SmokinErb's Vertical Garden - CMH - Speed Queen, Mandala#1 & Bagseed.

[SmokinErb]

I also re-wired part of my ballast. The orange cable is only 300v rated, so I got some 600v rated flexible cable. 5 tripped fuses later I finally got it.

I also made a cage for the lights. I'm not sure if I'll be using the whole thing, or just cut out like 1' sections for each individual light. Either way, it'll be there as a fire-prevention, not a ScOG - in case any branches break. Don't want them falling on the bulbs.

I also put some stakes in the containers to tie 'em back with. Getting a little to close to the light in some places.

 

[bobblehead]

lol, I like the mail box ballast. That's classic. Very resourceful.

 

[SmokinErb]

Haha, strangely that's what I get most of my compliments on. I loved the mailbox too, I've since found some metal work boxes that'd easily hold 1 - 10 ballasts depending on size at the HVAC store. But meh, this is the best I could come up with when I had one to mount. It was a bitch making it fit to be honest, the mounting brackets were too long. I don't exactly have a grinding disc. Hacksaws are no fun

If anyone has any ideas about the stretch on the Mandala, I'd be glad to hear it. Could it REALLY be the light too far away @ 15"? Shit, my last horizontal grow with a 400w I had to keep the canopy between 15" and 18"

Okay, so here are some pics of the ones I started flowering a while back (not sure how long, I'll have to check): There's 4 of 'em; Bud site and side shot of each one:

 

[SmokinErb]

Other 2 plants:

Edit: These 4 plants have been in 12/12 for 25 days.

 

[SmokinErb]

Took a few pictures.

Having some heat problems. It's not exactly cool out tonight, so uh, it hit 101.4 and then I freaked out and shut off the HPS, and left the 2 CMH running, and it went down to about 95.

I haven't had this issue yet. I've been running a consistent upper 70's at night so far, never hotter than 85. I tried turning on our central air unit, only to realize it doesn't work worth shit - not even in terms of for the grow, in terms of cooling my place. I'm hoping I can just clean the coils tomorrow and maybe that'll do.

Oh well. Pics:

1st one is from BS#1. Probably my favorite plant out of all of the bagseed ones. Sativa dominate, obviously. My hands are by no means small - I'm 6'4" and can easily palm a basketball.

2nd is a picture of all of the plants in 3 gallon containers (2 of them are still in the 1's, but they only showed pistils today and will get transplanted). Not sure how many all together, about 16 though.

3rd is self explanatory.

4th is the mandala seeds. Mandala#1 in front, Speed Queen in the rear. I topped every one of these.

 

[SmokinErb]

I transplanted my Mandala#1 and Speed queen into 1 gallon grow bags. Get some pics of them tomorrow.

These pics - Same concept of a couple posts back. These were the ones I was gonna throw away.

I just picked a topped and untopped one. Bud site shot, followed by the plant.

 

[catman]

The node spacing looks like your in store for some good yeilds man. I really like watching the next week or so.

 

[SmokinErb]

Catman - I certainly hope so!

I transplanted the Mandala seeds into the 1 gallon grow bags. They'll get another 2-3 weeks of veg before I leave 'em in the flowering cab. All 8 are topped. I'm hoping I have the opportunity to top them again, even. We'll see how fast they grow. They're on the top level, which has the least vertical space as it was intended to grow clones 12/12 from rooting. I"ll take some pics here in a bit. I topped just above the 3rd node, and the shoots are taking off. Likely what I'll do is cut off the lowest 2 branches for clones, leaving the 2 sets above it as the 4 main shoots on the plant. I may need to top those again, I'm not sure yet.

I'm quickly realizing that a ScOG is the easiest way to train in vert. Typically I just prefer LST, which is basically what I'm gonna try with these, except tying them AROUND, rather than down. The taller the plant gets, the wider it's going to be, basically. Meh, I bought the 5 gallon bags for them, but I doubt I'll get to use them unless I mount the 3rd light higher than it is (which is at the top of the cab).

I'll figure it out. If it means training the fuck outta some of the shorter bagseed ones so they fit under the top light and putting my mandala on the bottom row, then so be it.

 

[statusquo]

Hey SmokinErb! Just power read through most of the thread and it looks like you have your shit together I am planning an 800 watt CMH (possibly 1200 watt HPS instead) vertical grow and am most certainly going to use your thread as a reference. I have done two 800 watt CMH horizontals but am moving into a house with a big walkin closet where I can start from scratch and I want to do things right.

If you could list some of the big things you know you would do differently or that you would add to the process I would greatly appreciate it. Things that really worked and things that you would scrap. Thanks brother, and again the grow looks real solid.

 

[SmokinErb]

Hey SmokinErb! Just power read through most of the thread and it looks like you have your shit together I am planning an 800 watt CMH (possibly 1200 watt HPS instead) vemrtical grow and a most certainly going to use your thread as a reference. I have done two 800 watt CMH horizontals but am moving into a house with a big walkin closet where I can start from scratch and I want to do things right.

If you could list some of the big things you know you would do differently or that you would add to the process I would greatly appreciate it. Things that really worked and things that you would scrap. Thanks brother, and again the grow looks real solid.

Okay I just typed out a HUGE response to this, on the quick reply thing, only to accidentally hit the backspace key and cause it to change pages. I'm gonna try to sum it up-

Lights - I'm 100% happy with CMH bulbs. I've seen enough results to KNOW they work just as good as HPS bulbs, if not better. Will I use them again, without a doubt. I intend to use them in a veg cab full of auto-flowers where I can. Will I continue to use them for flowering? That's a coin-flip. I'm torn between the big 1kw bulbs for sheer yields. Maybe a 1kw over a 400 cmh or something.

Cab - Few things I'd change, but I love my cab. Maybe 6" bigger wider in diameter? Maybe 1' taller, my top shelf doesn't have much space, but there's like 8" of ceiling ABOVE the light. 2 access points (I originally was building two, ended up with one,) on opposite sides. I'd like to re-build the whole thing, but the basic layout of it is GREAT for 400's. 4' diameter works perfect for 2-3' plants. They'll require some tying back (which is where that extra 6" would be nice, little more leeway, less burning) Also, reflective material. I'm just using black plastic (even tho I have panda) because uhm, well when the lights are on and you look and see how much light is hitting the plastic? Where the plants are larger (bottom 2 rows) there's not much light penetrating all the way through and reaching the back. I'd use some reflective material on the re-build, but I won't bother putting it in now.

Feeding schedule and nutes won't change. I haven't been as precise on feeding as I should, but the only thing I'd add was maybe a drip-to-waste system with the same nutes. It's A LOT of work hand watering these. Regardless, the fox farms feed schedule works great for me.

Containers - White only from here on out. Black ones just absorb way too much heat. The ones on the bottom row are fine, but the middle row is pretty much right next to the light? They get rather warm and dry out faster. Size? Uh, I'm happy with the 3 gallon ones. I didn't even bust out the 5's as I thought they were a bit unnecessary. Costs too damn much to fill 'em up too.

Oh and vert? I'll never switch back to horizontal, I don't think. Too much more bud this way for me to justify that.

So 800w of CMH. Get it about 6" off the ground so you can stuff a fan in there. 30" per level (I used 24" this time - another change I'll be making). Get a sheet of plywood cut into 2x 4'
squares and use this link ( http://www.htmliseasy.com/octagon_layout/index.html ) to measure your cuts for the octagon (if you wanna do that). Right there's your 1st and 2nd level once you cut out a hole in the middle.

Each leg is about 1'7" and I keep 1 plant per leg in flower. I could probably stuff 1.5-2 per leg if I wanted to. That's still 8 plants around a 400w which is a far cry more than my 4-6 that I used to use around a 400 with more bud being produced.

That'll be all for now. I'll get back at this if I can think of anything. I wanna get some pics taken tonight as well.

 

[statusquo]

Thank you so much for taking all the time to answer all my questions. Should be moving into the property soon; greenhouse grow is first priority but I am going to take time building my very setup for winter. I'm going to slowly and carefully setup everything and try and automate as much as possible.

Looking forward to the pictures later

 

[SmokinErb]

Level 2, BS#5:

 

[SmokinErb]

Level 2, BS#4:

 

[darwinsbulldog]

Level 2, BS#4:

n-n-n-n-niiiice!

 

[SmokinErb]

Level 1, BS#1:

 

[SmokinErb]

Level 1, BS#2:

 

[SmokinErb]

These are the two untopped ones I started flowering early.

 

[SmokinErb]

The two topped ones I started flowering early:

 

[SmokinErb]

Mandala #1, Speed Queen, Most of the two strains

 

[SmokinErb]

Whole cab: