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

[magiccannabus]

Updates for 6/4/2012

They are all recovering nicely except the one BH X NS(#4). They've perked back up and are stretching a bit more and filling in with bud more every day.

Here's a family photo:

 

[magiccannabus]

Here is the top of CH9 Jack fem. She's got a ton of bud sites and they are looking frosty already, but they are very small.

Here is EO. A lot had to be cut off her, but what is left is bouncing back well.

This is Critical Mass 33. She's got the biggest tops so far, and many of them:

Here is Blue Hash X Northern Skunk(#3). I didn't figure she'd be the one to make it over all the others, but she has the second biggest buds in the cabinet so far, and is growing like crazy.

Last but not least is Pineapple Chunk. She has less tops than the others, but she has an extremely Indica pheno and has big thick stems. The bud sites are stacking up in a really dense configuration. I was really worried reading grow reports about this strain, but I got really lucky and got an Indica variety of it. Some people were reporting 100+ day finishing times, but I don't think this plant looks like it's developing that slowly. The example plants I saw were mostly very sativa. Anyway here's the picture:

 

[StoopheadFred]

Awesome setup man, nice job on the grow so far! Sounds like you've been having some problems but the plants are looking good. I'm very interested to see how this turns out for you, I'm basically doing a smaller version of your grow with a combo of 150w CMH and 150w of CFL.

 

[magiccannabus]

Right on man. I'm not here to break any records or anything. I'm really just trying to cut the cord of dependency to illegal street markets, and all the awful people that business can involve. This is the maiden voyage of this setup, so I knew there would be setbacks. I didn't realize how insanely over-packed the cabinet would become though. I truly was wrong about how many plants this cabinet should house. Guessing too many is good though. Between various health problems and males, I went from about 15 plants in veg, to about 10 in flower and then to 6, and now I have 4 fully ok plants, one half-plant that is now healthy, and 1 plant that is now 2-3 nodes and probably not healthy enough to keep going.

I haven't posted pictures of the veg setup in a while, because I have been really meaning to build a new veg chamber in the other room where the AC keeps the temps stable. I changed the airflow in the house a bit to hit the veg chamber better though and I am already seeing rooting on cuttings that previously were just stalled out. I've also transplanted Jamaican(an exclusive import from Jamaica, not a commercial strain) and Northern Lights #3 into grow bags. To reuse tags, I'm probably going to change the name of NL #3 to NL #1 since the old #1-2 were both males. I want to give them some good time in the veg chamber to root out the bags before I use them to replace harvested plants in the flowering chamber. I now also have two females of either "Purple Afghan" or maybe Early Sativa, or possibly my friend's strain. I'm not sure because he cut down a bunch he didn't have room for, and they got all mixed up. Either way, there's quite a distinct calyx on one of them, so they're going to get flowered. I know they're one of several good options though, so I'm not worried about what they're called exactly. So that at least makes 4 girls lined up for replacement, and they range in age and size a bit, so it will probably be Jamaican first, then NL, then the bigger of the two unknowns, followed by the smaller, and then hopefully the next wave of clones.

Cloning has just been disastrous. I've never had failure rates like this even when I was a newbie. It has been baffling, until I discovered at least one parasite and improved fresh airflow quite a bit. Things really seem back on track, even though I'm rooting cuttings that are already halfway through flower. I'm doing all my cloning in coir pucks, and so far one cutting of Critical Mass 33 shot out some roots already. I planted her in my soil mix, and will be keeping a close eye on her as she roots. I'm not going to let these genetics slip away!

Anyhow Fred, if you have a grow log I will go check it out. Sounds fun!

 

[StoopheadFred]

I definitely hear you about wanting to be self-sufficient and stay away from the goons of the underworld, from what I hear you guys have it pretty bad down south in terms of the quality of buds and the people moving it around. It's gotta feel pretty awesome though to have some home-grown dank in an area where it's not common. Lucky for me I live in Washington where things are a bit more lax and the temperatures aren't as high!

Seriously though props for being able to grow down there and deal with temps. I had to take out the 150w of CFL's I had in my cab because I couldn't keep the temps in check... and that's with like 70* ambient. I haven't ventured into the cloning/breeding arena just yet because it's so easy to just go to a dispensary and buy clones.

No journal yet cause I'm still trying to figure out what lighting will work best with my space. I've got a 400w cooltube hps, many CFL's, and 2x 150w CMH's but I can't seem to find the right combo for my 2x3x5 tent.

 

[magiccannabus]

How about this thought: Take those two CMH bulbs and mount them in vertical cool tubes that are placed at optimal positions amongst the plants, then put some chicken wire on a frame about 6-8 inches out from that. You may not even need that though if you hook your ventilation up so the air is being sucked up both the cool tubes and then out of the cabinet. Then put your 400W HPS/CMH overhead and you have a vertical grow filling out the lower portions, with intensive light shining down on the prime buds from the horizontal bulb. CFL aren't bad, but those CMH are totally superior in basically every way.

If you are worried about a cool tube for those CMH, I suggest you look up Pyrex Bake-A-Round tubes. They're good for these sorts of projects and sometimes pop up at thrift stores. If there were any practical way to do it, I'd send you a couple, but you really can find them pretty cheap if you look around. Regular glass won't work as well, those Pyrex tubes are good borosilicate glass.

What I'm learning about the ventilation situation is that you have to think about it on a couple levels.

First of all, there's your main air exchange, which is the amount in, amount out of the total cabinet space. Heat rises(basically), so most systems draw air in at the bottom and blow it out at the top. This is how mine works.

There is another aspect that I over-looked in my initial design, and that's turbulence. I've been studying how plants breathe a bit more and have also made an intuitive realization about how a high airflow can actually suffocate a plant in certain conditions. Ever stuck your head out of the window of a moving car and tried to breathe? With constant airflow in an unchanging stream, the plants weren't breathing well. So I had to install a fan blowing across the main air current, and across the plants themselves. This made a visible difference, and is toughing them up a bit.

I'm worried if you're having issues with cooling 150W of CFL in that space. In my veg area I have around 200W of CFL over less than 3 square feet, and even with the lame cooling system in that old cabinet I'm still basically at ambient temperatures a foot below the light array. What sort of ventilation fan are you using? Have you researched the Stanley/Lasko blower fan? Those things are epic reliable and I've had two of them now that have run for years continuously and filled with cat hair and still kept running. They can move as much air as a large box fan on high, but are far smaller and easier to mod. Also, when the air leaves your tent, where does it go? The ventilation has to do enormously more for the HPS/CMH setup.

I keep hearing about people in med states going to clone stores. Its nice to see the future on the horizon even if it's not in my state yet....

 

[StoopheadFred]

Hey brotha just out of respect I'll take this to PM, don't want to clutter your grow!

 

[magiccannabus]

Here's some group shots of the grow 6/12/2012:

 

[magiccannabus]

Developing buds:

Blue Skunk #3:

Jack:

Pineapple Chunk:

Critical Mass 33:

EO:

 

[magiccannabus]

I removed Blue Skunk (#4) from the chamber as it is doing poorly and unlikely to recover. Once I got it into my veg space and out of the constant airflow, I could see the gnats in it. I'm guessing this is where it started. Still not certain why hundreds of gnats would spawn out of this bag and not the others, but so be it..... The others are recovering beautifully. I will get new shots soon.

Pineapple Chunk is starting to swell now. There is almost no way to describe how amazing this plant smells. I have smelled a lot of pot and I have never smelled something quite so beautiful. It really has me wondering what I am in store for. The buds and bud leaves are just coated in trichomes, but I'm not sure if any of them are even going cloudy yet. This leads me to believe I am going to be waiting at least a couple more weeks for her at least. Sadly she's swelling before the others, so I think that means I might even be waiting longer for them.

I have to wonder though about flowering times. So many people claim this or that flowering time, but it seems like a lot of people don't count the first couple weeks of 12/12 as flowering. Interestingly enough, most of my plants are about 2 weeks behind what point I would expect them to be by now if the breeder's flowering time really meant from day 1 of 12/12. Most of them are still in the floral development stage, and Pineapple Chunk is just starting swell. It's been 51 days since these girls were put to 12/12, but they look like what I'm often seeing people's plants at a claimed 30 days. Are my buds just delayed a bit from the health stress issues?

It's good to finally be seeing the branches shaping up like colas, with bud clusters slowly but surely growing toward each other. Jack is finally filling in a bit like that's been his plan all along, but each bud cluster is tight and small still. It's frosty though and will probably produce some dense and potent buds. Critical Mass 33 is a real stunner, with trichomes all over her, and a branchy structure packed with buds. Her small stature made me worry about her potential yield, but that was silly of me now that I can see the buds filling in. Blue Skunk (#3) isn't very frosty at all, but it is developing big floral stacks, that are now even bigger than the tops on Critical. She hasn't even started to swell though. Could be interesting! EO is still a lot smaller than the others, but some of the branches on it now have nice little tops on them, which are frosty and catching up to the others faster than I ever expected.

Tired and must sleep now. Tomorrow I will try to get pictures

 

[magiccannabus]

Here's a family photo on 6/19/2012

Here is Pineapple Chunk. She's starting to swell. Her odor is beyond amazing. I've never grown or smelled pot this delicious. She's getting very frosty too.

A look at just one of P.C.'s tops:

Blue Skunk(#4):

CH9 Jack:

See next post for more......

 

[magiccannabus]

Here is Critical Mass 33. She's a beauty. Filling out with bud everywhere. Not even swollen yet, she already has buds an inch or more across. She's very frosty too.

Last of all is EO. She's filling out with buds on what's left of her. I'm glad I'll get a chance to smoke this, and I am hopeful the clones will take.

 

[Guest 142956]

I'm a big fan of Jobe's products also. I like the 4-4-4 to make tea with and the Vegetable and tomato version to put into the soil. I am one of the doesn't like coco coir guys though because I have had gnat problems every time I used it. I think your soil holds too much water, that you would be better served by taking your basic mix at 3 parts and adding 2 parts perlite or Fuller's earth automotive floor sweep. The floor sweep will aid in water holding and aeration at the same time. I have read all your chronicles and you are moving forward at a good pace, the more problems you have the more you learn. I gave up growing in the summer because I learned how to grow all the smoke I need with one 400 watt HPS used vertically, 6 plants per cycle, 4 cycles during the cool months. I also like wick systems as this eliminates the variable of overwatering and they work with organics or chemical grows. Plus the reservoir cuts down on the time spent watering. I have also gone 11/13 from seed using CFL's till they stand up straight then on to the HPS. When fall finally comes I am going to experiment with the blossom set spray in the early phase of flowering say week 3 and 4 to see if budset is affected positively.

 

[Guest 142956]

4 gallons coir
1/2 gallons composted manure
1/2 gallons sphagnum peat
1 tablespoon per gallon Espoma Bio-Tone Starter Plus (diverse and has beneficials)
1 tablespoon per gallon Espoma Flower Tone (diverse, but old bag without Bio-Tone)
1 tablespoon per gallon Jobe's Organics Knock Out rose food(has updated Bio-Zome)
1 tablespoon per gallon Jobe's Organics Vegetables and Tomatoes food(has different Bio-Zome)
2 tablespoons per gallon Espoma Pelletized Dolomite Lime(pelletized kinda sucks, but it's what they sell around here, and I really don't want to grind it all up.
1/2 tablespoons per gallon pelletized garden gypsum.
1/2 tablespoons per gallon of bone meal

I take about two buckets of that and mix it with a 40 pound bag of decent topsoil(contains beneficials that are hard to get in tea, like nematodes). That's probably about 3 gallons total. I add in about 3 gallons of perlite and 5-6 cups of vermiculite. I treat the soil bin with AACT when I add water to it. I keep the soil at a slightly moist humidity, not allowing it to get wet and stagnant, but not allowing it to dry up and die either. I have added a couple handfuls of cheap, untreated kitty litter. I use a very cheap scoopable litter, which is natural white clay. Very cheap and it doesn't take much.

Very complicated soil mix, makes it hard to pick out any one part causing problems.

Coco coir Ugh! bugs and calcium def issues.
6 different ferts!
good topsoil? If it comes in a bag then you can't say it is "good".

Peat, compost, topsoil and coir added together are going to make for a wet soil for sure. You need to cut this at least with 33-40% perlite or Fullers earth floor sweep. I also see the wrong lime component. Dolomite takes too long to become available in a 8-10 week flower period.

If stuck with using these componenets I would use 2 parts peat, 1 part compost and 2 parts Fullers earth floor sweep or perlite, preferably the Fullers earth. I would add 2 tablespoons of hydrated lime per gallon of mix.

I would add the veg and tomato Jobes at 1/4 cup per gallon and 1 tablespoon of the Bio-tone starter plus per gallon, and 1 tablespoon epsom salts per gallon

I would feed with a tea made from 1 cup 4-4-4 Jobes organic and 2 tablespoons of blackstrap mollasses bubbled till it's foamy in 4 gallons of water once a week. This at 30-32 ounces of tea per 2 1/2 gallons of soil. Water them as they need it.

And you will probably do better with fewer plants in bigger pots.

Just trying to be helpful, don't shoot the messenger!

 

[magiccannabus]

Thanks for stopping by Bill. This round of growing has been very frustrating in a lot of ways, but I've had a lot worse happen so I'm pleased with the prospect of having some home-grown buds. Jack and Critical have been producing nanners lately though, but I've been plucking them. I think I'm going to treat them with kinetin soon to suppress that until flower is done.

There's a Napa auto parts store near here. I may try to see if they have any 8822 Floor Dry. I think it'll be better than the perlite.

Anyhow, here's a few new pics;

Here is a shot from the veg chamber. It really shows how the same mix with more coir does better. On the left is Jamaican(put into flowering chamber next day), and on the right is Northern Lights(plant 3)

Group photo of the flowering chamber:

Here's one of the top branches on Pineapple Chunk

Here is another top on Pineapple Chunk

Pineapple Chunk is the most amazing smelling plant I've ever smelled, it's not skunky at all. It's really more like fruit and incense, maybe even opium. It's an intoxicating mix, so to speak. It's still just so dark green. I've seen a couple amber trichs near the very top of the plant, but it's not even 100% cloudy yet(maybe 95%?). I'm hoping that means it can still really pack on some weight. She may end up being our only really great result for all I know, so I want to maximize it. She gets the best spot for light. Sadly she got some pollen from Crit and Jack, but there are more pistils piling up every day.

 

[Guest 142956]

Definitely going to get some bud and things aren't all bad for sure. As for getting the pollen you might get some feminized seeds out of it if you let her go long enough for them to mature which would be a good thing. Stress related hermaphrodism usually makes for good seed. Hot summer grows are the hardest in my opinion and where I live spider mites and summer go hand in hand.