cannatari's 600W Watercooled DWC Med Cab

cannatari

cannatari

Well-Known Member
Someguy15 said:
Sub'd. Always thought water cooled lights were cool, but figured they had a higher failure rate. Buds look great tho!
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Indeed. The equipment works just like it's supposed to. The faliure rate is usually due to the user's lack of experience. As always, the first round is a test round meant to reveal potential problems. I'm still happy with the performance of the Fresca Sol unit.

Thanks for the compliment and for stopping by. -cannatari
 
EvlMunkee

EvlMunkee

Well-Known Member
cannatari said:
Situation: I want a perpetual garden where I take clones of clones for preflowers every flowering period (no long-term mother plants).

Problem: Timing Uncle Ben's Multi Main Cola Technique. Let's say that it takes 4 weeks from the the time I take clones, they root, and is now the optimum time to execute the UB technique. Now I have to take the cuttings left from topping and root them. Now I'm taking cuttings and rooting clones twice as often as I need to given an 8 week flowering period. I can't just add another 4 weeks in between the time I need the clones because I won't be topping the preflowers at their optimum multi-cola time. And I can't just throw the toppings away because I have to get my next round off of them. And if I do throw them away and get my clones later from the pre-flowers, it's liable to screw with the shape I'm trying to grow the plants or I have to take clones from the crappy lower branches and not the ideal top chutes.

Solution: Take 6 clones for the 5 that I need. The extra clone becomes a temporary mother plant for the next round. This gives me the ability to time when I UB top those 5 (by deciding when to take them as clones), based on the desired length of their vegitative stage (size).The cuttings from the UB topping and the 2 month old mother plant are all dispensable. The temp mother can also be saved/reused with low risk because you always have a back-up on hand. Either way the mother's life cycle is never longer than the flowering plant's. Also, a new strain may be added in at any time. By cloning everything at the same time you don't have to crapshoot when to start a new seedling.

I racked my brain for two nights on this. I hope it's worth something to somebody else. I will be using this approach on my next round. It all starts when my BK has enough sites for the clones I need. Fingers X'ed!
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You've got an analytical mind, cannatari. I will have to study that and see if it willl work for me. Unfortunately, when I try to work schedules in my head, I get major confused. I have to use software that does it fo me. I use a program called Microsoft Project that will show me in graphics what to do today, tomorrow and so on.
I haven't done any cloning yet but I will eventually ...probably in the 2nd or 3rd grow. I have already entered the process into my program and see that if I take the time to do it once, it could save me a few weeks per harvest therafter.
Once again, I am impressed! Keep up the good work, Bud
:peace:
 
J

Jman49

Member
Really like the pics with the solar system background! +1 on getting a regular camera over the video. Using the macro and white balance settings, you can get some really cool and artful pics. I like photography quite a bit and shooting up close wild flowers can produce some killer shots. Replace the wild flowers with the best type of flowers and we're golden!
 
cannatari

cannatari

Well-Known Member
It's always nice to be able to observe growth rates. The pics are from 4-7, 4-11, 4-13 and 4-18.

BIG KAHUNA
PIC_0341.JPGSDC11066.JPGPIC_0467.JPGPIC_0340.JPG

WHOLE GARDEN
PIC_0454.JPGSDC11078.JPGPIC_0497.JPGPIC_0342.JPG

The Big Kahuna's and the LSD's are by far the most vigorous growing ladies in the garden. The Strawberry Cough and the Somanna, not so much. I have 8 plants in preflower for round 2. They have another 4 weeks to grow before I harvest. Depending on their size in 4 weeks I may be doing 4-6 plants in round 2. If so, the SC and Somanna are outta here! They can stay in the veg room until my smoke report so if they turn out to be the superdank I have until round 3 to change my mind. It's nice to have several strains going. I'd be :wall: if my whole garden was full of the phenos that aren't doing so well.
 
cannatari

cannatari

Well-Known Member
At this point the ladies have been on a reformulated feeding program for about a week. Here is the link to my thread about the nutrient profile:

https://www.rollitup.org/advanced-marijuana-cultivation/322450-lucas-formula-dyna-gro-cannatari.html

As the thread explains, my new formula is based on 2 cannabis nutrient profiles. One discovered by Mel Frank and the other by PHimbalance. Their results were simplified into a 2-part GH formula made famous by Lucas. My mission was to imitate Lucas's General Hydroponics Formula using the Dyna-Gro line of nutrients. Henceforth this journal will track the progress of the Lucas Formula using Dyna-Gro. I will stay true to the Lucas Formula by:

1. Using only the formula, no supplements.*
2. Making no resivoir changes from start to finish using the add-back method.
3. Make no Ph adjustments as long as it's fluctuating within 5.3-6.3.

*I will be flushing with molasses. If I get that far I will have already determined the formula is satisfactory.

My recipe is: 5ml Grow, 5ml Mag-Pro and 10ml Pro TeKt per gallon, also expressed as 1:1:2.

Here is an example of the add back calc I'll be using:

((Target ppm - Current ppm) / Target ppm) x ml's per part, per gallon x Resivoir Capacity = ml of nutes to add to res.
The Target ppm is the ppm of 1 gallon of freshly mixed nutes.
The Current ppm is the ppm of the resivoir after being topped off with plain water.

So....

((1200-960)/1200)x5x8= ml of nutes to add
(340/1200)x5x8
.283x5x8=11.3ml

Using my 1:1:2 (5ml:5ml:10ml) recipe I add: 11.3 ml of Grow,11.3 ml of Mag-Pro and 22.6 ml of Pro-TeKt to the resivoir. This should be the correct amount of nutrients I need to add to an 8 gallon resivoir to bring it from 960ppm to 1200ppm.

Now by using this chart:ph_root mechanism.gif I should be able to fine tune things based on extreme ph fluctuations and add or subtract relative amounts of N-P-K ratios in the formula till the ph fluctuates in the desired range, 5.3-6.3. So far the ph in my veg res went up while the flowering res ph went down within a couple of days of switching to the new formula. I had to adjust the veg res but not the flowering res which is holding strong at 5.7-5.8, down from it's original 6.1. Note that I only intend on using the new formula for flowering plants but will use the same approach to fine-tune my veg nutes. Fingers X'ed.
 
cannatari

cannatari

Well-Known Member
A few pics here to show the great results I'm getting with my new DWC units and my new feeding program. These plants are at day 30 from cuttings:
PIC_0343.JPGPIC_0371.JPG

Also new is the removal of my air-stones. I've got the air hoses submerged in the water and it stimulates the surface of the water much better than the tiny bubbles produced by air-stones. I've read that water is oxygenated by the movement of the surface and not by bubbles. As my roots got larger they were stalling the bubbles and impairing them from agitating the surface. It appears to be working much better or at least the plants are telling me so. Cheaper too!

I've been feeding the plants a little differently too. I start by topping my reservoirs with plain water. Then I mix my nutes in a party cup full of water and use that to bring my ppm up to the desired level. I have not had to adjust my pH in 2 weeks! I can't be happier with the results I'm getting these days.
 
cannatari

cannatari

Well-Known Member
Someguy15 said:
Those roots are WHITE, you use h2o2 or hygrozyme?
Click to expand...
I have used h202 but there is currently none in my reservoirs. I attribute the white roots to my reservoirs being completely void of light, temps in the low 70's and a low 700ppm nutrient solution.
 
S

swelchjohn

New Member
cannatari said:
Thank you bra. It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get this far.
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I've said this once, and I'll say it again : Time+TLC=THC. After my current grow is over (
https://www.rollitup.org/introduce-yourself/310370-introduction-100-watt-hps-cabinet.html#post3886992) I am going to take all the cool tid-bits from my cabinet and rebuild a better one. This cab I've got going now was more of a prototype, I guess you could say. I will probably go your route and use a metal cab. Did you buy it new and build up on it, or was it already used for grow purposes?
 
cannatari

cannatari

Well-Known Member
swelchjohn said:
What kinds of issues did you run into during the process of turning it into a grow cabinet?
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The floor had to be re-enforced to keep the reservoirs from collapsing it.
Drilling holes in it takes special tools.
I had to add all large exhaust fan because of heat issues.
Making it light tight caused some issues with the locking mechanism.
I broke the key off in the lock during assembly and had to fix it.
I build stuff for a living and have built a few cabs in the past so I probably encountered less issues than most. Heat is usually the number one issue for cab growers.
 
S

swelchjohn

New Member
cannatari said:
The floor had to be re-enforced to keep the reservoirs from collapsing it.
Drilling holes in it takes special tools.
I had to add all large exhaust fan because of heat issues.
Making it light tight caused some issues with the locking mechanism.
I broke the key off in the lock during assembly and had to fix it.
I build stuff for a living and have built a few cabs in the past so I probably encountered less issues than most. Heat is usually the number one issue for cab growers.
Click to expand...
There's no tool I can't use and nothing I couldn't build (practically). So from what you tell me it doesn't sound like there is much to worry about. How much did you spend on this thing from top to bottom?
 
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