DIY Stealth Cab, Hydro, LED & Multiple Strains in Small Space - Oh Boy!

[OldMedMan]

Hi Mr. Krip!

Nice job Buddy.....they look very tasty. They just look potent.

What size is your hanging screen? I have one that is 24" in diameter. Can't find a box big enough for it. I should have thought of that before. Duh!

That will keep you in good smoke for a while. Congratulations

 

[Mr. Krip]

Nice work there, Mr. Krip!

Thanks, JCool! You were with me at the beginning warning me not to use those STG cubes! The PE just harvested was the the first grown from seed - in ROCKWOOL!

 

[Mr. Krip]

Looks tasty!

Gracias, Taco!

Yo quiero Taco Bell!

 

[Mr. Krip]

Hi Mr. Krip!

Nice job Buddy.....they look very tasty. They just look potent.

What size is your hanging screen? I have one that is 24" in diameter. Can't find a box big enough for it. I should have thought of that before. Duh!

That will keep you in good smoke for a while. Congratulations

Thanks, OMM!

The dry net is only a 12" diameter and it's 60" tall with 6 chambers, but, in the dry box I made, only 4 of the chamber are actually usable (the rest just collapse on each other at the bottom of the box).

Allegedly, you're supposed to be able to dry over 3 lbs. of plant material (wet weight, I'm sure! ) in there, which may be a stretch, but it does work fine for me harvesting a max of two plants at a time. If needed (and I hope it is on the next harvest!), I can always hang it higher in a closet, or something, instead of the dry box, and be able to use the other two chambers, then add more hangars to the dry box for hanging colas.

Based on your grow, you may need several 24"ers and another whole room just for drying!

I should definately have some good smoke for the next 6-8 weeks or so, but once again, I don't think it will be quite enough to bring me to the next harvest, but it should be close!

Thanks for all your support!

 

[Kotton Mouthe]

Mr. Krip I have a question for you sir. Since you cut most of the buds off the branch, how do u know when it is dry enough to put into jars? I have always left the buds on the branches. And when the branch has a snapping sound when bent it was dry enough. Your dry box is ultra cool. I really liked the thread on building it. Might have to try a box like that, just modify it making a second row of bud hangers being string and pipe cleaners. Also in your dry box how often andhow long do u run your fan? Great harvest man I will be keeping up with your grows.

 

[Mr. Krip]

Mr. Krip I have a question for you sir. Since you cut most of the buds off the branch, how do u know when it is dry enough to put into jars? I have always left the buds on the branches. And when the branch has a snapping sound when bent it was dry enough. Your dry box is ultra cool. I really liked the thread on building it. Might have to try a box like that, just modify it making a second row of bud hangers being string and pipe cleaners. Also in your dry box how often andhow long do u run your fan? Great harvest man I will be keeping up with your grows.

Thanks Kotton & Welcome!

When the outside of the buds get brittle, but before the stems actually snap/break, I put everything in jars and include in the jars a mini hygrometer (PM me if you want a link to buy some Caliber III "look-alikes" cheap). I then let the hygrometer dictate my next actions. If it's too wet, I'll typically put it in brown paper shopping bags for a day or so.

Here's the technique I use to cure which was written by a former member who is a great grower:

Cut the product, trim it per your preference, but don’t dry it until the stems snap. Take it down while the stems still have some flex, but the product feel dry on the outside. This is a perfect opportunity to drop the dry-feeling flowers onto a screen and collect prime-quality kief that would otherwise get lost in the jar.

Jar the product, along with a Caliber III hygrometer. One can be had on Ebay for ~$20. Having tested a number of hygrometers – digital and analog – this model in particular produced consistent, accurate results. Then, watch the readings:

+70% RH – too wet, needs to sit outside the jar to dry for 12-24 hours, depending.

65-70% RH – the product is almost in the cure zone, if you will. It can be slowly brought to optimum RH by opening the lid for 2-4 hours.

60-65% RH – the stems snap, the product feels a bit sticky, and it is curing.

55-60% RH – at this point it can be stored for an extended period (3 months or more) without worrying about mold. The product will continue to cure.

Below 55% RH – the RH is too low for the curing process to take place. The product starts to feel brittle. Once you’ve hit this point, nothing will make it better. Adding moisture won’t restart the curing process; it will just make the product wet. If you measure a RH below 55% don’t panic. Read below:

Obviously, the product need time to sweat in the jar. As such, accurate readings won’t be seen for ~24 hours, assuming the flowers are in the optimal cure zone. If you’re curing the product for long-term storage, give the flowers 4-5 days for an accurate reading. If the product is sill very wet, a +70% RH reading will show within hours. If you see the RH rising ~1% per hour, keep a close eye on the product, as it’s likely too moist.

As far as the drybox goes, I find that I have to run it little, if at all, but the amount of time you have to run it will be based on your climate. On my first harvest, I ran it 24x7 and the buds dried too quickly, in about 2 days instead of 4-7 days, which is what I was shooting for. The last harvest, I ran it every four hours for about 15 minutes and they dried in about four days. On this harvest, I'm running it every 6 hours for only about 5 minutes each time, just to replace all the air in the box and hoping to extend the drying time and hopefully help improve final taste.

 

[Mr. Krip]

QUICK PIC UPDATE

Res changes for the girls in veg is scheduled for later this afternoon and both girls are looking good:

I did add the airstone to the second waterfarm on Friday night.

With all the great stuff going on with flowering & transplanting the veg clones to the waterfarms, I don't think I've ever documented what I've been doing with the other two PE clones.

You may remember I had left one in a mini-hempy, hoping to find her a good home with a friend, and the other I transplanted to a SLIGHTLY larger mini-hempy and said I was going to keep as a Bonsai mom.

Well, here's the Bonsai mom (after she got another root trimming & pruning today!) next to one of the waterfarm clones, just to show the difference in size and containers. Keep in mind that BOTH of the plants were cloned at the same time:

Here's a close-up of the Bonsai:

And, since I have the two waterfarm PE's scheduled to go into flower next week, when I was pruning the Bonsai Mom, I decided to take her first couple of clones to see how they do:

I haven't used the STG starter cubes since they proved such a miserable failure when germinating seeds, but I decided to try them on the clones just so I don't have them sitting in a closet for the rest of my life!

For maintaining the Bonsai, my understanding from the research I've done, is that you prune the roots and the tops, somewhat equally, and as long as you don't trim more than 1/3 at a time, you should be OK.

So, I just remove the plant from the mini-hempy which comes out in a pretty solid cylander of roots & perlite. I then trim about 1/3 of the roots, put some clean perlite in the bottom of the hempy, drop the plant back in and pour some more perlite around the plant to fill in any gaps. Then, I prune about 1/3 off the top of the plant, give her some nutes, and it's back in the veg chamber for another few weeks.

So far, it seems to be working. I don't know if she's technically a Bonsai, yet, but she hasn't died, so it must be working!

 

[Xlr8]

Looking awesome Mr. Krip!

Congrats on your PE harvest - really nice looking nugs. I was wondering if you'd ever break out those STG cubes again...

 

[Mr. Krip]

Looking awesome Mr. Krip!

Congrats on your PE harvest - really nice looking nugs. I was wondering if you'd ever break out those STG cubes again...

Thanks, Bro!

I did it against my better judgement!

 

[SteveHman]

Mr. Krip,
How often are you changing out your res (and are you doing a full change)? I know you're using a smaller res than I am so I am curious if you see a need to full changes more frequently.

I have a similar net that I use for drying, I'll have a pic of it up in about two weeks (or less). Your nugs do look nice-and-frosty. Well done!

Can you send me the PM on the hygrometers? Thanks

 

[Mr. Krip]

Mr. Krip,
How often are you changing out your res (and are you doing a full change)? I know you're using a smaller res than I am so I am curious if you see a need to full changes more frequently.

I have a similar net that I use for drying, I'll have a pic of it up in about two weeks (or less). Your nugs do look nice-and-frosty. Well done!

Can you send me the PM on the hygrometers? Thanks

Steve, I do a complete res change once per week. When I do the change, I (religiously!) completely disassemble the waterfarm, clean out all the parts with a bleach solution, rinse, re-assemble, and add the nutes.

During the week, I check PH every couple of days, top off with plain H2O (non-ph'd), then adjust the PH on the res (almost always down & PH required much less adjustment with GH nutes than the AN nutes I'm currently using).

The "Rule of Thumb" with the waterfarms is that when you've topped off with 2 gallons of plain H2O (2 gallons is the amount of nute solution you start with), you should replace the entire res with fresh nutes, but they don't really start drinking more than a 1/2 gallon per day until very late in bloom, so I find once per week is plenty for topping off the nutes.

I'll send you that PM right away!

 

[DeerHunter33]

NICE WORK KPIP!!!!

 

[DeerHunter33]

Have a question?can u help?

 

[Mr. Krip]

NICE WORK KPIP!!!!

Thanks, Bro!

Have a question?can u help?

I'll try...And, you never have to ask me if it's ok to ask - just ask!

 

[DeerHunter33]

DONT WANT TO GET IN TROUBLE/SHELL SHOCKED,I GUESS BEEN A LONG WEEK, MY EX FIANCE SHOT ME BUT ONLY 2 PELLETS HIT.SHES IN JAIL KNOW.SHERIFF CAME OF COURSE FOUND MY 12-12 ROOM,THEY SAID DO U HAVE A CARD I SAID YES . THEN THEY LOOKED AND WERE IMPRESSED!! DIDNT EVEN COUNT , BUT IM GONNA MOVE KNOW CAUSE I DONT EVEN WANT THEM KNOWING! IM GLAD SHE IS GONE!! SHE WAS HOOKED ON XANAX. AND CRACK, DIDNT EVEN KNOW, TILL I CAUGHT HER!!!!!!JUST BAD WEEK!!!! U THINK I SHOULD SWITCH TO BUBBLER SYSTEM????SOIL IS GREAT BUT JUST THINKING,/ JUST BOUGHT L.E.D. PANEL USING IN VEG GUESS?HOW HIGH FROM PLANT CAN I PUT PANEL???THANK U /////U ARE AWSOME!!!

 

[DeerHunter33]

Never seen a person on cannabis act like that!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Mr. Krip]

DONT WANT TO GET IN TROUBLE/SHELL SHOCKED,I GUESS BEEN A LONG WEEK, MY EX FIANCE SHOT ME BUT ONLY 2 PELLETS HIT.SHES IN JAIL KNOW.SHERIFF CAME OF COURSE FOUND MY 12-12 ROOM,THEY SAID DO U HAVE A CARD I SAID YES . THEN THEY LOOKED AND WERE IMPRESSED!! DIDNT EVEN COUNT , BUT IM GONNA MOVE KNOW CAUSE I DONT EVEN WANT THEM KNOWING! IM GLAD SHE IS GONE!! SHE WAS HOOKED ON XANAX. AND CRACK, DIDNT EVEN KNOW, TILL I CAUGHT HER!!!!!!JUST BAD WEEK!!!! U THINK I SHOULD SWITCH TO BUBBLER SYSTEM????SOIL IS GREAT BUT JUST THINKING,/ JUST BOUGHT L.E.D. PANEL USING IN VEG GUESS?HOW HIGH FROM PLANT CAN I PUT PANEL???THANK U /////U ARE AWSOME!!!

Geez, Bro! That sounds like one hell of a sh1tty week! I happen to love hydro (I think it's the science background in me), but you seem to be producing great bud using soil. Why are you thinking of changing?

How many watts is your LED? I'm not sure I can answer the panel distance question, but I would first take a look at what the light manufacturer recommends. I can tell you that my 180w UFO is recommended at 8"-14" above the canopy, so if you were running more watts, I'd recommend more distance and if you were running less watts, I'd recommend less.

I hope that help & really hope this coming week works out a lot better for you!

 

[OldMedMan]

DONT WANT TO GET IN TROUBLE/SHELL SHOCKED,I GUESS BEEN A LONG WEEK, MY EX FIANCE SHOT ME BUT ONLY 2 PELLETS HIT.SHES IN JAIL KNOW.SHERIFF CAME OF COURSE FOUND MY 12-12 ROOM,THEY SAID DO U HAVE A CARD I SAID YES . THEN THEY LOOKED AND WERE IMPRESSED!! DIDNT EVEN COUNT , BUT IM GONNA MOVE KNOW CAUSE I DONT EVEN WANT THEM KNOWING! IM GLAD SHE IS GONE!! SHE WAS HOOKED ON XANAX. AND CRACK, DIDNT EVEN KNOW, TILL I CAUGHT HER!!!!!!JUST BAD WEEK!!!! U THINK I SHOULD SWITCH TO BUBBLER SYSTEM????SOIL IS GREAT BUT JUST THINKING,/ JUST BOUGHT L.E.D. PANEL USING IN VEG GUESS?HOW HIGH FROM PLANT CAN I PUT PANEL???THANK U /////U ARE AWSOME!!!

Jesus DeerHunter!
Man, I'm glad your ok...except mentally I'm sure. What a rush,,,think you know someone and wham. I hear you on moving. I did have cops here when I was ripped off, but stayed put since I'm legal. Take care Bro.

 

[Mr. Krip]

QUICK UPDATE - NO PICS

Just a quick update. I got lazy this weekend and did the res changes in the waterfarms early this morning. Not much has changed since the pics I posted yesterday, so figured I'd hold off on more pics today.

The PE harvested on Saturday seems to be drying perfectly. I'm coming to the conclusion that the fan in the DIY drying box is really only needed in a pretty high humidity environment.

I do have a ceiling fan constantly blowing in the room the box is in and, although the buds don't get any direct breeze from that fan since they're sealed in the box, I think it creates enough air movement that there's good fresh air always circulating.

I've only been running the fan 4-6 times per day for 2-5 minutes or so, really just to replace all the air in the box.

After the first 48 hours drying, the outside of the buds are starting to feel dry, but I can still feel a good amount of moisture in them when lightly squeezed, and they still smell fantastic!

I'm sure another reason for the slower dry (besides fan run time) is that these buds are much denser than the last two harvests.

Also, I thought I'd make some comments on hempy vs. hydro, and this is just my personal experience....

When I first decided to try hempy, I assumed there would be a higher cost of nutes due to more res changes. I was wrong!

Even though you're doing more res changes, the res's (at least for me) are smaller and use much less nute solution each res change.

With hempy, the plants are much easier to move around either for watering, or just to reposition in the grow room.

The growth, IMHO, is definately more vigorous with hydro.

I'm still "on the fence" as to which one is easier to maintain. With the smaller res's on the waterrfarms, I have to check/adjust PH every couple of days and top off with more water. This was essentially the same routine I went through with hempy - mix a batch of PH'd nute solution every couple of days and water. So, for me, the maintenance was about the same, but I can see how a larger res would tilt things to the hydro side for maintenance. But, once you're using a single (larger) res, you've introduced other issues such as the ability to tailor the nute regime for each individual plant, and a problem in the res (i.e. pythium, etc.) will spread to all the plants.

Just thought I put that out there for anyone interested!

Happy Harvests!

K

 

[SteveHman]

Mr. Krip,
I think the larger the res the easier the maintenance. It almost seems counter-intuitive. I ran into the same thing with salt-water aquariums. The smaller ones always needed constant adjustments and I was always chasing the pH/salinity. I went to a much larger tank and the problems all went away. Larger res is more stable and small errors in nutes are not as noticeable. The down-sides as you mentioned are not being able to tailor a feeding regimen to different strains and the chance of something bad affecting everything.

I think both of those issues can be mitigated by growing the same strain, or similar strains in the system, heavy aeration and constant movement of nutes.

I have my moms in hempy buckets and they are doing fine, but I have to hand water them every 3 days. I just have to fill my top-up res once a week and change my nutes every two weeks in the hydro setup. Once I have an R/O system hooked up, there will be no need for the top-up res and I will be one step closer to running on auto-pilot.

@deerhunter,
That is one crazy story, glad to hear that things with LEO went well, but it's a shame you have to move now because of the situation. Although it is probably for the best, you don't want your ex coming back to where you live (assuming she isn't locked up for a while). The distance on your LED will depend on the number and wattage of the individual chips, and the type of grow you have going on. I don't use mine in veg, just for flower, but I would keep them about 24 inches if they are 3w chips, 18 inches or a little closer for 1 w chips. Keep a close eyen on them and adjust the height based on the response of the plant. If they're stretching out trying to get to the light, lower them. If they're getting short and stacked, then raise them. Every light is different and each strain will respond differently. Best of luck.