I finished the plumbing but still have a few items I'm waiting on.
The Sentinel DRT-1 recycle timer is on its way from my friend. Cant wait to take delivery. Once i have that i have to find proper home for it and we are off to the coco races.
The last item i need is the Waste reservoir. I found an 18 gallon tote that fit int he bottom cab with minor modification, its so tight i can't put the lid on it lol.
there are still odds and ends to finish. The light proofing is not 100% yet. The installation of the weather stripping was disappointing to say the least. so now i am planning to go the more difficult route of placing molding around the entire door frame. ill document that as well.
Heres the shots from the plumbing installation.
The saw dust is from the drilling of 4 - 1.5" holes for extra venting from the bottom cabinet up to the top.
Here's the install of the flood table and the drain line to the as of right now missing waste reservoir and the pump.
that's it for now. i installed my remote thermometer and am doing a shake down test at low fan speeds. Right now you cant hear the fans running with the door closed and im holding around 5 degrees above ambient or 75*F inside the box.... im pretty satisfied with that honestly.
Hey man I just found this thread for the first time, but you are doing pretty much what I am doing at the moment! I am setting up a base cabinet to use as a mom cabinet, and I too plan on just trying to "keep them alive" as opposed to growing the shit out of them. It'll be my "genetic library" cabinet, lol.
I have decided to go with DWC though. I think that will be better suited to keeping an ongoing bacterial colony present. I'll be trying to maintain this thing in a similar manner to how I maintain my planted aquariums. That's why I've decided to use an actual aquarium for my tub.
The sentinel DRT-1 recycle timer arrived and was installed post haste. Current setting is 3 minutes on and 48 hours off for the soil mom. I have some clones cooking for the coco trial run. The watering schedule will reflect the medium used obviously. But this timer is awesome. almost infinite settings from one second to one full day on. up to 72 hours off. and as many cycles as your little heart desires.
The temps are stable. Running 5 degrees above ambient with almost inaudible fan hum. The mom likes its new home but it does have some stress from forgetting to water her. she could probably use some calmag+ as well. ill mix some into the reservoir as soon as i get the circulation pump installed and running.
Here you can see the two reservoirs. The bucket is recycles from an old grow i had nearly ten years ago! it finally found a use and permanent home! The rubbermaid is an 18 gallon heavy duty tote. should be more then enough to allow for a week of waterings.
I thank everyone who has subscribed! i look forward to show casing the ability of the cabinet to grow some healthy heady moms!
The clones took off and these two are ready for the shake down run. another two are ready in case of complete failure. The mom is still alive and well and 6 more clones were taken today to curb major disaster.
A note on cloning in this cabinet. The first round of clones was almost lost due to too much light. A light block was fashioned out of a high tech piece of budweiser 24 pack material and taped on to the humidity dome. Problem solved. The clones stood up and took root.
The sentinel timer is set for 45 seconds on and 24 hours off for the coco clones at this time. The mom was taken off auto water and will be tended to by hand while we experiment. No nutrients are in the water as i want the clones to take root and establish themselves first.
The two clones are starting to show growth. Two more were planted today. I added some light nutrients to the reservoir. About 20 ML of grow and 20 of calmag. Here is some shots of the new clones. New ones in the front older ones in the back....
The sentinel is set up for 35 hours off 4 mins on. I am getting very little runoff from the pots accumulating in the waste reservoir but there is plenty of run off coning from the pots. I'm guessing evaporation is taking care of the balance.
I also installed a recirculation pump in the res for aeration. The first install was abysmal i couldn't sleep at night it was so loud. I ended up extending the outlet to the side of the rubbermaid so the discharged water first hit the side of the rubber maid and then fell tot he water below. MUCH quieter operation in this configuration. NOTE: i had a heavy duty variety rubber maid in the bottom of the cab as a res. It was constructed of stiff plastic and broke the other day. Flooding my shit with about 3 gallons of fresh water. This being stated i would be careful selecting rubber maids.
And finally here is the soil mom. shes about 4 months old and in far too small of a pot. shes being given calmag and veg nutrients to stem the tide. but we are losing the battle she desperately wants more root room. one of these clones is destine to replace her!
I installed tot locks on the doors of my cab to prevent sneaky landlords from checking my ish out.
in other news because of the same problem the RDWC was harvested and dismantled.
In the name of growing and fucking the system welcome to security 101 with hazy. What we need to do is lock the door with no sign of a lock to arise suspicion.
Enter this beautiful mechanism.
The magnetic action is actuated by a key on the outside of the door.
this is the cab with the light on. Zero leaks. No smell barely audible fans.
In the words of MacArthur. I SHALL RETURN. with a growlab tent and some bigger plantas.
These are the two moms. They are hammering along. i think they are starting to get root bound, i have some signs of deficiency/stress on the leaves. the node spacing is sweet. im thinking they are over growing the pots and the roots are starting to water log. ill repot them this weekend and see what happens. the bottom picture is of the carbon filter install. these girls are pumping out sweet sweet mary jane aroma, and that was a huge issue. so hopefully this will solve it.
Im going to attempt to flower in the Coco armoire. So i had to come up with a quick and dirty clone and mom cabinet. problems were i have no money. so i have to use scraps from previous setups.
Well i had this laying around....
I had scraps of panda fabric, a 120v 4 inch fan and the 150 watt MH that was my very first HID light ever.... shit lets getter done. Staples, screws and even the Tot-Loc to lock the door were all extras.
Why not just root prune and trim those moms down. No need to repot or use clones as replacements. You can keep them any size you like. Go Bansai style. I have 6 moms that I keep like that. That way you have multiple strains available aytime you like.
In the interest of having buds and out ofsnecessity, I need to flower the girls I have. So the armoire is being converted to a flower cab. The mini cab I just built will house the bonsai moms and clones. I even grabbed the square rose pots to help with root pruning. I'm considering buying a blumat system for the bonsai moms to keep maintenece of the little cab down to once a week.
I still need to locate my ph/tds/testing stuff. It's all packed away in boxes at the moment. All I need is a screen for the armoire to start my scrog and we are off to the races.
For the forseeable future the rdwc is mothballed. Theres no room for tgat set up at the current apartment.