First grow, maximizing space...

So, after trying to figure out where and how I wanted to grow, I decided to go with hydro, as my water is free, and the components are much more similar to my planted tanks than dirt would be... I wanted to go with a grow tent, but after trying to figure out where I would put it, I realized I had this huge closet I was barely using. The closet is 2'x7'4"x6'h, which is an odd shape to utilize to the fullest, but after some looking around and sketching things out on my white board (everyone should have one, no exceptions) a few times I came up with this:

I'm using an Aeroflo2 30 (which, serendipitously, turned out to be 2'x7'4"), but I wanted room for mother plants. After scoping out a few other unused cabinets I decided they were all too hard to access, or in an area people might notice it. As such, I decided to build a cabinet within the closet suspended over the reservoir (what else would I use that space for anyway?) to house the mothers. The cabinet ended up about 1'x2'x4'h, so I decided to hang one 125W CFL, and mount another on the ceiling along with a fan venting into the cabinets above... the idea was to put a clone tray on top of the lower light so it was heated from the bottom, however this left my clones very limp from over heating after I was stuck in the hospital for a couple days (right after cutting them no less) due to being in the back seat of a car as my door hit the end of a divider sideways at 80MPH... not awesome.

Upon returning I could tell they got a bit cooked, so I removed them, aired them out, placed the dome on a table with a 4200K 15W T8 and the stems stiffened up, though most remained on their sides. From there, on the advice of someone here, I took a box, lined it with mylar, and covered it snugly with the disused top to one of my aquariums (the one with the T. Later I decided to switch to two 24W 6700K T5s, and add an electronic cigar humidifier. The lights seem to be better than the 15W (plants are responding by standing up), and the humidifier is only there as a failsafe... it comes on if the humidity dips below 80%. There's also a very very small fan in the back just large enough to circulate the air, but too weak to move the plants from more than 3" away; it's part of the humidifier, kind of...

So far things have stayed 73-77F and 86-96%, and the clones are looking much better!

The flower room consists of a 2'x6'x'6h approximately, housing the Aeroflo2-30's grow tubes(?), two 400W HPS lights (each covering 2'x3', decided on this over a 600W with a light mover due to the shape of the space) in cool tubes, my carbon filter, exhaust fan, and circulation fan (as well as the wiring).

While building the cabinet I neglected to think about needing room for the fan, and after mounting the lights, found I had none... so I took the fan apart (see, taking shit apart as a child is totally a learning experience!) and sealed it up with... some synthetic lube that's used for aquarium related electronics, probably silicon, either way, the fan is water resistant now, which is good as it's UNDER the grow tubes. I like it being under as... well now that's not wasted space, and everyone keeps talking about air circulation low down on plants... this will be blowing up through them, might be awesome, we'll see.

The exhaust goes into the cabinet above as well, from there I just put a couple screws in the door on the other side of the upper cabinet so it stays ajar and air can freely flow out. Air comes in through the wall at the end of the cabinet, I cut a whole in the exterior side of the wall bisected by a stud, covered it with one of those interior wall vent things (which for some reason only come up on eBay if you DON'T search vent... I got it at Home Depot anyway). I cut two holes at different heights on the inside, one on either side of the stud, just below and just above the floor of the mother cabinet to allow air into both. I then covered the inside with vents as well so, though I saved the cut out bits, and have what I need to fix the walls if I move, if I don't fix them the land lord and future tenants are not left with holes in their walls, but a convenient vent so their closet doesn't get musty...

All the electronics are mounted against the interior facing wall of the mother cabinet... and... yeah!

As for nutes, I'm going with the GH Flora series, as they came with the Aeroflo, though I've switched to the hard-water micro as out of the faucet I'm looking at around 500PPM (seriously, wtf); I'm doing the same for the bother plants.



EDIT: Sorry for the sideways pictures, they look straight on my computer... too lazy to fix. :/

Well, since I'm in a typative mood, assuming these clones do NOT pull through, I'll just have to wait a bit, however if they do not, I believe I'm going to hang that second 125W CFL vertically (with no reflector) in the middle of the flower room, place unrooted cuttings in neoprene collars in each net pot, and then cover each with a dollar store pint glass... tada DWC/aerocloner with individual plant climate control... and you'd never need to transplant anything! Either way, I'm not going to try them in the mother cab again.

That said, it would add a week or two to the cycle, and so far this cardboard box seems to be keeping things healthy enough... it's a nice idea though! I would totally do this if I had a larger set up, as the extra time would be negligible, and not needing to transplant 100+ plants would be pretty baller... if I don't do it, I hope someone does.

nice setup for your fist grow +rep. I'm also in my first successful grow check out my grow journal in my sig.

loveweed420 said:

nice setup for your fist grow +rep. I'm also in my first successful grow check out my grow journal in my sig.

Click to expand...

You still need to add it to your sig...

Checked, sweet grow man, I wanna try SCROG once I understand the plant better!

So, clones seem to be doing even better, a couple stems are still bent, but the growing tips are all standing up!

Lowest fan leaf on most of the clones is yellowing, but so far as I've read, that's to be expected as energy is taken from that leaf to fuel to growth of roots, so that should be fine... I hope...

I feel like I can see what might be roots today in between the stem and rockwool, where they separated, and on one just above the rockwool... It very well could just be my imagination, and I can't seem to get a picture, I'll see if I can when I wake up.

Checked again today... most were just reflections.

Leaves seem to be yellowing more, much more... but that's supposed to happen right? Never gotten this far in the cloning process before, and yellowing plants isn't a good sign most of the time, so that's still tickling the back of my mind...

Alright, so I definitely see roots now where the rockwool and stem meet on a few of them, no roots on the outsides of the cubes yet, but I'm just happy knowing any actually took after being baked like that.

Watered them today and spread them out more evenly on the tray.

Watering them again today, this time with light nutes, 13/45 have rooted through the cubes, and the others look like they are well on their way!

1/4tsp each of the Fora series in a gallon of water.
The light I ended up using was a 15W 4200K T8 - and the plants seem to be loving it.

Well, 45/45 rooted, including one I snapped in half, however I have not been able to move them to the hydro system as one part of my nutes has not arrived yet, hooray. They were all rooted last weekend, though since then a couple have totally wilted and very quickly. A couple leaves here and there died, but las night I saw a clone which was totally dead above the first node, and this morning I found a second which was fine last night, but this morning wilted above the first node.

I watered them with nutes, and most seem to be doing great... just regretting not ordering nutes sooner... Veg and boom got here in a day... it's been over a week since I ordered all of them and the hard water micro still isn't here!

Fingers crossed for tomorrow?

Any idea on the wilted clones? I removed the dead part and separated them incase it was something the others could catch... The part that was left doesn't seem to have gotten any worse, but... there's not much left, lucky I cut 15 more than I need, so it's not really an issue but...

EDIT: Er, and by wilted, I mean above the first node everything was done for over night, not a little wilty, but full on curled up mushy... :/

Alright, I didn't forget about this grow, I just decided to start over with new clones and wait till they were ready to go in to continue posting.

Clones are probably going to go into the Aeroflo today, I need to check how many are rooted, it looks like almost all of them, but I'm still messing around with my nutrient solution.

Nutrients:
5ml/g Flora Grow
5ml/g Flora Bloom
5ml/g Flora Micro hard water*
0.5ml/g Floralicious Plus

35 Gallons total between the reservoir and growing chambers; the Ph was adjusted to 6.

I decided to go with the hard water version Flora Micro as my tap water is ~500PPM out of the faucet (Southern California, your water is so... so awful...) and I've read conflicting things about R/O filters. My water is free, so the waste isn't really an issue, however I've read if you use R/O water, you need to replace trace elements lost in the process? Though I believe General Hydroponics formulated their stuff for use WITH R/O water in space... or something... either way, this is where I am for now.

Flora Micro hard water seems to be a little PH imbalanced or something, and that could be because there are less PH buffers in it, as there will be more in your water, but I read one post saying to leave it without PH adjusting for at least a few hours, preferably over night, as the PH would slowly drop and settle. My PH went from ~8 out of the faucet (didn't check, but that's what it's always been before) to 6.82 after adding nutes, where it stayed for a few hours. Today the PH was 7.22, and stayed there for about 6 hours before I decided to adjust the PH... so, keep that in mind if you're using it, pre mix your solution the night before or something, then PH adjust.

I plan to veg the plants for a week or two, then switch them to 12/12 and double up the nutrients for the transition, then after a couple weeks flush and replace with flowering nutrients.

I'll update later if/when I move the plants with some pictures.

Alright, well, plants went into the Aeroflo today, however while clicking to post this I realized the total capacity of my system is 25 gallons, not 35 gallons, though I'm pretty sure I used nutes for 35. :/

I guess it's not actually that big a deal since I was going to double them anyway, and this is still less than that, but good to note:

Nutrient Solution**
175ml Flora Grow
175ml Flora Bloom
175ml Flora Micro (hard water)
17.5ml Floralicious Plus
25 gallons of water

I was going to give them a single week of veg, but decided to wait another, maybe less. Nutrients have been switched to:

10ml/g Flora Micro
10ml/g Flora Grow
10ml/g Flora Bloom
1ml/g Floralicious Plus
5ml/g Liquid KoolBloom
10ml/g FloraBlend

25 Gallons.

Most plants are looking great, though the ones at the ends aren't getting quite as much light as they could be, and there are three in the middle not showing much growth, so I may just take those and switch them with the three best end plants tomorrow. The light is generally much lower than in the pictures, I just moved it to take them.


EDIT: Lowered water level 1.5cm in each tube, less water in the tubes should mean a cooler res, as it's less water under the light.

Swapped the lights over to 12/12 last night, kept the dawn the same.

10ml/g Flora Micro
10ml/g Flora Grow
10ml/g Flora Bloom
1ml/g Floralicious Plus
5ml/g Liquid KoolBloom
10ml/g FloraBlend

16 Gallons.

Growth is looking great, nearly all of them have caught up to each other, though there are those two in the middle which are still a little stunted, took a while to really get new growth going, but they're catching up now... and they'll still get plenty of light I think so they'll probably be fine.

The tops look a little messed up on a couple because I just took some twist ties off of the tallest few. Most are already showing lots of hairs all over, though I'm pretty sure they were showing them before the switch to 12/12 last night, so that might not be the best... I've been checking them daily for hidden sacks of plant cream.

Wednesday marked the first week of 12/12 over, so I trimmed the plants, and gave them their last week of transitional nutrients. One of the plants got accidentally topped today, I was raising the lights and I guess one end dropped or something. I tried to mend it with a twist tie, as the area was too small for tape... it looks like it's not going to make it, oh well... :/

The others are looking great, but I think I need to get a dehumidifier, with all these plants the normally arid weather is hitting 50-60% RH, and is probably going to keep climbing.


10ml/g Flora Micro
10ml/g Flora Grow
10ml/g Flora Bloom
1ml/g Floralicious Plus
2.5ml/g Liquid KoolBloom (Same as last time, I wrote down the wrong amount at the time.)
10ml/g FloraBlend

16 Gallons.

Jesus, sorry about vanishing, if anyone was reading this, one of the reasons I didn't tell everyone to comment was I knew the grow would start rough, but man... life can be crazy.

Anyway, I'm going to update with some pics and what's been going on with the grow in a minute, I need to medicate first though...

ANYONE MAY FEEL FREE TO COMMENT NOW, SORRY ABOUT NOT WANTING THAT BEFORE!~

Alright, so a lot has happened... The plants did not need two weeks of veg, and their leaves were a lie. There are a couple over five feet tall... however everything received some Chuck Noris strength super cropping and tying... which was kind of counter productive after trimming out the bottoms, but damn did they need it. They are now... sort of ScrOGed through each other (I've spent about an hour a day making sure air flow is still good), though not with the most efficiency as I only planned on bending a few, and then a couple more kept growing, etc... so I bent them into open space, rather than weaving them through each other and getting all the growing tips right under the lights - I may try this next time around as it seems like an interesting way to grow...

They then proceeded to continue growing, a lot... so I bought a grow tent (GL120, was planning on it for the future anyway, blah) and moved everything in there (easier than it sounds, even with the res half full) and stuck an AC in my window. Unfortunately this AC doesn't have a vent, which I somehow missed... so I either want to upgrade to another later on, or buy a dehumidifier as things are still a little damper than I want (~60%), though temps are totally under control which is nice.

I moved to bloom nutrients two weeks into flower, we are now a couple days into week four, still the same nutrients, through I change the res every week; next week I may switch to more aggressive nutrients.

A couple new plants in pots have joined the grow, the first is Trainwreck:

The next I'm not sure of, the initials on the tag are SJ, any guesses would be awesome as I'm liking the growth pattern:


This is the new tent with everything in it, I also moved the lights a little further apart for better coverage; also, these are all bent 90° in the middle:

Development of the old plants, not really that much of a close up, they are kicking the shit out of the new plants:


And finally I'm turning the closet into a mother/veg area of it's own:

Alrighty, ordered a dehumidifier today... it's probably just because it's currently the rainy season, but humidity is really becoming an issue. I found a 30p/d digital unit on ebay for $115, there were some a little cheaper, but this was factory refurbished (others were used) and had a good warranty, so I went with it.

Also, last night there were some developments with the new mother room:
BAM!
Tied branches down to get more clones... probably a lot more than I need, but I wanted to have more than enough great clones, rather than just enough acceptable clones.