holds my reservoir, and the bottom drawer holds my supplies. Got my nutes, PH up/down, meters, extra sprayers, extra net cups, etc. etc. I have the feeding schedule and percentages written out on a loose leaf paper taped to the inside of the door, and the pH / nutrient uptake chart from GH taped up as well.

I washed the root systems of the plants VERY gently in a reservoir of water pH of 6. Then they were placed in the net cups and into the aero system. The nutrient solution in the reservoir for the aero system is at a 5% strength veg cycle.

Temps inside the cabinet are hovering at around 71. Humidity is around 60-64%. Nute Solution pH readings are averaging 5.9. Im excited!! Time to burn one in celebration!

Hopefully these two little fellas can make it through. If not, I will be ordering some seeds. This building process and growing process is fascinating and I'm looking forward to seeing and sharing the results.

Feel free to post any comments, suggestions, questions, or pictures of your own setup, even if it differs from mine. I like seeing what others have going on for them as well! So, fire away!!

Very nice setup you got there! Pulling up a chair for this one....

Thanks! I forgot to add in the last post that I am very strongly considering getting a 400w light instead of a 250w light. Just thinking about expansion in the future (which, if this goes half as smoothly as I would like, is very likely) and the fact that 250w wont be enough for anything bigger than what I already have. So, I think I may just go with the 400w. I'll burn the bridges of heat problems after I cross them.

I'll update again with pictures and such when something happens (cause it will haha), but I'll be here.

I know some people dont like reading long posts... but, I have no one else to talk to about this little operation I have going on except the forum here. So, I get a little long winded sometimes. This post turned out to be one of those times. My apologies to those who might be annoyed. lol.

I will preface this with this statement: I did not plan on or really have any desire or want to put CFLs in my cabinet. I thought perhaps 1 or 2 for spectrum balance during flowering, but was leaning towards the "no" side of that idea.

I was pretty much of the attitude/mindset that the CFLs were not really a very viable way to go with growing this stuff. Then, last night, I started reading through quite a few other grow journals that caught my eye, and noticed several of them growing very very nice, healthy looking plants that yielded pretty damn well. I am still not convinced that it is worth the effort to try and design a grow around using CFLs as opposed to HID, and I still think that plants grown under the HID lights tend to look like they produce better flowers. But, I do think that the CFLs are effective in achieving several things:
-Plenty of light on a budget (saves both in initial cost and operating cost)
-A properly balanced spectrum
-Temperature control in applications where space, or more importantly: ventilation, are issues, but one would still like to supply the plants with the most light possible.

I've put these CFLs in this closet, and I'm glad I did for several reasons. One, I'm having issues controlling temperature as it is with only these lights, so this can only help me properly prepare for an HID system. These things are a lot brighter than I really anticipated, as I had gotten used to seeing only that little 24" dual floro fixture in the cabinet. Two, it has saved me a lot of money, because I think I have come to a decision:

I will be using the CFLs for the rest of this grow, and expand my operation in the future with an HID setup. This way, I can save money now, and I already have a lighting system for a veg area that I can separate in the future. And, being that this is my first indoor grow, I think that I should probably try and keep my focus on growing the plants to maturity instead of worrying about getting the best possible yield or the most effective lighting system or the best strains. Why blow my wad now? Theres always the next one!

Okay, so I went ahead and put in the equivalent of 320watts of light in CFL format. Ive got:

(2) "100watt" 6500K CFLs &
(2) "60watt" 2700K CFLs

I have 1 of each in two 8.5" clamp reflectors hanging approx. 3" above each plant.

QUESTIONS I HAVE::
My temperatures with the cabinet doors closed seems to peak at like 83*F at plant level. With the doors fully open, the temps drop to around 77*F. The room that the cabinet is in right now does not have A/C. I'm considering moving it to a room that does. Will this make a substantial difference? The room temp usually stays around 78-80 without this cabinet running. I usually keep my A/C around 73*F. Maybe I can afford to put my spare window unit in this room and pay the cost of cooling as I had planned on having that big ass light sucking down my juice, now I can use that planned electrical draw to power the A/C??? Ideas?

I also have an old mini-fridge that gets absolutely no use other than sitting in the corner chilling a few cokes every now and then. Perhaps I can run an intake fan to the cabinet that pulls air from inside this running mini fridge?? But what about the sealed nature of the fridge itself? Strain on the fan from trying to create negative pressure in the sealed fridge?

Idea that came to me just now after burning one and writing this:: I could run a water recycle system between the fridge and cabinet?? Keep the nute solution somewhat chilled as well??

Last 2 questions for this post: You'll notice in the attatched pictures that the main stem of the healthier of the two plants has a reddish section. I think I remember reading that this is a symptom of pH being too high? I will search and try to find this again before taking any corrective action.

The sprayers that I have are being pretty fucking fussy with me. Its getting on my nerves, and it seems like every time the pump cycles on/off, the sprayers on the irrigation system spray differently. Sometimes they dont really even spray, they just kinda dribble. This is bad... Is this my pump not supplying enough water pressure?? It is a 250gph pump plumbed into 1/2" PVC piping. They are the little "micro irrigation" sprayers you can find at the garden store or home depot. The 180* sprayers seem to work much better than the 360* ones, but still somewhat hit and miss on performance overall.

Thanks for reading, sorry for the super long posts. I'm just excited to get to share this stuff and talk about it with people, because I can't talk about it otherwise lol.

Keep in mind, all of these things I am saying are observations and conclusions drawn from reading what others have to say. This is all new to me, I just like to try and learn what I can when I want to do something right. Feel free to openly disagree with anything that I write and give me any information you feel like you want to contribute to my learning process. I am still a newb. haha.

Fire away with suggestions, comments, questions, or stories and pictures of your own stuff.

Lets go burn one!

So it looks like I've got some shit dialed in. I had a small nute burn issue last week(? maybe the week before I dont rightly recall), but diluted the solution until they recovered, and they have exploded with growth!

The root systems are expanding at a very rapid rate. This brings me to my first question:
I know that if the roots grow down into my solution, I could run into some serious issues, but I'm not sure how other growers handle that situation in setups similar to mine? Just cut em off where they dangle in? I've always been a practioner of cutting the root spinout of other plants when transplanting in soil, with no ill effects, and I know that lots of nurserys adhere to this practice as well, but I'm new to hydro and was wondering if this could pose problems in this type of setup? I was thinking of building a screen in the reservoir as a buffer between the roots and nute solution for them to lay on when they reach that length...

Anyways, I figure that they're about 2 weeks behind from the shocks of transplanting from soil to hydro and the nute burn problem, so I'm treating it at this point as if they were 3 weeks old, not 5.

Heres some pics of them as they've progressed. The larger of the two has LOTS of new growth shoots at the nodes, and is getting visibly bigger by the day. The smaller of the two is just a little behind, and has been starting to catch up, but has been somewhat of a mutant since it sprouted from seed.

We'll see how it goes! As always, questions, comments, other pics are more than welcome! I love looking at other peoples progress as well! I'll continue to check in between weekly photo updates.

The larger of the two plants started showing signs of sex today, and is a female. woo!!

So heres some snapshots of whats goin on now. Growth rate is great. It looks different every day, there are new leaves, bigger leaves, and it is wider every day. I have noticed that it has not yet had much upward growth yet, but I'm sure theres some on the way.

Heres the plants, and then them with a lighter for scale.










And heres a couple pics of pistil formation on the larger of the two plants. Pics are not the greatest, sorry my camera is a bit older.





Whatcha think?

Hey all ( i guess, idk who is actually reading this thing, haha ) Heres some quick snapshots of this morning.

I will probably be adding more light very soon, I'm worried that these cfls aren't going to penetrate to the bottom of these plants.

I am quite glad that they have proven thus far to be shorter plants, I will probably take some cuttings from them and comtinue with this strain for a while, whatever it might be. I know the smoke was great, so I'm looking forward to this very much.

Enjoy!

The side view of the stronger

The top view of the same

The side view of the runt

The top view of the runt


Bring on the participation!! Haha!

Edit: forgot to add, FIM'd yesterday. A bit late, but i have never tried a training or modification technique other than trimming shade leaves in the past, which is more harm than good. So I figured I would give it a shot.

So, we have arrived at week 8. These plants seem to have made up for time lost or spent in shock... they got big. I think I should have tried to stretch them a bit more quickly than I did, as they are very bushy. The stronger of the two plants is actually a really nice specimen, and I like her so much I think I shall build a cloning unit. Haha.

Anyways, here's the pictures of them at Week 8, Day 1.
2 pics of both plants




A pic of the larger


A pic of the smaller



Temps : 71* night - 77*/78* day
Humidity : Fluctuates btw 55% and 64%
Light : 4 26w 6500K & 4 26w 2700K CFLs (2700s added today)
Nutrient : 75% recommended Canna Vega A&B (6ml each/gal)
PPM : 800-900
pH : 5.3-5.8
Res Temps : 65-68*

I'm wondering if starting flower now would be good, or if I should just wait. I'm thinking about waiting a bit, but I dont have infinite space, so I need to keep them at a reasonable height. The larger of the two is currently about 9-10" tall, and the smaller is about 7" tall. If they double in height, they should be around 20-22" and I have enough headroom for 30" after taking the light into account.

Both plants are starting new flower sites all over the place. Some of the smaller plant's outer branches are being heavily shaded by the larger plant. Im thinking of tying off to an anchor some of the branches of both of the plants to spread them and expose as much of them to light as possible. (I suppose this is sort of LST??)

Jump in at any point, the water's fine. lol.

your babies r looking good . id start flowering now if space is a prob.

Hey there, thanks for the comment. I started 12/12 yesterday. I will update with pictures tonight most likely, if time allows.

Well everything seems to be going swimmingly. The plants are healthy, they look happy, which means I gotta be doin somethin right, huh? Haha.

The main stem is getting quite thick at the base, and the plants are BUSHY. It gets very confusing looking at them trying to figure out which leaves are coming from which stems. Easy to get lost.

One thing that I don't know what to do with is the leaves at the very base of the plant. They seem to always be somewhat hanging down, and theres lots of branches down there that dont seem to be developing bud sites. Given that the other branches have so many leaf sets on them, would it still be a bad idea to trim them out a bit? I understand that leaves are the energy processing centers of the plants, and I know the more ATP processed, the better and stronger and faster the growth, but it would stand to reason that there is, at some point, a point of diminishing returns on that sort of thing. Ideas?

Heres some pictures:
Big Plant


Top of Big Plant


Other plant


Various





So, I think everything's coming along well. I think I might add a small (100-150watt) HPS light in there, as that may keep me from having to run my small heater in the room. I will keep the CFLs (at least a few of them) running as well.

Lemme know whatcha think...

Ok, so I've finally gotten around to putting up some more pictures. Been busy these past few weeks.

11/23 marks Week 11 Day 6. So, they're about to start their 4th week of flowering.

My camera sucks. Sorry about that. I'm going to try and borrow a much nicer one for the upcoming pictures.

Crystal formation really kicked off about 4 or 5 days ago, its coating the buds and most of the small leaves around them. Pictures dont pick this up at all.

Heres the pics










Lemme know whatcha think

I think you got pretty Tall plants.