Magic Cannabus upgrades. 400W CMH + 256W F32T8. Organic perpetual love fest

Hello everyone! I'm excited to announce a new organic soil project. I had a 250W HPS overhead and 256W of T8 shop lights around the sides of this chamber, but I was not happy with the power of that HPS. I bought a ballast core and upgraded the parts in my home-made ballast. I now have a 400W HPS overhead and for now the 256W of T8 shop lights(two tubes in each corner).

My DIY ballast when it was a 250W(a couple parts haven't been put on yet in this shot):


My soil is not a precise mix. I have a lot of coir in there, probably 35-40%, possibly around 15-20% peat, and probably about a 40% mix of verm, perlite, sifted scoria(lava rock), marble dust, and then from time to time, I add in a bit of composted llama manure(3 years composted), some horse manure, or some aerated compost tea from time to time, so the exact amounts are unclear. I try to treat my bin as a living project. I let the soil cook, keep moisture in there, and turn it from time to time. I amend with bio-tone starter plus, and Jobes organic tomato fertilizer(has beneficials in small amounts). I not only use aerated tea on the bin, but I give it to the plants too. I brew mine with a small pump in a kitchen drink pitcher and a nylon full of starters(I put the air stone in the nylon with the feedstock and bury that all under aquarium rock).

My flowering chamber is about 6.5 square feet of floor space, with a total budding area of close to 8 square feet(there's a rim around the bottom). It's about 6 feet floor to ceiling, so I'm focusing on training out a nice branchy canopy. Some day I may start a SCROG if I can figure out how to work it into my method, but for now I do all the training by hand, both through LST, and I FIM top them.

Flowering chamber(picture is from an old grow):


I veg in progressive pots. I start with a cottage cheese/yogurt containers or party cups(I only fill it half way to start with). Once the roots colonize that half cup, I turn them over and they come right out, usually without anything falling off the root ball. I drop in some dirt to fill the bottom half and then put the plant back in the cup with more dirt around the sides of the existing root mass. After this I move them to a 52oz convenience store cup. Obviously the stress level involved is low because I never have to break up the existing roots. Plus, I can use the same lids for most of these containers, and lids are awesome because they help the roots reach higher up into the soil, plus they create a humidity/air zone between the soil and the lid that sometimes causes roots to grow out of the surface of the soil. When I transplant them for flower, they get buried a tad bit deeper, so this works out really well!

Here is an example(not the greatest, but the only one I have a picture of right now):



Here's a pic of the cups:


After the plant is big enough and rooted well, we will be transplanting to the grow bags we just made(thanks honey!!!(even though she won't read this.... lol)). The bags are made from doubled-up landscaping fabric(chemical-free(very important!!!!!!!)), and they are square with an 8x8 inch base, and 12 inches tall with a strong folded rim that also works as handles. These hold about 2.75 US dry gallons, or about 12.5 liters for our international friends.... I should be able to fit about 15 of these in my cabinet for a bit over 41 gallons total in there. The really sweet part is they are tall enough so when I put the root mass from the 52oz cups in there, it leaves about 3 inches to colonize in every direction. The downside to this being a transition from .3 gallons to 2.75 gallons with no in-between step. My veg setup is nowhere near big enough to veg them in planters that large to start with. I'm going to seriously need to upgrade my veg space. I have about 3 sq. ft. of veg space, with about 200W of CFL overhead. It's pretty small.

Here's a shot of that veg light:


I have some exciting new genetics. Right now I have:

4 Blue Hash(Dinafem) females
2 Northern Lights #1 females(local breeder)
1 NL#1 of unknown gender(same breeder)
1 NL#1 male
2 (fem?) Jamaicans(IBL actually from Jamaica),
1 Shiva(???? seed from my cousin, not sure and can't contact him at the moment)

Then I have one each of the following feminized:

Critical(Dinafem)
Jack Herer(Dinafem)
Pineapple Chunk(Dinafem)
Vintage 2006(CH9 seeds)
White Shark(Dinafem)
White Widow(Dinafem)

The problem with these is I am starting them for someone else, so I am trying to get clones right now. I clone in coco coir pucks, and I use honey as my rooting agent. I am taking two cuts from every plant I am going to flower or give away. I already did cuts of all but one of the Blue Hash, and most of those feminized lines. The heat wave has been hurting my girls though and reducing how many useable branches there are for cloning. I want to get these done soon so I can free up the space if nothing else.

Anyway, there's more to come, including pictures. I should be putting 6 plants into 12/12 in the next couple days when the chamber is fixed up and ready. I may veg them a week or two under the HPS since my perpetual is not going yet. Eventually I want them vegged in those grow bags so they are all ready for flowering.

Thanks for stopping by!

I tried starting some Rocket Chunk, North #1, and a few others, but sadly my seeds are very old. Hopefully if I can get some money ever, I will try to order some replacements somewhere.

Anyway, here's some pictures finally. Had to devise a way to get the pics off the SD card....

Here's a picture of the grow bags. We have 6 completed and I am really in love with them despite no plants in them yet.


This is a shot of the veg cabinet, the cloner, and the brewer


This is another angle on the veg setup, so you can really see the branches


The freakish heat wave that hit us this year almost killed a few plants. White Widow took it worst. I flushed her after I got her cooled down and then treated the soil with AACT.


Now for incredible contrast, here's White Shark after the same heat wave:


That's it for right now! More updates soon. I'm starting the flowering chamber up this week, and probably going to do an 18/6 cycle for the first couple weeks. Right now they're under those CFL 24/7

Here is a picture of the cloner with the lid open. It has a bed of moist perlite in the bottom for humidity, and the cuttings are in coir pellets(Fibergrow brand). I use honey for sealing the cuttings.

So I checked genders. So far we have 4 Blue Hash females(100% rate), 2 Northern Lights #1 females, one NL #1 male, and one NL #1 that I can't identify yet. I also have two Jamaicans that are not yet showing. All the others except Shiva(Shiva Skunk?) are feminized, so I haven't been checking them as closely. Out of that entire cabinet, I got one male, and I don't think I'm going to get any more.

Nice roots coming out of those cups. What are you using for a clone chamber? Kinda looks like a plastic cake container bottom. cheers

Yep that's exactly what it is! Dollar Tree cake serving tray.

Nice! I was looking into using those myself. Hows it growin? cheers

The heat has been horrible. I've never had it this hot in March before! I almost have the flowering chamber finished. I'm putting the last touches on ventilation and painting. It's almost all ready. I'm going to veg in it for a week or two, especially to help them recover from all the heat damage.

The cuttings are hanging in there though. Unlike the adult plants, they love this heat. They aren't under so much light. I've been brewing more tea, I want to make sure my soil in the bins is ready to plant in here soon.

I have my timer all configured. I use an Intermatic HB800RCL outdoor timer, and I absolutely love the thing. It handles up to 12amp inductive, it can handle getting wet(don't submerge it though!), and it's affordable. They make an indoor version of it now but I don't know the model number. The HB800RCL has two timer-controlled outlets though, and that's awesome. This is good because my shop lights run off a power strip inside the cabinet, as does the cooling fan for the HPS, but the ballast for the HPS is in a computer case on top of the cabinet.

I have a Pelonis pedestal fan, that is pretty similar to the Stanley/Lasko blower fan, but bigger and oscillating(can be disabled at least).

Here's a picture of the ventilation assembly. It's such a mess in there right now that it might be hard to make sense of this image. It's a ventilation box. The concept is that you put a fan inside a box, and a intake on one side of the box and an outflow on the other side(in this case it goes through a small wall. The intake vent is 4 inches, and a drier vent pipe is used to connect that with a 4 inch flange on the top of the cabinet. This creates an air flow channel, and the outflow blows all that air straight over to where the AC unit is. I came up with this idea for ventilation last time I built a cabinet, and I was so pleased with it that I will probably always build my systems this way.









That last shot is inside the cabinet looking up at the outflow vent.

More shots of the cloner:

Nice setup magiccannabus
I´ll follow you


HD

Thanks man, the flowering chamber is almost all set up! I'm eager to get going on all this. I've been testing my timer for the last few days in my bedroom to make sure it is turning on and off. So far so good. I've used it before and loved it, but I'm paranoid enough to make double sure.

Right now I am planning to order a Philips Mastercolor Retro White Ceramic Metal Halide as my primary flowering bulb. I have a 4kv pulse rated socket though, and the CMH thread seemed to say that you need a 5kv setup. Am I interpreting that wrong? I can't seem to find a 5kv socket anywhere.

The total insanity of the weather here has not done the cuttings any good. I lost about 6 of them now. Fortunately I take cuttings in pairs, though one strain lost both cuttings. Still, things are going pretty well.

I am really excited to announce that I finished building the ballast housing and wiring everything. The ballast test-fired just fine with an HPS lamp. I'm looking forward to my CMH bulb though! I've never spent that much on a damn light bulb before! Looks like it should be worth it though.

So without further ado, here's the ballast housing(with the cover off), and a shot of the lamp running. I would like to know if everyone thinks I should run a ground line from the ballast housing to the reflector so I can ground it too. Is that a good idea?


A Venture S51 ballast replacement kit mounted on a board, which in turn is mounted in an old PC case(shown without cover, and with the outgoing wires won't just come in from the side of the case)

Here is a shot of my make-shift cooling rig. I found this 120V fan while dumpster diving. I didn't know what voltage it was, because it has no real labels on it, but eventually I figured out it was 120V and I just wired the leads to the terminals bringing power from the wall.



Here's a shot of the lamp starting up

Big news today! I recently got a Philips 400W Mastercolor Retro White ceramic metal halide lamp for my flowering chamber.

Here are some shots of the test-firing. I don't have the side-lights in there right now, but I will be installing them soon. I have a lot of shop lights and not many of them work anymore. I'm dissecting one to figure out how repairable they are.

Anyway here's the pictures:

Here is the ballast case. I hadn't finished putting the high-temp(1800 degree) spray paint on the case cover(not shown).

Does anyone know if I can change the title of this thread? I'm planning on going with CMH lamps from now on. I'll only be using the HPS if the CMH fails and I am awaiting a replacement....

Today I picked up more coir pucks for cloning. I think I may build a bubble cloner again though, they are so much faster and reliable. Having multiple options is always great.

I also got a bag of Jobes "Knockout" tomato fertilizer. It's an organic mix with a new Biozome fungus in it. It was a pretty big bag(10lbs I think) and was only about 7 dollars. This stuff will last me a long time. I'm going to give it a try and see how it works. I also have Espoma Flower Tone, and got their Bio-Tone Starter Plus. Picked up a bag of Espoma Garden Lime too, and was really pleased to see they increased the size of the bag and the price got smaller. Win win!

Additionally, I got my CocoTek bail today. It's a 5kg brick, and I've probably used 1.5 of that to fill out my soil bins. I think my coir content was getting too low, because the mix was definitely retaining water and showing over-watering signs.

Lots of finishing work on all this. I will post a better update soon

So I have been busting my ass to get this cabinet running and I think I am ready to put plants in there as soon as the paint on the floor dries. I still only have 6 finished bags, but I think that more will get made today. I am so pumped about getting this all going!

Here's a couple shots from the old flowering chamber, which is now serving as my veg chamber(until I get my new veg chamber done).





Here's a shot of my double tea brewing setup. I have this going temporarily to facilitate all the tea I want for transplanting.



This is a sad sight; the corpse of White Widow. I was really looking forward to growing her, but the heat wave killed her. She was a very sensitive girl. I got the seed for free and have no others. I've never had the money to order seeds, or much of anything else, so I'm restricted right now to seeds gifted by friends.

Here are two new shots of the flowering cab with the lights all running in a test. There's now a full 656W in there, making for about 90W per square foot.





Here is the ballast all finished up and running. The white line coming out of the front is a late edition of a ground line running to the hood. In the background you can see my 8 outlet wall box and GFCI, which is now installed and seems to be working great.



Here is the ventilation box. I sealed all around the chamber and this box, and now the suction is much better. It holds the panel facing the camera on there by suction, even if I don't remember to screw it down.



That's all for new pictures right now. Hopefully by tonight there will be plants in there. I'm going to veg them for a week or two under the CMH before starting up flower. After that it's perpetual. I probably should get another CMH when I can afford one so they can veg under one too.

Hey everyone! Got 10 plants moved to the flowering chamber. Nearly depleted my soil bin though Still, it's a huge move forward. I'm really excited. Still need to take my timer back there and get all the lights on it.



There are the following plants in there:

3 Blue Hash/Northern Skunk
2 Northern Lights
1 Shiva(????)
1 CH9 "Jack"
1 Barney's Pineapple Chunk
1 CH9 Critical Mass 33
1 "Equinsu Ocha"(lost the ID tag so I call it that)

So they're entering the chamber on 4-7-2012, and if I veg them another week or two, they should be starting to finish around mid to late June. Exciting times!

great job !!
tagged!

Thanks for stopping by everyone, and thanks for the encouraging rep messages!

Does anyone know if there's a way for me to change the thread title to say 400W CMH instead of HPS? I think I'd get more people on searches that are looking for CMH grows that way, and maybe more CMH-specific advice.

Anyway, I woke up about 3 minutes after lights-on today. I have them on 18/6 right now, and so far everything is working well. The power cords are not getting hot, the timer isn't getting hot, the GFCI is not tripping, and the plants are handling it well. I have them in a room that is at most 20 feet of wiring away from the main breaker panel of the house, and my light is well within the current limits of the circuit, but I like to play things safe and triple check things(or more).

So exciting though! I've been working on this cabinet on and off again for three years. Had some friends go kinda crazy on us and I had to stop entirely for a while, plus heat got to be too much. I have an AC on the grow now though, so we're gonna see this thing through this time! I've been trying to grow for 7 years. I have autism and cannabis helps me medically. Plus I have a gluten intolerance and a lot of other problems. This grow is not a commercial operation, this is a medical grow in a non-med state. I have survived by digging cans and bottles out of the trash and scrapping appliances(also found in the trash). Even getting this far has been really hard. I'm hoping this will be a big move toward independence for us. I'm also hoping we'll have a steady supply of reliable medicine, because I hate being unable to eat sufficiently. I sorta feel like I've climbed a mountain with this project, and I'm just about to reach the top!