Converted wardrobe grow

I moved across the country with this cabinet in the back of my truck. It sat in pieces for four years until my friend convinced me to convert it into a micro grow space.

I really wish I had documented the building of it better, but a bit of a retrospective is the best I can do.

There are five compartments in the cabinet...

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The top contains all the electrical components - timers, air pump, extension cords and power bar - with access holes to pass cords and whatnot through to the two grow compartments, located immediately below.

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There's a 123W vertical CFL on the left, for flowering, and an array of up to 6 23W T5s on the right side for veg/clones. Each space is _almost_ 2'x2', the left side is about 8" taller than the right, which is pretty close to a cube.

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The bottom two spaces contain the reservoirs - 30L garbage cans - on the right, and the rubbermaid drainage basin on the left.


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The two spaces have basically the same irrigation setup - drip hoses with soil spikes.

These are two F13's that are about a week away from getting flipped.

Each space has a passive 4" air intake, and a 3" ducts which both run out the back, and up into the top cabinet where they join together before the intake of the exhaust fan. A 4" duct runs out the back and up to the filter.


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The first couple runs, I had the filter inside the top cabinet, on the intake side of the exhaust fan, and a second fan drawing the air up through the grow spaces into the top section. Moving the filter outside didn't really serve to maintain the stealthiness of the cabinet, but this is in my bedroom, so noise was really my main concern, and cutting down on the fans really did a good job of making this a quiet little setup.

Hope you like it. I'll post some more soon.

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Everything all closed up.
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The true first run in this cab was a pollen run I did for a friend who needed a place to put his males. It was sort of a proof-of-concept, and it worked really well. I still didn't have the vertical set up, and flowered the boys out under 4 23W T5's... He gave me four, two of which actually turned out to be females, So I ran the girls in the left side, hoping for something to smoke, and the boys in the right, where I could hopefully keep them segregated and collect the pollen.

Well, that didn't work very well I still had a lot to learn (and, of course, still do!) and so I didn't do a great job of keeping the girls free from insemination. They ended up pretty much fully pollinated, and we ended up with a pretty large seed run. The dads were China White, and the moms were Mangolian. We've got a bit of a debate going over the name of the progeny. My friend's been calling them "Mangolese", but I think I prefer "Manganese".

I did a run after that with four girls (again, two Mangolian, and two China Whites - all girs this time) on the left side, under the vertical CFL, and it turned out really well - for the most part. There were some issues with pests, and they, unfortunately claimed one of the China Whites, as I wasn't up to speed on how to deal with them. It was a really slow mover, and was looking super chunky, so I really would have liked to see how it turned out, but the two Mangolian turned out great - super funky, nice size/density in the buds - and the remaining China White was amazing! Beautiful purple hues, incredible resin production, a nice sweet smell and taste, and great bag appeal. Unfortunately, I've got no pics to back it up.

My last run, I had access to an LED lamp I wanted to try out. So, after the first run finished, I just re-vegged one of the Mangolian ladies, and grew it out bansai-style into a little SCRoG.




She turned out really well, and yielded somewhere between 3 and 4oz of beautiful bud.



I might have run her just a bit too long, but the results were good, regardless. She was definitely well-flushed by the time I brought her down!

The LED I was using is a 126W HydroGrow Penetrator. Great name for a great lamp! While I kept the bottom pretty trimmed up, there was a surprising amount of growth down there, even through the thick canopy.

Here's a quick pic of the light's stats.

So... that was the left side. On the right, I decided to try flowering under the T5s. There were still only 4 of them at that time.

I ran 4 of the Manganese/Mangolese (if anyone wants to weigh in on our naming debate, that might help clear it up ) along with a single bag-seed that my brother-in-law had when he moved to the city. From what we know, it was Great White Shark, originally grown by a friend of his in Ottawa. Not a great flavour, on that one, but a good yielder, and good buzz from the smoke...



this is the five of them in place... I ended up bending each one horizontal, and running them front-back, back-front alternating.


One of the Manganese up close. This was probably the prettiest of them.


Another Manganese, with the GWS in-frame on the right.


The GWS, and the smallest, but most resinous of the Manganese on the right side. That one never quite took to the horizontal position, and just kept growing straight along its stem. I kept expecting to see her turn up toward the light, but it just never happened, all the others did, though...

BTW is there a way to rotate pictures once they're uploaded? these all end up correctly oriented, on my pc, but once I upload, the portrait-oriented ones are horizontal... also, I seem to be dangerously close to my picture upload size limit, anyone have any good suggestions for a place to upload pics of this nature?

And another thing.. (i'm pretty new to forum posting, if you couldn't tell) yesterday, when I clicked the "Forum Albums" button on the posting page, dragging the pics in resulted in a thumbnail. Today, they seem to be inserting full-size. Have I done something differently? Or is the thumbnail thing, perhaps, a feature only in the original post in a thread, or some such thing?

I appreciate any feedback/comments, etc. I'm already impressed by the number of views since just last night.

Pics of the current run to come soon! I'm pretty excited about this one!

I should also mention my deep appreciation for the help I've received along the way. both to my friend who helped me set things up, and who has been a constant stream of information/guidance, and to my brother in law for helping care for the little ladies while he was staying with me.

Nice set up v4 !! That bonsai scrog sure was pretty and a nice yield man. Are you currently running something now?

Thanks Chief

Interestingly enough, I gave a bunch of cuts from the bansai to a friend of mine last winter and he's kept it going all this time. He just gave me one of his clones the other day, so I'm looking forward to seeing her again.

On the left I've got two F13s on the go. They're about a week away from 12/12. I've been slowly training them into a big fan shape, so they can encircle the light, and they're starting to look pretty cool

Here's a sneak peek at the better-shaped of the two from the back so you can see the fan structure.



I'll do a full post on this run when I've got some more pics together. I vegged them out under the T5s on the right side, and about two weeks ago, moved them to the left side with the vertical CFL.

From what I've heard the F13s don't stretch all that much, so I've been holding off on the flip a bit.

Well, I couldn't wait any longer. I'm getting excited, and the girls have been growing quickly the last few days, so, rather than waiting another week, I have just swapped the 6400K out for a 2700 and swapped the timer to 12/12.

We'll see just how much stretch these F13s have!


This is them yesterday, when I noticed a bit of spider mite action starting. Gave 'em a quick dose of Neem and will reapply a few more times to be sure. Must have come in with that little clone I got the other day. Gotta love trading bugs.

Ok, I'll whip up a decent post about this run. I've actually got more pics than I realized... I've got the last month pretty well documented.

cheers!

Hi. The aforementioned brother in law here. I gotta say, it was a lot of fun being part of these grows. I learned a LOT. And smoked a lot. And generally enjoyed my stay. Thanks, Bro.

Almost forgot. Regarding the naming dispute (well, not really a dispute; more of a throw-it-out-there-for-opinion kinda thing), I have to cast my vote for Manganese. It's a shiny silver metal. And this stuff had some nice shiny crystals that looked silver under those bright-ars lights!

Sorry v4 but I'm gonna roll with 4.20 on the name. Partly because it rolls off the tongue better but his reasoning took it over the top. But anyway plants are looking nice man and I'll be hanging out for this one if you don't mind.

Great setup and beautiful plants! What soil/media are you using?

You got it going on! Gorgeous ladies- nice harvest! Excellent!! Keep on keeping on!!

Interesting! have you ever had seeds develop under these lights?

Chiefbig said:

Sorry v4 but I'm gonna roll with 4.20 on the name. Partly because it rolls off the tongue better but his reasoning took it over the top. But anyway plants are looking nice man and I'll be hanging out for this one if you don't mind.

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No, I'm on the Manganese Train, too. My friend, who supplied me with the boys and girls is the one thinking Mangolese.

UncleCrab said:

Great setup and beautiful plants! What soil/media are you using?

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Thanks Crab! I'm running Coco as the medium, and just feeding hydroponically. It's worked great, so far. The intuitiveness of a soil medium, but with the ease of use/automation of a hydro setup. Best of Both worlds!

Using Canna Coco nutes, along with some silica, and B1, throughout, and some Bloom Booster in the flower stages...

aridbud said:

You got it going on! Gorgeous ladies- nice harvest! Excellent!! Keep on keeping on!!

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Thanks a lot arid. Much appreciated. I still consider myself a beginner, so, I'm sure there'll be some bumps along the way (already had a few minor ones, which I've glazed over in my rundown, here, if I'm honest, but really, it's been very successful to date).