Home Made Aero - Hindu Hash - CFL Grow

[Giovanni831]

speakn of scope i saw some cool microscopes for the iphones on gizmodo... pretty legit that thing ZOOMZ! i think im gona pick up what u got for now.... its better than nothing and its cheap im thinking.....
Yup steppn stones i hear ya... the reflector will be around in the family for a while i can already tell... keeps plants short and bushy =] puts out hella lumens considering theyre cfls.
thanks Gio. youve been more than help bro.

Like I have said brother, I am happy to help. I know how it is when you are just starting out and run into problems. Everything is like a mini-crisis. =)

That cheapy scope from radioshack works pretty good. I am super broke right now and need to get the bare minimum to get by. I think that before next summer I should be all setup w/ more high tech solutions. I still need a significant amount of items... dehumidifier, more fans, better lights, another aero system, environmental controllers, co2, the list goes on. Just picking it up one item at a time. The only thing that I somewhat splurged on was that PH pen. I didnt see any point in keeping the cheapy that I had bought that didnt work. The other aero system and one set of lights will come in the next few weeks. That is depending on how much I harvest this week. I have to use some of it to pay for supplies, and put some of the money back into the household. I found the 8bulb T5s for $220 and another $80 for the bulbs. It will double the lumens that I currently have.

 

[Giovanni831]

PetFlora - Thanks for stopping by. Yeah, I was seriously lacking supplies then. Also, my plants vegged for the first 2weeks unattended. I had bought the clones the night before I had spine surgery and couldnt take care of them very well. Another thing that hurt them was that I didnt have any Hydroton, I had used small river rocks because that is what I had at the house. That was a bad idea. The ones that I have in week 2 of flower in the other "real aero" system that I built look alot better than these ones did then.

I seen the link in your signature for high pressure aero. I am going to check it out right now. Love to learn about better technologies.

 

[Giovanni831]

Sorry that I skipped the mid-week update. I was busy fixing some stuff in my room and getting ready for harvest. I actually decided to harvest them late yesterday. Trichs were about 20-25% amber. I wanted them a little rare since it is a stoney strain anyway. Im an active person, I would rather be high than stoned. I do need a little CBD/CBN for my back. I am uploading the images now. Will post in a few minutes.

 

[funnystyle]

 

[Giovanni831]

HARVEST & WET WEIGHT

Okay, so I decided to cut them down. Im not going to lie to you, it took me a long ass time to trim everything. Its all hanging in my DIY drying box now (needed something quick w/o spending cash). I took wet weights and some pics. There are a few pics of them before I cut them.
Here is the weight breakdown....

Total Wet Weight = 308g./11oz.

Plant#1
===========
Total — 92g
Lower — 33g.
Mids — 30g.
Top — 29g.

Plant#2
===========
Total — 88g
Lower — 27g.
Mids — 38g.
Top — 23g.

Plant#3
===========
Total — 111g
Lower — 26g.
Mids — 58g.
Top — 27g.

The runt
===========
8 Grams
It really wasn't worth the trouble, but gave a couple buds. The rest of the bud material went into the shake pile for making hash.

Popcorn buds
===========
9 Grams

Heres the images. Sorry about the green ones... Ran out of daylight and was working in my room so I have to do it under the green.


My DIY drying box...

The Girls before cutting...

Here they are as I was hand plucking them, before trimming...

Here are the buds as I trimmed Sorry that they are in no kind of order, I gotta clean up my room after trimming, will probably edit later...

 

[Kotton Mouthe]

GIO!
Man That is some nice looking buds there man! Congrats on the success of your grow! I am on week 4 of flower looking like 5 more to go and I can't wait. I have been watching the grow for a good bit and have learned alot from you man. thanks for a great journal to read. It was very nicely put together and I am already signed in for your next grows. Can't wait to hear that smoke report and the long wait with drying and curing. You are on the right path just fine tuning from here, correct? Have a good one and rest your pack after a day of clipping and trimming, you deserve it after this good grow. Have a good one

Peace!

 

[j4s2u0]

Wow great harvest man,the buds look pretty awesome...

 

[Growheart]

Sweet harvest Gio, definitely stoked on this CFL grow! +reps

 

[Hash Hound]

 

[funnystyle]

YUM man i bet you got the fattest smile on your face G!

 

[Giovanni831]

GIO!
Man That is some nice looking buds there man! Congrats on the success of your grow! I am on week 4 of flower looking like 5 more to go and I can't wait. I have been watching the grow for a good bit and have learned alot from you man. thanks for a great journal to read. It was very nicely put together and I am already signed in for your next grows. Can't wait to hear that smoke report and the long wait with drying and curing. You are on the right path just fine tuning from here, correct? Have a good one and rest your pack after a day of clipping and trimming, you deserve it after this good grow. Have a good one

Peace!

Thanks brother. I am trying my best here. I need better equipment now.

Wow great harvest man,the buds look pretty awesome...

Thanks bro.

Sweet harvest Gio, definitely stoked on this CFL grow! +reps

Appreciate it Growheart. It was a meager harvest, but the bud looked pretty great, so I am happy. Made a few mistakes along the way with these that I have ironed out on the other ones.

YUM man i bet you got the fattest smile on your face G!

I do have a smile, however not TOO big. I know that it will dry kinda light, and there is alot of stem material in there. But for sure i am stoked to be back at it again. Its a great feeling to finally harvest something that you have dedicated alot of energy to.

 

[Giovanni831]

Well quick update...

Since they were small buds, they are drying fairly quickly in that homemade box. I snipped all the buds off the stems and put them into a few paper bags. they will be in there overnight, maybe 2, then it is into the curing jars.

I weighed them quickly as I put them in the bags. It was looking like slightly over 3 oz. I expect that I will lose a little more water weight. Probably end up with around 2 - 2.5 oz.

The good news is that they have pretty much lost the Chlorophyll smell, and the smell of the bud is coming back. I think that it might mess around and be ridiculously good. In which case I will feel better about the small harvest. Rather have a small amount of screaming bud, than an overabundance of garbage.

I will take a few pics of it tomorrow when I throw it in jars. I was trying to move as quickly as possible to minimize light exposure. Maybe i will take a few at lights out. The pics look kinda cool to me all green.

 

[funnystyle]

hey, you got some for your hard work bruh.... shell pay you back trust...

 

[Giovanni831]

Still curing. Its in mason jars now. I did grab a few little nugs to try them this morning. Only a week old and it wasnt harsh at all tasted pretty good, and got me loaded. I was kinda surprised that it did since it still has a while to cure.

On another note, I am stoked, I got a 8 bulb T8 fixture. The guy at the hydro shop swapped out the blue bulbs for red ones for free. I love getting hooked up like that.

I am going to throw a few pics up from my other grow to show how much better the girls are liking the doubled, and evenly distributed light...

 

[funnystyle]

damn.... they do look like theyre lovn it! 420watts!!
man its 4ft in length! damnit im jealous...
when i get my own place i goto look into these systems i think the low heat output and the build is so dope plus you can change out bulbs for whichever spectrum you wana go with. im sorta sold. im pretty sure ill have an hps setup for flower and one of these for veg hopefully...
hope youre doin well Gio the plants are lookn great.

 

[Giovanni831]

damn.... they do look like theyre lovn it! 420watts!!
man its 4ft in length! damnit im jealous...
when i get my own place i goto look into these systems i think the low heat output and the build is so dope plus you can change out bulbs for whichever spectrum you wana go with. im sorta sold. im pretty sure ill have an hps setup for flower and one of these for veg hopefully...
hope youre doin well Gio the plants are lookn great.

hey f/s, things are pretty good. The fresh grass smell is leaving my curing jars. Now you can smell the bud starting to dry out and resin is smelling great. I smoked another little sample that I had took out. It was definitely a good choice for early morning, want to see how long it lasts.

I will probably take a little bowl sized nug out every day when I burp them. I want to try it along the way as it cures. I have to say that it smokes great for still being wet and not thoroughly cured. Cant wait to see how it is when its done.

The lights seem like it was a good idea. I am looking into getting some different bulbs for it though. There are bulbs called MaxLume that are in different color spectrums than normal T5s. They make a 5400k for grow, and a 2800k for bloom. I am trying to pull a little cash together to buy the bloom bulbs. I think that they will work better than the standard 3000k that is in there now.

I actually considered using 2 250w HPS lights instead of that fixture, but opted not to do it. One on my dads friends had an extra 250w setup that was for 110v and all he uses is 220v, so he was going to give it to me. I planned on buying another one and setting them up about a foot apart from eachother. The things is that they put out a square light footprint, and my area that needs coverage is rectangular. I thought that the it would be better to have uniform light than to have the two hps together. Then there would be a hotspot where the 2 lights overlapped.

Trust me, alot of thought went into the decision. Plus when the guy offered to swap the blue lights for red for free, I was all over it. I cant afford to get into anything expensive right now, so I figured that T5s were the way to go for now. More lumens, not too many more watts, and lower amperage. The homemade ones draw about 5.5amps and the T5s only use 3.5 because of the internal ballasts that are w/ flouros. The power at my place is old, and anything I can do to relieve the strain is a good thing. Well off to go smoke another bowl. I did get a few hours out of the 2 bong rips that I took earlier. I think that is pretty good. I think I will go check out your grow.

 

[funnystyle]

mm i can see what you mean with the hot spot....
i woulda still took that 250watter and mailed it over to my buddy funnystylez yknow?? haha jk!
the light spectrums still confuse me a little but i know the basics... the 5500k or the 5400k and the 2900k 3000ks throw me off.... are they really tryna copy the suns true colors??
dawg i cant wait to pop some hindu seeds... from a nug of course... cant really buy them seeds right now... or hopefully i can find a clone i really loved the smoke of it...
it put me at such a productive state but a lil spaced out at that too... greatgreat smoke
im in your second grow see ya there!

 

[Giovanni831]

mm i can see what you mean with the hot spot....
i woulda still took that 250watter and mailed it over to my buddy funnystylez yknow?? haha jk!
the light spectrums still confuse me a little but i know the basics... the 5500k or the 5400k and the 2900k 3000ks throw me off.... are they really tryna copy the suns true colors??
dawg i cant wait to pop some hindu seeds... from a nug of course... cant really buy them seeds right now... or hopefully i can find a clone i really loved the smoke of it...
it put me at such a productive state but a lil spaced out at that too... greatgreat smoke
im in your second grow see ya there!

FS...

You know what brother, if I had an extra one that I didnt need, I would send it to you. I know youre trying to get started growing. Trust me, you will acquire items faster than you think. You will find yourself spending your extra cash for equipment instead of random items that you would have bought before. Plus, you will be saving cash when you harvest, because you wont be buying product.

So now, as far as the kelvin rating on bulbs I will try too shed a little light on the subject for you....

Light is measure a few different ways. There is intensity, color rendering, and color temperature.

The intensity is measured in lumens or footcandles. This is obviously just how bright the light is.

Color rendering is the same as CRI (color rendering index). This is how things look under the light. The higher the CRI, the more distinguished the differences in color and intensity will APPEAR. This doesnt mean that it is less light, it is just less light that is visible with our eyes. As far as I know all lights give out many spectrums, just different colors have an emphasis on specific wavelengths/ temperatures.

For example if you have the "blue" CFLs going, then switch to equal wattage/ lumen output of "red", the plants will not look as vivid. We are more sensitive to the blue spectrum, so it seems brighter.

Temperature is actually referring to physical temperature. 6500k lighs are the same color as a metal rod would be if heated to 6500 degrees. Respectively, 2700k would be the color of that same piece of metal heated to 2700 degrees. The higher the number the more blue, and lower the number, the more red.

Plants like the blue temp for veg, red for bloom. MOST HPS lights are around 2000k. That is part of what makes them better for flowering than CFL. Most warm CFLs are 2700k. For the most part, the lowest you find in T-5 is 3000k. However, there are a few lights that I know of that are lower. There is the Quantum T-5s that are 2900k, and then there is the MaxLume T-5s that are 2800k. These will both make for better flowering than the 3000k bulbs because it is more red. I am ordering some of the 2800k T-5 tubes. They can be purchased through any distributer that sells C.A.P. brand lights, or R and M which is the company that distributes CAP lighting.

Hope that helped to clarify it for you a little. Just google color rendering (CRI), and color temperature (associated w/ plants) and there is a plethora of information.

 

[funnystyle]

i dont think ill be needin to google anything else on this subject for a while haha
you basically told me all i really need to know for now man thats wsup!
the metal rod comparison really made sense and i think its the simplest way to get the picture...
i think for the most part i would have to try things out for myself... i cant afford the hps system since i would have to upgrade ventilation and thats a big issue for me im workn somethin up as we speak...
im gona ride out the cfls as long as i can probably for a few more months...
i kept a few blue to make 10red 2blue in the reflector, i can tell a difference. i see pistils forming a lot quicker or is it cos im on week 3?
my friends go hps for both veg and flower, but they were hella stretched and each plant had bamboo posters for weight support... is this the only downfall? bud was amazing though almost couldnt believe it was homegrown....

 

[Giovanni831]

The final weight dried and cured was 2.5 oz.

It was a meager harvest, but the quality is very good, so I wont complain. The next ones are going to be way better, so come check it out.

I also made some butane hash, and I got almost 3 grams from my shake. It is very light in color, which I am not too sure about. It smokes and tastes great, so I am assuming that I did a decent job extracting it. I will take a pic of it and post it later. As well as the tool that I DIYed for butane hash. Really simple, clean and quick.

There was 1.5 oz in each jar when I started curing, now there is 35g in each.

I didnt realize this pic sucked so bad until I uploaded it.

Here is a closer look at one of the buds. The pics dont do it justice. There is resin everywhere on this stuff. Not too bad for round one.