GreenChrome's Perpetual Grow Journal Volume 1 - Soil - Ice & Bubblicious

GreenChrome

New Member
In honor of the date, I figured today would be a good day to start our ongoing journal. We are part way through a rushed grow, but are making improvements to our space, equipment, and timeline that should give us significant improvements on our next grow. This first post will be an overview of what we have done, and we will follow up with details and pictures until we are all caught up.

I abandoned my last journal detailing most of my small closet grow. I cant even find it on here, so I wont be able to post the link. We had a lot going on at the time, including renovations on out new house! We are now all settled in and have built our grow space out in the garage. We decided to build two seperate and almost identical chambers. The veg chamber is about 2'8'' by 5 ', and 8' tall. I have two 400w veg bulbs next to each other in air cooled reflectors which light the space very well. The flower chamber is about 3'4'' by 5', and 8' tall. It has two 600w flower bulbs in low rider reflectors that are also air cooled.

The plants are all grown in roots organic soil, and the plants themselves (currently in flower since April 1st), started as seeds from Nirvana. The strains are Ice and Bubblicious, both have 8-10 week flowering times.

The plants that have just entered veg are clones from these plants.

In between these two rooms is a utility room which houses the ventilation fan that circulates the air from both rooms via a t intersection (It is a 4'' 190 CFM- We plan to upgrade soon and are aware that it is too small for our new space). The ballasts are also mounted on the walls and off the floor. Each chamber has an airtight sealed door, with two 4 inch intake vents near the floor. The exhaust is picked up from the top of the room in the flower chamber through a small carbon filter. The ducting than leads through the lights and out to the fan, which is blown out of the utility room into the garage.

In a seperate cabinet in the garage, we have set up a clone chamber and another small flower chamber for SOG. We have yet to use these, as I just finished them last night.

We look forward to showing you through the building process, planting process, growing, curing, and- well, I guess we can tell you about the smoking process, if we remember. Pics from step one will be here soon. Have a happy 420!

-Green Chrome
 
Re: GreenChrome's Perpetual Grow Journal Volume 1 (Soil, Ice & Bubblicious)

We just discovered that with the new site we are unable to upload photos until the problems are all worked out. That being said, we only had a few pics of the construction stage anyway so I will just describe the process.

After much deliberation, we decided that the best place to grow would be in our garage. It is a bit more discreet than anywhere else, and out dog stays in there when we have guests- which keeps them out. Where we live, we can only grow 6 plants. I wanted to have the most efficient room I could come up with, so we decided on two small rooms that are 3x5. I framed out a 5' x 12' wall and added a doorway in the middle. We insulated the wall and used 5/8th's drywall on both sides to insulate. The wall is built around the backside of the fireplace which created a cubbyhole on each side. From entering the doorway, you are in the utilty section of the room. This is where the ballasts are mounted on the walls, the fan mounted to the cieling, and misc. supplies hang on the walls. If you turn to the right or left, we created two more doorways that lead to each chamber. These were framed in and drywalled, with the exception of the plywood doors. The doors sit in a homemade frame with weather stripping around it. This keeps the rooms airtight and light tight so that we could control where the room got its air, and where it was exhausted from. We cut out two 4'' vents close to the floor to bring in cool air from the utility room, which receives its air from a high cut between the bottom of the door and the floor(it pulls through these vents with some force). Inside each room, we used white panda plastic to cover the walls and floor, and under the plastic on the floor we cut to shape and placed some old blue camping sleep mats to insulate the bottom of the plants. I then drilled into the studs in the cieling and hung 4 hooks to support the two hoods per room. Another few hooks on the cieling hold the carbon filter in the flower room. The air than travels from the top of the room down through the hoods and back up to just above the plywood door where it passes through the drywall to the fan in the middle of the utility room (pulling from both chambers). The air than vents out of the room above the doorway I framed in back in the beginning. The cables for the lamps also exit the chambers at the top of the room next to the exhaust vents.

All in all, it was a fun process to build these rooms. We reused most of the wood for framing from teardowns in other areas of the house, and reused the door also. The entire cost to build these rooms was probably less than $100 (NOT including equipment, haha) and that was mostly drywall.

As for the plants- we started with seeds from Nirvana that I ordered last year. We soaked them until the cracked open and dropped them into rapid rooter plugs. When they emerged and had some roots we planted them into 4" pots and put them under a 250w flourescent in another closet while we worked on these rooms. They grew much quicker than I had anticipated and we rushed to complete the veg chamber. When we picked them up to transplant them we discovered that the roots had grown out of the pot by as much as a foot, and were sitting in packing peanuts that we used to allow for drainage under the pots between them and the tray. We planted them in 7g pots after some complex surgery to remove the pots from the plant and put them in our new veg chamber. At the time, we only had one 400w cool tube and the plants stretched quite a bit. With the amount of stretching (they were about 3 feet tall in a few weeks), I switched the light cycle to 12/12 in the veg chamber and started putting some serious time into finishing the flower chamber. We completed that chamber last week (2 weeks into flowering), and moved the girls to their new home under the dual 600w bulbs in air cooled low rider reflectors. With the veg room empty, we planted some clones I had taken before we switched to flowering in some gigantic pots. I do not know the actual size, we reused them from some landscaping projects. I would assume around 12 to 14g. I chose to use these pots because to make this plan work and keep our chambers full, we will be on a 9 week cycle.

The plan
Weeks 1 through 7 are for veg growth in that room, and flowering at the other. At the end of week 7 we will begin our flush of the flowering plants in preperation of harvest in 2 weeks. At this time, we will also take clones from the veg plants. In two weeks, we will harvest the flowering plants and clean the room. We will than move the veg plants to the flower room and flower them. The clones we took two weeks ago should be well rooted in our clone cabinet, and will now move on to the veg chamber after a good cleaning. With such a long veg time, we plan to do some LST and get these girls bushy! We are looking for many colas, so we know we need enough dirt to support the massive root system that will be created in a 9 week veg.

The plants
Right now, we have 5 ladies in flower. 2 are Ice, and 3 are Bubblicious. These are the stretched ones, so expectations arent too high, but I think it will be better than my first grow. Currently growing in the veg room are two Bubblicious and one Ice. From this point on it will be three at a time in each chamber.

Geez, I typed right through 4:20. Im out of here, I hope you enjoyed the post, and now that we are all caught up I will keep you updated with pictures, when that glitch is fixed.

Peace, enjoy your 420

-GreenChrome
 
Re: GreenChrome's Perpetual Grow Journal Volume 1 (Soil, Ice & Bubblicious)

Just checked on the girls, and they are looking good. Got a huge main cola growing on two of them, but one is especially sweet. I cant wait for that bud. On the other hand, discovered a couple issues as well. For one, I think I may need that bigger fan sooner, like tomorrow. Temps in the veg chamber hit 91 at some point, probably just before the lights turned out. On the flower side, temps are at 84 max, 68 min (my gauge gives the peaks of the last 24 hours). However, my humidity in the flower chamber was 75% when I opened the door. Finally, I noticed that the very tip of the leaves were turning yellow. I will have to do some research and find out what is going on. Tonight is a planned nutrient feeding, so I will see if maybe that was the issue. Perhaps I will need to give nutrients more often, which is currently about twice a week.
 
Re: GreenChrome's Perpetual Grow Journal Volume 1 (Soil, Ice & Bubblicious)

Hello, Thread. I thought I would jump in and give myself an introduction as the latter part of the "we" GreenChrome keeps referring to. I credit myself as Firm Moral Support, and Second in Command to the Ladies. Most importantly, I will be collecting the scraps after harvest to make high quality medibles.

Keep up the good work, Chrome.
 
Re: GreenChrome's Perpetual Grow Journal Volume 1 (Soil, Ice & Bubblicious)

Hey Chef Green and Green Crome,
Maybe I should say Mr and Mrs Green? It would go nicely with my chosen name. Just wanted to say hello and tell you I'll be along for the ride. I absolutely love grow room set up pics, almost more than actual plant pics if you believe it. So I am looking forward to them fixing the picture links for you. Your not the 1st ones I have heard compaining about this. I am unsure if they fixed it yet but I know they are discussing it here. I think that there was a member that found a way around it.

The tips of your leaves might be browning because of mild fertilizer burn, they are the 1st to go in my experience. I have never made it through a full harvest with totally green leaf tips, but I still have hopes. Might take it easy on this next feed just in case.

My two cents anyways, im am by no means an expert. See you two soon and thanks for checking out my thread.
 
Re: GreenChrome's Perpetual Grow Journal Volume 1 (Soil, Ice & Bubblicious)

Hello, Mr White! Thank you for checking in on us. Chrome had downloaded a leaf troubleshooting chart earlier in the day, and we deduced that the yellowing of the tips may have been caused by a potassium deficiency. We haven't worked our way to full strength nutrients until today. Prior to reading your reply, we dosed them up somethin' good.

We'll look into the link you provided, hopefully we can get our photos up soon. I took a set of room photos in it's current state, but unfortunately I slacked in early stage documentation. We'll be continuously adjusting to meet our grow's needs and make our room as efficient as possible - I plan on capturing those with a bit more tenacity.

Thanks again for commenting! I'll be sure to pop in on yours as well.
 
Re: GreenChrome's Perpetual Grow Journal Volume 1 (Soil, Ice & Bubblicious)

I have made a mini career out of being wrong. I try specifically not to try and trouble shoot anyone else's plant problems but sometimes I just can't help myself. You wrote yellowing (I had to go back and check) and for some reason I read crisping. Glad you have it figured out and I can't wait for the pictures even if the documentation is less than complete.
 
Re: GreenChrome's Perpetual Grow Journal Volume 1 (Soil, Ice & Bubblicious)

We are dying to post some pics, hopefully the bugs will be worked out by tonight. ChefGreen, our in-house professional photographer, took some excellent shots yesterday.

As far as we know, you may have been right Mr. White. If the problem gets worse than we will know. These plants are much bigger than my first grow, and under a much better set-up. I wrote above about how much faster they grew and how it was unexpected above. Because of this I had them on a nutrient schedule that only allowed me to reach a full dose of veg nutes just before flowering. I was giving them nutes about once a week, now it will be twice, with watering inbetween. That is why I immediatley thought it was a lack of nutrients. I am hoping that it is not lockout.

I am very happy to have you following this journal. We will try to do a good job!
 
Re: GreenChrome's Perpetual Grow Journal Volume 1 (Soil, Ice & Bubblicious)

Yah, like I said I should just keep my mouth shut most times. There are plenty of smart members that can diagnose with a picture. I would defer to them. While we are on the topic of pictures, I just read in one of the journals I follow that they figured out how to post pics. Xlr8 Good luck, I'll be waiting.
 
Re: GreenChrome's Perpetual Grow Journal Volume 1 (Soil, Ice & Bubblicious)


Entrance to the grow room. The room itself was constructed in the far corner of the garage. We reused older materials to make the room appear to be original to the house.



And the fun begins!



Ceiling of Grow Utility Room. We ran our ventilation from both rooms and out above the Grow Room door. We ran our electricial - two 15-amp outlets on dedicated breakers. You can see our wire management system, zip ties are your friend. The hole on the right hand side will be patched eventually. And of course, our smoke detector.



Mounted our ballasts, off the floor and out of the way. On the bottom is our two passive intake vents. The ports are plastic dryer vents from Home Depot with a metal sleeve. We then covered the two with window screen to deter any unwanted pests. The door is constructed out of plywood, with a weather stripping backing that butts up to the inside of the homemade doorframe, creating a nice tight seal.



Passive air vents



Homemade air filter. Thanks to some awesome plans found on this site, we constructed an air filter that should not only absorb the smell from the Flowering Chamber, but hopefully with its ample size, the need for changing out the carbon will be less frequent. Ordered carbon online, just waiting for it to arrive.



Entrance to the Veg Chamber. Walls and door wrapped in reflective plastic; floor is covered with a layer of blue foam from an old camping mat, and then covered in plastic. The doorframe is backed in weather stripping, to create a tight seal with the door, which is latched snuggly in place. Two 400w veg lights, one in an air-cooled hood and the other in a cool tube. Why the difference? Because we already had the cool tube.



The red box suspended a la Mission Impossible over the plants is a digital thermometer/barometer. We hung it among the plants to get the most accurate reading, as it seemed to fluctuate with its location in the room.




Unlimited potential.



Overhead in the Veg Chamber.



Entrance to the Flowering Chamber.


We've lowered the lights a bit since then.



Three weeks in flower. Oh, how fast they grow up.



The three sisters. This one was topped, and a row of growing tips grew up in unison.



So damn purdy, it nearly brings a tear to my eye.


Alright, I hope you enjoyed our first pictorial. We plan to post picture updates on the plants every week, more often if an issue arrises.
 
Re: GreenChrome's Perpetual Grow Journal Volume 1 (Soil, Ice & Bubblicious)

Hopefully the pics will get bigger when the error is fixed in the new site.

I ran out and got that 8" fan today. Setting it up was a challenge. I had to wait until the moment the lights came on so I could re-duct the inside of the room. This meant it got hot quick. I had originally ran a 6" to 4" reducer through each wall to serve as both its intended purpose and as a sleeve through the wall. Now I have a Y intersection than I drilled holes into and mounted directly to the fan. It is also a reducer, going from 8" to 6". I had to swap the reducer in the wall for a 6" sleeve. The veg chamber is done and I am waiting for the flower chamber lights to turn on so I can finish this up.

While I was at the shop, I picked up some Big Bud. I havent tried it before and was wondering if someone had an opinion on its effectiveness. I am trying to learn a bit more about nutrients. I will write down exactly what I am using for nutrients when I go back to the room and post it later.
 
Re: GreenChrome's Perpetual Grow Journal Volume 1 (Soil, Ice & Bubblicious)

Hey bud looking good, can't really see the pics from my phone. However the pics are fixed. Select my photos from the bottom left and then where it says "insert what?" select original only or whatever size you want. I'll check back when I'm on my computer or on here later if you are able to figure it out!
 
Re: GreenChrome's Perpetual Grow Journal Volume 1 (Soil, Ice & Bubblicious)

Thanks for the compliments and the tip. We are trying to fix the photo issue. We uploaded them when the default was set as thumbnails. Now we are trying to fix it. It is too late to edit that post, so we might have to redo the pictorial.
 
Re: GreenChrome's Perpetual Grow Journal Volume 1 (Soil, Ice & Bubblicious)

Gave up hoping for this to resolve itself. Reposting:


IMG_8562.JPG

Entrance to the grow room. The room itself was constructed in the far corner of the garage. We reused older materials to make the room appear to be original to the house.


IMG_85641.jpg

And the fun begins!


IMG_85652.JPG

Ceiling of Grow Utility Room. We ran our ventilation from both rooms and out above the Grow Room door. We ran our electricial - two 15-amp outlets on dedicated breakers. You can see our wire management system, zip ties are your friend. The hole on the right hand side will be patched eventually. And of course, our smoke detector.


IMG_85672.jpg

Mounted our ballasts, off the floor and out of the way. On the bottom is our two passive intake vents. The ports are plastic dryer vents from Home Depot with a metal sleeve. We then covered the two with window screen to deter any unwanted pests. The door is constructed out of plywood, with a weather stripping backing that butts up to the inside of the homemade doorframe, creating a nice tight seal.


IMG_85692.jpg

Passive air vents


IMG_85712.jpg

Homemade air filter. Thanks to some awesome plans found on this site, we constructed an air filter that should not only absorb the smell from the Flowering Chamber, but hopefully with its ample size, the need for changing out the carbon will be less frequent. Ordered carbon online, just waiting for it to arrive.


IMG_85722.jpg

Entrance to the Veg Chamber. Walls and door wrapped in reflective plastic; floor is covered with a layer of blue foam from an old camping mat, and then covered in plastic. The doorframe is backed in weather stripping, to create a tight seal with the door, which is latched snuggly in place. Two 400w veg lights, one in an air-cooled hood and the other in a cool tube. Why the difference? Because we already had the cool tube.


IMG_85732.jpg

The red box suspended a la Mission Impossible over the plants is a digital thermometer/barometer. We hung it among the plants to get the most accurate reading, as it seemed to fluctuate with its location in the room.



IMG_85771.jpg

Unlimited potential.


IMG_85791.JPG

Overhead in the Veg Chamber.


IMG_85811.jpg

Entrance to the Flowering Chamber.


IMG_85821.jpg

We've lowered the lights a bit since then.


IMG_85911.JPG

Three weeks in flower. Oh, how fast they grow up.


IMG_8592.JPG

The three sisters. This one was topped, and a row of growing tips grew up in unison.


IMG_8598.jpg

So damn purdy, it nearly brings a tear to my eye.


Alright, I hope you enjoyed our first pictorial. We plan to post picture updates on the plants every week, more often if an issue arrises.
 
Re: GreenChrome's Perpetual Grow Journal Volume 1 (Soil, Ice & Bubblicious)

20lbs of carbon arrived today. We got the new filter all filled up, and will be ducting and sticking in the corner of the room. On harvest day (which we call Green Day), we will install it on the cieling and duct down to the lights. I will also run the last leg of the ventilation out of the house where it will vent under our deck in the backyard. After that, one hose clamp will stand between venting inside in the winter and outside in the summer. We will snap a picture of the new ventilation and post it later on.

I have been reading about nutrients, and am going to shift to a weekly feeding schedule (Sunday's). For flower, I am using Supernatural and will give the first dose of BigBud tonight. I am going to do all half strength, and start full strength on sunday to let things even out and ease the shift into the new schedule.

Does anyone know what I should be watching for as the earliest sign of nutrient burn? How long after the feeding will it begin to show?

Thanks
 
Re: GreenChrome's Perpetual Grow Journal Volume 1 (Soil, Ice & Bubblicious)

Hey the plants and grow area are looking great :) +rep. I go feed..feed..water but thats just me. I think you'll know the next day or the day after but those flowering girls are definitely big enough to take some nutes! JW but you keep saying we, you and a friend? wife? My gf and I are working on ours, it's all set up for my moms meds though.

edit: oops forgot to write you dont have to answer my question!
 
Re: GreenChrome's Perpetual Grow Journal Volume 1 (Soil, Ice & Bubblicious)

Thanks for the compliments teSmp! The 'we' consists of myself and my fiance, ChefGreen. We have both been posting here, in fact, the pictorial was all her.

I didn't get a chance to give them the nutrients last night so it got bumped to the list of things to do today, along with hooking up the filter. The filter took about half the carbon I got and I am hoping that it lasts a long time.The one I have now is on its 3rd grow and it probably the size of a gallon jug. The new one is over 3' tall counting the reducer for the ducting, and is 8'' wide.

Finally, I didn't realize it was going to get so warm so quick, or I would have ran the ducting out of the house earlier. I though It would stay cool until around harvest day, but it is hot in the garage with those lights. I have been popping the door and doing air exchanges, which will have to work until harvest, June 3rd.

Advice to new growers- don't underestimate the heat that those HID's put off. You can heat a small house/apt with a grow room.
 
Re: GreenChrome's Perpetual Grow Journal Volume 1 (Soil, Ice & Bubblicious)

Picture update!

IMG_86261.JPG

This is plant 1A, the best Ice Strain that we have. For some reason, this one began growing all growing tips. They are coming out in all directions, including the main stem. These clones dried out for a bit, so we were wondering if somehow the top stunted and side branching was promoted from back in cloning. Either way, this is the perfect plant for LST, and we will be following it closely. If it performs well, we may experiment with some clones to try to get similar results from day one. This is my future plant of the month nominee, so watch out all you non-deformed plants out there!

IMG_86281.JPG

This is 2A, our best Bubblicious. It is the biggest plant in veg and keeps packing on the new growth. With the new lighting, there has been a tremendous difference between these plants and the ones now in flower. Growth in tight and compact, and very healthy. The mother is also our best flowering plant.

IMG_86301.JPG

This is 2D. It was the healthiest clone at the time, but has been surpassed since then. The flowering mom seems to be doing well, so we still have high hopes. This phenotype trains well, and sends up an even canopy when topped.

IMG_86341.JPG

Here is a pic of the new ventilation system, a bit bigger than the last. We still need to get the temps and humidity down. The garage heated to the point where it was the same as the rooms, meaning the cool air coming in wasn't cool at all. I was going to vent this to the outside when we harvest, but now I am thinking that I will use the 4" fan I took down and vent the garage air out the window through a plywood spacer. I will hook the fan speed controller up to that fan so I can increase or decrease the air exchange to keep the garage providing fresh air without losing all of the heat we are generating.

IMG_86351.JPG

The flower room!

IMG_8637.JPG

2A, that cola is about 10'' tall, 4" wide at the bottom.

IMG_86491.jpg

Pushing 4' from dirt level.


Junbud- I didn't want to post pics in your thread, so here is the bucket I was telling you about.
IMG_86511.JPG

I attached this fan to the lid of the bucket with zipties. I cut the hole out in the center beforehand.

IMG_86531.JPG

I drilled holes all the way around the middle of the bucket to allow air to escape after is blows down onto the ona gel/water mixture.

IMG_86562.jpg

Here it is put together. I may convert this to a carbon filter by siliconing a 6" to 4" reducer to the lid and ducting off of that. I will drop some carbon in the bottom and let it rip. If that does not work to well, than I will attach some window screen and let it sit bowl shaped in the bucket. I will put the carbon on that so that the air has to pass through to get out.

Thanks for taking a look. Please feel free to chime in with advice, suggestions, tips, etc. We are here to teach what we know and learn what we don't. Thanks again!
 
Re: GreenChrome's Perpetual Grow Journal Volume 1 (Soil, Ice & Bubblicious)

nice journal.. heat definitely is a factor with those HID lights.. nice pics as well..
 
Back
Top Bottom