Stealthy Stacked Tubs

Hi world!


Back again with a new setup in the works to share with ya. I have found myself creating different setups and then abandoning them for various reasons, the main one being stealth.


I think I've solved that problem this time.



After 2 stressful grows that resulted in the plants having to be moved mid-flower I decided I had to change something. The first was to re-evaluate my needs and consumption, I really don't smoke enough to justify needing to run 400 watts + of lighting.


So now what you're looking at is a self-contained micro grow system that will use a 150w ceramic metal halide (cmh) lamp I had lying around. I liked the look of the stacked tub designs, but to me it seemed that if I'm going to have some crazy looking rubbermaid setup in my closet I may as well have a tent in there. So my solution was to create a smaller stacked tub design out of 2x 5gal totes and fit that inside my 47gal rubbermaid along with the whole fan/filtration system.


The plan now is to get a SOG/staggered harvest deal going on. I will be using water bottles with the tops cut off as pots In order to do this I will need to go pheno hunting to find something special that will provide the single-cola plants I need to make this setup successful. I have been blessed with meeting many new medical friends recently and should have some nice PNW genetics to work with.



Another thing I didn't like about my last grow was my DWC hydro system. It worked well and didnt' require a lot of maintenance, but I was always worried that an air pump or something would fail and leave my crop in shambles. So this time I'm doing something different, coco coir! Seems to be really cheap and easy once you get the hang of it, and it can provide the explosive growth that I saw with my DWC as well so on paper this medium sounds great. We'll see how it goes!


I will be bottom-feeding for simplicity's sake. In the beginning I will be doing this by hand, but eventually I will setup a res with a water pump and timer setup to automate this process as I spend a lot of time snowboarding and away from my apartment.


Nutes will consist of mainly MaxiBloom, but I will also be throwing some compost teas, sea salts, and plant growth regulators into the mix in an effort to grow some dank plants with massive oil/resin production.


*EDIT* Quickly outgrew the small container, so we did some adjustments to this setup.





And here's what it looks like now:




We're now running 300w of raw CMH power and the plants are loving it!

Alright, just got 5 Chron Inc. Roxanne into paper towels. I've already got 2 of these plants a bit further along and they are smelling nice! This is a cross between Cannaventure Seeds Purple Berry and a strain created by my friend called Vitamin D / Vitamin Dank.

Now that leaves me with about 10 spots left. I figure I'll have a dud or two, so I've gone with 4x Exotic Genetics The Essence, 4x GBS Dawgpoo, and 4x Barney's Farm Vanilla Kush.

Looks cool ! I don't get how its cooled though?? I wanna try a micro set up myself and was thinking about using the totes somehow. best of luck!

Peace

Thanks brotha!

The ventilation isn't hooked up yet. You can see the 4" Canfan I've got hanging by minibungee chords there and basically I'm going to have an intake hole going from outside of the main box to inside the stacked tubs, and then exhaust holes on the other side of the stacked tubs. Then I'll have the canfan pulling air through a carbon filter and out of the box.

Hard to explain, I'll throw a drawing or a finished picture soon. Should work fine, only thing I'm worried about is lightproofing the intake.

Should be an interesting grow, never seen one done like this in rubbermaids I be afriad of catching those things on fire lol. Good luck on those Roxannes bro Sounds like they will do great in your set up.

subbed,
sounds nice

Thanks guys! Yea I was kind of worried about how I'd hook up the light, especially since I'm using an HID in such a small space. Luckily I had a spare reflector and used that as a heat shield between the rubbermaid and the bulb. I also mounted things up very solidly with nuts and bolts to ease my mind.

Ran the setup without any ventilation for a few hours and things got hot but not crazy. I'm confident my little 4" fan will be able to handle the cooling needs of this 150w CMH.

Germ rates are looking pretty good so far. 100% on the roxannes, 3/4 for the exotic gen essence, 3/4 for the greenbeanz dawgpoo, and so far 2/4 for the barneys vanilla kush.

I've transplanted all but the stragglers and the vanilla kush into their new coco homes today. Also decided to transplanted another Roxanne I've got going into pure coco to try and get accustomed to this new medium.

We officially have lights and ventilation! Still some finishing up work to do like lightproofing the exhaust and weatherstripping the lid but for the most part she's together and running.

Yup.

Subbed, just what I hoped for, great use of tech and space.

I switched to coco hempies earlier this year, with maxibloom, natch.

You will like the results.

Thanks for the kind words man, much appreciated. It's taken a lot of work to get to what feels like a pretty simple place!

Yea we're basically doing the same thing in different forms then huh? I like it man, feel free to post a link to your journal if you've got one I'd like to check it out.

Tweaked the ventilation design a bit and got a really sweet effect going. By taking the exhaust vent from the stacked tubs and connecting it directly to the fan I am able to create negative pressure in the tubs and it causes the lid to suck closed tightly even without weatherstripping or anything. I can now really dial in my temps with my variac speed controller, pretty rad.

The seedlings are all getting nestled in to their new home. I'm feeling really good about this project so far!





Appears the coco transplant went well on the first plant and I haven't killed it in the coco yet so it we're off to a good start. Can't wait for these beans to break ground!

Yeeee! Second seed pop ever, first one with more than 2 seeds. Doing alright so far! One thing I do notice with the bottom feeding coco is that the standing water in the bottom of the tub is gone within a day or two. Unsure if I have the fan circulating air too quickly or if there is just no canopy to block the light yet. Will measure water consumption from now on.

Also very seriously considering transplanting to 3" netpots with coco coir liners. They are smaller containers in height and volume, but I after seeing the yogurt cup challenge here I think that this "ghetto airpot" of sorts will provide sufficient yield per plant.

1 week after germination. Slight nute burn on a few plants (currently using 1/4th strength maxibloom) but nothing too serious.

Got a few friends interested in having me build similar setups for them. If that happens I'll post pics in here.

Seedlings looking very healthy.

Keep it up.

Thanks dood!

Essence:


Vanilla Kush:


DawgPoo:


Roxanne:

Beautiful setup! I love the mini-bungies holding the fan/filter system.

I'm switching to bottom fed coco from DWC, too. This summer, I ended up spending more watts cooling my rez than I spent on lighting. I've had ph issues, fungus issues, foaming issues, you name it. Full-on hydro is a lot easier with big reservoirs I guess, but at 2-3 gallons it requires a lot of TLC.

Anyway, this looks like a great rig, and I'm looking forward to watching it grow those little cuties!

This looks great. My kind of grow.


=D

Thanks everyone for the kind words, you're definitely motivating me to try and make this grow all that it can be!

Ok so I did my first round of defoliation last night in order to keep tthe plants compact. All seem to be doing well and I have sorted out the burned leaf tip problem by flushing.

Also I am REALLY happy to say that I just received a bunch of amazing new genetics to play with