[Building] First closet, 1.5m x 0.6m, 300W HPS, 4 buckets

[SpaceCat]

I think my seeds drowned because I put too much water in the bowl. I am also lucky to live in a town where water doesn't contain any chlorine but I will surely prepare some water before putting it in my buckets.

 

[SpaceCat]

And, here I am again !

Last two tries were total fails but I didn't give up. This time I went with a functionnal closet and I took great care to use ph-ed water. Tap water is around 7.2 and I have usually lower it around 6.

I broke tap root of Jack Herer, it's sloooooowly recovering... I can see a shy leave but not sure if it will survive. My bad for trying to move it while it was a baby.

Everything is going slow, mostly because I need more oxygen in water and I only turn pumps ON every 30 minutes for 30 minutes. My air pump is way too weak for these buckets and lifetime of these cheap water pumps was really 500 hours...

Currently, I am waiting for a new water pump, bigger hose (8mm internal diameter) and better air pumps. I will switch to one water pump for 4 buckets and I will connect them to share their water level and I am also going to have one air pump for each pot. This will be way more convenient to clean buckets and to fill with weekly filling.

Anyway, I am really happy to see 4 nodes per plant

Keep growing.

 

[DingusKhan]

Yay! Now you're rolling!

 

[SpaceCat]

Some update here. Jack Herer seedling didn't survive, it rotten so I removed its bucket.

An other water pump also broke. As I have only one now, water flowed into two buckets but the connecting pipe was too small. So my left bucket was full and the right one was empty which caused the pump to get out or service.

I put some garden hose and it's all right now. It was also time to cut first leaves following Nebula's guide. Here are some pictures

 

[Tdh101jr]

Absolutely love the closet renovation man! I started a closet grow day after xmas but no major renovations like this! Also super curious and worried about trying hydro but was thinking about doing 1 of these 5gal bubbleponics till i feel comfortable with hydro. Anywho you have an amazing setup just get more comfortable with it and im sure youll be growing full and vigourous ladies in no time! Also got alot of info on germinating but my 2cents i use the damp paper towl till about 1/4" tap root pops then i place in my jiffy peet or rockwool and always seem to take off 1 week after moving from damp paper towel. But Gl and keep at it 👍✌.
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[SpaceCat]

Hi bro, thanks for looking at my small setup. It's my first attempt to grow in a closet and it still needs improvments like aluminum on walls and better light system to be able to add a second floor.

It was not easy to get into hydro, mainly because I had no idea of what I was doing but after 2 fails I was happy to see it going well. I don't know which gallons system I should use here so I will stay to say these buckets are 10L each.
Maybe it will lead to 40 or 80cm plants, I have no idea but it's convenient because all nutrients are given for 10L volume.

Finally, I tried soaking and paper towel methods but I got best results with rapid rooter placed into bucket and always watered. This is also way more convenient because there is no risk of breaking tap root - provided you don't be a fool like I did -

I will keep updating, thanks for your support !

 

[SpaceCat]

Girls keep growing but I might have topped left one too soon... Its leaves are weird shapped and base of its trunk has strange white spots. I will condiser adding anti-pest for next filling. I also tried to fold its leaves but I made a crack on the right of the node. I hope it won't kill this part :/

Right one is really vigorous and I started its main-lining. 2 holes in the plastic net made things easy.

 

[SpaceCat]

Triple weekly update. A lot ot new things happened

First, Black Destroyer (BD) grew really well, it became a nice little bush. White Widow (WW) recovered grom its too-early-folding.
I cut biggest fan leaves and kity loved it !

 

[SpaceCat]

Then came bad news with what seems to be root rot. Not sure but I think it was because of this brown color. I washed my buckets and added more air (see next post). It's really hard to find hydroguard here but I might buy 1 gallon.

 

[SpaceCat]

Finally, good news !

Mainlining went really good and I took advantage of topping to make some clones which seems to be healthy. Right now they are into a dark place to make some roots.
I made a new watering system to avoid having a pump inside bucket and getting it clogged with roots (yep, it happened once).

After failing two times, this grow is going well

 

[DingusKhan]

Hey Space Cat, sorry for the absence. How are your roots? The picture with the brown, while brown, doesn't really look like root rot to me.

 

[SpaceCat]

I was adviced to use peroxyd hydrogen for a week and then adding some positive bacterias. Roots look good, I don't know if it's rot or something else but I filled buckets with 10L each instead of 5L.

It might be due to air inside bucket because it was only half filled.

However, things are doing good ! Black destroyer is the most successful and 4 of 6 clones survived (I didn't use clone gel, only plain water and rapid rooter).

I am still waiting for White widow to grow a bit and I will switch to bloom in the next 10 days.

 

[SpaceCat]

I answered in my next post. What about the leaves ? It might be calcium deficiency doesn't it ?

 

[SpaceCat]

We are in the last days of growing, soon will be time of flowering ! I will switch to 12/12 on sat 28th in the morning in order to change light bulbs.
I also added 5mL/L of formulex as well as 0.3gr/L of Elycitor, containing trichodermas, bacillus and acids.

I wonder if I should defoliate my plants, at least removing big fan leaves and unlightened leaves. Is it a good idea ?

Finally, I will use colloidal silver on my clones, provided I can recognize each strain (3 BD and 1 WW).

Keep growing !

 

[SpaceCat]

And here we are, I switched to 12/12 !

It was not an easy task but I managed to change bulbs, defoliate, reset timer and change phed water. BD is going so big that I might lower the plank.

I made a bit of colloidal silver in order to get feminized pollen from big plants. Unfortunately I have no spare room for clones so they will bloom as well as thei big sisters.

Seeds were started on 02/22 and I switched to 12/12 on 04/21. It took ages because of lack of oxygen and plants were in 10L buckets to start.
This will change in the next grow. I realized that my apple marmelade jars had an opening of the same size as my nets, it will be perfect to start 8 next ones

That's it, enjoy the latest set of pictures :wink:

 

[SpaceCat]

12/12 is going well

First pistils are coming...

 

[SpaceCat]

Third week is over and small leaves are showing a small white cover

 

[Mr.furley]

Looking good spacecat.

 

[DankwingDuck]

Your plants look nice and I really like your setup . My first grow was a closet setup a few years ago . I wouldn’t even call it a grow . More of a random seed that sprouted in my yard that I moved to a closet lol but yours is so nice and cosmetically appealing. Im on what I consider my first real grow and it is so much fun to grow something from nothing , and I feel like a mad scientist when I’m mixing nutes . This hydro is a learning experience for sure but a lot of fun . I look forward to seeing you girls at harvest . Good luck . 🍀

 

[SpaceCat]

It's not that white widow is small but black destroyer is totally out of control.
However, I broke one of its main branch when it was young so it didn't grow as expected.