11"x10" CFL cabinet [nirvana WW][seedsman purple bud][barneys farm blue cheese]

[JustDoIt]

I'll have to see how the filter fits best (along the back or the side), hopefully I can get to it today (busy day!)

I'll be traveling a lot next week and the week after, but will be back home every couple days so I'm not too worried about the plants... I do have someone trusted who doesn't have growing experience but who can follow directions and check on them daily, so I'd like to have the cabinet up and running and the plants in it before I leave.

I'll probably let them veg in the new cabinet under (err... next to) the more powerful lights until they fill up a little more space before switching to 12/12. I know they'll stretch, but right now the plants range from 4"-5" above the soil and considering they'll be able to end up ~18" max I think they've still got some growing to do before switching to flowering. I'm thinking once they're closer to 10-12"? Opinions?

 

[JustDoIt]

Okay, so having this filter inside the flowering cabinet will significantly reduce the amount of vertical space along the back of the cab, and just plain old won't fit along the side...
Which I guess means one of a few things:

a) stick with the first plan of having it in the utility side with the fan blowing the air through it

b) section off a portion of the utility cabinet for the filter to sit, and open up some intake holes from the sealed off filter section into the flowering side (basically adding space in the util side for the filter, which will suck air through from the flowering side)

c) redesign / rebuild the filter a different way

d) ____________(open for suggestions)________

 

[Diesel_N_Blood]

You want the least amount of twist and turns in the ventilation hose. So if I had to say it'd make most sense to pull air from flowering cab directly to fan then build a mount to to exuast air to the scrubber. This fan to scrubber connect must be completly sealed. Any air leak and you'll be smelling unfiltered air. Come on why isn't this producing nuts yet?

Just kidding. Your doing awsome. Still jealous of you space. I've got a suprise up my sleive though.

1. 600w digi Ballast mh/hps
2. 3'x3'x6' Tent
3. awsome genetics (first run will be HOL's "Midnight Madness"= Og Kush x Madness Og
4. K.I.S.S. Nutrients- MaxiBloom, Liquid KoolBloom, Epsom Salt, PH & PPM meters, huge bag of coco, Big bottle of clonex.
5. New (to me anyway) Nikon D70s SLR w/ extras.
6. Boredom

Stay tuned JustDoIt, I'll send you a friend invite.

 

[LetsSeeYa]

Interesting thread ya have going on in here, i think il stay around if thats cool, lol. I luv's them vert grows and a beginner to watch make the mistakes before i try, lol. I couldn't believe the first one i saw on here, its a great way to grow. I have the room, but i cant get down to the space and im moving. But sure enjoy watching a good thread. You have some great space, im glad to see your making good use of it.

Looking great so far my friend,


LSY

 

[JustDoIt]

Thanks for coming over, LSY! Great to have you here! I'm glad people are enjoying this project, I'm wondering if I should keep this thread going or start one for this new cabinet since it's hardly a 11"x10" CFL grow any more.

D&B, your future grow sounds sweet! Definitely add me as a friend and let me know when you get started with that, I'd love to watch and learn!
I've got that 6" flex duct which will ALMOST fit over the fan outlet (maybe it will if I get the wires in the duct bent the right way), I can make it work though, with the help of some duct tape!

Any thoughts on keeping the fan quiet? An insulated box for it to go in? Maybe I'll be able to do a test run tonight with the ventilation system hooked up... Let's see....

In the meanwhile I'm trying to figure out what's going on with my plants, I'll post pictures later this evening, I'm not sure if it's pH related or if I'm not feeding them enough or what....

 

[JustDoIt]

Okay so I know this isn't the infirmary but hopefully someone can point me in the right direction with this...
Over the last few days the plants have gone from a nice green color to a much lighter green and some of the lower fan leaves turning yellow with brown spots, and the tips dry up.

I should take notes each time I water, I've been making sure the pH of the water (going in) is between 6.0 and 6.5 and I want to say the last time I watered it was 6.3

Thanks for any help or suggestions!

Also...

I was looking at old pictures from a previous grow where I made a micro dwc and the plants took off real fast and looked great, it's making me wonder about giving that a shot at some point, maybe after this grow?

 

[LetsSeeYa]

Okay so I know this isn't the infirmary but hopefully someone can point me in the right direction with this...
Over the last few days the plants have gone from a nice green color to a much lighter green and some of the lower fan leaves turning yellow with brown spots, and the tips dry up.

I should take notes each time I water, I've been making sure the pH of the water (going in) is between 6.0 and 6.5 and I want to say the last time I watered it was 6.3

Do you still have them in the cab with the CFL'S, cuz it seemed to me to be a bit much for them. At least IMO they look heat stressed, maybe over or under nutes. Your using Grow big, right? I might lose a couple CFL's and mix nutes at half strength till they look better, you just dont want them to get away from ya to much bro,


LSY

 

[JustDoIt]

Hey LSY!
Temps (with the 24 hr high/low thermometer sitting on the soil) stay under 80 almost all the time, sometimes going up to 83 (maybe 3 times a week for a couple hours, max) , so I don't THINK it's heat.... and while I am using Grow Big and Big Bloom, I literally put a drop or two of Grow Big and MAYBE a teaspoon of Big Bloom per gal (Fox Farm recommends 1 teaspoon per gal of Grow Big and 4 tablespoons per gal of Big Bloom) because I don't want to over feed them.... Could this still be the case, or taking this into consideration does it look more like pH issues or something else?
Between the 4 CFL's we're talking 120w total, and I lowered the plants further away so that the tops are ~3.5" from the bulbs now, they were closer (maybe an inch or so closer?) before but I'm not bending them over any more so I wanted to give them some room... I really don't think it's too much light for them, especially for being as old as they are (not that they're old, but they've been vegging for SEVERAL weeks now)

In other news, I hooked up the duct to the exhaust side of the fan and ran it to the carbon filter, it's a bit of a tight fit in the cab (shoulda measured better when making the filter but it fits without too much effort, just gotta figure out where the fan will permanently reside before I know exactly how the filter will sit... I'll post pics later when I go down to work on it), and...

...the 150 showed up today!

I'll put up a pic of the cabinet progress later tonight

 

[Diesel_N_Blood]

JDI,

I think LSY is right about the heat stress. The temps in the cam maybe 80* but with the plants an inch or so away theres alot of heat build up, with no to little air flow. And remember every plant is different so maybe shes just bitchy. I'd start to up the nutr.'s if they are over a couple weeks old. Do you have a ec/ppm meter. You dont have to have one but it's insurance to make sure your exactly where you want you nutrient levels. How much are you getting for run-off during watering.

 

[JustDoIt]

Hey D&B!
Airflow is plentiful, the door stays open (hasn't been closed in weeks) and I've got a small desk fan blowing at the plants, they don't stay still (but it's not VIOLENT movement or anything extreme), they're constantly moving, the air definitely flows, lol. I'll have to see how they react now that they're further away a little bit.

As far as runoff, the last time I watered there was a 16oz party cup full of runoff from all 4 plants (watered them over a tray and poured the water into a cup) so somewhere around 4 oz of runoff. I don't have a ppm meter (did, but i was dumb and threw it away a few years ago after I had to stop growing, not knowing how long it would be before I could start back up again).
I'll mix up a stronger nute solution next time I water, probably tomorrow or Saturday.

I set up the 150w and the 70w together tonight, still have some work to do to the cab before it's ready to run, I need to open up the exhaust hole a bit more to accomodate the 6" duct, and I need to open up the intake as well to account for the larger exhaust. Also need to mount the ballasts and filter, and figure out the quietest way to position the fan. I let it run hooked up to the filter last night and closed the cabinet door, it's not too loud with the door closed so once the exhaust intake vent (does that make sense? the intake to the blower fan, which is where the exhaust from the flowering cab will go, haha) is hooked up and run over to the flowering cab and if I either suspend the fan above the floor or dampen the vibrations, it should be fine. Then it's a matter of cleaning up some wires and letting it run for a while to make sure everything's good, hopefully the plants will move in this weekend!

 

[Diesel_N_Blood]

Looks good. I'd lower the 70w down an inch or two.

To sound dampen a fan on my buddies cab he bought a used memory foam pillow from a local Goodwill for a $1. I wouldn't sleep with it but it's awsome for a sound dampener. It kills all sound and vibration. I'd look around. I've also used old gel insoles to mount things.

Hopefully the plants pull thru and start reaching for the vert light. Your doing everything right so far. I don't see anything that stands out about the sick plants. It looks like light/heat stress. Is the leaf dry or really soft? I know you probly already went to the infirm. to look around. To be honest I'm just getting the hang of growing again after years so I've lost alot of skillz.

And if you got some 16oz beer cups and some extra seeds come join the fun in the beer cup challenge. They'd do good with a nice vert setup.

 

[LetsSeeYa]

Well i think by raising the lights may help and its good to have good air flow in there. But iv grown with CFL's and as you need to keep the lights close, its much better to suck the air around the lights out if you can. I grow in an open space and not a cab, which the CFL'S are constantly putting out heat, the fan just blows it around, like a blow dryer in your box. When using the CFL set up i had a bunch of space above the lights so with a fan on the floor, the heat escaped from the top, but you dont have a top, with it in the cab. There is some heat stress there, iv had it and needed to raise my lights, but once the tissues build up they can take a bit more of that heat, just not yet. But raising the lights may help ya. What i see that makes me think heat is the leaves are shriveling up curling, yet a mangle look and not just a leaf curl.

I keep charts like this one i found that may help you and ya might want to start a folder with this sorta info in it. Then any issues are right on your desk top or where ever you like. I hope it helps.

LSY

 

[JustDoIt]

D&B, what happened to your avatar??? lol almost didn't recognize ya!
I've got the fan sitting on two pieces of foam, with the ductwork hooked up and the doors shut it's quiet enough for my needs, even on the highest setting.

I also adjusted the lights and the 70 is sitting lower now. It's easy enough to adjust if I need to further down the road, basically it's hanging from the 150 with wires like you suggested, I can fold the wires and twist to bring the light up if I need to, or lower it a little more by doing the reverse.

I'd seen the beer cup challenge post and would love to give it a go! My second time growing (before the hiatus) I grew in beer cups from clone, it wasn't anything tremendous but 3 plants kept me stoned pretty much through the second half of winter (which was pretty sweet). Here's a pic of one of the plants right before cutting her down! (Cheese, I believe...)

I've got (1) Aurora Indica seed and (1) Purple Bud seed left before I have to re-order and get some new strains!


LSY, good to see ya!
I see what you're saying about the ventilation. Even with two 120mm PC fans exhausting the air through the top of the cab it might not actually be doing much since the door is wide open, and what you're saying about the hairdryer effect makes sense. I've gotta figure out some in-cab circulation so I can shut the door again... the whole reason I started leaving the door open with the fan blowing at the plants was when they were much smaller and I wanted the stems to build some strength, plus the fact that in the bigger pots the air from the intake vents below where the plants were was pretty much completely blocked... poor planning on my part when I designed the cab (live and learn!)

Thanks for posting that chart! I've been looking for something like that, I might just set that as my desktop background 'cause I'm sure I'll be using it plenty while I get the hang of things haha

Yesterday I woke up and the Blue Cheese was looking VERY thirsty, and the others weren't too far behind. I've been checking the soil by sticking my finger down about 2 inches and the soil didn't feel dry, but I guess it was drier than I thought. I was in a hurry to get to an 8:30 meeting and wouldn't be back till that evening so I quickly mixed up some more nutes, got the pH to 6.4-6.5 (with a digital pH pen does the reading EVER really stabilize? even after letting it sit for a few mins it still drifts +/- .1 to .2 so I do my best.
Gave them a good soaking spread out over as much time as I could so the soil could really absorb the water, in total I used just under a gal of water and got about 48 fl oz of runoff. The plants look a LOT happier today (even though I had to pinch off a few pieces of leaf that were greenish/brown and crispy, and a few small leaves fell off)

 

[JustDoIt]

My project for today was to get the HPS cab up and running.
First order of business was opening up the 5" hole I had made for exhaust (from when it was gonna be a single bulb with a cool tube) to 6". Next I drilled some additional intake holes in the bottom of the cabinet to adjust for the larger exhaust, though through typing this right now I've just figure out at least PART of the problem I was going to post about. haha. 39 1" diameter holes in the floor (though now I realize it needs to be TWICE as many! or larger holes...), and I made the screen floor with a real frame rather than just blocks of wood supporting the screen.

After hooking up the ducts, adjusting the position of the bulbs, and getting the fan and the ballasts mounted in the utility cab, I turned it all on, closed the doors, and let it sit for a while to get temperature readings before moving the plants. Even with the fan on it's highest setting, temps are around 95*

I realized as I typed this post that I calculated the number of 1" intake holes to equal the 6" exhaust duct, but what I didn't do was DOUBLE the area of intake. DOH!

I was gonna ask for ideas as to why my temps are so high, but I've got at least that one adjustment to make before worrying too much. Back to the underground lair I go!

 

[Diesel_N_Blood]

Hey JDI,

I've been waiting for an update... Had to search this thread out again. lol. But I guess you did update it and I didnt see it. Sorry.

95* Whew.

First try to get the duct right over the lights. Next try to have a small fan pushing air up under the lights. you may not need the fan under them. Also where is you exhuasted air going? cause if it is staying in the cab it could be just recirculating the hot air back into the cab. It can as cause the cab its self to heat up. Maybe leave the utlilty door open and see. Try those and see what happens.

Dont hate on the killer microsoft Paint Skills. Who needs PhotoShop.

P.S. Dont be scared of the elephant trunk in the picture. Its in your Heeaaadddddd.....

 

[JustDoIt]

hahahaha good timing for you to post, I just got back from a long-ass "vacation" (if you want to call it that, didn't do much relaxing!), I'm playing the catch-up game with work stuff and haven't even had a chance to really pay attention to the plants, I had someone looking after them while I was gone (about 10 days), they're still alive but not looking that great, it'll probably be a while for them to recover....

Good call on having a fan blowing the air up from the bottom of the cab, I haven't had any time to mess around with the HPS cab at all (since I just got back last night), I was able to drill out the proper amount of intake holes before leaving though, but it didn't do too much for the temperature. I've got some exhaust holes drilled in the utility cabinet though I should probably have more, good idea about leaving the door open to see if that helps.

Later tonight I should have some time to play around with that, in the meanwhile here's what I came home to....

 

[JustDoIt]

Okay, quick update...
I had a desk fan sitting down by the cab that I had been eyeballing when I first started making the cabinet, I had seen pictures in other vertical grows with a similar style fan blowing upwards, but I had figured the Stanley blower combined with the fact that these are low-wattage HPS bulbs having this 9" desk fan would be overkill...

fortunately however, I had it and it just so happened that it fit PERFECTLY inside of the screen fence I made to keep the plants from getting too close to the bulbs.

Sooo, I took it apart, removed the oscillating mechanism, trimmed down the back part of it, and trimmed the screen around the bulbs at the bottom so that the fan would sit a couple inches off the ground and is held in place with zip ties. (damn I love those things!)
A few minor adjustments so that it's suspended above the bottom of the cabinet and we're in business!

I left the utility cabinet door ajar and tried having the exhaust fan on different settings, and the new cooling fan on hi and low (two settings only), temps stayed right at 80* (ambient temperature was 67*
Still not as low as I'd like, but a LOT better than before! We're on the right path at least!

As for the plants, I'm going to pick up a few gallons of distilled water tomorrow so that over the weekend when the plants are ready for a drink I can give them a good flushing, and based on the chart that LSY posted I've got pretty severe deficiencies to deal with... am I not feeding them enough? Or is it more likely pH related? I gotta get things back on track, they'll be moving to the HPS cab pretty soon and I wanna switch to 12/12 in the next week or two if at all possible!

 

[JustDoIt]

Okay so temps in the HPS cab are 78-80*, not ideal but not terrible, so I've decided to move the plants to their new home. After removing the severely dead leaves last night (the ones that fell right off, I left as many as I could), I decided to pinch and bend them once more. Today I flushed 1/2 gal of distilled water through each one and fed with Grow Big, Big Bloom, and a little Cal Mag+, ph'd to 6.3-6.4
I guess for now it's a matter of waiting and seeing what happens, I'm not giving up hope for this grow despite the sorry looking plants. There are clones I had gifted that I could take cuttings from and start again if need be, and I do have a couple seeds left, so if nothing else this is a learning experience and the beginning of the 220w HPS vert-grow... but I do hope these plants pull through!

Camera battery is dead and I'm embarrassed with how the plants look so no new pictures, and I think I'm gonna start a new thread with a more appropriate title. The 11x10 CFL cab I think I'm gonna just use for the beer cup grow. I know I'm late joining in, but better late than never!

 

[Diesel_N_Blood]

Camera battery is dead and I'm embarrassed with how the plants look so no new pictures, and I think I'm gonna start a new thread with a more appropriate title. The 11x10 CFL cab I think I'm gonna just use for the beer cup grow. I know I'm late joining in, but better late than never!

Way to keep a positive att. about this. Its all exp. so in the end it'll make you a better grower. Though we all want fat nugs.

As long as there is green its alive. It will affect the end yeild but I think if you get those 4 plants in there and veg to fill 1/2 the cab you pull and nice harvest. When you start your new thread send me a message so I can follow ya.

Its not too late for the beer cup yet. Still over a 100 days. Just veg for 4wks then flower.

Good luck

DnB

 

[JustDoIt]

Yeah all the plants are still alive and they're not like.... TOO terrible, I grew worse my first time around (in a PC case with unknown soil and totally incorrect nutes, haha), this will just set me back time-wise more than anything. One thing I'm wondering is if I should get bigger containers and see if that helps. I'm thinking that the dunk method of watering might be better for smaller containers as well. Ahh the joys of learning by experience!