Micro Adventures with Mr. Sparkle

[Gnz]

Sunday update:

Bogan is moving along, the think different has maybe a week or two more, the stunted auto mazar is bulking out wouldn't even know the troubles it had with germ, overall the box is running good.

Might start some more auto seeds today or cut some clone, or something to fill the current empty space.

Ashla is doing alright, still need to make the tray support, also tweaked the programming to make them run a bit wetter, also will be upping the nitrogen ratio as i think they will all benefit. Other than that the plants on the left will be done in the next 1.5-3 weeks, small yields but that was expected with the issues, and i threw the C99 seedlings over into it.

Also i'm thinking i might run this box for a bit longer then possibly retire it for awhile as one i'm in a state of oversupply, two some of these autos are quite promising in comparison and if i start playing more with them i'll still be producing way more than i need, and when its out of production i'll upgrade it to a 4 COB led pattern and run a cooler spectrum as the combo of flowering nutes and warmer spectrum i've noticed make the plants stretch at tad more than i like, and it will allow me to get a wider light dispersion in there instead of having hot spots and dark corners.


Harvest, the Auto Chemdog is finished so she got chopped this morning and is hanging for her drying time till she hits the jars. Turned out quite well even with all the early issues.

As for the previous Dark Devil, she curing nicely, got a bit over 9 grams off her which is good considering 400ml of mix, and running up to another 13 plants at the same time, i don't expect to get the same yields if i had a bunch packed in there but still if i could get say 65% of it, will be looking at a good 80+ grams a run, but that's just numbers, anyways i'll be dabbling in some shortly.

Have a good sunday everyone.

Everything is looking great dude, let me know what you think of the dark devil when you feel like a smoke!

Because of how over supplied you are, have you thought about going even smaller? A full perpetual veg cab/flower cab rig inside one server case like a nano-ngb style box would be an awesome experiment.

 

[je'rome]

Awesome micro grow Sparkle... By any chance can you give the dimensions of the boxes?

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Everything is looking great dude, let me know what you think of the dark devil when you feel like a smoke!

Because of how over supplied you are, have you thought about going even smaller? A full perpetual veg cab/flower cab rig inside one server case like a nano-ngb style box would be an awesome experiment.

The Dark Devil is decent, needs more of a cure, but cant really give a good judge of it yet as ive only tried it once, also my opinion will be a bit different as i use a vaporizer (flowermate v5 mini), so flavor is always different in comparison, use to be a joint type guy but since ive switched i rarely roll anymore.

As for making a smaller perpetual, i haven't really thought about it too much as i'm pretty small anyways, if i had the tool access id probably make a slightly bigger (1.5x case size) single wood veg/flower combo box, to replace the pc cases, as its alot easier to design it right than trying to retrofit pc cases, for those purposes.

One of the best designed boxes I've had in the past, had side by side veg and flower chambers, with removable drying trays above the veg side, and it was super light proof, magnetic door latches and more quite than the pc as i was using a slower 200mm fan which blew through a carbon tray, and even if the fan failed it still kept relatively cool due to the natural convection that would occur, then i moved and gave it to a good friend as i could always make another when the time came, which turned out to be the current pc cases for a different challenge and to be able to hide them in plain site.

Awesome micro grow Sparkle... By any chance can you give the dimensions of the boxes?

Bogan is a Corsair 330r, the tray dimensions in it are roughly 20cm x 40cm or 8"x16" which is 0.86 SqFt and from tray bottom to lights its roughly 45 cm or 17.5"

Ashla is a Antec P280 the tray dimensions are roughly 20.5cm x 46cm or 8"x18" which is right around 1.0 SqFt and from tray bottom to lights its roughly 50 cm or 20"

That's going from rough memory for the height, tray sizes i more or less remember

 

[Dion]

Bogan is a Corsair 330r, the tray dimensions in it are roughly 20cm x 40cm or 8"x16" which is 0.86 SqFt and from tray bottom to lights its roughly 45 cm or 17.5"

Ashla is a Antec P280 the tray dimensions are roughly 20.5cm x 46cm or 8"x18" which is right around 1.0 SqFt and from tray bottom to lights its roughly 50 cm or 20"

That's going from rough memory for the height, tray sizes i more or less remember

HOLY FUCK MATE!!!!

how many plants you got in there?!?!?!

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

HOLY FUCK MATE!!!!

how many plants you got in there?!?!?!

Lol lots i would normally run less with my bigger pots but have been doing seed runs hunting for genetics, but when full the one case fits 14 and the other 17 so 31 total thats when running the 400ml pots. But when running my 800ml pots i do 6 and 8, i can fit two more in each case if needed but its a lot easier to move things around without them.

At this exact moment though i have 26 in total between the two cases with some potential clones 7 to be exact, but i haven't dialed down a cloning method with these cases and my new mix yet, so i don't expect them to survive, just been trying different things dialing it in slowly.

Also remeasured and i was wrong take another 1" of the the heights and bogan is closer to 15.25" long, so a bit smaller than i remembered.

I'll be probably around 8 plants less come mid next week, due to harvesting but i haven't thought of replacements yet. Something i should probably think about tonight.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

That Dark Devil looks good. Can't wait until you post the dry weight and smoke report.

Popped 3 seeds into paper towel tonight they should be good to go come sunday.

Just burning through stuff im less interested in that i got as freebies at one point, but if things go well will have a plant each of Barney's Farm - Critical Kush, Barney's Farm - Cookie Kush, and Genofarm Seeds - Purple Kush.


Smoke Update: Dark Devil

Was Sweet smelling in flower, some of that has kept around for the dried result, floral undertones, but i can't judge too much yet.

The effect, is relaxing, kinda heady initially, functional initially then merges into easy distractions, then 1.5hrs has past with a thought of what did i just do, and you realize you have been watching car videos on youtube for the entire time, and you kinda snap out of it but come down over the next hr in small waves. Pretty decent ill defintely dabble in some more but it not really what i'm hunting for but ill play around with the current plants and make some seeds, as it pretty decent, overall plant and smoke wise.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Sunday Update:
Bogan is going good, had a hiccup due to some older mix reading low and the box being calibrated to it, so it dumped water a little too much twice but i was there to correct it, but due to the newest mix possibly having more perlite, that has skewed the sensor reading so i had to recalibrate the midpoint for the new soilless mix. That was easy enough, but i didn't even think about the mixes giving that much difference between batches, kinda a slap to the forehead with it being obvious once i knew, but live and learn.

The far right plant "Dark Devil #3" got her first spray of Colloidal Silver today, she soon to be he hopefully, had a couple pistils showing, and she was big enough to start. I'll be spraying her every two to three days till i start seeing pollen sacs which which should be two to three weeks. That plant was picked as she was the biggest and had the most vigorius growth, plus she has the underlying purple characteristics similar to the first plant i grew, and you can already tell that she/he will be purple later on.

I'll be using her/him to self pollinate if possible but really to pollinate the lower parts of the other two Dark Devils.

Ashla: Moved the Blueberry seedlings over, and the crushing the stems on the c99 has really slowed the vertical stretch which is good, i expected to have more room in this box, but the bubblegums arent done quite yet, should be this week though by the looks of it, and the one C99 Clone should be near the end of the week.

Harvest:

Chopped 4 plants today aswell, first is the struggling think different it actually did quite well in the end, but we will see with the smoke.

The Second pic is two orange bud clones and a Critical in the center, no high yields due to those issue i ran into early, plus the orange bud doesn't produce that much, but it will be smoke or edibles nonetheless.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Weekly Update: Took pics yesterday but didn't get around to posting them.

Bogan is full, took some attempted clones of the C99 and Lemon Kush, also started some more seeds, two Think Different's, a Critical Jack freebie, and a Auto Gigabud freebie that i don't expect to make it as it was a crappy seed. The autos are coming along nicely, the one DarkDevil I've been spraying with CS is in the bottom right, i just made a fresh batch of CS this weekend just in case the older stuff wasn't working but i plucked the one plant of its bigger fan leaves to make it easier to deal with and spray, hopefully she will produce pollen, i have only done it once before on a bunch of clones, so no idea if it will work this time, and i also threw a C99 clone back in to re-veg.

Ashla is flowering out decently the current ones that are shining are the one re-vegged Cherry Bomb, and a Jack Herrer, the BlueBerrys are starting their stretch, and are looking good, the c99 seedling were stretching too much so i had to due some pruning and such and they are looking kinda barren, but we will see how they turn out.

Also Harvested a bunch of plants, one C99 Clone and some mediocre Bubblegum XL which could of been left another week but it was time to make some room for the new seedlings, also they are plants i wasn't planning on keeping, so they got the chop.

C99 clone just shy of 8 weeks

Top shot of three Bubblegum XL's

 

[Tbonegrower]

Your bud shots are some of the best I have seen... Even though your setup is so tiny, your plants are BEAUTIFUL!

 

[GastroGrower]

Ditto - nice lighting setup for those pics. Really like the shadows.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Your bud shots are some of the best I have seen... Even though your setup is so tiny, your plants are BEAUTIFUL!

Ditto - nice lighting setup for those pics. Really like the shadows.

Thank you, both of you, and thanks for stopping by, no special lighting either for those pics i'm actually just using one lamp with a 5-6w cool white led bulb in it, not ideal for color spectrum but it works, and a black backdrop aka "Piece of black velour fabric" it works.

This post also happen to coincide with my weekly update, as i was away for the last weekend, so only was able to grab pics today and tend to the plants as well.

So here's the Weekly Update:

Bogan:

Running along quite well, i think the far right needs a tad more watering but that's just fine tuning, the clones of the lemon kush didn't take but all the C99 ones did so there are now 4 of them in their own pots, i might be jumping the gun with them but i can always chop them back if they grow to much before i can throw them in the other box.

The Auto Dark Devil i was spraying with CS is throwing out some pollen sacks now so thumbs up on that, it also grew into the one light over the weekend, so i had to chop off the burnt top. Would be nice to have some mature pollen now but its probably gonna be another 2 weeks plus till we have some which isn't ideal but we will make due, as the other Dark Devils are starting to bud out, my current plan is to hit only the bottom of the one better plant at the moment, but i might also possibly let the sprayed one self pollinate itself as well.

Also the auto mazar is still going decently, not a fan of the growth structure and its still throwing out roots galore which i trimmed back a bit just cause they were trying to take over other pots.

Here's the pics

The Roots of the Auto Mazar, and two Mother plants trying to take over, just after i separated them from the pots in front of them.

A close up shot of the hopefully soon to be ripe pollen sacs, had issues with them ripening the last time i made some with Colloidal Silver, still worked but not how i would of liked.

Ashla:

Going well as well, should make it run a bit weter, but will in time, the blueberrys stretched too much for my likings so they all got the "Z" treatment if you notice the elastic bands near the base, and all the other plants are starting to fill out.

Have a couple fixes i need to make to this box, which ill try and get around to them this week, but i have to half dismantle it to do so been neglecting it.

 

[Tbonegrower]

Do you ever have issues with separating the pots when the roots grow out like that?

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Do you ever have issues with separating the pots when the roots grow out like that?

Yes but its like Velcro, you just rip them apart, also i'm not worried about hurting the roots just because it helps them keep small in my space,and the fabric pots cause a lot denser root growth to me than plastic, and they keep the plants separated somewhat to make moving them easier or i would just run beds, but then plants tend to run away and way out grow there spaces.

 

[Tbonegrower]

Have you always bottom fed your cloth pots?

I have one that I am playing with right now, and top watering the thing is like pouring water directly into the tray anyway...

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Have you always bottom fed your cloth pots?

I have one that I am playing with right now, and top watering the thing is like pouring water directly into the tray anyway...

No i started way back with top watering and had the same issues it works better if they don't get too dry, but then i moved to individually submerging them in a watering bucket/container which works but can be time consuming.

So now and for the longest time i've just been tray feeding, it works very well for smaller fabric pots, can't say anything about one bigger than 1gal but i'm sure it would work as well.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Weekly Update:

Bogan moving along fine, The one dark devil had its first ripe pollen sac, i plucked it and put it to good use, still think were gonna be waiting a good week for more pollen.

Also booted the Critical Kush and Purple Kush over to Ashla today, and brought back the Auto Mazar i moved over for a couple days as things were getting crowded.

On to Ashla, i might do the mods to it shortly, as the reservoir is almost empty which makes things easier to work with. Trimmed up the plants a little bit and that's about it for that box, we should have a couple plants finished in the next week to two as some are looking close to the end, haven't scoped them yet but they look it.

Also been thinking of possibly making a small new grow chamber out of walmart, home depot, and or dollar store parts while trying to do it as cheap as possible with parts that are easily accessible to anyone and make it a singular one bulb one plant grow, just to see what can be done, but i have to scope out some things first before i decide to do that.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Weekly update:

Bogan is doing nicely, plants should have a bit more nitrogen but ill fix that, the two fem Devils seem to be starting some seeds from the pollen i hit them with mid week, the other darkdevil i reversed i chopped of the top of and have it sitting in a glass of water letting it slowly ripen some more pollen sacs, i should've left it in the case as it would ripen way faster but didn't because we would of had a lot of stray pollen flying around if we didn't to to the opening pollen sacs in time, the bottom half is still throwing out pollen sacs as well so i might just pluck the whole plant, even is i was gonna keep it for in to produce some selfed seeds as well.

What else took more clones, and the current c99 clones should be ready to move over in a week, the auto mazar is still loping along, i'm done with them, bad buy im my opinion, but whatever, also the two think differents are coming along, plus i brought back the cherry bomb to reveg.

Ashla, now finally has a tilted tray, also fixed another issue with it and have changed the nutrients that are supplied just to try something out, the new stuff has more nitrogen but we will see how it turns out, will also be running them in higher concentration, even though my tds meter gives off a lower reading, has to do with actual dissolved solids vs the electrical conductivity of those materials and how my meter reads them. So i've been doing some material list calculations mixed with grams per liter tests to see where i should be starting mix wise with what my meter say vs what the the actual nutrient concentration is. Really just figuring out a starting point. Aka See deficiencies increase feed rate, see burn lower feed rate.

Also moved over a Critical Jack Over to start flower.

And i harvested three plants, three more should be done this week.

But we have the following

A Re-vegged Cherry Bomb which I'll try re-vegging again

A re-vegged Orange Bud mother which is now gone.

And a Jack Herrer

 

[Gnz]

Nice training on that jack herer and the centre stem of that cherry bomb! The rubber bands are a much better idea than string.

I like the one bulb/one box grow idea, I'd thought about doing something similar with 2x screw in LEDS and easily obtainable parts. Something capable of growing a 1oz plant reasonably stealth for around ~$60USD. A more permanent alternative to a spacebucket.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Nice training on that jack herer and the centre stem of that cherry bomb! The rubber bands are a much better idea than string.

I like the one bulb/one box grow idea, I'd thought about doing something similar with 2x screw in LEDS and easily obtainable parts. Something capable of growing a 1oz plant reasonably stealth for around ~$60USD. A more permanent alternative to a spacebucket.

Thanks, yeah the bands are easier and they stretch when things grow plus i don't actually have to slip them over the plant, this will be somewhat hard to explain, but what i do is feed one end of the loop through the other end of the loop around the plant, leaving you with a end of a loop that is loose that i wrap around the stem till the tension is good then at that point i spin the the band 180 degree and throw the end loop over something that will hold the tension, aka a limb or the stem elbow i just created. The bonus is it can easily be removed at any time.

As for the One Bulb one grow thing, i was originally thinking of doing something similar to say a space bucket, just with reversed stacking garbage cans or tall narrow bins that were more stealthy.

But after i looked around at a few things today at a dollar store for the cost which is super cheap and the amount of time involved, it's actually easier and better if i just make a purposely designed box out of wood like i've done in the past, saying that it might not be as stealthy as i would like it, as in "hey why does the box have a power cord going to it and has a faint humming noise of a fan".

I kinda wanted to make something out of easily available parts so anyone can do it. As not everyone has those basic carpentry/construction skills sets, either way if i make it out of wood it will be almost nearly as cheap, and im talking just a couple Dollars difference, but it would be way better designed.

Of course probably after the first one or two rounds ill probably want to add in an arduino and automatic watering, and a homebuilt COB Led light, but we will see if i actually go down that route, as it kinda defeats the purpose of the easy to find easy to build small grow, even if it wouldn't be to much work.

I'm gonna have to ponder on it some more.

 

[Tbonegrower]

I have been fighting the urge to COB for months now... I am mentally designing a water cooled COB setup that would replace my current flower box full of screw in LEDs... I just down have the time to work on it...