600W Dwc Discrete Cabinet Scrog - 2nd Run

phenob

Active Member
that's the catch there. far as i can tell, there is no plant problem. im even starting to wonder if these could be some kind of predatory mite or something, but i doubt there would be such luck. looking at that thing it sure looks alot like a female root aphid.

my size reference was very wrong. the ledge that bug is sitting on is no more than 1/3 of an inch, making that bug around 1/8 inch.
 

phenob

Active Member
That one is huge compared to the other's i've been seeing. The small ones are maybe 1/4th the size of that big one. That's the largest one I've seen too, I've seen maybe one or two other adult looking ones like that, but not quite that big.

Went out several times last night to take more pics but couldn't find anything away from the rockwool. I always find a few tiny little ones right around the sides of the rockwool, but this time no amount of shaking stirring and blowing bong hits into the hydroton would raise the panic of these little fuckers. None came out for the photo op.

So if I can't find the things when I want to take a picture of them, it can't be that bad, right?

yeah ..
 

Jozikins

Well-Known Member
Hahaha, blowing bong hits on bugs is my tried and tested method of bringing the bugs out. But sometimes they just go unconscious, or die.

Anyways, a insect infestation is a marijuana plant problem as far as I'm concerned. Worse comes to worst, your post is deleted by a mod. But the shape of those things definitely remind me of an aphid.
 

phenob

Active Member
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We should be about finishing up week 7 into week 8. Planning on taking these 10 weeks but they may not need that long. We'll see.

Caught a flier, a fungus gnat, last night. First one I've seen in here in weeks. I am certain that covering the net pots properly will keep the fungus gnats out next time. No light on the medium = no algae growing = nothing for them to eat.

I have still been flushing weekly, and it has kept the ph dive almost utterly in check. Whether this is because of my small res I'm not sure. Maybe this is just how AN is able to cram so much stuff into the sauce. Maybe following their recipe means you must flush weekly or close to it.

Recipe for the week 7 sauce:

150ml cal/mag
60ml protekt
120ml overdrive
240ml sensizyme
180ml liquid karma
one cup of vermiT
100ml each sensi bloom a & b

this gives us 1300 ppm @ 6.0ph. The sauce went in on Sunday. This time, by Tuesday afternoon, the ph had stabilized nicely. I actually caught it rising to 6.7 today, which might not be a good sign. I don't think I've ever seen it bump up like that mid-week. Root pics above look nice enough but will give a good check through tonight to see if we've developed any nastiness.

dumped some molasses in there last night. I've been putting 2x frozen 2 liter bottles into the res every night, which is keeping res temp between 63f and 70f. Got to stay on it every day though, can't miss or the temp will shoot up to 75f. Need chiller, period.

Starting to see some N deficiency, things going yellow, right about the right time for it @ week 7. Not as bad as last time when there was all sorts of weird ass color changes going on by now. Chalking this up to end of cycle color changing, don't think it's a problem at all.

Clones taken a week ago are already showing some very nice roots. That's the fastest I've ever gotten clones to root. Things I did differently this time, a little less water content in the nursery dome, and no heating pad. Temp in the clone chamber has been steady at around 80f, about 5f warmer than in rounds previous. No need for the pad.

Lots of weight being put on, everything leaning nicely. Got two stalks in there that have got to weigh well over 2lbs wet each. We should get an easy 10g out of those .. har har.

Next time I will lollypop the scrog stalks even more. Probably best to clear out about 3 or 4 inches at least above the screen. It's alll just kibbles and bits at that altitude.


 

Jozikins

Well-Known Member
How close do you have the bulb running now? I just set up a new room for my BD, and as soon as I transplant into a 6 or 7 gal container I am lolipopping them to hell and flipping to 12/12, after every grow I am blown away by what 600w is capable of. I've noticed that Protekt will drift pH for anywhere between 30 minutes or several hours. But I do like using all my fancy and pricey additives to adjust pH rather than using pH up or down.

That BD is a crazy looking stock, I've never seen a sativa flower out like this, it's even crazier than my crazy outdoor chronic monster from last year. But it definitely looks like it wants to go to week 10.
 

phenob

Active Member
will measure later tonight but guessing the bulb is 16-18" from the tops. there is definitely an altitude limit in the chamber. anything growing above a certain point is skinny with light signs of heat stress. same thing with the OGs last round. plants do not like being close to the apparently not so cool tube. i may experiment and see if i can fit a different hood in there soon. maybe use the cooltube vertically somewhere. something like .. 4x4 tent, 600w cooltube in each corner, 2x 1000w on top, with one plant in like a 50 gal rdwc. muahaha*

realistically though, i have been considering mounting t5 flouros on the sides of the cab. plenty of space for it, heat wouldn't be too much of a problem, and i could fit a crazy number of 2' bulbs without much work. would it be worth the ~$500? probably.

the BD here likes 1250-1300ppm max flower. At this ppm, daily adding back of RO keeps the ppm dead on.

Got some "supreme blue dream" yesterday. I think it's just blue dream done really well, but .. shrug. People are crossing this like crazy the last year or two so who knows. the green crack x blue dream cross is excellent.

PH rise for the last two days I think is due to the molasses add. I'll be damned if they didn't drink twice as much the day after adding carbs, had to add back well over a gallon and a half. Probably the most ive seen anything in this cabinet drink overnight. PH slightly rising, ppm stable, res temp where we want it (albeit with manual labor daily which hardly counts), things are looking excellent.

sfv clones fucking great! much, much easier to root than BD, with my n3wb skillZ anyway. i killed one with ignorance, but otherwise 100% surviving. 4 already in the veg chamber, small pots with hydroton, with tanglefoot smeared all around the edges. probably won't stop shit from getting in there but worth a shot. at least they will have to jump or fly now. smeared that sticky gunk into strategic locations around the edges and door of the chamber as well. we'll see if it's worth the mess factor, because it is indeed a mess. once the clones have grown a bit i'll add a piece of tape around the main stem and gunk over that as well.

and azamax is going to become a constant additive for the young ones, as is whatever that really expensive preventative shit that i can never remember the name of. also on the bug front, found some good info on glomus intradices, a myco that helps prevent root parasites. this myco is in great white, so GW's spot on the roster is even more secure.
 

phenob

Active Member
its 16"ish off most of the tops, 11" off the tallest one. 16" below the light is right about where the line is.
 

phenob

Active Member
id just like to give a shout out to my targus universal laptop power adapter, which works beautifully to replace the now deceased power adapter for my arizer vtower.
*gangsta fist bump
 

phenob

Active Member
tanglefoot on the edge of pots and around the chamber .. not worth the mess. found one of our mystery bugs on the net pot edge not 24 hours later. a "big" one too. aside from that, shit gets all over my hands every time i reach in there. never doing that again.

took more pics of the bug but still nothing useful. i will post them and maybe start a thread later. i dont think it's root aphid. or spider mite. or whitefly. or thrip. or springtail. or bulb mite. or termite. or predatory mite. or mite of any kind. wtf do i know though? we'll see sooner or later.

chamber maintaining ph 6, 1200ppm, 65f
looking to see where ppm drifts from here
 

phenob

Active Member
result was ppm dropping slightly. bumped ppm back up to 1300 with sensi a & b. i may refresh a few additives later tonight, but otherwise no more nutrients going forward. will be aiming for 900-1000ppm before next flush, which will hopefully be final flush.

had buds falling out of the door when opening it so i used a piece of metal rod to hold them back. stick rod into scrog screen, bend around and in to opposite side of screen. done. this could be used for all sorts of support and training on a scrog screen.

IMG_20110508_012304.jpg
 

phenob

Active Member
Knew I smelled mold when I opened the cabinet today. The nose never lies. Sure enough, found a stalk going moldy and fast. Was on the back side of the bud so I hadn't seen it, but I'd had my eye on that one anyway. Chopped the top of it, probably about an eighth lost. Brown and fuzzy on the inside, got it just in time. Switching back to keeping the vent fan on constantly during nighttime hours. Shouldn't have tried to get away otherwise.

Everything else looks fucking great. The bud that I had to chop was nice and dense, sticky icky as can be. Too bad more icky than sticky on that particular one ..
 

Jozikins

Well-Known Member
Increase potassium levels. Begin foliar feedings with earthworm tea, this will prevent further mold problems and feeds your plants at the same time. Mildrew Cure is a good product, but I'm about to make my own earthworm tea as an alternative. A company called "The Other Tomato" makes one already made up for spray and is good for up to a year. A dispensary I am working with get's it for free. I will try and hook it up as soon as I can.
 

phenob

Active Member
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There's the gnarly bit. Otherwise woulda been a nice nug!

I should be good. No other mold problem that I can detect. I think perhaps condensation was building up on the cable for the cooltube, which dripped at the lowest point, right over this bud. Just a couple of drops a day would have done it. Keeping the fan on should eliminate the problem. Especially with only a week or two left.

big fat cola the size of my arm kicks ass.

threw in a cup of tea and a bit of molasses.

ph 6.2, 1200ppm, res 61-70f (ice cooling cycle)
 

phenob

Active Member
cut hole in wall with 6" holesaw. sure wish it was a 6.25" holesaw woulda made things a hell of alot easier..
lights now both intake and exhaust directly to and from the outside. can immediately tell the difference in the room. still need to finish the job with a new fan and some actual ductwork rather than crappy flex duct, but one little victory.
 

phenob

Active Member
venting as above did not work. do not draw outside (as in outdoors outside) air directly in to your lights. cool air in duct + warm air in grow chamber = condensation raining from your lights and duct work.

instead, i think i've got it right now by adding 2 more filters and fans. venting is now as follows:

Lights: Room air -> Active Air 20"x16" Filter with 6" C.A.P. Econo Fan -> 1000w tent light -> S&P 8" Inline fan -> 600w cabinet light -> Outside (outdoors). 90 degree elbow connectors are used where appropriate. Ducting is still hydrofarm flex duct, will replace this wil straight metal pipe style duct when money has nothing better to do. ha .. total distance on the duct through lights is about 15 feet.

Grow chambers vent to room through charcoal filters. Same S&P 8" with a CAN 33 in the cabinet, added a C.A.P Econo 4" fan and 6"x24" Active Air filter in the tent.

Vent on/off cycle with new venting has increased fan off time from 5 minutes to 9 minutes. This is fantastic! Almost doubled the amount of time plants spend with proper concentration of CO2. Adjusted flow accordingly. 1500ppm should be reached by about 5 minutes into the cycle.

Room AC barely needs to be on at all anymore. Zero, and I mean zero odor anywhere in the room. The new big filter will clear the room (through the lights to outdoors) in around 10 minutes. I'm keeping it on constantly venting outside but I'd like to eventually rig a temp threshold where say it stops venting outside instead venting into the room if temp drops below 70. something like that.

I need a gadget that combines a digital timer with a thermostat. Fans come on when certain temp is reached, but also stay on if directly programmed to be on at that time. This would save me from having to manually turn fans on every morning, then back to CO2 cycle settings at night.

Also rigged another metal rod into the scrog screen to support one of the big colas which had toppled completely over. Another one could use the support but I'm short another metal rod. $6 each at home freakin depot.

Everything looking very, very good. Picked up a huge 3" diameter 10x magnifying glass and was surprised to see many trichs are still clear. hardly any amber. The BD may want to go even futher than 10 weeks. Haven't started any actual flush yet but I haven't been readding any nutrients other than a dose of molasses now and then for kicks. If it's going to go further than 10 then maybe I should throw in another flush n' feed.

All in all, new ducting setup is tight. Looks nice, works well, and goes a long way toward calling this build damn near complete.

and for the record, the BD at this point in flower reaches ppm equilibrium at 1120ppm.
 

Jozikins

Well-Known Member
venting as above did not work. do not draw outside (as in outdoors outside) air directly in to your lights. cool air in duct + warm air in grow chamber = condensation raining from your lights and duct work.

instead, i think i've got it right now by adding 2 more filters and fans. venting is now as follows:

Lights: Room air -> Active Air 20"x16" Filter with 6" C.A.P. Econo Fan -> 1000w tent light -> S&P 8" Inline fan -> 600w cabinet light -> Outside (outdoors). 90 degree elbow connectors are used where appropriate. Ducting is still hydrofarm flex duct, will replace this wil straight metal pipe style duct when money has nothing better to do. ha .. total distance on the duct through lights is about 15 feet.

Grow chambers vent to room through charcoal filters. Same S&P 8" with a CAN 33 in the cabinet, added a C.A.P Econo 4" fan and 6"x24" Active Air filter in the tent.

Vent on/off cycle with new venting has increased fan off time from 5 minutes to 9 minutes. This is fantastic! Almost doubled the amount of time plants spend with proper concentration of CO2. Adjusted flow accordingly. 1500ppm should be reached by about 5 minutes into the cycle.

Room AC barely needs to be on at all anymore. Zero, and I mean zero odor anywhere in the room. The new big filter will clear the room (through the lights to outdoors) in around 10 minutes. I'm keeping it on constantly venting outside but I'd like to eventually rig a temp threshold where say it stops venting outside instead venting into the room if temp drops below 70. something like that.

I need a gadget that combines a digital timer with a thermostat. Fans come on when certain temp is reached, but also stay on if directly programmed to be on at that time. This would save me from having to manually turn fans on every morning, then back to CO2 cycle settings at night.

Also rigged another metal rod into the scrog screen to support one of the big colas which had toppled completely over. Another one could use the support but I'm short another metal rod. $6 each at home freakin depot.

Everything looking very, very good. Picked up a huge 3" diameter 10x magnifying glass and was surprised to see many trichs are still clear. hardly any amber. The BD may want to go even futher than 10 weeks. Haven't started any actual flush yet but I haven't been readding any nutrients other than a dose of molasses now and then for kicks. If it's going to go further than 10 then maybe I should throw in another flush n' feed.

All in all, new ducting setup is tight. Looks nice, works well, and goes a long way toward calling this build damn near complete.

and for the record, the BD at this point in flower reaches ppm equilibrium at 1120ppm.
Some limp wrist from the emerald triangle was telling my yesterday that true Headband Kush goes for 13 weeks, and Blue Dream goes for 11-12. He came in with 2 pucks of decent hash, and acted like he knew what he was talking about, but I'm not sure.
I'm pretty sure CAP offers a product just like this but made for horticulture, probably the same price after shipping and handling. The nice part about CAP is you can just pick it up from them directly in Riverside. But I see stuff like that advertised in Urban Garden and Maximum Yield all the time.
 

phenob

Active Member
11 or 12 weeks is probably about right. And the difference in that box is this one is built to work via computer. From what I can tell, all the sensors are basically little web servers that communicate with the main box. You can write your own software to control and monitor it all, and that's what I'm after. I've seen others that can do similar, but for $600ish this is well under half the price. Probably an even better option out there.

Programmed properly, this could turn my vent fans on when the chambers need venting, and also keep them on during light off hours, as I like. Far as I know, no off the shelf product can do this. At least not for under a couple hundred bucks.

A note on CAP too. Guy at a new hydro shop in anaheim was saying they can have CAP wire boxes up custom based on customer needs. Said it was pretty common and easy to get done, and were I in the market for a cheap-ish enviro controller I would definitely look further into this.
 
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