Homemade semi-stealth cabinet

[BillFromBio]

Ok this is my 3rd or 4th grow setup using dressers or cabinets, other than my first closet grow thats all I've been using. All building materials were purchased from Home Depot, everything else HTG Supply. Roughly 28"x42"x66". Passive intake through the bottom with 2 x 4" booster fans with about 1" of carbon attached to each. 6 bulb T5 lighting with plans to add more eventually, we'll see how temps look later on.

The hydro setup is a homemade aeroponic/DWC system. There are plenty of youtube videos and howtos that have inspired this creation though this one is I think smaller than any that I've seen but idk. There are 5 mister heads and 2 airstones keeping everything happy in there. I cheaped out on the pump but this is only a low pressure system can't really afford the expense of the high pressure true aeroponics.

I've been doing alot of digging and have decided to use to lucas formula for feeding. Using 2 of the 3 flora nutrients by GH and a small amount of H2O2 to keep things a bit clean.

Last night I took 6 clones from the mothers, 3 Hawaiian snow and 3 Bubblegum kush, the snow is in the back. The Rez is 5 gallons of distilled water bought from the store with 5ml/gal of clonex solution and 1ml/gal of 29% H2O2. All of the pumps, piping, rez, etc. were ran with H2O2 and water for 12 hours and then air dried to sterilize. This picture is about 16 hours after clones were clipped, they recovered from the droop quite well I think. Temps are a little high around 77-79 humidity about 45-50% little low for clones no dome though. Ph around 6.5 right now I think thats where I want it for clones correct me if I'm wrong though. I got an OK timer for my pump, 30$ repeat timer with the lowest setting at 10 seconds. So I do 10 seconds on and 3 min off. Will experiment as time goes on.

Anyway sorry for that last WOT, lemme know what you guys think open to some suggestions or a bit of posative support cuz I'm kinda wingin it on this one. First time doing any type of hydro and using a different brand of nutes than I've ever used.
Happy Tokin'!!:48:

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[pcduck]

Nice

 

[Hushpuppy]

Looks and sounds solid to me how big are you going to veg them before you flip them?

 

[BillFromBio]

Looks and sounds solid to me how big are you going to veg them before you flip them?

Not long, actually I planned on topping them and/or supercropping but have little experience with either. If i don't do either I will probably only veg for about 2 weeks or so once rooted. On the other hand if I can top/FIM/super-crop I think i would be able to veg longer with greater yields. Still not sure since this is my first hydro and my first grow in general in a long time I don't want to throw to many variables in.

 

[DrFever]

Depending on how much you want to yield 2 weeks might not give you very much IMO
to get decent results you need min 4 weeks veg either way looks good keep the pictures coming

 

[BillFromBio]

Ok this is day 6 since I cut the little clones from their life support and they are showing roots already. Yesterday I added another 5ml/gal of clonex to my rez ontop of the 5ml/gal that I initially gave. Roots seem to have taken off from there I think. Today I went light and added 1ml/gal GH micro and 2ml/gal GH bloom with a rez pH of around 5.5-6 (hard to tell with these colors I must get a digital soon), this amount of nutes keeps in line with the Lucas formula so I shouldn't see a drastic change in pH throughout the next week or so, first time using this system and feeding schedule so we'll see.

Not bad looking for only 6 days after cutting I think, timer still at 10sec on 3 min off 24/7, lights are 18/6. Lower fan leaves started to yellow which is why I started light feeding, new growth looks green and luscious.

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[BillFromBio]

Ok we are about 12 days in since I first start to see roots. I'm not sure when to really call an aero plant rooted but anyway 12 days since my last set of pics which was 6 days since the clones were cut and the roots were just starting to pop. These first 3 pics are 4 days after that and the rest are from today which is 18 days since clones were set in the system.

Just changed the rez today now at a full 5/10ml/gal of GH micro/bloom still in line with the lucas ratio. From what I can tell these ladies are loving this setup right now very green very clean roots.

The only trouble I am having is using the Ph up/down, does anybody have any math or equation to use with a few variables I can plug in to help adjust my Ph or give me atleast a guideline. When I bought it I assumed there would be some sort of table or something to use as a guideline but the bottles only say use very small amounts at a time. Which I knew but didn't realize how small it meant. 1-2ml in a 5gal rez really makes a difference and since I don't have a digital Ph meter yet I really need to be as close as I can. So any suggestions or tips would be appreciated.

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[The Hemp Goddess]

Your plants are really looking great. That is great root growth for 12 days. I personally have never been happy using the Lucas formula during veg. My plants always just seemed a bit too yellow because of the lesser amount of N given to them and then by about 1/2 way through flower, leaves were dropping because the N was completely depleted.

The reason that you don't get charts to tell you how much pH up or down is because water conditions vary so much that it makes charts tough. Different water conditions can require far differing amounts of up or down to get to where you want to be. This is part of the reason that a digital meter is so important.

What are your plans for flowering? Do you have larger and/or individual for when the plants outgrow the 5 gal tote (which won't be long)?

 

[Tact]

Those roots look great!

 

[Hushpuppy]

THG is totally right about the pH adjustments. It is impossible to lay out a chart for adjusting pH because there are far too many variables. Trying to account for them in a chart would make it look like Chinese arithmetic, lol. One thing you will ffind though is that as you increase your nutrients (PPM), you will see that you have to add more pH adjuster to get the proper balance (and it will actually become easier to get it just right as you won't be working with such small amounts.

You will also see that your pH will "drift" over time as the plants use up the available nutrients in the water. Sometimes you will see it drift one way then back the other because the plants used more nutes than water one time then the next time they took in more water than nutes. The concentration of the chemicals in the water will affect the pH directly.

I prefer to allow my pH to drift across an allowable spectrum of 5.3-6.2 between water changes. It allows certain chemical elements to be taken in more efficiently at the different levels of pH. I found with mine (Jungle Juice) that it will drift down from 6.2 to 5.3 within so many days depending on the size of the reservoir, then I top up the water and readjust the pH back to the top of the drift so that it can drift back down again. For anyone using the GH Flora, the drift seems to go the opposite direction. So if you use the FFlora in hydro you have to set it at the low end and allow it to drift up.

Get that pH meter asap