My First Grow Journal...EVER! 600W MH/HPS Bubbleponics Cabinet Grow

[ellz]

Here is a drawing of how my next reservoir is going to look. Hopefully it's pretty straight forward but basically there is a 250GPH water pump that goes to a T-split. One line goes to a drain tube with an on/off valve while the other goes up and out of the reservoir to a radiator with 4 120MM cooling fans (2 pushing, 2 pulling). From there it goes back into the reservoir to a 6-port drip manifold that drips at a fixed rate of 2GPH per port (so 12GPH total). 3 lines per plant from the manifold and the lines will be plumbed into the lid. I think this should work good but I wanted to get any input from the community on it...

[ellz]

Thanks for the input all. The only main selling point to the 6 inch pot is that I already have a 6 inch hole saw. To cut the hole for the 5 inch pot I would need to either use my Dremel with the circle attachment (somewhat cumbersome) or I would have to buy a 5 inch hole saw. The roots haven't really spread out all that much in the 3.75" pot, so I don't know if anything much larger would benefit the plant. I will have to do some more thinking on the matter. Thanks again for everyone's input.

[JohnC]

I would assume that larger pots are more stable, especially if you want to grow large plants. The extra width and weight of the hydroton would help anchor the pot down, I would think. Of course, make sure you cut your holes carefully so there isn't a whole lot of play.

[Daskahn]

Idk about you but I'd say two pots on either side and I also don't think size really matters but bigger the better?

[oldskinflint]

From my own experience, keeping the roots cooled down to 62 degrees was the one thing made the greater difference to my production. Before cooling I could not get close to the numbers that the seed providers advertised. Neither amount nor time! Now I am consistently coming in at the low side of both the time and amount. These plants love to have their roots cooled! Also I started out with one small aquarium air stone powered by a single outlet on an air pump. Now I use two 2x2 air stones in each bucket and use a single outlet per stone. Some things you can learn by reading, other things must be learned by trial and error. I started out with 6 5-gallon, buckets. Now I have three plants and buy automatic, feminized sees from a reputable provider. Good luck!!!

[ellz]

Thanks!

[alltatup]

Awesome construction!!!

[ellz]

My new reservoir so far:

27 Gallon with installed 4" wide fill port/check port and insulated with Reflectix insulation. What size pot should I add? 5 inch or 6 inch?

[ellz]

08/23/2017:

06:30PM: Checked on the girls and they are doing great. The net pots managed to stay in place through the night so I guess tying that one plant down helped. I had to add about 3.5 gallons of pHed, HydroGuard water to the White Poison reservoir and about 1.5 gallon to the Rug Burn OG reservoir. They are drinking up the water fast now! Great sign! Photos posted below.

08/24/2017:

06:30PM: The plants are growing like mad! I had to raise the light up another inch or two due to the growth over the past 2 days! I am about to run out of height so I hope they don't get too much bigger! If I have to I will bend them over but I will deal with that when I have to. The Rug Burn OG is budding up much faster than the White Poison, which I expect is due to the higher amount of light that plant gets versus the White Poison ones, as they are very bushy! Even with all the foliage, light is still getting distributed all over thanks to the reflective mylar so I have been reluctant to defoliate although I might on the White Poison just to slow down the stretch on it. Will update the post if I do. Below is a photo of yesterday and today.

Side Note: I bought my new reservoir today to get started working on it. It's a 27 gallon plastic tote that appears to be a perfect size for my cabinet. I posted a photo of it below. I have some water in it and I am testing to make sure it doesn't leak at the mold seems on the bottom. If all looks good, I will start building this one the way I want over the next week or two. Thanks for reading!

[ellz]

Hi oldskinflint. I assume the ice bucket has ice water in it to pump into your reservoir or is the reservoir water just passed through the ice bucket itself? If you are pumping water from the ice bucket into the reservoir, you want to make sure your pH stays okay. Ice will melt and alter pH unless you make pH water to freeze before hand and use that ice. Otherwise, if you are just passing your reservoir water through the ice bucket via a tube, the pH won't really change since the water going in is the same as going out. I have looked at using a PC Water Cooling radiator with fans, or even a peltier cooler to try to keep my temps down but I am always looking for new ideas. I had thought of something similar to this but with the ambient temps outside, the ice would be melting fast and need changing often. Either way, best of luck with it if you do try that and I am interested to see how it works out.

[oldskinflint]

I have been posting this around the forums and submit for your review: a very cheap root cooler. I upgraded the system to include two 17 gallon tubs from the big box store and then placed my 5 gallon buckets inside after wrapping the insides of the tubs with aluminum foil. It drops about 1 degree per hour. I also converted an old refrig I got on craigslist as the cooling source. Good luck and thanks for the grow log.

[ellz]

Thank you! Will be good to see how they compare out indeed.

[Daskahn]

They look very lovely
ive actually been comparing yours to mine since I've been doing heavy defoliating and you have been doing lite to non defoliating.. seeing which is better so far I can't really tell a difference comparing stages you know..
im a little ahead just to be clear to everyone reading

[ellz]

08/22/2017:

06:00PM: Checked on the girls today and they are still doing great! I am seeing a lot of bud sites starting and the growth rate is phenomenal on both sets of plants! I considered defoliating again but with the amount of light reflected when the doors are closed, I don't think I need to. Below are some photos from today. Thanks for reading!

[ellz]

08/21/2017:

06:30PM: Checked on the girls today and the White Poison is going crazy! It's almost 2x bigger than the Rug Burn OG plant!! I didn't raise the light yesterday because I wanted to see how much it would grow over night and it was almost 2 inches from the glass on the light today. I ended up raising the light hood and angling it so that the light is directed more towards the Rug Burn OG plant to the left. In the photos below you can see a before and after of the light hood, along with a photo of yesterday's growth to compare today's to. I did a nutrient change as well today and went with week 7's schedule. The White Poison reservoir is drinking up about 2x the water (as expected with 2x the plants, lol) so I will likely need to add another 3 gallons on Tuesday and about 1.5 to the Rug Burn OG. Thanks for reading!