Smokin's Vertical Cabs

[SmokinErb]

What up IC?! A little introduction, if y'all don't mind.

This will be my second attempt at growing vertical. Started with 3x 400w stacked, got a couple rounds out of a perpetual grow, and then I got a little tip-off, so I tore my shit down, and was raided shortly after. Did a little time, but thankfully I avoided the worst of it.

Just finished up my first grow since then, just tryin' to refresh my memory a little on growin'. Just harvested and jarred up my last crop - had to chop 'em down early and only managed .4 GPW, so I'm looking to fix that this time around.

Now, I've been lurking this forum, putting some knowledge and ideas together, it's all based around one concept - maximum production of a limited space. So naturally, I turned to vert. This grow will be an ongoing grow over the next 18-24 months. I can tell you exactly what's going to happen in these cabs right now:

I will be monocropping some of Karma Genetics gear. I will be pheno hunting 1 strain at a time, either 2 or 3 strains. Selecting a mother of each, and then monocropping on a rotation for a little variety. Monocropping will allow for maximum production - something I demand with a very limited area. I may grow out some freebies to take up space as necessary, but that'll be the extent of variety.

Environment control will be a battle for me - this grow is taking place in a garage. I will strive to achieve perfectly dialed conditions that are necessary for maximizing each strains potential.

Now a little details about the grow:


I will be constructing a cab that is roughly 10' x 4' x 6.5'

The cab will house two 4x4 flower chambers and a single 2x4 veg chamber, as well as a utility chamber.

Lights: First run, I'll be using 400w per flower cab, on a flip/flop. I'll be stacking 400's once I'm running clones. 800w is a perfect 50w per sqft. 4ft 6 lamp T5 for veg. Clone under CFL separately.

Medium: Organic soil mixture. Will edit once I decide what I'm using. No fancy pots or anything, standard grow bags.

Ventilation: 6" Inline (400 cfm), 6" Phresh filter. 4" Inline (172 cfm), 4" Phresh filter. Passive intake.


Strains: Karma Genetics

Biker Le Blanc - White OG x Biker Kush (Ordered, being shipped)

D-Kush - Chem D x SFV OG Kush BX2 (

Jack O Nesia - Amnesia x Jack#22

 

[dank.frank]

VERY smart strain selection!! I'll be lurking!



dank.Frank

 

[SmokinErb]

Before I can do any construction, I gotta do the electrical. My garage is fed on a 60a sub panel, and really only has 30a available to grow with. Another one of my big restricting factors.

Seeds are in the mail, so I gotta get this up and running quick. Here's a little of the electrical I did today. Not too much, just running a simple circuit so I can run an AC to keep the garage cool in the summer.



The sub panel in the garage is full, as you can tell. The main shut-off is in the house on the main breaker:

So I combined the two circuits in place onto a tandem breaker, this frees up a slot:

Then I wired up a simple 15a circuit on a tandem breaker, I left the other empty in case I need a new circuit for whatever. I believe I did everything properly except running the wire (no conduit.)

It works! You can see the anchors I used to keep the romex secure. Clamps are securing the wire to both work boxes. Wires are firmly connected.

Here you can see where all of the construction will be taking place. All of the romex was secured using plastic anchors screwed into concrete around the ceiling and zip-ties to existing conduit. I believe this is the only part that isn't to NEC code:

 

[SmokinErb]

VERY smart strain selection!! I'll be lurking!



dank.Frank

Gotta give it up to you. First you got me loving organics (now if I'd just take the time and learn ) and then you pointed me in Karma's direction. Every single thing he has is top notch. I want to grow just about everything he has.

Mirre would probably be next on that list. I might just make it 4 rotating strains. I *LOVE* the growth she puts out. Straight up donkey dicks. Ideal vert SOG strain if you ask me. If I can get my cloning down good, I may add her to the list.

 

[TOKA]

My pal has pretty much the same setup as this but with a 240 x 120 tent with two 400's stacked each side with 8 plants in each side, 4 week veg pulls around 60 z's per harvest with fractal's strawb diesel. So its gona be interesting to see how a vert SOG compares.

Subbed.

 

[SmokinErb]

My pal has pretty much the same setup as this but with a 240 x 120 tent with two 400's stacked each side with 8 plants in each side, 4 week veg pulls around 60 z's per harvest with fractal's strawb diesel. So its gona be interesting to see how a vert SOG compares.

Subbed.

Good to have you!

I won't be doing a SOG just yet, I'll be running them in 5 gallon bags at first. Once I get a mother picked out and start monocropping, I'll pack 2 or 3 gallon bags in there on multiple levels.

Id love a 1gpw harvest right now! 60 zips would be nice to have! Only got 0.4 gpw on my last harvest, so hopefully I can get this one around 1 gpw. Ultimately, my goal is to achieve 1.5 gpw in this cab.


So I'll do a pheno hunt with each strain, select my mothers, and then learn how they grow. I'll experiment with different growing methods in the first grow from clone, as well as different harvesting times.

Once the 1st set goes into flower, I'll start the pheno hunt on the 2nd strain, and repeat the same process, flowering it in the other cab.

I'll monocrop those for a couple runs while dialing my environment, upgrading as budget allows. After a couple of runs, I'll bring in the 3rd strain, and possibly even a 4th and repeat the process.

This way one cab will be monocropped at all times to guarantee a good harvest, the other cab can either be used for pheno hunting or monocropping for maximum production.

So... 3-4 mothers for a little variety, and then monocropping pulling harvests every 5 weeks. I'd love to get it dialed in well enough to pull 20 zips per light. I'm hoping to get 10 zips per 400w on my first run.

 

[SmokinErb]

Got my soil mixed tonight. Wanna give props where it's due to dank.frank for schoolin' me with his organic genius. I'd have been lost without his advice.

Basically, I got a standard organic mix that's been used time and time again. Bone, Blood, and Kelp. I'll take this base mix and tweak it grow after grow until its perfectly dialed for each strain.

I did run into a couple problems. First, I forgot to pick up EWC. So I'll mix that in probably tomorrow. Secondly, I picked up that 4 cu ft bag of coarse perlite... and the whole entire bag is dust. Hopefully they don't give me any trouble returning it, but it definitely ain't no coarse perlite. Anyway, I just used what I had on hand, not coarse perlite, but it was better than the shit I just bought.

Ingredients:

15 gallons of Pro Mix All Purpose (About 2/3 bale despite their 4 cu ft claims)
11 gallon of Dr. Earth Pot of Gold soil
3 gallons perlite
1 gallon vermiculite
*3 gallons EWC*

Then to that base mix I added:

1c Whitney Farms Blood meal
1c Dr. Earth Bone meal
1c Dr. Earth Kelp meal
1c Ag Lime

 

[dank.frank]

Well...keeping in mind that particular pro mix may not be organic...and this is not really so much my mix is much as this is an on hand variant of Phillthy's mix...

Granted...we did go over a bunch of different stuff. One of the main things here was affordability and what could be acquired locally...

And I'm not certain about your "AgLime" - you either want dolomite or like the three part blend. If you've used the lime you have successfully before, then no worries.



dank.Frank

 

[Marlo]

tagged

tagged

This looks like fun. Good luck.

 

[Jnugg]

Tagged

 

[SmokinErb]

Well...keeping in mind that particular pro mix may not be organic...and this is not really so much my mix is much as this is an on hand variant of Phillthy's mix...

Granted...we did go over a bunch of different stuff. One of the main things here was affordability and what could be acquired locally...

And I'm not certain about your "AgLime" - you either want dolomite or like the three part blend. If you've used the lime you have successfully before, then no worries.



dank.Frank

Got me a little worried, so I did a little research. Outside of the BX, HP, etc line, they make a few products for consumers (as opposed to professionals).

They have two different "All Purpose" mixes. A growers mix, and a planting mix. The planting mix contains some additional humus, mycos, and soy fert, but the growers mix as far as I can tell is pretty much amendment free - it may have the same "starter nutrient charge" that even the BX has. But as far as I can tell its peat, perlite, lime, and a wetting agent.

As for the lime, I really hope it'll work because this soil has done been mixed. I had 3 choices locally, pelletized lime, pulverized lime (my choice) and hydrated lime. I knew pelletized and hydrated was wrong so...

I believe the only real difference between dolo lime and garden lime is that the dolomitic lime has a higher Mg content. Could be wrong though. Should I mix a little epsom salts in there too? I skipped on the 3-part blend because I couldn't source everything locally. I've got some gypsum on hand, but it's probably too late for that.

But regardless, the lime has already been mixed in as well, so there's not too much I can do to remove it. But if its too low in Mg, I should obviously correct that.

Edit: I've got a little bit of that NSPB mix still left over. Not too much, just 10-15 gallons. Gonna mix that in with the mixture as well. It's definitely a more "complete" mix. Got it left over from my last grow.

Edited again: I just went to every single store in town looking for EWC and dolomite lime. At least 8 various stores - big box hardware, farm/grain, garden supply and Walmart. Nobody had either. Can't believe a garden center isn't going to have EWC of all things. Let alone 2 of them.

 

[dank420uk]

thats a great design you got there for the growrooms and its exactly what i need for my growing needs do you mind if i copy it Peace Dank420uk

 

[SmokinErb]

Construction.

I'll be editing this as the build progresses. I'll make a new reply every time I update this and let y'all know what I got done.

Now... I could get this done in one day, except I got a newborn and I'm a stay-at-home daddy. So far I've been allowed to cut 8 boards to length. Heh. Still don't think it'll take me more than a week. Got the supplies, anyway! Still need a few small things like the hinges, some weatherstripping and whatever, but the bulk of the supplies have been purchased.

 

[gurnt]

great minds think a like .
I run 3 400 top down hps, mh ,hps. on hanging racks
step down from 3 1000er.
So hope lots of pic.

 

[SmokinErb]

Got all the build supplies today. I'll have this built before too long. Will be editing the previous construction post as the build progresses.

Also went to the hydro shop and picked up some EWC to mix into the soil. They gave me some free trial/sample packs of a couple different mycos as well.

 

[SmokinErb]

Got the skeleton up. A few flaws in the design already but nothing major. My flowering cabs will actually be 4' x 3'10"

 

[Jnugg]

Looking forward to things movin' forward and seein' 3x 400w HPS's stacked.

 

[DHF]

With less than 16 sq ft I`d air on the side of 2 stacked 400`s instead of 3 Jnugg.....

Environmental control means waaaay more than increased wattage/heat to deal with in smaller setups....

Get ta work SE..........

Peace.....Freds...........

 

[SmokinErb]

Bout to head to work now, DHF. Just got back from the hardware store, decided to get some bigger corner braces, gonna swap those out to sturdy the frame, then get to work on finishing the build.

I'll be running TWO stacked 400's AFTER the first run. Can't fit another ballast in the budget right now. Not sure if I wanna buy two new 600's that i'll only use once (at least for now) or just stick with 400's from the start. Leaning towards the 600's though, price difference is minimal, and 600w is better than 400w. Bulb will pay for itself with harvest and I'll just grab four 400's and a ballast before the second round. PLUS, if I have the 600's, I feel like I can get away with stacking 600's in the winter time. But with summer fast coming..... decisions, decisions. I'll probably play it safe and stick with 400w, dont wanna be fighting heat with no money in my pocket for new, smaller bulbs.

I know DHF says he's never seen better results with more than 50w/sqft.... but he also says the learnin' is in the doin'.... if I can get away with stackin' 600's in the winter, I'm gonna be doing that.

Gonna get on this doobie and get to work. Will post some pics up later. Hopefully I can at least get the floor of it on and get it together in one piece. I'm not really a carpenter, so I don't really have any blueprints other than the sketchup diagram, I'm just kinda winging it. I ain't tryin' to cut any corners either, if something seems flimsy or common sense says "no" I take it apart and do it again. The braces I bought at first were real small and only one screw per side. Didn't offer much support other than holding it together. So I got some bigger ones that should offer quite a bit more rigidity. So its a slow, painstaking process. Think that frame I got up probably took me 3 hours haha... i'll get there yet...

 

[DHF]

2 stacked 600`s will most likely light bleach/heat scorch plants in that small of an area Bro.......and what I said about wattage over 50 per sq ft was that I`ve never seen increases in yield from increased wattage over 50 per , but.......

I`ve got many old head med growers that swear by 75 watts per sq ft for hardening and frostin up nuggage before end of cycle , but environment`s dialed waaay further than normal , and the plants can`t get as close to the lumens as with less watts per sq ft for fear of said bleaching/scorching as mentioned above.....so.....

All about tradeoffs....anyways...2-400`s will be challenging enough to dial in a cab bro , so start small , dial and do as yas learn.....

Peace....DHF..........