Smokefrogg's Lil Apartment Grow - 250 hps

hello all,

i haven't taken pics from the start, will be flowering in a couple days

i have learned so much reading here, i figured i should post too, maybe somebody can get helped by my pics too

i will begin filling this in within the next couple hours, right after another trip to eden therapy up the street haha =)

i am in a small apartment, i am a medical marijuana patient and am trying to save a few bucks in the future, i have a brown thumb and have killed several plants over the years, this time it's looking alright though

equipment used
18" deep x 28" wide x 60" tall modified ikea wardrobe
small intake fan at the bottom, small output fan at the top
250watt hps hanging overhead
all plants from clones, 3 from oaksterdam nurseries (2 x hindu kush, 1 x xj13), 2 clones from eden therapy collective in hollywood (trainwreck)
soil is miracle grow and perlite, sorry...i know better now, 3 bags of fox farms ocean forest are sitting here for phase 2 lol

i have started a blog which already has pics and some info, for now it is here:
http://smokefrogg-growjournal.blogspot.com/

here are pics from december 8th 2009

group shot - from left to right: 2 trainwreck, 1 xj13, 2 hindu skunk



a close up of one of the trainwreck plants



xj13



one of the hindu skunk



notice the curled leaves on a lot of them, i over fertilized and fried them a bit, i about killed an og kush doing the same thing, fortunately the survivors are a bit tougher

december 12 2009

i saw a grower's forum post where people were attempting to grow a plant out in a shot glass, thought i'd give it a try, i have placed 1 seed i got from bag seed, the strain says it was "cheese", the herb i got it in came from eden therapy of hollywood



here are a few of the main plants

trainwreck



hindu skunk

december 15 2009

the shot glass has sprouted!

december 17 2009

what are those little jars on the floor of the grow room?

these jars are an attempt to create co2, and as we all know from gradeschool, plants breathe co2! what we're doing is mixing a small amount of yeast, with a bit of sugar, add a few tablespoons of warm water, give it a little shake and wait, if you come back a couple hours later you'll notice something happening in the jars! frothing and foaming up we can see a reaction taking place, one byproduct of the reaction (yeast eating sugar) is co2!

i really have no idea if this paltry amount of co2 is enough to help, and it sure does begin to stink after awhile, haha, but we'll give it a go and see =) this is a learning experience for me after all

december 17 2009

a wee bit more growth in our shot glass grow

december 24 2009

the pots i have been using are so tiny, like .75 gallons

i made a trip to the 99 cent store and scored on these guys, i think it's between 1.5-1.75 gallons 3 would be ideal but whatever whatever i am super short on space, these are 8" x 8" and tall! =)

i needed taller pots and it was a pain in the rear looking on all the gardening store websites, nobody has tall skinnier pots it seems? is it bad to grow in a pot that is more tall than wide or something?! hmm...either way, i scored these and drilled a bunch of drainage holes in the bottom and they seem to be working great!

december 25 2009

damnit, the shot glass fell down over night or something, i came to check in on the girls this morning and the boddington's can that shot glass plant lived on had toppled over, shot glass can plant was on the grown on his side, bent and in pain =(

i am so bummed, i knew i wouldn't get more than .5 g out of this guy or so, but i wanted her to live, i was even thinking that i'd say screw the competition and just transplant her in a week or 2, but now...now we just don't know, shot glass plant is trying to recover, the doctor's tell us it's all just a matter of time now, we're hoping she doesn't go the way of oaksterdam og kush plant =(

december 26 2009

a merry christmas package has arrived from the dutch!

december 28 2009

i scored a growlab 80 through craigslist for 110$! woohoo!

so i have gone ahead and popped seeds into jiffy pots!

here is a layout for the seeds in the jiffy pot container



here's the growlab 80 next to the current grow room, i went ahead and picked up a 400 watt ballast, light, and reflector as well, 8 more of those square 8" x 8" pots from the 99 cents store (the last ones too!) and some fox farms ocean forest soil, 3 big bags of it

i need to get some ventilation before i can move plants from the main grow room into the growlab

the growlab is going to become the flowering room, the main grow room will be the vegging/clone room



hopefully wifey will be alright with this, it's kind of larger than i anticipated for our tiny apartment, hmmm...

december 29 2009

wifey was not happy at all about the growlab

i packed it up, trying to figure out what to do with it till we move into a bigger place later next year

i went ahead and swapped my 250 watt hps out with the 400 watt hps i got for the growlab tent, not sure what to do with the 250 watt for now either, i guess i'll let them both sit and wait

the 400 watt light is awesome, it has a remote ballast, a lumatek brand ballast, i have the ballast sitting up on top of the small grow room, that should help to keep some heat out since the ballast is no longer inside...

december 30 2009

i'm working on training the trainwreck plants, i only have 1 tied up right now, the second is not doing too well so i'm letting it catch up a little bit more before i begin with it



the new 400 watt hps is in and running, these plants seem to love it! in the little bit of time that has passed i can see growth, i am going to have to switch to 12/12 for flowering very soon, running out of room!!

december 31 2009

i spent about $50 at target (with a gift card i was given, so no cash out of pocket), there i purchased the power strips, the lights, the box and lid, as well as the 2 trays that fit inside the box, the boxes dimensions are 14" on all sides

i then spent about $15 at osh for the wall plug to light socket adapters, then the light socket splitters, i also got the small biodegradable fiber pots there

the splitter seems to be really difficult for people to find, or so it seems from forums i have read, osh has them for under $4 so go get yours there, they also have the wall plug to socket adapters for about 3$



the box is about 90% done, the last thing i will be adding are 2 fans, one for intake and one to blow air out, gotta' keep things circulated

i am using cfl bulbs, there are 4 @ 26watt, the bulbs are 6500 kelvin so they should work out well for vegging



there are 2 shallow plastic trays inside, each with 8 small pots, i seriously doubt i am going to try to keep 8 plants in this tiny space, maybe 4 at most, probably shouldn't do more than 2 haha, but this is an expandable system, it would cost me about 20$ and a bit of sawzall wackiness to make it twice as tall, handy little modular cubes from target

yes, 6500 for veg. Very nice setup and plants...

four20mike said:

yes, 6500 for veg. Very nice setup and plants...

Click to expand...

thanks mike! happy new year to you man!

january 1 2010

a happy new year to all!

we are having heat issues in my lil wardrobe grow room, it's getting up over 100 in there with the new light, wow!

you can see the heat effecting the plants below, i have 2 options now, either get more ventilation in there or drop back down to the old 250 watt hps light

we'll be seeing what stores are open today, i need 2 fans, i have some small computer fans but those won't do much for this large wardrobe

i am curious if there is any way to see how the airflow is inside, i'm thinking of putting a camera at the bottom in video mode, facing up, close up the wardrobe and let it chill for a couple minutes, from a straw inserted through the bottom of the wardrobe blow some thick smoke through into the grow chamber, possibly i can see where the air is flowing from the video, hmmmmm....gonna' give this a try after i post this entry



notice the spots on this hindu skunk plant, the only thing to change in my environment is the light, and with it the increased heat as seen above, with the old 250 watt hps i was sitting around 80-85 degrees at all times, this was ideal...might just have to pack the 400 watter away for now...

subscribed.

Good Luck!

GidgetGrows said:

subscribed.

Good Luck!

Click to expand...

thanks gidget!

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january 2 2009

i cannot seem to find fans anywhere, i can find plenty of the heater type, but no regular fans, i rigged up computer fans to the main grow closet, it dropped the temperature about 2 degrees, lol, this isn't going to work out, i need to just get back to the hydro shop and get a couple of their decent $20 clip on fans, that should do the trick

i did score on some usb fans on clearance at staples, i am using those in the small veg box, the fans were 1$ each i got a usb hub in the shape of a dog bone for 2$, i'm currently using a charger for a palm pre phone to get power to the usb, i will find and order a basic wall plug to usb converter and get the palm guy out of there soon

here are pics of the veg box with the new fans



here it is with the lid closed sorta', the usb fans have a flexy neck so i have the one on the bottom left setup to prop the lid a bit



here's a pic of the main grow box, this is day 1 of flowering mode after a nice 12 hour lights out nap

we've downgraded back to the old 250 watt hps light

temperature seems to be staying at about 80 degrees now, the lowest i was able to get it with the 400 watt hps was just over 100, 102 or so

here is the grow space with the old light back in



here's the new 400 watt light kickin' it unplugged, waiting for the lamp to cool off so i can pack everything up and put it away for another day

the heat problem i had until i downgraded back to the old 250 watt hps caused issues with 1 of the hindu skunk plants

there was a much larger than normal amount of dried out dead or dying leaves, i had to remove far more than i normally do