Super Stealthy Grow Closet - Pure Power Plant - CFL - DWC - My First Attempt

[closetcasecfl]

[video=youtube;g3TcmhpmO50]

[/video]
This is my first attempt at growing. I had some specific needs. I stay with other people and don't have much of a garden. It had to be completely inconspicuous. Electricity bills had to stay low so I opted for a deep water culture system and I am using CFL's, LED's, a grow light and fluorescent tubes.
Currently I'm getting 22000 lumens.
I chose the garage cupboard as it was out of the way and the perfect size. The outlet fan goes into the ceiling and vents at the rooftop to keep the odors to a minimum.
In my quest for stealth I glued all the foil to the cupboard to silence the foil noise. Loudest noise fixed but then I had a new loudest noise. The air stones, they vibrated at the bottom of the tank and were amplified so I got them two rubber rings to stand on. I also have the tank standing on a block of high-density foam.
Now, when the doors are closed you don't hear anything. Awesome!
Light also leaked through the gaps of the cupboard. A lot of gaffer tape fixed that problem.
Currently the whole operation (including fans, pumps, lights ect) is under 400w
Its still very early stages and I'm sure some other problems will arise

Any help, things I might be doing wrong or tips will greatly be appreciated

 

[closetcasecfl]

Re: Super stealthy grow closet. Pure power plant, CFL, DWC. My first attempt

My seeds ordered from Nirvana seeds

My nutrients, clay pellets and rockwool. I see there’s a lot of nutrients but as this is my first time I don’t want to make things too complicated for myself

Still early days

Lighting done

Went for a smaller container. I think growing 6 plants at the same time was a bit ambitions. Lamp shade installed and hooked the extractor fan to it

My inlet fan

I had to find a easy way to empty the container so I made this tap that plugs into the garden house. This is also handy when testing the PH.

My charts and RH/Temperature gauge. The “outside” thermometer was placed inside my container. I can now read air tempreture, water temperature and reletive humidity. It also has a min/max function to see your highs and lows

Lights on!! 22000 Lumens

My extractor fan. I used two plastic bowls to make the enclosure

Water level

How I hope the system is going to work

Took this Yesterday. It went really slow for about two weeks as I added only half the required nutrients. Currently its on normal strength and she is finally gathering some speed.

 

[closetcasecfl]

Re: Super stealthy grow closet. Pure power plant, CFL, DWC. My first attempt

Anybody know why the leaf tip is brown?

 

[virgingrower]

Re: Super stealthy grow closet. Pure power plant, CFL, DWC. My first attempt

More than likley nute burn,as nute burn turns the tips brown and crispy

Nice looking set up

 

[closetcasecfl]

Week 6

Week 6, winter in South Africa and temps are really low. Lights are on through out the night to fight the freezing temps but I'm pretty sure its slowing her down a bit. My max hits about 24deg and my Min is about 12deg. Should I try and warm it up a bit? If so how will I go about this???

Otherwise I cannot be happier. She looks super healthy, I think I've got the nutes just about right.

Roots finally through the basket

One question tho... According to my nutes chart I need to double the amount of nutes next week. Currently it is 3ml/liter and next week is 6ml/liter. Does this sound right? She looks so healthy and I'm so scared I might burn her but on the other hand, might it increase her growth speed???
Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[virgingrower]

Re: Super stealthy grow closet. Pure power plant, CFL, DWC. My first attempt

To keep the temps up i used a little electric heater with a thermostat built in,if there is a red light on the heater make sure you cover it with something I cant help you with the nutes sorry i have no experience with them

 

[closetcasecfl]

Re: Super stealthy grow closet. Pure power plant, CFL, DWC. My first attempt

Week 7

Roots growing like crazy and drinking about 3 liters a week, she finally picking up some real speed...

Really nice stubby grow. My closet doesn't allow for a tall plant and this Pure power plant is exactly doing what its supposed to...

 

[Spimp]

Re: Super stealthy grow closet. Pure power plant, CFL, DWC. My first attempt

Nice little grow here!

 

[PeeJay]

Re: Super stealthy grow closet. Pure power plant, CFL, DWC. My first attempt

What Spimp said. Nice video and introduction. I don't know anything about DWC, but I asked Chronic to stop by and take a look. He is a good person to ask DWC questions, and I'm sure he'll drop in here next time he's on.

 

[CO Finest]

Re: Super stealthy grow closet. Pure power plant, CFL, DWC. My first attempt

You are off to a good start. Very nice intro. I will hang around and see what you got going on. Keep it growing green...

 

[CronicHempHog]

Re: Super stealthy grow closet. Pure power plant, CFL, DWC. My first attempt

pretty closet

 

[Greenthumb J]

Re: Super stealthy grow closet. Pure power plant, CFL, DWC. My first attempt

I think i will follow along to this as well. I am also doing a DWC grow with 7 plants in flower and 2 mothers in a separate area, all in DWC.

I am definitely not as seasoned in DWC like ChronicHempHog, but i have had my share of mishaps already and fixed my solutions that i feel i could safely offer a bit of advice, at least on problems i have encountered.

For instance, having multiple plants in the same DWC. Great idea to save space and reduce the amount of airstones you need running, but plants will fight for nutrients in the same container. Roots will tangle up in each other, making transplanting to a different container, next to impossible, and if your Fem seeds turn hermaphroditic, they could pollinate nearby plants and you will have a harvest full of seeds. IF the roots are tangled up in such a situation, you wont be able to pull the Hermied plant, because you will damage the root system of the other plants.

You dont have to worry about this since you are only growing one strain in the DWC tub, but different strains require different amounts of nutrient levels. For me, i have 3 different strains growing in one DWC tub. Luckily for me they are all genetically similar in a way, since the one strain was used to make the other 2 (Greenhouse seed Co. White widow, White rhino, which is a widow cross.. and Great white shark which is another plant of similar genetics/mother/father plants) However, in my other DWC tub i have a 100% sativa that loves more nutrients and drinks up way more water than the 1 Widow plant thats in the same TUB.. comparing the two Widows i have flowering (one in each tub) i notice the one with the sativa is lacking in height and bud production mainly because there were so many sativa roots drinking up all the nutrtients and didn't allow proper intake of essential nutrients required for growth and bud development.

DWC is great and i find it a lot of fun to grow. I haven't grown in other mediums so i have no educated comparisons etc. Just be weary of how many external factors there are to consider when taking on Deep Water Culture. PH fluctuations, power outages etc.. I am actually encountering another problem this very moment, but i will post it on my own journal. Please come take a look at my current journal, if you have the time, and care to learn with a newbie like myself.

 

[CronicHempHog]

Re: Super stealthy grow closet. Pure power plant, CFL, DWC. My first attempt

I just follow the manufacturers guidelines and listen to the plant

 

[closetcasecfl]

Wow good to be back. Sorry for being so quiet. Here are the latest pics and boy, is she growing.
I added a Aquaponics system at the back for my clones.. Nice and snug fit. It works well.

Week 8:

Week 9, what a big difference a week makes.

Roots growing big and still looks very healthy. No sign of any root rot

Week 10, Scrog in place, trimmed bottom leaves and supper cropped all the main branches

Week 11, Canopy nice and dense

Week 12, Basically at this moment my nutes are full strength now for vigorous growth and she's drinking about a liter a day. I also try to keep the branches growing to the sides to fill up the closet to maximize my small closet

If anybody has tips for me it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

[closetcasecfl]

Day 1 Flowering (Week 14)
IT'S FLOWER TIME!

She's about half the size of the closet so I decided its time to flower. She looks strong and very healthy.

I read that the most efficient CFL are the 24w ones (lux vs wattage) so I went with 10x24w warm CFL's. I took a old gutter pipe and made wing reflectors for each light. Light cycle is set to 12 hours and started using the blooming nutrients.

Once she starts flowering I'll post some more pics.

Enjoy

 

[closetcasecfl]

2 Weeks into bloom

Finally seeing some flowers forming. My baby still looks good and strong. Growing very quick but the closet should have enough space.

I changed the water yesterday after running with grow and bloom nutes for about 12 days. I'm no longer using my grow nutes??? (following the nute chart).

I also dropped my fluorescents to get some more light in from the sides and also used 2 cool white CFL's from the veg cycle to give her a more mixed spectrum (please note that I rise the light to take better photo's)

Trimming leaves here and there to get light to the bottom leaves but I try not to remove any unnecessary leaves. Also she's still LST a bit to keep her in the space of the closet and away from the fluorescents lights that are now much lower than before

Winter is very dry here so I can finally stop trying to add humidity in the closet. Its currently running at 20% RH.

So... thats that.
Please comment if I'm doing anything wrong (or right)

 

[Greenthumb J]

i would try to get your RH% up a bit to about 40-50% for flowering. 20% is very low and will cause your plants to transpire faster thus you will have to feed and add more water/nutrients and its possible you will run into a lock out of some sort, or over feeding and burn your plant, cause of its constant need to re-hydrate itself in such dry conditions.

 

[closetcasecfl]

WEEK 7

Flowering almost done.

Very scared to harvest, trichomes still look transparent

I need some advice on when to start flushing. How do I pre empt the flushing so harvest time and the end of flushing is on the same day. Will trichomes give me any indication its a week from harvest?

 

[Greenthumb J]

How many days from the day you changed your light schedule from 18/6 to 12/12 did it take to start seeing pistils?

 

[Greenthumb J]

sorry just read back quickly. if it took 2 weeks to start seeing and signs of flowers, i would subtract these many days from how long you think you are in flower.. so i would estimate more like week 5-6. I'm pretty sure its this time period, from seeing flower formation start, to harvest, is what the breeders gauge their harvest times on. Most people count the first couple of weeks as the plants hormones are changing into reproductive mode as part of their "week" count.