Snitzel's bubbleponics closet grow

A basic list of the grow equipment and other details
- The room is a 2'x6'x8' closet, split height wise into 3' and 5' sections
- 12 6500k 42w CFL's for the veg
- 1000w HPS for the flower, being cooled by a 375cfm can fan
- 8 10gal tubs with 2 holes in each (4 veg, 4 flower)
- Each tub has a 20-60gal dual output air pump, with 3 12" bubblestones in each
- General Hydroponics Flora series, micro and bloom. I've decided to use the lucas formula for the feeding schedule (notice no floragrow)
- A PH meter, a PPM meter, a thermometer to check res temps
- A DIY Bubblecloner, with room for 8 clones

I plan to supercrop the plants during veg and will probably veg for a month depending on how fast they grow.

Here are pics!!

So this isn't my first grow, i've done an ebb and flow setup a few years back (it turned out so-so) Right now i've got 8 bag seeds planted, hoping for a few females. I'm gonna take clones from the strongest couple, and flower any extra females for an early batch.

Here's a few things I wanna change about the grow so far...

#1. New CFL reflectors. I'd like to make 4 reflectors (1 for each tub) each one holding 3 bulbs, being held up by 2 chains. I hate that each bulb has it's own cord and positioning each one is also a pain in the ass. This will also reduce the amount of sockets used

#2. I think i'd like to look into a more flexible tubing for the pump, positioning those things are such a pain in the ass.

#3. I wanna some how zip tie the water pump to an air stone so that the pump is pumping less water, and more oxygen. Right now it kinda just goes wherever in the res... more flex in the hose will help with that as well.

Also, some questions I have. Right now all the bulbs are 6500k, should I get a few 2700 to introduce a different color to the room?

My humidity in the room is pretty low also..it hasn't been higher than 34 and sometimes as low as 18. I don't have a lot of room for a humidifier...so im gonna try and find something small enough to fit. Any other suggestions to help keep the RH up? i've got 2 cups of water in the room...but it didn't seem to help that much. Oh and the air movement in there is pretty aggressive, if I introduce a humidifier will the humidity just exhaust out?

As far as my flowering room goes, i've got about 2 feet of grow space for the plant. At what height would you all recommend I move them? I'm gonna try the supercropping method to keep the plants shorter/wider...what are all your thoughts?

And thanks a lot everyone, it's much appreciated

I'm diggin the Heineken reflectors man! I may have to give that a shot as well.

Snitzel said:

Also, some questions I have. Right now all the bulbs are 6500k, should I get a few 2700 to introduce a different color to the room?

My humidity in the room is pretty low also..it hasn't been higher than 34 and sometimes as low as 18. I don't have a lot of room for a humidifier...so im gonna try and find something small enough to fit. Any other suggestions to help keep the RH up? i've got 2 cups of water in the room...but it didn't seem to help that much. Oh and the air movement in there is pretty aggressive, if I introduce a humidifier will the humidity just exhaust out?

As far as my flowering room goes, i've got about 2 feet of grow space for the plant. At what height would you all recommend I move them? I'm gonna try the supercropping method to keep the plants shorter/wider...what are all your thoughts?

And thanks a lot everyone, it's much appreciated

Click to expand...

I'll try to answer a couple of your questions. Light color, yes, I'd add at least a couple more 2700k bulbs, and probably some 4000k also. The sun burns a wide spectrum so I really feel you'll need as much of the spectrum as you can get.

Your humidity is low, but that didn't seem to hurt my plants any. I've seen people roll up towels and lay them on the tubs between the plants to throw more humidity in the room. But my space is ventilated pretty good (I use a 400w MH for veg) and I live in Colorado where it's pretty dry. I figured that no matter how much humidity I put in I would only be taking it out with the venting so the hell with it, it was out of my hands. But check out my journal, they didn't seem to mind it any. I did buy a humidifier and used it for most of the veg, but the humidity level never went up in the closet.

You might want to use a couple of "Y" sockets (use them to put two bulbs in one socket) for your bulbs to reduce the number of cords required. You do seem to be rather innovative, those heineken reflectors are great!

Good luck man.

Well I fixed the reflector problem, plants are growing.

Nice reflectors. Keep up the good work!

Humidity needs to be raised, a cool mist humidifier is $30 at walmart. A big advantage of cfls is that they "can" be moved around and positioned individually. The downside of cfls is that they have to be a couple inches from foliage so positioning them is critical. If you just out them overhead so they are 6 - 12 inches away you are losing 3/4 of the light value. That might work for early veg but not later on. You have to position them and clamp reflectors are the best way. Plan now for plenty of places all over to clamp reflectors.

clamp reflectors are so messy >_< right now those reflectors are within 2 inches of each plant. Also, I had a cool mist humidifier from walmart ($23) and it was too big for the spot...so im gonna shop around and see what I can find.

So, an update - I'm kind of wondering why 2of the plants look like they do...

Some info about the grow...i'm using city water with 90ppm and 9.0 ph out of the tap. PH'd down to around 5.8..it does like to rise to around 6.5ish, but I usually catch it around 6.3 and add a few drops of ph down.

The seeds are bagseed, the ones labeled with a 'W' are easily 3 years old - maybe that's all?

The rest of them look perfect.

here are some close ups of the other plants and the root of the big one that looks funky

Well things are moving along, i've noticed slight yellowing on some of the plants...My humidity is still low.

Would GH's Chi help with the dryness of the room?(http://www.generalhydroponics.com/genhydro_US/chi.html

Also, what's with the weird looking plant? there is decent roots growth, as it's starting to touch the water. Just a dud seed?

Also, there's 1 plant that is growing with a twist...is that a deficiency of some sort?

Well here's an update, I threw the 2 runts out. I'm left with 6. I've attempted the supercropping technique and it worked well for all but 1, which snapped =( I've started them on full strength nutes...using GH

Im not sure why the leaves are yellowing, and a couple have what looks like rust on them. Too much nutes maybe?