NGB (OG) Cabinet Modifications - Thoughts/Ideas/Suggestions?

[Green Smoke]

I looked at this fuckin' cab and thought to myself, "What a god damn monstrosity." All this in the name of rockin' a little reefer. Jeeezus.

Men have taken up arms, fought, and died for lesser causes. You're too close now to throw in the towel. Never give up,..never surrender.

 

[banjobrain]

Hey Banjo, I was reading your thread here, and from what I can see, you have your cab plans in lock down. My suggestion is merely directed at the stealth aspect of your grow, which may or may not help at this point. You should check into those prepaid debit cards/visa prepaid cards that they sell at, well almost everywhere now. If you pick one up and only use CASH(ie paper money) there is no real way to link it to you at all. I picked one up for use on Ebay, and the really great part about them is you if you only put as much as what your purchase's will total up to(remember to include taxes and postage), and if you end up getting ripped off, at least it won't be for thousands more than what you were willing to spend, and no fighting with the CC company to save your credit

That's a great friggin idea. I just put an order through at HTG for some netpots, hydroton, fan, etc...and I'm a little hesitant about my order. I haven't heard anything from them yet.

Although, I did call after submitting the order, and they did receive it. Perhaps they just haven't gotten the money order in the mail. I'm sure people ordering from HTG and using money orders is fairly commonplace. I might use the prepaid credit card idea when I order my light from HTG. Great Idea!

Another LOL moment, courtesy of the Banjo man. I can't tell you how many times I stepped back, looked at our mess, and said "this thing is a fucking monster".

That's exactly what we intend to do, add PL-L's as supplementary lighting to both the veg and flower rooms (probably 2 tubes on each wall).

KJ - I have decided that besides documenting the growth of this goddamned thing, I will do my best to provide as much humor, as well. I am more than happy to keep everyone laughing.

This past week off of the cab was good for my mental health. Things are on hold right now...I've got to travel for a week and won't be back until next Sunday. Hopefully, by then, my HTG package will be here and I'll be able to start germing my babies.

Men have taken up arms, fought, and died for lesser causes. You're too close now to throw in the towel. Never give up,..never surrender.

Throw in the towel??? C'mon brother! I've sweated and invested many a pretty penny in building this insane thing that began as a "stealth" cab. The only thing that could be more stealthy about this fuggin cab would be to place giant stickers on the front of it that says "ATTENTION: THIS IS A MARIJUANA MAKING MACHINE."

lol - actually, it should be pretty stealth. At 24" deep, it should fit in my closet nicely, and although I haven't quite wrapped my head around how I'll incorporate my scrubber, it will be either on one side of the cab or inside my utility room. I'm shooting for inside the room.

With 3 inches of additional width, depth and height from the original NGB cab, I should be able to pull this off. We'll see, and there will certainly be more pics as time goes on.



For now, on the other hand...I'm facing another situation. Please see the following post below.

 

[banjobrain]

DWC Questions: From seed to harvest

DWC Questions: From seed to harvest

I tried posting this in the Indoor Hydro grows forum, but haven't received much response. Ok, Ok, it's only been like an hour and a half, but I thought I would post this on my own thread as well for some additional feedback.

Maybe you can all see my thought processes as well, - and have a couple more laughs too. I hope that I succeed! Enjoy!

~

Hey Everybody!

I finally finished my cab, I have my seeds and I've got CFLs to start vegging my plants until I'm able to get a 250w HID MH/HPS switchable in a couple weeks. After much debate, I decided to go with a DWC ScrOG grow. I have exchanged messages with FreezerBoy, who has helped me tremendously , but I have some additional questions about my methods to grow from seed to harvest.

I initially planned on using a 15 or 16 gallon rubbermaid tub with 10-12 3" netpots in there and starting 3-4 seeds of each strain I have (Satori, Sadhu, Hashberry). My first plan was growing them until I would be able to sex them out. After sexing, I was going to pull one select female of each strain and place those 3 girls in a second tub to continue my grow until harvest. After researching a little more, I realized that it may take a little longer to sex the plants then I realized...so, I have modified my plan a little bit.

By growing 10-12 plants in a single rubbermaid tub, I fear that the roots may start to grow into one large mass, which will make pulling the three select females out very difficult. I am thinking that perhaps it would be best to try and start each plant in it's own mini-bucket and grow them individually until they are able to be sexed.

(edit) - I think what I'll do to keep their root systems from growing into each other is surround the net pot with a 2 liter soda bottle cut in half. I will use more airstones that are smaller and spread them throughout the tub for more even bubble displacement. (edit)

• How long does it take to sex out plants?
• Do I have to initiate flowering to do this?
• If so, once I have begun flowering to determine sex, is it possible to switch back to 18/6 or 20/4 to get more vegetative growth?

(edit) - Ok...so I've read a bit about doing a "one week false flower." Would this be vegging for a week, going 12/12 to get those sumbitches to flower, weed out the males and then go back to my veg light routine? (edit)

Ok...hang with me, here, I'm almost done... Ok, so I've got this monstrosity of a set up here, something like 10 mini-bubblers growing plants just to figure out the sex of them...(forget the 10 mini bubblers - that problem is solved...see the above edit). So once I figure out the sex of the plants, like I said, I will transfer one top female of each strain (3 plants) into the single tub. I plan on making 3 screens fitted to the top of the lid, so that I can cut each plant separately as it matures, leaving the others to mature according to strain.

Hmm...however, I just thought of something. If I cut a plant and leave a few others, the root system and a stubby stem will remain.

• Would the roots begin to decompose after cutting? Or would the stubbed out stem try to reveg, keeping the roots from decomposing so quickly???

-Maybe I should consider placing each plant in it's own container?
-Maybe I should consider just growing two strains (Sadhu and Hashberry) with very similar flowering times...

Help! Any ideas or suggestions on how to go from seed to harvest in a DWC Scrog grow would be really appreciated!

(I'll probably edit this a couple times as the next few days go on...I'm sure I forgot something)
__________________

 

[Work2much]

As far as pulling plants and worrying about leaving the dead roots in the rez I've seen some people use plastic/fiberglass divders that surround individual plants's root sytems so they dont get tangled. Almost like a scrog but for roots. It might be a pain to find the right materials and install them in the rez though.

In my experience around 4-5 weeks of veg sex is clearly visible to my naked eye with most strains. Theres always going to be variance with strains though.

 

[banjobrain]

As far as pulling plants and worrying about leaving the dead roots in the rez I've seen some people use plastic/fiberglass divders that surround individual plants's root sytems so they dont get tangled. Almost like a scrog but for roots. It might be a pain to find the right materials and install them in the rez though.

In my experience around 4-5 weeks of veg sex is clearly visible to my naked eye with most strains. Theres always going to be variance with strains though.

Good idea! I could certainly come up with an "insert" to place into the tub.

So....I don't need to induce flowering to determine sex? I'll be able to see in 4-5 weeks of the vegetative state?

 

[Work2much]

Good idea! I could certainly come up with an "insert" to place into the tub.

So....I don't need to induce flowering to determine sex? I'll be able to see in 4-5 weeks of the vegetative state?

Its certainly easier to sex in flower, and I think the more common method, but I veg for a little longer then most so I've been able to do it veg quite often. I know some here do a one week "false flower" to show sex then go back to veg to continue to grow larger plants.

 

[banjobrain]

Its certainly easier to sex in flower, and I think the more common method, but I veg for a little longer then most so I've been able to do it veg quite often. I know some here do a one week "false flower" to show sex then go back to veg to continue to grow larger plants.

I'll poke around and see what I can find out regarding the one week "false flower."

That sounds like something I want to do. If I can veg for a week, push them into flower to weed out those friggin dudes, that would be great. I know that false flower happens occasionally in nature, so I don't anticipate that having an adverse effect on the plants...but we are talking about the reefer here...

I am well versed in growing many things, but cannabis is certainly not one of them...yet.

 

[FreezerBoy]

So....I don't need to induce flowering to determine sex? I'll be able to see in 4-5 weeks of the vegetative state?

If you wait that long, you can forget about ever separating the roots should males show up. 2-3 weeks is doable but it takes some work. I threw some pics up here http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=116700

.....ADD ......

Linked thread got binned so, here are said photos. Note the filter bag condom in the last shot. A temporary fix at best but, temp was all I needed.

 

[I2KanGrow]

This is a really great/interesting/educational/amusing thread, banjobrain, thought I'd say "HIGH!", and add my 2-cents-worth...

I'm thinking about this light here at econolight: http://www.e-conolight.com/Product/E...ber=E-HC1H151Z - It's a 150w HPS for $43? It sounds like a good deal, but here's the problem I'm having with buying a couple of these...

Unfortunately, there is no option to buy these HPS lights at econolight using a money order. I don't want to pass up a light at $43, as I think that would be a great way to do a couple DIY cooltubes, but on the other hand, this is a stealth grow, and I would like to keep EVERYTHING stealth.

I know exactly how you feel - but I finally screwed-up the nerve, and bought both the 150w MH & HPS lamps & ballasts from them, I've very happy with them so far. What did you decide to do, the 250watt-er?

I'm wondering if I have enough time to:

* Germinate the seeds on tues/wednesday (?) on the road (I travel by vehicle)
* Then get them back home into rockwool/soil on Thursday afternoon, evening and immediately under light
* 3 full days under light
* Then put them in net pots into a DWC system late Sunday evening


Would they be safe unattended for 4 days if I left them in DWC after that?

and

I tried posting this in the Indoor Hydro grows forum, but haven't received much response. Ok, Ok, it's only been like an hour and a half, but I thought I would post this on my own thread as well for some additional feedback.

Maybe you can all see my thought processes as well, - and have a couple more laughs too. I hope that I succeed! Enjoy!

~

Hey Everybody!

I finally finished my cab, I have my seeds and I've got CFLs to start vegging my plants until I'm able to get a 250w HID MH/HPS switchable in a couple weeks. After much debate, I decided to go with a DWC ScrOG grow. I have exchanged messages with FreezerBoy, who has helped me tremendously , but I have some additional questions about my methods to grow from seed to harvest..........

I'm with NOKUY on this one, you want to baby your babies @ first, and hydro for moms just doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to me, why not try the (soil-less) bonsai mom route? Put your bean sprouts (heh-heh) in seperate soil-less mix containers (I'm using 4" square containers for my bonsai), then, you can toss the males easily, and use cuttings from the females for your hydro grow. If you get a really great mommy, you'll be able to preserve your her, by maintaining the mom?

I'm pretty new at all of this myself, but the bonsai mom sticky (HERE!) is a great read, and might be the way for you to go. I've had my mom for 5 months now, she's doing fine, and since she gets very low lighting (10w daylight/10wsoft white CFL), and is living in a colder room (about 60F) - she needs water only 1X a week - almost maintenance-free.

Good luck to you, my friend - grow safe, we're all rooting for this cab!!

 

[banjobrain]

This is a really great/interesting/educational/amusing thread, banjobrain, thought I'd say "HIGH!", and add my 2-cents-worth...


I know exactly how you feel - but I finally screwed-up the nerve, and bought both the 150w MH & HPS lamps & ballasts from them, I've very happy with them so far. What did you decide to do, the 250watt-er?



and




I'm with NOKUY on this one, you want to baby your babies @ first, and hydro for moms just doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to me, why not try the (soil-less) bonsai mom route? Put your bean sprouts (heh-heh) in seperate soil-less mix containers (I'm using 4" square containers for my bonsai), then, you can toss the males easily, and use cuttings from the females for your hydro grow. If you get a really great mommy, you'll be able to preserve your her, by maintaining the mom?

I'm pretty new at all of this myself, but the bonsai mom sticky (HERE!) is a great read, and might be the way for you to go. I've had my mom for 5 months now, she's doing fine, and since she gets very low lighting (10w daylight/10wsoft white CFL), and is living in a colder room (about 60F) - she needs water only 1X a week - almost maintenance-free.

Good luck to you, my friend - grow safe, we're all rooting for this cab!!

Ok...let's see - here's some answers to your questions and my new plans!

No, I didn't go with buying the econolights. I figured that for $100 for the lamps, some more dough for the accessories to build the DIY cooltubes, and the time I would need to put into it, it'd be worth $300 bucks for me to buy a $250w MH/HPS switchable. Both bulbs included and a nice, effiecient reflector. I might do a DIY in the future.

To start my seeds, I will germ 10 seeds of ONE variety only in 4" or 6" pots. I will set the pots up in a tub, suspended upon another tub and keep them watered with a wick system, as I will have to leave them for a few days. The water will be kept warm with a seedling heating mat kept underneath of the water resivoir. I anticipate the cab temps being around 78-80 degrees. There will be good air circulation, as several fans will be blowing, but not directily on the little girls. I am going to light them with two $9 cheapo vanity light bars I wired up to a cord. I'll build a ghetto reflector out of leftover plywood and a turkey roaster pan. Yeah, baby.

By the time the seedlings are a good size to flower, my 250 HID lamp should be here and then as soon as I determine sex, I'll clone the good girls, dump the males. I might keep one male, put him back in veg under low light and do some experimenting later on with him for cross breeding or seed production, I don't know.

The top two choice females will be grown DWC and that's that!

I'm confident of my plan now, thanks to all the good advice I've gotten. I can't wait to get some more pics up of the cab, and the air filtration system I threw together for the intakes. Better yet, I can't wait to get some pics up of some plants!!!

Thanks everyone for the advice, support and good vibes!

 

[K.J]

Go Banjo! Glad to see your plans being laid and worked. I think you did the right thing with the light. I considered a DIY at first, but then I thought better of it since it wasn't really saving me much money and would likely be more of a safety hazard than if I just went and bought a nice one.

 

[banjobrain]

Hey all!

Today is THE day.

I will be working on setting up my 10 pot wick system and reservoir for starting my Mandala "Sadhu" strain.

Pics will be posted later this afternoon as my camera battery is charging and I need to go buy some scissors to cut my chamois cloth type fabric wicks prior to set up. Stay tuned!

Woo-hoo!

 

[banjobrain]

Day 1!!!!

Day 1!!!!

Ok...here's the progress so far. After all the himmin' and hawin' - I figured that the best way to start my seeds was to plant them in soil with a wick system to keep them watered since I am traveling 4 days a week and I don't know when that'll end.

I have a deep sterlite container, painted with two coats of black paint and followed up with two coats of white paint (and a thin, unpainted strip to keep an eye on water levels). The shallow sterlite container has holes cut into the bottom of it where the wicks from the plants are down in the reservoir below. Temps prior to the water inside the cab with plants and lights were about 60-62 degrees (I keep my apartment cold). To remedy the situation, I bought a seedling heat mat which I have placed underneath the reservoir to keep the water warm and provide some radiant heat to the plants. Hopefully the temps will be ok in the morning, as these babies will be left unattended until Friday afternoon!



For now, I am using 6 x 23w GE Daylight bulbs for vegging the seeds. I'm still not clear how much light I'm pushing out (I'm talking "true" light - Would this be the equivalent of ~190w or ~600 because they are 100w equivalents?) The bulbs are 6500k and rated at 1600 lumens each. After input, I'll see about adjusting the bulbs as necessary.

For now, the seeds have been planted with great care in a "semi-custom" soil mix. I primarily used Miracle-Gro Organic Mix and added some Espoma Bio-Tone, which is a starter fertilizer which contains mycorrihizae.



Espoma products are simply friggin sweet - heavily used by organic gardeners back when I was in the green industry and people were looking for solid organic products. I used about half the specified amount so as not to burn the plants. I incorporated additional perlite into the mix (and looking back, probably should have added a little more) to keep the mix a little more porous. I top dressed the mix with a very fine seed starter mixture to give the seeds easy growth before trying to root in the heavier bark mix.

Anyways, that's all I've got! The reflector is just some leftover 1/2 plywood cut to fit inside the mother room and is adaptable if I decide to add more lights as well. It's functional and a bit cleaner than some ghetto turkey roaster pan that I was thinking about using. No one is going to see it, but I'm taking alot of pride in this thing and would like it to look good.

For now, the plants will be on an 18/6 (ok...it's like 18.5/5.5) light cycle. I'm really keeping my fingers crossed on this one. They'll have to be on their own until Friday afternoon. Please send good vibes for these little babies! Their names are 1,2,3,pi,4,5,6,7,8,9. They will receive proper names after being sexed and picked over.

See ya later!

 

[luv2garden]

Lookin great banjobrain!! may you be blessed with many females karma coming your way!

 

[banjobrain]

Lookin great banjobrain!! may you be blessed with many females karma coming your way!

Thanks, Dude...let's just hope they're alive at the end of the week. I'm starting to second guess my wick system and my lack of prepping and checking the temps on the cab. I did a 12 hour test run and I was running about 80 degrees and 35% humidity.

Hopefully the soil will retain enough moisture for the seeds to flourish and grow over the next few days...we'll see! This is the situation that I have to deal with, and I'll never get anywhere if I don't try!

Oh, yeah! Your cab is TITS. It looks really freakin' good, man! REALLY GOOD.

 

[#1cheesebuds]

looken good so far. looken like a good start.

 

[banjobrain]

Ok...here's some fun stuff. Lots of y'all out there like to have a laugh on account of ol' Banjo, here - so I'm going to give you another one.

So...Monday afternoon/evening, I plant the seeds and put them under light. I'm no novice gardener now, so I was a little concerned about all that light blasting on them and the heat they were going to put out. Yes...I know they're CFL's, but with 6 bulbs coupled with heat mat...I figured that they might dry out even with the wick system. I wasn't all that confident in how I rigged up my wicks either. However, I did set up the wicks 3 different ways in each of the ten pots to maximize my ratio of success.

So, Tuesday comes and goes...and all is well. I'm thinking about my babies and hoping that it's all good. Tuesday night comes, I couldn't sleep. I wake up at the hotel thinking about my babies, wondering if they're alright...all day today I'm thinking that they're dry. All day today, I'm thinking they're too hot. I freak out. I'm 3+ hours away from my apartment, but at 4:00 this afternoon, I think..."Eff it, Banjo. You screw this up, you're back at square one, and you just wasted 10 good Sadhu seeds. You'll regret not going home to check on the kids." So - I hit the road. 3 hours back home and I check on the kiddos. The magic box is whirring in the corner, and I think, this is good, at least everything is running!

I open the door and I didn't even have to give 'em the pokey test. They looked dry. I did the pokey test and about 1/2 of them were mildly damp. On top of that, my cab was running a bit warm at around 84...so I unplugged the heat mat, and just cranked up the heat in my apartment 10 degrees.

I thoroughly watered the girls (fingers crossed), hoping that they didn't already germ and then die. Heat and evaporation from my fan is making them dry out quickly, so I ran to the nearby grocery store and picked up a bunch of different sized bottles of water. I cut them in half...poked a number of different holes in each one, varying the number of holes as well, and covered up the girls, you know, to get that little greenhouse thang goin' on.



Humidity shouldn't be that much of an issue...I'll be back by Friday afternoon/evening to let 'em breath better - if they're not dead already, that is. So, that's my story and I'm stickin to it! Thanks for the good wishes, those of you that have been checkin' in!

More updates and hopefully some photos of cotyledons this weekend!

 

[banjobrain]

More updates and hopefully some photos of cotyledons this weekend!

Ooooooooooooooh - I'm nervous. Looking forward to getting back home this afternoon and seeing what's going on. Hopefully I didn't blow it.

 

[#1cheesebuds]

I have done this befor. it worked out good. do u have a fan in there?

 

[banjobrain]

We have liftoff!

We have liftoff!

I'll be damned. Wednesday night, I'm freaking out, thinking I had germed my seeds and let them dry. I come home, just 5 minutes ago (36 hours later!) to find that 4 have popped!!! I think a fifth one is bulging out of the soil, but I'm not sure. One of them is going strong, it's even pushing out a mini set of true leaves already!!! We'll see what happens as the weekend progresses. Hopefully more of the little ones will poke their heads up! Pictures will definitely be posted later...

• Any opinions regarding light schedule for the upcoming week???