Green Knight - Hydro CFL - Auto Bomb - First Grow Journal

[Green Knight]

Hello hello. So, having done a couple of grows about ten years ago (Chronic) I got the itch again. And my house happened to have a perfect cupboard. I had to negotiate with my wife, and do the 'more important things' like the central heating, kitchen, bathroom etc before I could build a grow cupboard without facing a divorce, but four years later the time has come and the last few weeks have been spent planning and building the cupboard. I'm now pretty much ready to start the grow itself and having been stalking this forum in silence for the last few weeks (thanks 420 for the advice I've gleaned!) I've realised that it's nice to have the detail on what people are doing and see things progress from the beginning. It also helps the experts on here give great advice.
So I thought I'd give the intro to the build so the full picture's there from start to harvest. I'm pretty happy with where I've got to with the grow room (DIY is something I've got a lot of experience with so hopefully this bit might be helpful to others) but any advice additional ideas and advice is always welcome. When I get to the grow itself in a few days it will be a different story so the more you people can help the better!!

I'll be growing an Auto Bomb to start while I finish the propogating room, and then will grow a Berry Bomb - I wanted some bud quicker than if I started straight away with a photoperiod so thought I'd get an auto going in the meantime.
I've built some ------------ (completely plagarised from other systems I've seen) under a 125w double spectrum CFL using Canna Hydro nutrients (I bought them before realising they'd now developed pH balanced Aqua for recirculating systems but never mind. I've used the Hydro before and they were fine)

Anyway: here's the cupboard I have at the top of my stairs:

It had a nice space to the left. It's not huge: 48cm x 60cm x 240cm, but big enough for a propogating room and flowering room with one plant. I reckon I'm going to ScrOG with the BerryBomb but may just leave the AutoBomb to do its thing (although I have read some people saying you can Scrog autos too - any experience on this anyone?)
I'd have liked to have used the whole cupboard, but as I mentioned earlier it was a negotiation - I've promised to build my wife a shoe cupboard on the right, so it will be a cupboard for weed and shoes. I think my wife and I will both be standing just outside the cupboard, one looking left, one looking right, admiring our own different pleasures in life!!

I want the cupboard to be completely self contained so I started by installing power - four double sockets, two each for the flowering and propogating rooms:

I installed the patress boxes and chased everything in before wiring the sockets. I didn't want anything overloading (even though it's just a 125W CFL and smaller CFL for the propogating room but I'd rather be on the safe side, and it gives some room in the future if I want to upgrade the lights or add stuff) so the floorboards came up and I wired it all into the ring main. It also means the wiring's legal!!

Filled, sanded and painted for a nice finish and then installed a new floor:

I then started building the frame. I wanted it to be completely light-proof so I built it so the door would sit flush against an overlap which I could paint matt black to kill any light:

Put the fan in (had this from my grow 10yrs ago). It does 200 cubic meters an hour so will empty the cupboard of air plenty of times!

The frame and shelf are now complete and all painted white. The hole at the back of the shelf is to draw air up through the propogating chamber and will be fitted with a dark-room lightproof louvre. I'm using a few of these as you'll see later.

I then put a door on the main cupboard (with a lock!) to keep nosey people out and prevent us from having to live in isolation with no visitors. From the stairs it just looks like a cupboard. I've cut the door a little short (there's a 2-3" gap at the bottom to allow air flow in and out of the main cupboard. No light will escape so this is fine from a stealth point of view.

Here's the view of the grow cupboard with the door on. The black circles are more of the light proof vents: two at the bottom of the main door to suck air in and up through the cupboard, and one at the back of the shelf to draw air up and through from the propogating room. The door for the propogating room will also have a vent so air can enter it and go up through into the flowering room.

Up at the top of the cupboard is a carbon filter as I can't vent outside and don't want the house stinking of green (or my wife's shoes for that matter - she would not be happy)

I built the ------------ using totes I bought off the internet: one for the main vegging/flowering and one for propogating cuttings etc. I also figure I could keep a couple of small mother plants going to keep some variety. These will each have a pump which feeds the 8cm net pots (which will be filled with clay pebbles) and an air stone to get loads of oxygen in

And here's the finished article:

I'm awaiting arrival of my small rockwool cubes and I will germ the seed and start the grow. Rockwool should be here by tomorrow so I think that by Sunday / early next week I shall have a seedling and will give an update on progress.

I'm quite excited and really looking forward to actually getting the lady growing!!!

 

[Green Knight]

Right, so my rockwool has arrived. I'm going to soak it, the air stone and the rinsed clay pebbles overnight in some pH 5.5 water and place my seed in some damp paper towel. Tomorrow I should be able to plant the seed and fingers crossed I'll have a seedling showing by Saturday / Sunday

 

[Green Knight]

So we now have a seedling. I've read that autos can be a bit sensitive to nutes so it's currently receiving 1/4 of the recommended dose of nutrient solution (EC = 1). Will see how she does this week and then look to increasing the concentration at the weekend to an EC of 1.3.

 

[ajagunle]

Fantastic stealth garden! Best of on its maiden grow!



Sub'd, don't say much but I'll be reading.

 

[Green Knight]

Thanks Ajagunle, I really appreciate that. Fingers crossed everything will progress smoothly and I don't hurt her!

 

[Green Knight]

Bit of an update; thanks to a message from Outspoken I got thinking about temps. I haven't got a temp/hygrometer yet assuming that indoor CFL with the extractor I've got the temp is unlikely to be a major problem, but the grow room was really quite warm considering so i did a bit more investigation. Because the plant's so small and I've got the CFL so close it was warming the res. I don't think this in itself would be a problem but my air pump was right next to the res and is a matt blue - it seemed to be absorbing all the heat, was hot to the touch and pumping hot air into the res. I do have one of those digital thermometers for when you're ill and which i used to check the temp of the nutes and they were 36C, which I reckon is a potential disaster in the making!
Long term it shouldn't be a problem as the plant gets bigger and the light gets further away, and once I've finished my propagating room they'll veg under a smaller bulb until I harvested and they'll bigger when I move them up to flower so the light won't be so close, but short term I could have nailed my little seedling, with lack of oxygen and too much heat on the roots, not to mention issues with bacteria etc in the nutes.
I've made some modifications as a result, moving the air pump into the propagating room so it pumps cooler air into the nutes and doesn't get warmed by the light (which was always the final plan, but I was inpatient and stuck it into the flowering room until I'd finished the one below), moving the desk fan down so it blows directly over the res and CFL / reflector, and covering the res in more reflective material to reflect more heat as well as light (the res is also blue plastic, like the air pump, and this seems to be exceptionally good at absorbing heat!) I also added some more, cooler nute solution to bring the temp down to an acceptable level in the short term, and will monitor things to make sure it's staying around 20-25C, rather than 36!!

Res covered with more reflective material to reflect more heat:

Fan moved to blow over the CFL & reflector more (I didn't think it would fit but with some jiggling about it does)

The air pump which I think was the major cause of the problem

Luckily the seedling doesn't appear to look worried or show any signs of distress (and is a little big bigger) so hopefully the issue's been resolved before doing any major damage

 

[Green Knight]

Still having issues with the temp of the nutes, they just build up over the day. I've downsized the light to the smaller 30W grow light I've got for the prop/veg room; I'm sure the problem's because the plant's so small and the CFL's so close that over 18hrs it's just gently warming the reservoir. When the plant gets bigger, shades more of the surface of the res, and the light's further away this shouldn't (I hope!) be a problem. Otherwise it's going to be a massive ball ache! Having the big light on a seedling might be a bit unnecessary anyway and it will save on electricity for a bit using the smaller one.

Has anyone had similar issues though, or got any advice?

 

[grogreen]

Hey buddy just checking out your journal, I like the setup nicely done. I think you got the right ideas, use a smaller light until she gets bigger, you could get away with a light half the size for now and as you said, as you raise the light up it will solve the heat issues. In the mean time get your veg chamber rocking and rolling and don't transfer your plants until they are "plants" lol not seedlings, best of luck to you friend, cheers, grogr33n

 

[Green Knight]

Thanks grogr33n, I really appreciate that. Yeah, using the smaller bulb has sorted the temp issues; the res has dropped to 22C - impatience is a terrible thing and I think the fastest way for me to hurt the plant - patience is a virtue and all that!
I'm going to be finishing the veg chamber this weekend so will have everything complete and a more ideal environment for the seedling until she's big enough to make the move upstairs!

Thanks mate

 

[grogreen]

good luck! I've subscribed to this journal so you have any problems, questions, concerns, milestones post them I'll be sure to check in from time to time, and if its something I'm unsure about I'll refer you in the right direction. I'm not familiar with hydro so maybe I can learn something from you, happy growing.........grogr33n

PS- I like pictures, so be sure to post lots, also just a suggestion, try your hand out at topping and fimming to utilize your limited space for maximum production

 

[Green Knight]

Thanks mate; I'm sure I'll have loads of questions as I go along so your help and experience will be greatly appreciated! In fact, funny you say that - it would be good to get a second opinion on my thinking about topping etc!

I've been reading up on topping, Fiming, ScROG and also super cropping to try and squeeze the most out the space. This first one's an auto so I'm thinking let it do it's thing and stress it as little as possible. I'm tempted to scrog it though as I figure it won't stress it too much and will keep an even canopy, particularly as I'm using a cfl and my understanding is they don't penetrate much. My thinking was to get a screen in once it's bigger and can start filling it, but before it starts showing sex, but not having grown an auto before I imagine timing will be key to try and fill the screen before it switches itself to flower - what do you reckon?

With the Berry Bomb I think I'm going to let rip a bit more as its a photo and it can have a bit of recovery time before I switch it to flower. I was thinking of topping it, then Fiming each of the two new tops to get eight which can be trained around the screen. I was then thinking at this stage of super cropping it as I fill the screen - I'm figuring that bending it under the screen is a bit like LST, so it wouldn't be much more to super crop it each time I bend them back under. I can then let it recover for a bit before switching to 12/12. Don't know if it's overkill but I've read a lot of good things about both super cropping and scrog, and it seems to me that they could work well together as it will create more tops and the super crop will maximise delivery of nutes etc to each top. But again, this is just my thinking and it's not based on experience so if you've got any advice it would be gratefully received!!

 

[grogreen]

Thanks mate; I'm sure I'll have loads of questions as I go along so your help and experience will be greatly appreciated! In fact, funny you say that - it would be good to get a second opinion on my thinking about topping etc!

I've been reading up on topping, Fiming, ScROG and also super cropping to try and squeeze the most out the space. This first one's an auto so I'm thinking let it do it's thing and stress it as little as possible. I'm tempted to scrog it though as I figure it won't stress it too much and will keep an even canopy, particularly as I'm using a cfl and my understanding is they don't penetrate much. My thinking was to get a screen in once it's bigger and can start filling it, but before it starts showing sex, but not having grown an auto before I imagine timing will be key to try and fill the screen before it switches itself to flower - what do you reckon?

Not sure if you have been following my journal, but everything you just mentioned I have experimented with, even against people's advice and better judgement and had nothing but fantastic results. Now I will let you know autos are something im not familiar with, what made you choose an auto, over a regular strain? That's besides the point, was just curious. If you check out my journal you'll see the first thing I did to my plants was fim at a very early age maybe 4-6 inches tall (fimming if done properly will produce 4 new shoots as opposed to topping which will only give you 2) and when the 4 new shoots came out i topped those. So this in turn gave me 4 new shoots from the fim and 8 from the topping, so 12 main colas total roughly, and dozens of off shoots. Then I did my research on a SCROG, this is what I did, I installed my screen when I was about 5 weeks into veg. I vegged for one more week as to give it a chance to grow through the screen.

now this is where it gets interesting, my main budsites where i fimmed and topped were growing at an incredible rate, I was running out of screen to keep feeding them through so I figured it was time to trip them to flower thinking that flowering will make them stop growing vertically (I have limited head room in my closet so the last thing I wanted was to run out of room) well i soon realized about two weeks into flower I may have vegged too long and these things will be at my lights in no time, so I decided to super crop all the over growth in an effort to give the rest of my branches a chance to catch up. Don't mind my stupid commentary, I was probly high as hell when I did it, but just to give you an idea, here's a video.

now if you are planning to SCROG, I'm sure you've read it is best to eliminate the majority of the undergrowth/popcorn bud sites/branches to focus all your plants energy to one spot, your main canopy.
Now with autos you are never going to be able to predict flower so it will all come down to a matter of timing. You may have a general idea from the seed source of how long she'll veg before flower. Is this a feminized seed?

With the Berry Bomb I think I'm going to let rip a bit more as its a photo and it can have a bit of recovery time before I switch it to flower. I was thinking of topping it, then Fiming each of the two new tops to get eight which can be trained around the screen. I was then thinking at this stage of super cropping it as I fill the screen - I'm figuring that bending it under the screen is a bit like LST, so it wouldn't be much more to super crop it each time I bend them back under. I can then let it recover for a bit before switching to 12/12. Don't know if it's overkill but I've read a lot of good things about both super cropping and scrog, and it seems to me that they could work well together as it will create more tops and the super crop will maximise delivery of nutes etc to each top. But again, this is just my thinking and it's not based on experience so if you've got any advice it would be gratefully received!!

My advice, fim first and then top, or fim and fim again. Now some people have said that by fimming and topping you may end up with a ton of medium sized top main colas as opposed to not fimming or topping and have a handful of giant colas. I imagine this is strictly strain dependant, but as you familiarize yourself with your strain you'll know what she likes and what she hates. Supercropping i strongly suggest trying! My suppercropped bud sites all hold half oz. + sized buds at the moment. I'm a keen believer in trying new things, it's your plant, experiment! Marijuana is a very resilient plant provided you give it the right conditions, it's called weed, because it is a weed, and as you probably know weeds are hard to get rid of! I suggest not too experiment too much with nutes though, those are something that can ruin your day/week and crop in a heart beat. Stick to the instructions on that stuff. Techniques on the other hand try them out, if you're worried about the effects, try them on maybe one or two branches and compare results with the rest of your plant. I did what you said with a lot of my bud sites, when I trained them through the screen I gave them a bend and caused little damage or recovery period to them, now they all have fat healthy knuckles. So everything you've said above, I see no problem with it and encourage you to try it out same way I did, good luck and keep us posted.....grogr33n

 

[teSmp]

Hey Green what's up? I wrote back in my journal before I came in here. So anyways... You have a 3 sq/ft growing area which is pretty good, my SCROG that I just harvested last night was only 4 sq/ft and the wet weight was 1 3/4 pounds. Your going to need to find a way to build your screen so it fills up your entire 3 sq/ft or I think other growing options would suit you better. I'd recommend 2"x2" squares made out of something pliable, I used elastic string that you use to make bead necklaces out of. It allowed me to adjust the size of the squares depending on the size of top that was growing into it.

I didn't top/fim or supercrop once on my entire plant (actually I accidentally snapped a branch off and taped it back), I vegged for 30 days and I had 106 tops. I flowered for 56 days, relatively short flowering period on sensi star strains. If everything goes smooth on your berry bomb I don't think you'll be vegging any more then 3 weeks but I would go with a bigger net pot on that one. I wouldn't SCROG your auto, I just don't think they're good candidates. If you want to do some sort of training maybe LST it but I wouldn't top/fim if I had one (and no offense I wouldn't grow one). I think 12/12 from seed is a much better option at this point with where autos are at.

Your going to need your reservoir temps < 22C at all times or your going to have nothing but trouble with hydro. If you stay under 22C, I think you'll be a very happy person, I LOVE DWC! I don't know your situation financially or what you and your wife had agreed to but I would strongly recommend getting a 250w digital HPS/MH, placing the ballast outside the grow area and getting an air cooled hood or cool tube. I'd imagine your bulb puts out a good amount of heat with a rather limited amount of lumens. With your skills I think you could easily run the ducting out of the room for a hood and never even have the heat touch inside your grow area, not to mention have a lot more light (28,000-30,000 lumens vs 15,000). If you can't then I think you'll get results with your bulb I'm just not sure if it will be a little or a lot. A SCROG is definitely going to help. However, going back to the beginning of the paragraph if you have temps above 70F (especially 96F!) in your reservoir your not going to make it past the 2nd week of veg! Maybe make some sort of cool tub with ducting for the bulb you got??

You need to get something to measure the temp/RH too! When you start your berry bomb you should follow the first page of my journal to a T, it works so well! Anyway, love your skills +rep. Ask if you need help.

edit: I forgot to mention, if you are going to go with a SCROG I wouldn't even clone. For one, you should only need a 3 week veg time to fill a screen the size of yours. and 2, you would basically be holding a mother plant in the chamber below just to take a single clone off of it and sticking it in to your chamber above. I also would only recommend running a single plant for your SCROG. What I would personally do if it was my space would be veg and fill a screen on top, flower it out and 2-3 weeks before it finishes start your seedling in your lower chamber, get it into veg and move it to the above chamber, fill a screen for another week and flower. Now if you want to scrap the SCROG idea, you could do a SOG with hydro 2L's and clone from the bottom chamber. The 2L's can pull 1-1.5 ounces a piece and you can fill your 3 sq/ft space with them. I don't like this option personally because I only want one plant.

Most importantly only listen to what I'm saying as a recommendation. Feel free to ask me more questions, do your own research or tell me to F*ck off! In the end it's your plants and your grow area

 

[Green Knight]

Cheers mate! Thanks so much for the advice and the time it must have taken you to write it all. I picked up your journal yesterday and I do like your buds. And love your dog - it made me laugh when I saw the picture of him and the remains of the hose! Reminds me of my Dad's old dog (Jake - a mastif/boxer cross) - he used to destroy shit like that!

I chose the auto because of impatience! I figured that if I started an auto I could get some smoke more quickly, and whilst that was going I could germ, veg and clone a photo ready to move her up for more vegging, scrogging and then flowering once the auto had finished, and I'd have some bud to smoke by this point. I figured it would shave 1-2 months off getting a harvest compared to just doing a photo to start. I got feminised seeds for both the Auto Bomb and the Berry Bomb so hopefully there shouldn't be any issues with sex.

(doing this on my iPad and haven't worked out how to do quotes!) - yes; I reckon the trick with scrogging the auto is going to be timing, so I'm hoping it gets to a size that's big enough for me to start the scrog plus gives me a bit extra veg time before it goes into flower.

Agree with you about the nutes; they're pretty resilient plants so I'm not too worried about beating the shit out of the photo with super cropping etc as worst case I can veg a bit longer so it has time to recover, but too many nutes (or too warm a solution!) can hammer a plant pretty quick. I'm being extra careful with the auto as ive read they can be quite sensitive, and you don't have any recovery time if it goes wrong - you just lose yield. I've got it on a pretty light feed (1/4 recommended strength) and will slowly build it up over the next couple of weeks.
I did a couple of hydro grows with Chronic about ten years ago and realised they were pretty hard plants. I didn't do anything interesting with the chronic, just let them grow with a drip feed system and 400w HPS, but I had a 1m x 1m space so a lot more room than this time round. The only issue I had was I got some bud rot in the first grow, right in the main cola of the plant directly under the light. I've not seen many chronic grows on here but they're good fun for massive buds. I was gutted with the rot because the bud was huge - it was 2ft long and the diameter of a rugby ball- I cut the top half where the rot had started and binned it. The bottom half was ok and ended up just under 4oz dry. It was such a bud, but too big for its own good! I still have nightmares about the moment I had to make the decision to hack it in half to save the rest!

I'm looking forward to supercropping the Berry Bomb when I get there - everything I've read it seems to be a no-brainer so I'm not too worried about beating it up a bit. I'm going to take clones so I'll be able to experiment with a couple of grows and find out what she likes and what maximises the yield. The only thing that might interfere with me doing a proper experiment using clones and trying different techniques over a few crops to see what works and yields best is getting some variety - and I've being eyeing up Super Lemon Haze and she's definitely got my attention!

 

[Green Knight]

I'm good thanks teSmp; on here; which is becoming as addictive as the grow! Hope all's good with you mate, but I'm sure it is given what you've just harvested! 1 3/4 pounds off 4sq/ft is bloody impressive. I was thinking with my area I'd be lucky to get 3-4oz if I get it properly dialled in, but you give me hope that up to 6oz might be possible.

Where I've screwed up is with the power points - I didn't want them below the res just in case I muffed up pouring nutes in and ending up pouring it all over the sockets or something, so I put them up high with the intention they'd be above the res but below where I'd put the screen, but sadly I miscalculated so they're gonna cut a little bit off and the bud is going to have to grow up around them. I'm sure it won't be a major problem but it's a bit annoying! But I think for the screen I'm going to screw ring-eyes into the walls and run the string through them as I'll lose less space than if I make a baton frame and will be able to scrog it up to the walls (hadn't thought of elastic string though, was going to use wire originally but that's a good idea thanks)

(I've moved to the proper computer now so I'm going to try quotes!)

I wouldn't SCROG your auto, I just don't think they're good candidates. If you want to do some sort of training maybe LST it but I wouldn't top/fim if I had one (and no offense I wouldn't grow one).

I agree - from what I've read I'm not convinced with autos either, particularly in a small space as you can't really do anything to maximise yield, you get what you get, and if you hurt it it cuts down your yield with no recovery time. But I'll have something to smoke whilst I get stuck into the Berry Bomb proper! LSTing it's not a bad idea though; my biggest concern is given the size of my area and the fact I'm using a CFL I don't want a Xmas tree beacuse of the penetration (or lack of). It may be simpler and cause less stress to LST it, and I'm not overly worried about yield with the auto to be honest - it's more a bit of fun and a practice run to give me some smoke before going proper with the BB.

Totally agree with the res temp; I shit myself about that when I realised it was hitting 36C! Managed to sort it, switched for the much smaller CFL whilst the plant's still small and it's now keeping below 25C; I think I just got a bit carried away getting the 125W on it when the plant was so small and the light was only 4" from the top of the res; over 18 hours it just slowly heated it. I'm reasonably confident that the 125 will be fine once the plant is bigger and it's further from the res - if not then I'm in a world of pain!

I would strongly recommend getting a 250w digital HPS/MH, placing the ballast outside the grow area and getting an air cooled hood or cool tube. I'd imagine your bulb puts out a good amount of heat with a rather limited amount of lumens. With your skills I think you could easily run the ducting out of the room for a hood and never even have the heat touch inside your grow area, not to mention have a lot more light (28,000-30,000 lumens vs 15,000).

I've been thinking about this. I have to admit that originally I was going to get an LED which I thought would make heat even less of an issue, but the one I wanted was sold out and wasn't going to be in stock until the end of the summer so I decided to opt for a CFL. Which having read more about LEDs probably isn't a bad thing as it still seems pretty undecided and they're not cheap. I've still got a 400W HPS and ballast from 10 years ago (would need a new bulb) but that would be overkill in the space I've got.
My only issue is I'm trying to go properly stealth (the cupboard eventually will have a clothes rail across it and a shoe rack to the right so that when you open it it's just a normal cupboard / wardrobe and you have to pay attention to find the grow cupboard on the left) so I'm trying to keep it self contained and not have ballasts etc outside. Unfortunately I've got flats above us so it's a concrete ceiling which means I can't run any ducting above, and running ducting under the floorboards doesn't really work because I hit a load of joists and can't externally vent it. And I think if I tried to vent a lot of hot humid air under the floorboards it will cause problems in the long run (I can put mini de-humidifiers in the main wardrobe / cupboard to take out any moisture extracted with it still being relatively stealth).
What I probably could do is attach the ballast to the ceiling where the carbon filter and fan is, and extract through carbon filter / air-cooled reflector and then vent it out into the cupboard as currently built. I'd sitll get some heat from the ballast but I could probably minimise this if I got one of the newer, non-magnetic coil ones and the extractor is quite powerful compared to the grow-room's size.
To be honest though I'm not growing commercially and I'm just after some proper, boutique bud that I can't get off the streets and for the fun of growing, so the CFL might be ok. I don't really smoke a huge amount - if I got 8.5oz I honestly wouldn't know what to do!! (Well, at least not without incurring significant additional risk!!)

but I would go with a bigger net pot on that one

Yeah, it's an 8cm. I was working on keeping them all the same size so I could just pull the pot out of the prop/room and drop it straight into the flowering room without any complication, and I've built the downstairs res to hold 6 pots. To be honest I probaly don't need that many! I can quite easily modify it but I was working on the res ending up as the pot once the roots have taken and start growing down. Would only having an 8cm pot make that much difference?

You need to get something to measure the temp/RH too! When you start your berry bomb you should follow the first page of my journal to a T, it works so well!

Ordered!! Will have it in a few days hopefully!

Anyway, love your skills +rep. Ask if you need help.

Thank you!! I really appreciate the reps (and ++ reps to you for your help and advice, and for an amazing grow! [but, as anewbie to the site I'm still working out the reps thing - I see people giving them in posts, but do the mods pick them up, or is there something else one has to do for the other person to get them??!)

I forgot to mention, if you are going to go with a SCROG I wouldn't even clone. For one, you should only need a 3 week veg time to fill a screen the size of yours. and 2, you would basically be holding a mother plant in the chamber below just to take a single clone off of it and sticking it in to your chamber above.

That is great advice: I hadn't really thought of that (except with the Auto then BB, then was just going to clone. But yeah, I could just grow a different variety each time and not worry!

Most importantly only listen to what I'm saying as a recommendation. Feel free to ask me more questions, do your own research or tell me to F*ck off!

Ha ha; I'm a bit of an anal geek when it comes to research so that bit comes naturally. But a big part of research is what other people say and have experienced. I may not always follow what people say but I always take it on board and think about it, and it always helps, even if it just helps me think in another direction. You've already given me some really helpful advice and thoughts (hence I've sort of been thinking out loud here) so telling you f*ck off is the last thing I'd do! Particularly when you've taken the time to write and it's been so helpful. So thank you!!

Take it easy teSmp, thank you, and I'll catch up with you soon mate

 

[grogreen]

I see teSmp found your journal, he's a fountain of knowledge, utilize his advice and experience and you will go far green! as for the +reps, there's a little sheriffs badge looking button beside "blog this post" that is how you rep someone, just figured it out myself actually

 

[grogreen]

i totally agree with you teSmp about only scrogging one plant, holy hell what a mess i had to deal with, i ended up cutting the screen away after a few weeks, it became too cluster fucky. Im planning a SOG next grow, not hydro though unfortunately, that will be reserved for a later date. Its evident to me after seeing your SCROG setup that my attempt was amatuer. But it worked for a while to keep my plants from growing up and that was my main concern. Ive grown to learn the only thing better than research is experience. Thanks for dropping by, im sure your way too busy smoking your big fat buds to write back though

 

[Green Knight]

Thanks Grogr33n, found it - still learning how all this works!

 

[grogreen]

No worries I'm here to help, I wanna see these outdoor, I'll buy you batteries if I have to!

 

[Green Knight]

Right, bit of an update. We're now 7 days from when she sprouted and I've changed the nutes and upped the concentration to 1.3. I'm setting the pH to 5.8 and letting it do it's thing; as long as it stays between 5.2-6.2. Cant be bothered chasing pH around. It's not changing much, staying between 5.5-5.9.
The reservoir temps are now stable (bloody air pump - I've isolated everything and that's what's turned out to be the problem; turned it from 24h a day to 15min every hour. A new air pump has been ordered, can't be dealing with rubbish that heats up the reservoir to silly temps)
I've also changed the lighting from 18/6 to 20/4. Here's how she's doing:

Temps are fine, but humidity is a bit lower than ideal for vegging. The smaller propagating room will be better for humidity I reckon as it has less air flow through it so will build up more humidity

Did some more work on the cupboard. Needs a final coat of paint but is basically finished:

Other than that, all is going smoothly at the moment; next week the reflector for the small cfl will arrive and I'll be able to concentrate the light a bit better as she gets bigger.