~NGB Micro Cab 175/150w MH/HPS - Durban Poison, Skunk #1, Fat Skunk, Secret~

[DurbanPoison]

Hey fellow growers! Pull up a seat and whtch me micro it up! Please give me all the feedback you like! I try to be as open minded as I can be and I'm willing to try just about anything. Obviously I don't have all the answers so any solutions to my future problems (which I am sure they're will be plenty of), I would appreciate any feedback. ~DP

Gear:
Nutrients-
Botanicare:
Pure Blend Pro Grow
Pure Blend Pro Bloom

Cab Front and Side View:


Flower Chamber & Gear-
175mh Bulb Used when Needed
150hps Conversion Bulb
7 Gallon SWC Hydro Tub w/Attached ScrOG
20 Gallon Aquarium Air Pump with Splitter to 2 10" Air Stones
175cfm Vortex In-Line Blower
Mini Hexagonal Custom Reflector [It kina sucks, but is better than nothing]
110Vac Thermostat
Walls were just primer white and covered with a water sealant. I will be putting mylar up using velcro soon once I'm not quite so broke.


Utility Room & Carbon Filter-
4" Dryer Ducting connected from fan to Carbon Filter
Filter Mounted with Plastic Plumber's Tape to Top
175w MH Ballast
Two Surge Protectors Now
One Digital Timer - One Analog



Mother's Quarters-
Two 15" 15w Warm Floro Tubes
Two cool 30w CFL's on adjustable fixture


Day 31 Veg Seedlings

So far I have a lot of light leaks on the doors I recently found out. I have weather stripping now, but I haven't installed it yet. It's been real busy at home lately... Anyhow hopefully I'll get that done within the coming week.

I completely ran out of space in my mother's quarters with all 7 seedlings. This wont be a problem in the future as I only intend to keep 3 or 4 mini bonsai mothers. Anyhow - I moved them all into the flower chamber and have them running 18/6 lighting with the 175w MH bulb.

Since I do not know the sex, I am planning on waiting this out a bit longer. Seedlings tonight are 31 days old and all hitting they're 4-6th node's but aren't staggering yet. I believe I will be taking cuttings as soon a I can so I can put them in the water only for a week in the mother quarters under 1 warm floro on with 12/12 to check the sex.

4 of my seedlings are Durban Poison, the rest I only have one bean each of each strain - the Fat Skunk, Skunk#1, and the donation from my good buddy Fat Puta who is ... currently busy at the moment attending to other things. Hopefully I will get at least 3 or 4 females out of it all, but we'll see.


At the moment - ambient temps are fluxuating very much because I am staying with family that prefers not to pay much for electricity other than what I give them $ for my lighting... During the day its anywhere from 75-85. Inside the cab its getting quite hot because of the heat we've been having lately. (I.e. ambient 84F 25%RH and flower room is staying at 91F 22%RH.) I believe I may add an additional 1" hole passive intake on the floor of the cab to assist with ventillation. It's just too hot.. Once me and wifey are in our own place in the next couple months again we'll be keeping the temps at 75 constantly in the apartment so not to worry there.

 

[DurbanPoison]

Well Fat Skunk's hair cut (FIM) two days ago seems to have pissed her off because she put growth on pause for the moment. Can't notice any changes. Aside from that all else lookin good.

 

[pontiac]

This is gonna be good.

 

[Guest]

nice clean setup.

 

[DurbanPoison]

Pontiac-
Thx for pullin up the seat. I hope it's as good as you say lol. I don't know if you noticed, but my reflector is the same design as the one you posted a while back on that DIY. I just miniaturized it.

Swerve-
Thx for the props. I'm tryin to make it as pro as I can. But I keep jackin things up so we'll see how I do from here.

 

[pontiac]

Pontiac-
Thx for pullin up the seat. I hope it's as good as you say lol. I don't know if you noticed, but my reflector is the same design as the one you posted a while back on that DIY. I just miniaturized it.

Wow! Cool! I didnt notice that! Looks well built too.

I love your cab, probably the greatest version of NGBs cab that i've ever seen.

 

[DurbanPoison]

Pontiac - Thanks man. I initially tried to make it larger but found out that most of my head space was gone due to my air ventillation setup. Speaking of which - any pointers on my air flow?

The way I set it up I have two 2" PVC Elbows that go into the the mother room - this did well for the seedlings and I suppose it will do as well once I have my bonsai mums prep'd.

From the mother to flower I have a series of 2" elbows that allows me to aim the air under the ScrOG for maximum air utilization. However it didn't seem to be enough so I drilled two 1" holes under the drawer slide on the floor on the east/right side of the chamber. I figure that should do as the Vortex fan is a 4".

Daily I still consider changing the carbon filter arrangement to suck thru the filter rather than blow thru. It's definitely doing it's job, but I think it's restricting the air flow. My temps are completely terrible at the moment. My thermostat is set for 75°F but never turns off. Ambient temps are usually high too so that's difficult to change.. High temp spike for today was 91°F. The average seems to stay around 84-86°F and at night drops down to 78-82°F.

The only thing I have done so far that has helped somewhat was this: I took a couple of those plant pot water catchers and filled them about an inch each with water. I was hoping for it to increase RH, but instead it reduced temps about 3-4 degrees. I put them in the mother chamber which is currently vacant so it's a temporarily solution.

 

[DurbanPoison]

One thing to add to that - I'm going to build your micro wick cloner. I'll have it ready in 24-48 hrs. Thanks for that thread man - you're a life saver! A Ganaja Life S... err.. Starter I should say. Thanks again man!

Ps. Dumb wick cloning Q... I think I'll just use perlite because anything else is a bit of a pain to get my hands on. Do I just drop my clones in anywhere?

 

[pontiac]

I know how you feel bro, i've had temp problems throughout most of my grow. But the solution is simple; decrease air restriction. Your vortex is an excellent fan and i wish i had that for my grow. It should be more than enough to cool down your cab, sinse NGB only had a 140cfm dayton for his cab.

Just make sure that the area of your intakes equals or exceeds the area of the intake/exhaust of your fan. So for example your vortex's 4" diameter intake/exhaust area is 12.56 sq in. Your intakes should equal and exceed this number. Unfortunatly your mother plant rooms intakes has two 2" PVC elbows with a total area of 6.28 sq in; Thats half of what you actually need. And your mother-to-flower intakes has a series of 2" PVC pipes and 2 1" holes; Thats only a total of 4.71 square inches, which is about a third of what you need. Finally, lets not forget the carbon filter, which will reduce airflow furthermore.

So what i recommend is 2 more 2" PVC elbow intakes for the mother plant area and if possible a 4" series of PVC pipe for your mother-to-flower intake. Your temps should dramatically drop after those modifications, even with the carbon filter attached.

O and about the cloner, perlite is just fine. And yea just stick them anywhere, just make sure the tip is deep into the medium. Dont forget to foliar spray the plant frequently and use rooting hormone; doing this will greatly increase your success rate.

 

[DurbanPoison]

Pontiac-
Where shall I send my evaluation fee? LOL - Kidding - that helps immensely though. Thanks a lot man. Much props. I'll get onto project ventillation a.s.a.p. One thing tho - the holes I have I can't hardly feel any suction from as it is. Do you think that makes a difference? One easy fix I know I can do is drill more holes in the floors since I have the drawer slides. Thanks in advance.

Also - how did you figure that was my fan's intake/exhaust sq. in?

~DP

 

[DurbanPoison]

Well - last night I added 4 more 1" holes to the floor of the flower room and sat in it - it seems to be moving a lot more air now I think, but the temps were still at 91°F with exterior room temp of 80°F.

 

[pontiac]

Well your fan is a 4" inline fan, so i just used the pi*r^2 formula. So 3.14*2^2=12.56 sq in. Well hope to see an update soon!

 

[DurbanPoison]

I see - cool. Well the extra holes I think are helping but I don't know how much. The door doesn't seal tight anymore like it did before so I'll have to get the locks on sooner than later to get that good seal again.. Any-how overall I think it's doing a bit better. Thanks again.

 

[DurbanPoison]

ScrOG

ScrOG

Oops - Wrong thread!

 

[DurbanPoison]

Well my temps are still outrageous. =( I don't know what else to do. I have a total of 6 - 1" Holes on the flower of the flower chamber along with the other 2" pvc coming from the mother to the flower chamber. Do you think it would help the air restriction if I could rig up a way to have the fan suck thru the filter instead? Seems like blowing thru it is a dumb idea... =( I need like a miniature AC or something. Should I try and make some kind of a cool tube?

 

[DurbanPoison]

Reflector - Converted to Air Cooled Hood

Reflector - Converted to Air Cooled Hood

Well guys, I got to thinking. I already have a reflector... my exhaust is almost next to it... Hey! I'll Just throw on some ducting and make a hole in the reflector! Hopefully this will cool my temps down. Already I can put my hand quite a bit closer to the bulb without any problems. Cross your fingers people! Why didn't this dawn on me earlier?
....... Hopefully this helps!

 

[pontiac]

Hey nice mod! How did work for you so far? I remember my temps went down a few degrees after adding 6" dryer tubing (attached to fan) near my hps bulb.

 

[DurbanPoison]

well 87 is a lot better than 96 so I think it did pretty well. I think adding the extra intake like u suggested also helped with that. Thanks again for the advice man.

~DP

 

[mrwags]

Well guys, I got to thinking. I already have a reflector... my exhaust is almost next to it... Hey! I'll Just throw on some ducting and make a hole in the reflector! Hopefully this will cool my temps down. Already I can put my hand quite a bit closer to the bulb without any problems. Cross your fingers people! Why didn't this dawn on me earlier?
....... Hopefully this helps!

Does your reflector have any glass in it to trap the heat? Is that hood one piece? What I mean is is it made up of only one piece of steel? How hot is it when ya touch the top of it? If so make build some type of heat shield around it or bite the bullet and buy a hood with glass? I feel ya on heat in a box. BOB is 2x4 and in the summer with that 400 watter it got damn hot 100 easy.



Wags

 

[DurbanPoison]

THe hood is one pice. The cracks are sealed with aluminum tape. The ducting is just duct taped into the hood. Reflector hardly gets warm at all. Cab is staying at 78-81 today. I think maybe it was just an issue with ambient temperatures. Idunno. Ps. Liquid Karma made my plants grow like 1" in a day. Fucking crazy shit.