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~Kief Junkie & QueenKief's 250w Organic Medi-Cab (soil) Grow!~ ~Pure & Blue Mystic~

B

banjobrain

...The reason it's taking so long is that we fubar'd some of our measurements and it threw a wrench in our original plans for the doors. Hopefully we'll get at least one or two of them finished today; we'll see...

Damn. Well, you're not the only one who fubar'd the doors. I had everything measured out "perfectly" - and it turns out that my door was a little short.

Oh well, I kind of allowed for a margin of error, all I need to do is trim down the interior walls and framing and assemble it from there.

It's all painted, but not assembled. All in pieces and marked out with a pencil as to what goes where. It's a minor setback, but nothing that can't be worked out, you know?

Look forward to seeing your cab!

KJ - you have any suggestions for strains for a first grow? I'm looking at getting one nice sativa and one hard-hitting indica. I'm trying to keep them easy grows with moderate-high yields and strains that aren't too heavy on the nutes.

I want to keep it easy and build up my confidence before I start growing some "specialty" strains.

Overall, it's looking good, buddy!
 
B

banjobrain

We'll be doing some top-dressing (for insect control) with the diatomaceous earth we purchased and we'll also be dusting it on the floor of the cab and on the floor of the room the cab is in. Glad to hear it works!



Thanks for the props on our posts. I've so enjoyed the many detailed grow journals on IC, that I thought we'd make ours as detailed as possible without veering into the anal and boring.


Hey KJ - I've never grown before but I have a substantial horticulture background. I don't know if any of this would apply, but I figured I'd throw my two cents in. As far as my knowledge is concerned, diatomaceous earth will only work on the gnats should they come into contact with it.

I know that you're organic, but there are several organic insecticidal soaps on the market that might be of benefit to you.

To keep out the bugs, I plan on covering my ventilation with pantyhose when I install it. I decided against running the pvc, I am using two darkroom louvers, but you might be able to try something similar over each of your intakes.
 
D

dankitydank

i got a feeling the middle on the back row. is gonna be something cool. and the front 2 are lookin real healthy. keep it up.:joint::joint:
 

K.J

Kief Junkie's inhaling the knowledge!
Veteran
Damn. Well, you're not the only one who fubar'd the doors. I had everything measured out "perfectly" - and it turns out that my door was a little short.

Oh well, I kind of allowed for a margin of error, all I need to do is trim down the interior walls and framing and assemble it from there.

It's all painted, but not assembled. All in pieces and marked out with a pencil as to what goes where. It's a minor setback, but nothing that can't be worked out, you know?

Look forward to seeing your cab!

Yeah, shit happens doesn't it? We finally have all of the doors installed and I think we were able to compensate for our mistakes nicely enough. It isn't nearly as pretty as I'd hoped, but hopefully it works right...and that's what counts!

KJ - you have any suggestions for strains for a first grow? I'm looking at getting one nice sativa and one hard-hitting indica. I'm trying to keep them easy grows with moderate-high yields and strains that aren't too heavy on the nutes.

Hmm...there are so many on my list it's hard to say. But I have heard so much good stuff about Mandala's strains that I would recommend starting there. Maybe their Satori for your sativa pick?

Overall, it's looking good, buddy!

Thanks! Glad you're enjoying it.
 

K.J

Kief Junkie's inhaling the knowledge!
Veteran
Kii: Thanks for the advice and thanks for stopping by!

dankitydank: Purdy? Yeah, she's definitely different than the other two. She also happens to be my wife's favorite. We expect interesting things from her, for sure.
 

K.J

Kief Junkie's inhaling the knowledge!
Veteran
Hey KJ - I've never grown before but I have a substantial horticulture background. I don't know if any of this would apply, but I figured I'd throw my two cents in. As far as my knowledge is concerned, diatomaceous earth will only work on the gnats should they come into contact with it.

I know that you're organic, but there are several organic insecticidal soaps on the market that might be of benefit to you.

To keep out the bugs, I plan on covering my ventilation with pantyhose when I install it. I decided against running the pvc, I am using two darkroom louvers, but you might be able to try something similar over each of your intakes.

Thanks for all of the advice. We don't have a pest problem yet, so hopefully that keeps up. The diatomaceous earth I hear is good for many pests and it's just kind of a safety precaution to dust the tops of the pots with it and the floor around them.

The filtration problem is one of the reasons we decided not to go with the dark room vents. We will be putting a filter over each of the PVC pips to keep bugs out as well as to filter the nasties in the air so they don't land on our precious medicine!
 

K.J

Kief Junkie's inhaling the knowledge!
Veteran
I am here to declare: the end is nigh!!

The end of the cabinet build, that is. We now have the doors installed, and everything has again been painted with either a second (or third) coat of paint, or a first coat of primer and then 2 coats of paint. It's all dry and looking good (well, not necessarily aesthetically speaking, but it's functional). We're building the shelf between the veg and utility room today and then weatherstripping everything before we install the lights/fan/filter, etc.

If all goes well, we'll have it ready to test run tonight or tomorrow and we'll run it (sans plants) for 48 hours to test it out, let things off gas if need be, and to check temperature stability in the cab. So by Sunday at the latest, the plants will have their new home!

We also re-potted Purdy last night to a 5 gallon Airpot. They're all loving the new pots and fresh (better cooked) soil, but the light intensity has diminished drastically due to the larger pots necessitating the raising of the light. But that's okay, they'll be in sun city come Sunday! How appropriate eh?

:woohoo:
 
L

Luv2Blaze

kj,

Sounds good brotha can't wait to see new pics of the cab put together.
I know you had some issue with the soil and plant growth in the beginning, and one piece of advice if I may is to keep it simple next time. A 50% Horticultural Perlite 50% Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil mix is all that's needed.
I give no nutes until three nodes are formed then I give only 50% strength grow nutes and go up to full strength after a few times giving ½ dose strength.
I go from 1 gallon to 3 gallon containers when they show sex no need to transplant more than once. The key is not to over water! waiting until the first inch of the pot is bone dry is critical. The best way to know also is to lift the pot and feel the weight of it bone dry and completely watered there's a big difference in weight.
Anyway I like soil which is more simple and easier for a beginner, but I love hydro now for easier cloning, no mess and explosive growth although it won’t age the plants any faster than soil.

Sorry for rambling but hope that helps you out a bit.
 

K.J

Kief Junkie's inhaling the knowledge!
Veteran
I know you had some issue with the soil and plant growth in the beginning, and one piece of advice if I may is to keep it simple next time. A 50% Horticultural Perlite 50% Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil mix is all that's needed.
I give no nutes until three nodes are formed then I give only 50% strength grow nutes and go up to full strength after a few times giving ½ dose strength.

Yes, I think our issue was that we added ferts to the soil when we shouldn't have put them in ferted soil until they were at least 3 week old seedlings. Our soil is actually very simple, more so than using FF would be (in the sense that while your mix uses only a few ingredients, the ingredients you use are comprised of many more). In fact, without the ferts, our mix would consist of just Sunshine Mix, chunky perlite, earth worm castings and powdered dolomite lime.

Due to the addition of blood meal, bone meal, kelp meal and Greensand to our soil mix, we will be able to get away with doing no fertilizing the entire grow cycle if we desire (and we do). We plan to water only with molasses, with the occasional watering of added EWC and LK to the tea. We bought all of the guano stuff only to learn that due to the ferts we added to our soil, we have no need of a guano tea. That said, we may still use one on them right before they go into 12/12 and about 2 weeks prior to harvest; single watering only.

I go from 1 gallon to 3 gallon containers when they show sex no need to transplant more than once.

Agreed on the transplanting bit. I firmly believe that with the use of Airpots, if you put it in the right size pot to begin with, there is no need for transplant. Next time we're going with the 2.5 gallon Airpots though, as these 5 gallons are just over kill for our setup.

The key is not to over water! waiting until the first inch of the pot is bone dry is critical. The best way to know also is to lift the pot and feel the weight of it bone dry and completely watered there's a big difference in weight.

Amen to that! We have certainly been using both rules of thumb when it comes to watering our babies. We let them dry out on top to a good degree, then we also test the weight before deciding to water.


Sorry for rambling but hope that helps you out a bit.

No need for apologies here brotha, I love getting advice and being able to chat with all of you about growing! Thanks for offering up some great advice. I'm still hella jealous of your cab, and I'll for sure be a bit embarrassed to post pics of our Fugly Medicab (tm).
 

K.J

Kief Junkie's inhaling the knowledge!
Veteran
Well, I wasn't going to show any pics of the cab until it was all finished and the lights/fan etc. were installed. But I just couldn't take it anymore! I just had to snap a few to share with all of you.

Now remember, it's not as beautiful as it could be because at some point the mistakes we had already made prompted us to drop any notion of making it pretty so we could focus entirely on making it functional.

The doors only have 1 coat of primer and we never sanded them down before painting as we didn't want to deal with the huge dust mess in the room where the cab is now, so that's why it isn't all smooth and beautiful. As you can also see, we made a huge mistake in making our cuts primarily with a jig saw instead of buying a radial saw, so most of them are anything but perfectly straight.

But you know what? We think it'll work just splendidly once we rig the weatherstripping and other stuff together. It's nearly done, so we'll know soon!

EDIT: one thing I forgot to mention is that there is no exhaust vent in the utility room yet. It'll be in the back wall soon enough, we're just waiting to install the fan/filter/muffler combo to see where we want to place it.

Cab 90% finished (flower room)

picture.php


Cab 90% finished (utility on top, veg on bottom)

picture.php


Cab 90% finished (front exterior)

picture.php
 

FoukeMonster

New member
Nice Job KJ, looks killer. Dont worry about little imperfections, jus think about all the shittt youve learned throwin this thing together with your wife.

Looks bigger than I expected, Im very curious to see how you do with your setup. Im planning a similar stealth cab grow, and this tthread has been inspiring. Good luck, good times.

BTW not to second guess your work, but I think youre going toneed more vent ports in your flower cab (unless youre using a ct, I dont remember.) Just my humble opinion, good luck you two.
 

White

Member
K.J,
It's great to see the cab brother, everything looks really nice. I'm very excited for you. Almost done huh? Way to go man.

Peace,
White
 

K.J

Kief Junkie's inhaling the knowledge!
Veteran
Nice Job KJ, looks killer. Dont worry about little imperfections, jus think about all the shittt youve learned throwin this thing together with your wife.

Yeah, we certainly learned a ton. Our next one (if there is one) will be soooo much tighter than this one is. Considering that neither of us had done a wood working project like this in over a decade, I think it turned out pretty nice.

Looks bigger than I expected, Im very curious to see how you do with your setup. Im planning a similar stealth cab grow, and this tthread has been inspiring. Good luck, good times.

It is rather large. Now that it's up on casters, I'd say it's about 5' tall. I wouldn't call it stealth in the sense that a PC grow is stealth though...lol!

BTW not to second guess your work, but I think youre going toneed more vent ports in your flower cab (unless youre using a ct, I dont remember.) Just my humble opinion, good luck you two.

Second guess me all you want, that's how we learn! We are indeed using an air cooled hood, but lately we've been thinking of trying it out without the hood connected to a vent and with the glass off the face of it. We think that due to the high CFM fan we have, the fact that the room it's in stays 65 degrees or cooler all the time, and it only being a 250w, that we may not need it (and in fact, we may need the additional heat from the lamp to warm the cab sufficiently).

We'll see soon though, because we'll be testing it for temperature stability and operational effectiveness this weekend (sans plants of course).

Thanks for the kind words. Glad we could inspire a fellow grower!
 

K.J

Kief Junkie's inhaling the knowledge!
Veteran
White: Thanks for commenting on it. We're glad you like it!

JamieShoes: It's all been fun, though definitely hard work. But yes, the most exciting parts are yet to come.
 
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