[Speeding Mullet]

Hi everyone! Hope you've got a good bowl going, because this might be a bit of a long post to start off with.

I have decided to start a fresh grow, and document it from start to finish including the set up. Hopefully this will inspire some people, and maybe even help those who are going to follow the green Mandala bud road.

The beans are in the post, Kalichakra, and should arrive on monday all going smoothly, so this weekend I am putting the finishing touches to the room.

The "room" is a cupboard on a landing. The available growing space after installing lights and tank is: H186cm x W145cm x D50cm so its got a nice height and width to grow in. Hopefully stretch won't be a problem, and I should be able to maximise out the height.



I am going for a Dwc grow, basically becuase I have done 2 before, and I liked the results, so hopefully it will pay off here. The tank is approx 88 litres. Heres a foto:




Giving air to this tank was not a challenge. Check out this bad boy! £55, and 25ltrs air a minute supplying 6 12" airstones. Oxygenation? You bet! Also the 8 way splitter is a work of genious!




The tray for the plants is a to (i) let sign off someones house. I'm sure they won't miss it! The airlines escape through the side. A la:




Here's where it gets really clever. I savaged an old boiler for this turbine fan, its so powerfull it nearly blows you across the room. A little clever design and its mounted into a plasti tub, with a little air gap so the open coils cool themselves. In the process of making a carbon scrubber which will sit on the roof of the cubboard, and thats heat extraction and smell taken care of in 1 easy step. Also saved about 150 squidders!








Nutes are going to be courtesy of canna vega and terra flores. I have never bothered doing anything apart from making sure the ph is right. In my last 2 hydro efforts i was refilling the tanks 1ce a day cuz the girls were so thirsty, i didn't bother with flushing or an ec meter. I'm just gonna wing it this time too! Going to get some more rope for the 2nd 400whps tomorrow and hang it.
As you can see, looooads of room for the girls when they get going. Also a pair of skiing goggles, cuz i'm tired of only being able to make out vague shadows when I come out of the growing room! Plenty of mylar in there so its bright white when it gets going!




I know this has been a long and picture heavy first diary entry, and I'm starting as I mean to go on. Pose any q's you like (I may not be able to answer them, but I'll try) Infact, here's a Q for you!

4 plants or 6 in this room (not including the mother plant which will just be kicked into flowering with the rest) I'm thinking 4 bigguns, but obviously value any opinions. Cheers guys n Gals!

[Speeding Mullet]

Wow that was fast! I sent in a money order to GN on wednesday, and my seeds arrived today!
Nice looking bunch: Kalichakra, Ice and a free baggie of skunk#1 courtesy of Sam the Skunkman.
Kalichakra is what I'm going to concentrate on this time round. I don't want the hassle of dealing with 3 different types of plants, and forgetting which one is which all the time. So here's a little picture of the bundles of joy:

[Technique]

Champion!! right up my alley..

i'm about to kick off with some similar actions. actually identical. 2x 400w and dwc tho strain unknown yet as its unselelected. tho i am starting off with possibly 12. or perhaps 6. depends as i have only one res at the moment with 6 spaces.


and would really like to know how to get canna nutes cranking!! as i am going to be using canna vega and canna flores.. what is terra??

i looks like i here to learn!



..Tech!

[rantan]

Looks like youve got everything sorted mate...ive heard only good things about Kalichakra, i got some coming but cant start for another month
so i'll be watching with interest, good score with the fan ive got a couple myself an they move alot of air :smile:

looking good. good luch with the grow.

[Speeding Mullet]

Originally Posted by Technique

and would really like to know how to get canna nutes cranking!! as i am going to be using canna vega and canna flores.. what is terra??

The way I got the nutes going to avoid too much stress for the new plants is:

I start my water bubbling at least 24 hrs before I am going to plug the seedlings in to level out the temperatures, and get it good and oxygenated. At the same time I put about 1/4 strength nutes in, and let that settle in for the same persiod of time to let the diffusion take place. Checking the Ph is just right, I plug the cuttings in. The water should come up to just a few mm above the bottom of the net pots, so the roots are encouraged to grow down into the water. It also avoids the rockwool drying out to quickly under those 2 suns in there!

On what is the difference between canna and terra, I'm not at all sure. Maybe I have canna vega and canna flores, not terra flores. Whatever it is it says for hydro on the front.

Hope this helps, its good for me too, getting back into the swing of things now!

Rantan: The fan is the titties! I've only heard good stuff about Mandala aswell! For the price I think it will be excellent. I'm not at the level where I could warrant £100 on seeds yet!

The Green Bastard: Thanks for stopping by to donate luck dude!

[Speeding Mullet]

Its really starting to come together now!

I got the seeds (hopefuly) germinating now in damp paper towel. The whole plate is wrapped up in a ziplock, and placed over a tub of water with a heater in it. This keeps up the humidity and provides the slightly warmer area for the beans to pop in:



The 2nd 400wHPS is now slung, and it fits nicely in there. The ballasts are at opposite ends of the room to keep the temperature spread out more. I particularly like this foto actually, its like floating at the top of my grow room:




I filled up the tank today aswell. The pump works beatifully, and is quiter than expected. But look at those bubbles jump outta the tank, there really is some good oxygenation going on there!




The next job was to install the lid of the tank. I have decided to grow 5 plants, as I really want the ladies to be free to spread eagle as often as possible The net pots are 5cm, and a little small, but I've used them before and I'll use them again. If properly fitted to the base they provide perfectly adequate support to the plants.




I have cut an access panel into the base for watering and nuting. This is essential, as before I had to deal with lifting up the whole thing to get water in, and It was a big
You can also see that I have built in dividers. I am doing this because of the way that I am growing. I do not have space enough for a mother room, so Instead when I spot a male I can pull it out easily without a tangled rootmass.
I will then plug a clone in from one of the other plants that has been rooted in a small propogator to get it started.




Thats all for now folks, I will update when the seeds pop. I'm so excited now, Its only a matter of time before

[Speeding Mullet]

2 Seeds popped last night, and another two have cracked, and are on their way!
Props to Mandala seeds, the beans looked healthy and a good size, and they are prooving their vigour with the paper towel method. Check out my babies!




I believe it was Spliffmastaflex that wanted to see a more detailed view of the seperators in the tank. Here it is:




No my system is not to let!

Because of the aparant virility of the seeds, I am seriously considering setting up a mother room for just two females, in a really really small seperate grow. I just don't want to lose 3-4 weeks every grow I do. I am going to look into this and the bonsai method of vegging mothers.

Chio 4 now

[yts farmer]

canna terra is for soil i think.

canna substra is for use with medium like hydroton,mapito and rockwool.

canna aqua is for use in a recirculating reservior

[Speeding Mullet]

Yts, thanks for the info, On closer inspection I have the substra, which is lucky really, I wasn't paying attention when I bought it!

Anyway, I saw a stroke of pure genious when I was out getting some stuff for my pond, and had to have it. Check out my new mother room to be! Its an aluminium fold away lader for camping. (not any more!) It cost £24.99.



The thick wooden shelves will hold the weight of a plant in soil, and of the flouro lights I am going to use for the vegging of the mothers. In the photos you can see 4 shelves, but I am going to cut away 2, to leave 2 chambers, for two different strains. Life just got better! Now I don't have to worry about waiting weeks to catch out the blokes!
I've got a bit of spare mylar left over, so that will stop the light from getting out. I just have to source some dirty cheap flouros now!