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HelisHome - 272w CFL Micro HDSOG - Sub-$500 All-In-One Cabinet

Helis

Member
Hi all!
Sorry that I promised you pictures last week and then fell through. I have been quite busy at work finalising things for the holiday season but now I am done for a few months :smoke: so from now till harvest my attention is to the ladies, and how beautiful the sky can be at night.
After stepping nutrients back to 1/4 then to 1/2 almost a week later plants are up to 720 µs (504 ppm.7 / 360 ppm.5) and still showing signs of a little N deficiency. I flushed plenty well before stepping down and have done some feed/water/feed to see if it cleared anything up, but it did not. I have attributed this Local Bagseed and some of the Zyrtec to having horrible genetics, as most of the other plants are doing okay (Magic Bus is doing great) I had to throw out a hermie (female dominant with herm. traits) last week, and these plants have shown wildly unstable phenos across the batch of seeds. The bag it came from wasn't stellar, but I'll be getting something from it anyway. I have been looking into proper genetics, namely C99xBlueberry, GrowDoc's ADHD, and possibly a Indica dom cross for the late evenings (though Magic Bus may fill this gap, we will see).

Also this morning I peeked in to the garden and spotted mite damage on the tops of some leaves... And specs underneath. 30x microscope however showed them to be ?not mites? but I was sure that I was wrong.

There were only some on one of the second round plants, all instances of the pests were removed and the whole room got a neem bath :dueling:
I will be checking again tomorrow morning, I take pests rather seriously here :mad: and if they show up again I will move to Neem/Pyrethrin and then who knows. I would like to avoid HotShot Strips & Fogs so the war has to be won now and put to an end.

I've also noticed some ?fan damage/mutilation/pest damage? to the Magic Bus plant... Any opinions? The rest of the plant seems fine... It may have seen the blade of the fan, but it seems benign.


Edit: This will have to do... I will move all my pictures over to "My Old Gallery" later but here are pictures for now... Hopefully the thumbnails work okay. If they don't take a look in my gallery. Ever so confusing.

Cab at day 50/24


Round 2 ("12/12-from-seed") at day 28/17


Now... Buds! :party:
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Thanks for stopping in!
 

Helis

Member
Quick update... Took 6 clones from plant #3 (bushy sativa pheno) today since it is having problems with rooting down into its new container (how it is still alive is amazing). About half of the first round clones have shown some roots, this low percentage is understandable because some of the cuttings I was trying to propogate were as small as a thumbnail...
Also some of round 2 are starting to sex, it appears to me that 4 of them are male but I will give them some time to show themselves fully.
 

ScrubNinja

Grow like nobody is watching
Veteran
Helis, I had something like your mite thing once. I don't actually know what they were, but my friend said they're not spider mites (I've never had them to my knowledge) and gave me an unknown spray and it worked for a while. Then it reoccured but I started taking the plants outside daily into natural bushland and nature took care of the problem. I could tell I had them when I started seeing white specks of their poop on the coco surface. Sorry I can't help with details but don't forget there's the infirmary for sick plant questions. Photos looking great regardless.
 

Helis

Member
Thanks for the compliment! The "mites" no longer seem to be an issue. If I run into them again I'm sure I will visit the infirmary. Either way the Neem bath (Dyna-Grow Neem, Water, and Dish Soap) definitely knocked them back and every time a plant gets put in the cab it will be neem'd.

Earlier this week I tried two feedings at 0-6-9 (GH Flora nutes, aka Head's recipe) to see if the added N would solve my deficiency problems, but instead a lot of the local bagseed plants have shown K toxicities. So all plants will get ph'd tap water for a few days. Magic Bus, however, has taken every "learners feeding" I've given her and loved it, as she's never shown anything but lush green leaves (maybe a little tip burn early on, but nothing as reactionary as the local bagseed). She is being picked as a mom, and will be revegged when the time comes to chop-chop.
 

Helis

Member
Sorry I have been slack on posting up in here!
I have been away a bit over the past weeks and have not always been with my plants. Some are not doing as well as they should be, some mischievous things have happened, but I am very glad to have someone to take care of the plants as they did :watchplant:

My thermometer says I had one day where the cab maxed at 94° F... every time I have been in there it has been 80° - 88°. Seems good but CO2 would be nice. Also the lights could be better cooled - I have had some work to do on the cab that I have not gotten to yet.

I had two hermies spring themselves upon my crop (one was chopped quick since it did not pollinate, one just got chopped but definitely pollinated the cab). Both of them are from the local sativa bagseed that I had plenty of... That strain has been hellish to tend to and keep an eye on, and I doubt many of them will be kept around. Some look like 11+ week plants - they'll be left to finish and bridge the gap between rounds while perpetual starts up, but that is all.

Magic Bus looks short, clones in the future might need some veg time, and it is also pollinated so there will be risky seeds to play with as well. Other than that, the plant looks healthy and FROSTY AS HELL :yoinks: and needs about 2 weeks, so flushing has begun on her and 3 other plants approaching ripeness. I harp on this plant because she is vigorous and healthy and has kept up with what I feel to be a strong but even feeding schedule... And she has reacted much better than any other plant in the cabinet.

Also last week I had a friend visit whom I have not seen in a very long time, to prepare for his visit I made oil from the first hermie :tree: and pulled a couple buds on certain plants. One of them had the top taken off because it looked near ready (a week early perhaps) and was dense as hell at week 6 (and I am glad I did this before pollination). Some other lower buds were pulled selectively so that he could enjoy some dank while traveling and I could sample what is to come.

I have to say I LOVE the taste and high of the herb and oil that I tried, and with some plants looking to finish up in the next 2-3 weeks make this look like a pretty merry holiday :xmasnut: I could feel that there was a little "finish" lacking in them... "Underdeveloped profiles" is the phrase that comes to mind. Looks like I will have more hermie oil to enjoy in a few days, too

I will get some pictures up here from last week and will spend some time tending the cab tomorrow and taking more shots.

I have a list of upgrades I am looking at for after this first run and either HID or LED lighting as well as CO2 supplementation are high on the list to improve environment. Would CO2 this late in flowering be a waste of time? From my reading there's some debate on that, though now that I am home for the holidays I could certainly work on setting something up.
Also does anyone think a 250w HPS would be too hot for the cab, if cooltubed? How far from the wooden cab walls would it need to be? HPS, CMH and LED lighting are quite alluring at this point as I have grown various things with Fluoros for years but do not think they are optimal for cannabis.

:thanks: to those that stop by to read! I promise I will keep this more up-to date from now on, especially around finishing time and when cabinet upgrades are made.
 
K

kidkannabis

YES! PLEASE keep this more up-to date from now on, ESPECIALLY around finishing time! :bashhead:.... just messin' with ya! Very nice greenish you got there. Keep it coming. :watchplant:
 

Helis

Member
Hahaha Kidkannabis I have to say it did certainly look green... Things have been harsh for the ladies apparently and while the person filling in for me did so to the best of their knowledge, I will clearly have to help this person learn more in the future.
Things now look tired and yellowing, lots of plants have dropped plenty of foliage except for the longer-flowering pheno plants, and Magic Bus (resilient female, just the type I like!)

Pictures from Day 64, 38 from 12/12 (almost one week ago)
Whole cab
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Long flowering pheno
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Hermie!
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Magic Bus
DSC00846.jpg


The prime sativa bagseed phenos
DSC00850.jpg

DSC00849.jpg
 

Helis

Member
So the hermie gave me 2 grams bone dry (and that's after smoking some) so I kept it to smoke instead of making oil out of it. Very head-rush racing heart blistering Sativa feeling. Awesome. I am revegging the stalk of it with 3 budsites just to see what happens.

Also last night I was talking to a friend of mine and he mentioned pH drift from using lemon juice or vinegar as pH down with tap water, and upon inspection today, my nutrient batch was back at 7.2 from 6.0. This is mindblowing! I knew this could happen but simply didn't check enough, or at all I suppose. This answers my nutrient lockout questions, tells me why I get burn and cannot maintain comfortable feeding.
Round 3 will be much better... I am looking int pH buffers OR switching to RO water... Testing will ensue.

Also round 2 has 3 left, all female, and they have started budding in the past few days.
I'm going to go take pictures after I eat.
 

Helis

Member
Some changes today

Some changes today

Took out 2 of the 26w CFLs to bring the cab to 220w, 84.6w/sq. ft. and 5500 lu/sq. ft. I am doing this for reasons of electricity usage and heat. I have been having heat issues some days and I want to see if this drops it a little, also I am tired of using over 250w, if I am going to continue with that wattage I think I am better off with a 250w CMH or similar.

Tomorrow I will be tidying up... I would like to start using the E&F table again but since some plants are flushing it is a waste of time right now. Also the utility room needs some work over the holidays :tree:

Lastly tonight I made a pH buffer solution high school chemistry style and will be testing it on batches of water, and nutrients, to see how it affects pH drift over the next days.

Pictures!

Budshots



Tiny buds on Magic Bus... Will be left for reveg


Plant Shots
Bagseed "Towering" Pheno, really nice spear shaping if a little leafy


Long Sativa, will probably be left out of the shots for a bit while she does her thing


Plant which was bud-topped, trichs are looking cloudy now and it's gonna be left for a few more days before being half chopped and revegged


Buds... I can't tell which plant this is :xmasnut:


More spearhead style, but bushier


Tall "Bushy Stick" pheno of bagseed, #3 is a stunted version of this... Will probably try to reveg for the fun of it


A very nice spearhead pheno... This one is looking really tasty... reveg when chopped.



I'm planning on revegging a lot but I'll take all the clones I can get.
As anything not gone hermie and with enough lower vegetation will probably get thrown in to reveg, I am considering a secon mom chamber, or possibly a PC flowering cab once I have clones to work with. I have a lot of things brewing in my head but for security reasons I have to be selective. We will see what happens over this wonderful wintertime.

That is all for now - there's lots :pie: and lots of :pie: around :pie:
and I must go eat.
 

Helis

Member
Today temps were 75°f rock solid all day, 68°f at night, taking out the 2 26w bulbs helped & so did better bulb placement.

I am planning on redoing my fan system over the next week as I have solidified plans for modification

- The 2x80mm "inline" Smart Fan II that is pulling out from the cab and then exhausting over the lights will be split into two fans, one going over each side of the lights (one hole will need to be made)
- Two Orion OA80AP 80mm 120v fans will replace the single inline and use the scrubber the way it was intended, with two fans pulling through it. There are already holes for this.
- One of the Orions will be vented through the mom lightspace. This connection is still up in the air as the "entrance" I have to that space is rectangular, not a 3" circle. I will figure something out.

This all should cool the lights better, pull through the scrubber better, run quieter and hopefully save some utility space. After that the utility room gets a makeover.
 

Helis

Member
Thank you scrub! I have been doing lots of reading on how to make my next round better... And been smoking hash & bud from my own plants this whole week. It's a damn amazing feeling. I cannot wait to be self-reliant.

Also it looks like I need to work on my cloning form, I had clones put out roots but then die a few days after moving to coco pucks from a bubble cloner. They were kept in a dome and not misted but the coco was kept quite moist. "Burping" the air every day and a few days later dead, drying clones no matter how humid they were kept.

That said once I do touch up my cloning methods (I don't have problems with herbs & tomatoes... Might have been that they were taken from flowering plants but they DID push out roots) I might start a small SCROG cab with longflowering sativas somewhere else in the home, and want to fill the HelisHome up with 3 clones a week until it's packed. However I'm a month away from having cuttings from anything. I should be harvesting until around then (thanks to longer sativas) but after that I will have a harvest gap (that I had hoped to fill with clones but now will problem solve)

I am going to try to order seeds in the next week as well, I have two plants revegging but would like to start new plants ASAP (and none of this hermie-dominant mexibag).
I would also like to move to coco for my hempys, but that's a discussion for another time. I will wait to whip out the E&F and then go from there.

That's all for now...

:thanks:
Helis
 

stb

New member
How is the impatiens doing? Any blooms from it yet?

I've tossed my African Violets in the shade under the plants in the wintertime when light exposure is scarce, keeps them blooming and looking good all year. If it doesn't do well, try moving it below the main canopy as the impatiens I've grown didn't like intense direct light. Looking good!
 

Helis

Member
So just when you think it's smooth sailing... Well, I guess it is smooth sailing, but last night the USB drive I keep all my logs, photos, and grow-related knowledge on crapped out. So from here on out it's what I know and what ICMag can help with. The only thing I'm sore over losing is 100+ unique cab designs in 4 styles. Ugh.

The impatiens started blooming right about the time all my lovely ladies (and less-liked males) started budding.
A week later they got moved to a table in my living space near the window, and have been sitting under 18hrs of 13w CFL ever since... Because of this they're a little stretchy but they put out new flowers every couple of days, so it's nice to have around. I fed it around 0.7 EC up until about a week ago when I started flushing it as I am doing with my flowering females.

I chopped down 2 plants earlier this week that are definitely early... But I have needed to smoke and not wanted to bother with dealers. Everything I have chopped so far is in reveg and given a shot of veg ferts to start the process.
I have two plants I absolutely want to finish fully: Magic Bus and also one of the bagseed sativa plants which is a wonderful spearhead pheno, dense as hell and starting to give off blues and light purples on the buds. I will try to take some pictures tomorrow while the lights are on, I am too late for it tonight. Hopefully both plants will reveg well because I would like a chance at growing them again now that I have my wits about me grow-wise. They are truly wonderful and seem like they'll be finished around 8 weeks.

Now that I've lost everything I gotta read back and figure out whe 8 weeks is...

Photo update tomorrow!

Helis
 

ScrubNinja

Grow like nobody is watching
Veteran
I used to get hours of entertainment popping the seedpods on impatiens.... Okay, minutes, but they were good times. Looking forward to the pics.
 

Helis

Member
So here's a little update.
It's kind of hard for me to type because as soon as I woke up today I was in pain (I suffer from debilitating spinal issues that I've had since I was a child) so I had a nice bowl of bud & kif & bho and while my pain is gone, so are my focusing skills :dance: :xmasnut:
Either way I did all the hard stuff (uploading) last night so on with the show!

First to start with some of what I've been smoking... aka what I've grown. These are post-manicure, before they've been fully dried.




Here is Magic Bus at week 7



The purple spearhead pheno of the bagseed sativa


The "towering" pheno of the bagseed sativa. Has some light pinks starting to show up.

I really like this plant because while it is a little leafy it is a high yielder (comparatively) and produces a long, bushy stick of bud.

I have one I'll be letting finish completely for flavor. I also have two other examples of this pheno (one medium height, one 3-4" tall) which I think I will reveg today for clones, as they are the same plant but had stunting issues at the end of veg. They're 2nd-3rd plants from the left below, you can see a very leafy head on the two that are similar to the towering plant, though I expect the best clone stock to come off the primo towering plant.

Here is the whole cab at week 7... How empty it looks! This will be remedied soon as I have something nice on the way to me.



And lastly the little impatiens, who keeps putting out new flowers every other day and makes me very happy while I hang out.
 

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