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

[SmokinErb]

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

I'm trying to get some going outdoors too. I've got the property to do it on with a willing owner (my uncle.) But the outdoor season is already here and I'm totally unprepared. Too late to take clones, and I can't find any cloning gel locally anyway. I was gonna try with some bottom branches and force to re-veg, but I'm not going out of town on the off chance they root.

Darwinsbulldog - Thanks bro! Some of these bagseed plants are looking way better than I thought they were gonna. I'm digging the colors on the "runts" that I was going to trash. BS#1 is probably my favorite plant out of all of them so far. I think it'll yield nicely.

------

Okay so I also broke off 2 branches and bent several today. There's board that kinda sits freely on top of the cab to support the cables. Well it fell in it today. Thank God it didn't hit a lamp or anything - I have no spares.

Everything in my cab is female, with the exception of the Mandala seeds, is female. All the males are gone, no hermies either.

Bagseed#6 is STILL in those red dixie cups haha. I really have no idea why I'm keeping them. I want to transplant them into 1 gallon bags, but I just don't have enough medium to do more than 1-2. Meh, I'm thinking about putting them in large 42oz cups or something. I hate those damn things, they fall over ALL the time when they're dried out. I don't like transplanting during flower either. But anything's better than what they're in right now.

 

[SmokinErb]

Okay these girls have been flowering since 4/20, so day 32 of flower.

1 plant of each strain on the bottom level, in order left-to-right: BS #1, BS #2, BS#3, BS#5

The canopy pics are of the rest of the plants on the bottom row.

 

[SmokinErb]

One more for good measure; BS#1 top:

 

[SmokinErb]

About the Mandala seeds - all 8 are topped, and have just been topped a 2nd time. I cut the 2 main leads again, and left the side branches alone, even though the node count is the same. Trying to let them catch up in height.

Speed Queen and Mandala#1, before being topped again:

Edit: Needed some info in a place that's easy to find...

Started flowering 4 plants 4/3

Started flowering 20 (?) plants 4/20

Mandala seeds germed 4/6

 

[SmokinErb]

I've got 2 pheno's out of the Mandala#1 strain while the speed queen's are all basically identical. Few pics:

Shorter Mandala#1 pheno
Taller Mandala#1 pheno
Mandala#1
Speed Queen

 

[SmokinErb]

Day 42 of flower

 

[!!!]

Temps aren't too bad. They'll hit 85 F at times but, I can tolerate that. However that's also with just one light. I'm sorta curious how much 2 more of those babies are going to affect temps. I don't think I'll really need a A/C unit so much as maybe some bake-around cool tubes. Maybe not even that if I get a good extraction fan

Don't get cool tubes. CMH releases more UV-B than MH/HPS, which is scientifically proven to increase potency. Glass will block most or all UV-B.

Sweet setup btw! Nice grow!

 

[SmokinErb]

Dude, thanks A LOT for stopping in with that bit of info. I've never even heard anything about that.

Needless to say, I'll be doing some research into that. Regardless, I'm finding cool tubes really unnecessary for the time. I've got light burn on some of my plants, with no heat burn. Granted my temps WILL hit 91-92 at times, but that's because I don't turn on the AC until I need it.

I'm loving that Super Lemon Haze grow, man. I wish I could afford some genetics like that. Hopefully my next run will be some AK47 and some Kali Mist from serious.

 

[SmokinErb]

What the fuck is this? I specifically requested DISCREET SHIPPING IN UNMARKED BOXES. Oh well, the fan and fan speed controller are in the plain box.

The delivery guy was looking at me like "WTF is this for?" too. But regardless, I've got it running as a recirculating one for the moment. I'll be rigging it up so I can seal the tent up probably tmw. Gotta grab some insulated ducting.

 

[!!!]

where'd you order that? Give us a heads up so we can avoid them like the plague.

 

[SmokinErb]

http://plantlightinghydroponics.com

To be fair, I've ordered from them SEVERAL times before and never had this issue - everything was always shipped in plain boxes. My filter was obviously abused - the box was ripped, and it had been dropped.... as noted by a dent in the side of the filter. But meh, I'm not gonna cry over dented cans.

Like I got the fan in the mfg's box, but it was placed inside that plain brown box on the top. Not sure why he couldn't get some shipping paper and at least wrap the box on the bottom up. I'll send an email inquiring as to why it wasn't taken care of when specifically requested. I DID spend $240, the very least he could do was send $5 on some shipping paper to wrap it up in. Hell I would have given another $5 for him to do so.

 

[Centrum]

What the fuck is this? I specifically requested DISCREET SHIPPING IN UNMARKED BOXES. Oh well, the fan and fan speed controller are in the plain box.

The delivery guy was looking at me like "WTF is this for?" too. But regardless, I've got it running as a recirculating one for the moment. I'll be rigging it up so I can seal the tent up probably tmw. Gotta grab some insulated ducting.

I WILL NEVER ORDER FROM THEM!

WTF where they thinking!

Do they really think people growing vegetables who have nothing to hide are ordering that kind of stuff, terrible move on there part!

 

[SmokinErb]

Honestly, I'll order from them again. I'm not happy with it, but I don't think its anything proper communication can't take care of. I'm not gonna pull the plug over it though.

Meh, I gotta make another thread. I hope I didn't make a disastrous mistake. I got drunk last night, and my timer was giving me some problems, so I just plugged the light into the wall. Well... I forgot about it. I JUST now unplugged it, giving them 18 hours of light in mid-flower.

I'm hoping just once won't hurt anything? Or should I just leave my lights off for 12 hours as of now, and just basically re-adjust my light cycle? I'm making a thread about it elsewhere, but I'll see if anyone has any feedback on that here.

Edit: I'm not gonna worry about it. Consensus is basically that I'm overreacting. Maybe go easy on the nutes a little, but I shouldn't see a nanner. Lights will come on as scheduled.

Double edit: Here's a copy of the email I sent the company. We'll see how they repsond:

I've received several orders from you before and so I ordered a 6" fan and filter, as well as the speed controller. I received my order on time as expected, however I requested discreet shipping in plain boxes, as I do every time I place an order. Regardless, the filter had been damaged during shipping I imagine and arrived in a large, ripped box with a decent sized dent in it. Now the filter works fine that's not the problem, but the box it arrived in I found unsatisfactory. The factory carbonaire carbon filter box, ripped with the filter hanging partially out. Granted the handling of the package is UPS's responsibility, but I did request all items be shipped in discreet packages. I'd think that spending $240+ and being a repeat customer (6-7 orders, I believe) would at least get me some cheap shipping paper wrapped around the box prior to shipping, and maybe a fragile sticker?

Order # - #####. (edited out)

I'm not really complaining about the handling of the package so much as the shipping. It's a dented can at the grocery store - it still works fine. It's more of my privacy I'm concerned with. I've had nothing but stellar customer service and received nothing but stellar products from your company. I just want to know that I can get my items shipped without this happening again. I would have gladly paid another $5 for the cost of the shipping paper - I requested discreet shipping because I didn't want it showing up exactly the way it did.

No response on this email. It's been 3 business days, I uhm... pretty sure they just lost a loyal customer. I've ordered from them 6-7 times now and spent well over $1,000 on his products. All from the same email address. Oh well, his loss. I'll be ordering one last thing from him (Vortex 6" fan - you can't get 'em cheaper ANYWHERE else) and I'll get the rest of my shit elsewhere - which is going to amount to 3x 1000w HPS ballast/bulb/cooltubes along with 2 vortex fans, 1 filter, but oh well. I don't care where I get it from, but I do believe in customer loyalty. If you can get a good price and good service, why go anywhere else? So I'll get it somewhere else.

Unless he gets back at me, which I doubt. I'm rather disappointed because well... up until this episode I've received nothing but great customer service, great products, and discreet shipping. I'm not asking for a refund. I'm not asking for a new filter. I'm asking for you to assure me that it won't happen again. Too much to ask? I'll shop elsewhere.

 

[SmokinErb]

No pics today, but I found out why several of my plants were wilting constantly. My pH was a little bit low. I should have flushed prior to flowering, but fuck it's a lot of work. I flushed the bottom row tonight anyway with some 7.5 tap water. Dunno if you'd call it a flush or not, but probably ran about 5 gallons of water through each. I just kept running water through 'em until the pH tested out about right.

They were all a little bit low. 5.2 at the lowest, average probably around 5.6, couple of 'em in the low 6's... also my best looking plants. I got 'em all sitting sweet @ 6.3-6.7 right now.

I also checked the trich's on some of the ones i've had flowering for a while, and I got one that's lookin' about 15-20% amber. Got 1 showing mostly cloudy trich's, another showing mostly clear, some cloudy. There's another one that's got a few amber, but maybe like 5%. Not sure how long these are gonna go, trying to determine when to start my flush. I'll probably flush @ 40% amber trich's, give 'em another 10 days and chop.

 

[SmokinErb]

Pics:

BS#1 cola

BS#1 plant

One of the 4 plants put into flower early.

... self explanatory.

 

[bobblehead]

CMH definitely increases potency. I ran a 600hps and 400cmh side by side, and the plants on the cmh side were noticeably more frosty. Enjoy ur harvest. In a couple weeks of course.

 

[SmokinErb]

I'll enjoy it to the best of my ability to enjoy seeded bud.

I got hermies. I haven't found a single plant on the bottom level that doesn't have at least a seed in it. Several on the middle level, and even on the ones flowering the longest.

I'm pretty pissed off, honestly. Uhm... anybody interested in following a seeded crop?

The mandala strains are still vegging, 1 clone of each is sitting in my closet waiting to root right now. These should be seed-free, hopefully but I'm pretty much expecting every single plant I have flowering right now to have seeds.

I'll follow the Mandala for sure. But I doubt anyone wants to watch seeds develop in what coulda been some pre' sexy bagseed.

Culprit would be light leaks, I believe.

 

[SmokinErb]

I'd also like to point out that I have yet to receive a response from PLH regarding their shipping methods. I'll be purchasing a vortex fan (I won't hold that much of a grudge) from him since he DOES have the lowest prices on them... but he did lose a customer. All I was asking for was reassurance that it wouldn't happen again?

It's been a week. There's no excuse here, you either value your customers or you don't.

 

[bobblehead]

Sucks about the hermies man. That happened to me to when I first got my room up and running. I piece of plastic covering a light leak had fallen down, and I didn't even notice. Everything turned hermie, fortunately no seeds formed. I cut off all my lights and just sat in the middle of the dark flowering room for like 15 mins to make sure my eyes adjusted. Fixed the leaks. Sorry about your luck, but hey, at least you don't have to buy weed, right? and it was just bag seed... Good luck with the next round.

 

[SmokinErb]

And I still got shit in veg

It's not as bad as I thought. I removed some buds that were loaded with seeds, but there were only about 5 of those. I spent a few hours plucking unformed seeds out, and now it seems pretty seedless all around. I'm sure there'll be one here and there, but I took care of it the best I could.

I took 8 of the smallest bottom branches as clones, 1 died so far... but the other 7 are still good. I'll be cutting some bigger branches tonight for some taller clones. These are basically gonna have to go straight into flower. Maybe a week veg, tops.