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Rip's closet: Mandala Hashberry x Satori F1's

ripOG

Member
Hi peeps :wave: I'm finally back after a long hiatus...with a 600 watt closet now :)

It's been a couple years since my last grow - a little breeding experiment with some Mandala strains and some Chrystal...all in a hollowed out "stealth" PC and desk! The micro grow was a success...genetically. I made several Hashberry x Satori crosses and some Chystal bagseed crosses. Both have the potential to be some superb smoke. I'm really excited about seeing them grown out to their full potential, observing the pheno's, picking a momma, and pushing this cross to the max. For more on the parents, see the link in my sig.

Anyway, I ended up having to put my grow op on hold for a while, but I held on to the seeds. Now. The time. Has. Come. :tiphat:

More on the grow coming up. Let's talk equipment. The new garden was built pretty much from the ground up. I had to replace basically all of my old hydro equipment all the way down to the pH meters and everything..they were getting old and funky. I had a 1000W light once upon a time but I sold it a year or so ago, so again... new light, new fan, new everything. I'm at least $1K in the hole right now. It's been fun shopping though :artist:


So! Without further ado...I introduce the new closet!


It's basically a tent that I built to fill one side of my giant wardrobe closet. The closet runs the whole length of my bedroom with sliding mirror doors. One side of it (6' long) has the tent, while the other side will be holding my clothes :) I wanted a tent within the closet to control climate, odor, light, and to be able to close the thing off if I have house guests. It'll never be completely stealth, but it's nice to be able to tuck everything away when needed.

The tent space is 2' deep x 6' long, with about 8' of height. Couldn't find a ready-made grow tent with those exact dimensions, so I decided to build one out of pvc and panda film...



film going up:


these adhesive tarp zippers are awesome:


Now you see it...


...now you don't :moon:


Working with PVC can be a PITA. If you're thinking about DIY-ing in the future, you'll need your own saw for sure. I was sooo glad to have my own circ saw to make adjustments to this thing along the way. You can plan it and diagram it all you want but it always takes a little tinkering to make everything come together cleanly!

I will be using Co2 soon, but until then I'm just exhausting through the cooltube out the side of the tent, through the back of the clothes closet adjacent to it. The ducting goes through that closet to the other side of the room...The box fan blows the hot air out of my room where it mixes with my central AC. My apartment is pretty small, so this should be fairly economical. BTW, these lasko fans push a ton of air! I'm a big... fan :YaRight:



This will handle heat but not odor. A can filter is on the way. I may run a second fan with the filter scrubbing continuously inside the sealed tent, once I get co2...or I'm thinking about just running the filter on the light exhaust...it'll be outside the tent but should scrub my room/apartment pretty well if I do the math right. If odor becomes a real problem I could do both, I suppose. It'll take some experimenting. I've got a Uvonair running for now but I should get the filter this week.

To be continued... Thanks for stopping by! :thank you:
 

ripOG

Member
OK. So...

More toys!

I really spoiled myself...600 W cooltube will provide the light. I'm using a Phantom dimmable ballast, which I totally love. Runs MH and HPS too. I've got it at 60% right now with my seedlings. With the cooltube you can touch the glass and it's barely warm @ this setting.


For exhaust I've got a 4" sunleaves fan. Again, I love this thing. Very quiet. There's a slight hum in my room but it kind of just sounds like the AC is on. I really don't think you'd notice it unless I pointed it out. It's suspended from bunjee cords and I'm using insulated ducting...that probably helps.


The hydro system will be a DIY Ebb and Flow. I'll have 2, 20"x30" storage bins cut down height-wise to your standard ebb/flo table size. Just like the tent, I wanted something that fit perfectly into my space and I just couldn't find ready-made tables with my dimensions. Plus, those things are seriously overpriced for fancy pieces of plastic. Having two tables will allow me to plumb them independently so I can stagger grows, do side-by-side comparisons of nutes, etc. The entire grow, in general, was set up for maximum versatility...another reason I opted for PVC over wood for the tent and the ebb/flow stand.

For medium, I'm using rockwool at the moment. It was the best choice for this run b/c I'll need to do more of a SOG style grow to get more plants in there. More plants = more genetic transparency. Once I get things dialed in I will reduce plant numbers, lengthen veg time, and run larger buckets with hydroton. But the ebb/flow will remain.

Nutrients. I'm running a modified botanicare line with this grow. I want to keep it simple and in the family as much as possible. I would have run canna but won't pay for the boost, so I figured I'd stick with an entire line that I can afford and supplement it with other boosters as needed. This is what I'm feeding the babies right now...

The aptus and mycos were samples from local hydro places. I'll be interested to hear if anyone has tried them with success.

Oh...my new HM meters are sweeet. Previously I'd been using one of those blue trimeters that can continuously monitor the reservoir. They are great for that purpose, but when you're mixing nutes it's nice to be able to dip something in and sample the solution without cords dangling everywhere. Having separate probes as opposed to a combo meter will allow me to replace broken components easier, if it happens. Ive had bad luck with super expensive Hanna combometers before. No thanks. The HM meters are GREAT. There's like 10 different modes to read various conversion scales of ppm and EC, for example. Notice the offset screens for easier readability. Can you tell I'm an obsessive hydro geek yet?

Ok, I'm rambling. That's the Sour D I'm smoking right now talking. But I'll add that IMHO you should NOT ever grow w/ hydro without the proper ppm and pH monitors. Guestimation is great for baking cakes but not for measuring hydro values. It should really be your first big investment with hydro before adding fancy nutes or anything else. Just my 2 cents :ying:

Plant pics coming up. :wave:
 

ripOG

Member
And now for the babies.

I had a big zip lock bag full of under-developed seeds from the previous grow...the Mandala ones on average didn't mature as much as the Chyrstal beans so they weren't looking all that promising.

Here's the Chrys ones, aren't they purty?

I'll be using those on the next grow if I make more mandala seeds. If I clone/make mommies this grow, i'll be saving those beans for a future grow.

I digress...I took my bag of Hashberry x Satori beans and just started plopping the healthy looking ones in water to soak. Older seeds in particular seem to respond well to the pre-soak method. I kept finding the occasional pretty seed, popping it in water, and so on...not thinking there would be too many. I ended up with like 20+ in there! Looks like i'll have my hands full this grow with the children! I figured only a few would pop, being a couple years old. I also assumed a minimum of 30% or so females...so I didn't hold back...I can modify the ebb/flow to accomodate higher numbers as needed...and I'm covered with plant numbers b/c it's a collective grow amongst a few fellow medi users...so I'm not stressing too much about having to run SOG if needed. :smoke out:

Here they are taking their first bath 9 days ago. How special!


And a few days later...


And today :tiphat:


I've got 6 more waiting to be transplanted under my fluoro tubes in a different closet. It was too much of a pain to soak more than 12 rw cubes at a time, and I have yet to hook up my RO water, so I left the runts to veg a few more days in their rapid rooter plugs. Will transplant them soon and finish the larger ebb/flow tables to get them all under the HID. Right now I'm just using an HPS bulb. What do you think, is it worth buying an MH bulb to get them through the next couple weeks? I won't veg very long...

One downside with the cooltubes is it's a PITA to change bulbs... Unlike some of the other higher-end enclosed reflectors. I opted to conserve space with the cooltube..and I think temp reduction might be a tad more efficient in the tubes.

Thanks again for stopping by. I work crazy hours so may not be updating all that regularly, but I'll make sure to take progress shots along the way. Cheers :rasta:

Love your plants! They will reward you for it! :ying:
 

ripOG

Member
Hi Folks! :tiphat: Quick updates for ya's!

Growth has been great! Lots of additions to the cab like Co2, dehumid, new fan, etc. Temps are ~80 with humidity 45-55 throughout the day. Co2 refills the room every 15 minutes.


This was day 11 since the beans cracked...15 days ago...





:ying:
 

ripOG

Member
And today! 26 days since the seeds were planted.





Stems are looking SOOO healthy. You have to see them in reality to really appreciate them, but they look like they were dipped in plastic. :dance013:


They're about 14 inches right now. I was going to make the flip at 14 but I might wait another few days till they're at about 20". I should have about 35-40 inches for them with a couple feet for the light.






All is well right now. I'm thinking about adding a new light...maybe running two 600's dimmed down to 450W each or 360 each. More points of light and better coverage, could lower them closer too.

Thanks for dropping by! Feel free to leave comments/Q's :thank you:
 

stinkyigloo

Active member
Grew out some hashberry and satori plants before. i was well impressed with the hashberry, its still one of my favourites to this day. Not so much the satori. Cant wait for a smoke report on this to see how it fares
 

ripOG

Member
Thanks stinky and bho! :tiphat: I'm glad I've got a few readers out therrr. twas starting to feel empty around here *cricket* *cricket* Will definitely post some nug shots/harvest/smoke reports.

Some of the plants are showing real red stems. Ever seen any mandala phenos like that? I'll take a shot of them sometime soon. Some of the stems are so red all the way to the leafs that the veins are red too. Crazy stuff.


In other news~
Gave them 24 hrs of dark yesterday, so let the flowering begin! They stretched like a motha in the dark so long. Must have grown another 2 inches over the last day. Two of them are already showing too: pistils! So i'll have at least 2 girls in there haha. I want to get them down on slabs before the roots start to starve. They're going to get all funky if they stretch in such small blocks. Oh well. Should be only a few days now until most of them are sexed. Crossing my fingers.

Flowering nutes will be interesting. I'm changing the base nute up to H&G aqua flakes. Will run a mix of H&G and Aptus supplements.

Oh, I've got a Fire OG bagseed baby in there too with the others. It's about 10" tall so a little behind the others. Much more INdica than the Mandalas for sure. Will take a shot of the little one tomorrow.

Cheers! :friends:

-Rip
 

stinkyigloo

Active member
Your off to a good start with the 2 females so. we had a poor hit rate with our seeds, about 25 or 30 % female i think. Fingers crossed for the rest of them
 

w2008

Member
hi there, excellent looking plants, what are they sitting on, to get a root spread like that? cheers oz
 

ripOG

Member
Hey everybody! I'm feelin all the love for sure, thanks for the kind words :wave: And all I had to do was bitch a lil about it being too quiet haha. ;)

Looking good man!

So from what I understand, you're going straight from seed? How come you don't use clones?

So I'm using seeds this go-around cuz I bred this F1 cross with satori and HB plants...so I'm expecting some variability from seed to seed. I wanted to grow out as many as possible to see the phenos and select the best ones for moms. I'd love to use clones in general though and I plan to do that from here on out.

In fact I'm a little stumped as to how to get clones from flowering girls...and how to time it with the next grow...should be interesting. Advice is appreciated.

But anyway they have been growing fairly uniformly for seeds so I'm pretty happy.
 

ripOG

Member
hi there, excellent looking plants, what are they sitting on, to get a root spread like that? cheers oz

Thanks! Recently I decided to elevate the rockwool above the floor of the tables with a screen..will post pix... This way the blocks can fully breathe/dry/drain in between feedings.

Edit: here's the screen:
IMAG0236-2.jpg

IMAG0240-1.jpg

..but the roots have looked great from the beginning. I'm guessing it's a combo of the aptus and mycos plus some good genes :blowbubbles:
IMAG0165-1.jpg
IMAG0164-1.jpg

I'm all about maximum frequency of feeding (without overfeeding) and with maximum drying of the root area between feeds...so it's all about balance. The ideal mix is kind of impossible in pure dirt (less feeding) or pure hydro like dwc or UC (no drying)...these methods work very well too, but can take a lot of tweaking. Elevating the rockwool allowed more feeds with more drying in between, and also prunes the roots like that.

Rockwool can hold a lot of water, but it is a very porous medium too, contrary to what I expected - it drains very well, all you have to do is elevate it. it also buffers the water content somewhat - initially they will drain almost all the bulk water content out of the blocks, then at a certain point they will retain the residual water and will remain moist longer than dirt would. As it dries, air moves into the block.

It does a great job of soaking up water too.. So I've been feeding with just about an inch and a half of h20 in the tray for about 12 minutes at a time...it takes about 5 minutes to fill. They get fully saturated this way, then drain. They soak and drain 3 times a day. By the end of the day and the next morning the tops of the cubes are still moist but the cubes themselves are light and mostly air content. It would be interesting to weigh them before and after to see how little water they can have while still remaining moist.

Because it can wick and retain moisture, I think the best method for RW is ebb/flow rather than a drip or top feed type system. This way the cubes basically regulate the moisture uptake rather than you controlling it by dumping water down from the tops. But with proper timing everything works...and can work well.

Humidity runs high this way though! It's a constant battle of the variables! :whiteflag:

Will post pix soon. Thanks again everyone for dropping by :wave:
 

calientecarlos

Active member
Veteran
Hashberry yum!!! love the setup. its all about the diy grow gnar!!! nice work!!! lucky ladies getting the h&g too!! keep it up and i'm def gonna subscribe to watch the rest.
 

ripOG

Member
Thanks everyone for all the friendly comments. :thank you:

I've got some updates today for ya's. It's day 10 since the flip to 12/12.

IMAG0264.jpg

They've grown quite a bit!
IMAG0265.jpg

IMAG0259.jpg

IMAG0267.jpg

IMAG0268.jpg

IMAG0274.jpg

I planted them all in slabs after I pulled the males...
IMAG0276.jpg

Yessir! Aqua Flakes is really good stuff! This is my first time using it and the plants seem to love it. Here's what they've been getting since the flip...along with some Great White.
IMAG0280.jpg

I want to get that second light up but it might take me a couple weeks. The light distribution could be a tad better.

Cheers :wave:
 

ripOG

Member
Hashberry yum!!! love the setup. its all about the diy grow gnar!!! nice work!!! lucky ladies getting the h&g too!! keep it up and i'm def gonna subscribe to watch the rest.

What up CC! Nice to see ya. I'd love to see some of my HB behind your shed :dance013: Mandalas take well to the outdoors afterall :wave:
 
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