150w HPS Club and Resource Guide......

[BonsaiGrower]

Well lookie here!!!!... My buddy Heady posts up some pics of his 150w stealth box! ...check it out folks...this was the box I saw ...wow...a number of years ago now...the box that got me to thinkin about doin cab grows...had a pic of the NGB box and years later Heady introduces me to ICMag...but that cardboard box and the Cali-O heady grew got me thinkin ...I had the same strain goin in a closet with a 400w and his smoked just as good and if not better...so here we are today....glad you resurected some photos Heady.

And to everyone else in the 150...y'all rock.

Suga..you know your welcome up here anytime Bro!! Eh!
oh and I just went to take pics before I posted and the battery is dead...lol...but the 150 tent is sporting some nice little buds now...to be honest..it looks more healthy than my 400w cab...huh...and the OB1 popped out of the ground today..the other 2 haven't shown their faces yet though.

oh and Heady...since you are resurecting the 150 Mini Box ...does this mean I shouldn't cull the forest? lol

Peace everyone...I'll post up some pics here and my diary soon....y'all inspire me.
BG

 

[Guest]

Heero007 you have great seeing I see

 

[Q_ba1]

That is not my last word
Look for that two guys on right corner, they are two on one plant, they are twins and they are the biggest two! nice size for 150hps light
...but they need more time, one week or little more



Two plants on front, two after "harvest" or super stressing: Still alive and producing more resin (?), its my little experiment, maximum stress (almost killed...yes I know that was too brutal, but lets see the effect ) and 12/12 for 1-3 days...
waiting for results..

Update 23feb:
2 cuted off

4still growing


Heero007 (<-I love this icone)

Keep growing
Q

 

[Ganico]

Q-Bal- You have the best 150w results I've ever witnessed.

 

[HeadyPete]

Well, the problem with the box is smell and noise (not-so-stealth-box, actually) and until I at least get the room framed, boarded, soundproofed and ventilation and odour control installed and operational, I'm afraid I can't start anything. This is the problem. I need to pass this room off as 'secure storage' (hence the deadbolt) and it will be easier to do that later when no one is pokin round the private parts of my home. Right now people are gonna want to see the place finished and there are still trades to finish some duct work for the range vent canopy. When I am done piling crap up around the room no one will even know there is a door there.

I will know better next month and when all is good, I will be back on the road to visit you!

LUI in the magic box, my friend. Maybe some of those sweet Sugabear cutz as well....

Then I spring my own seeds and return the favour!

 

[spreadhead]

i just harvested...1plant, c-99. i flower in a small amoire under a 150 hps. this is my 8th, 9th, or 10th go around. i've lost count. but i have had great success each time. until the smell of the finishied product. i have read extensively but can not get the dank dank smell in my buds.

my process of drying has varied but with the same results. this time i pulled my c-99 at 60 days. this plant wreeked. usually i have 4 in my flower and i can not smell anything...this one plant though, soon as i walked in the door the smell was overwhelming. anyway, i pulled 2 days ago. when i did i trimed her then i placed in a paper bag in which i will wait a few days and when she starts to fell dry then i will transfer to sealable jars. i will open several time a day then scale back to once a day when i am sure she is dryenough not to mold. i have done this over and over and all my readings convience me that this is a good method.

here is the deal on what usually happens once dry, i seal the buds for a moth or two to cure. when i go back always the same. the bud looks beautiful. but there is little to know smell. its potent , burns great. but hardly no smell to the bud. when i do break it up i smell her then and i can taste her in a joint, but again i have no smell.

this has happened with different stains...ice, ak47, hashplant and c-99. what i think it is. is i growing under a very small lamp, 150hps. and although while flowering i get the unmistakable dank smell and beautiful buds they do not get as thick or fill out like they would under a 400 or 1000 hps. they are not airy by anymeans but i think stronger wattage makes the plant flower stronger. i am almost convienced its because of the 150 that i loose the smell not my cureing/drying methods. i am thinkin the wattage affects the potency as well. have any you guys that made the jump from 150 to 400 notice better smelling stronger flowers?

thanks for the help
spread

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[Guest]

Woohoo!!! I got my cab built today!!!




I'm using two 100mm 65CFM fans in the light chamber. Only one fan is really needed but I want one to back up the other. I found a piece of glass and cut it to act as a heatshield. I call it the cool-box design.




The 100mm 65CFM fan exhausts the growchamber into my homemade scrubber. The airflow in the lightchamber is high enough that there is no heat passed into the growchamber.



I used the basic design that I worked out in my Rubbermaid prototype which runs a 150HPS using a single 38CFM fan and an inline scrubber that draws 15 CMF.




Hey Heero007 - the intake area should be twice the exhast area to prevent any pressure losses at the intake. Most cab builders undersize thier intakes and it really makes a big difference on airflow.

 

[Guest]

Hey Red Greenery, this is a beautifull growbox. I wish you happy grow and sweet weed from it. BTW: what strain is it?

 

[Pipedream]

spreadhead, - In the beginning, I too thought my buds lacked that rich dank smell everyone sought. Many times I'd dry and cure just as you did. Hang - Paper Bag - Jars. I'd let them sit for a month or two, and still nothing or they smelled like freshly mowed lawn. Of course, 40 year ago, (yes, its true, that's when I started smoking) nobody cared much about the smell. We'd each smoke a full joint, wait five minutes, and start to question each other and ourselfs if we were high? The usual reply was "I THINK I feel something! Needless to say, the quality has changed dramatically over the years and so has the desire for complex aromas. Sorry, didn't mean to go off on a tangent. The thing I've learned is that not only does time heal all wounds, it also produces the rich dank aroma you want. Some buds can take as much as 6 months or longer tightly sealed in mason jars to fully develope their native aroma. The trick is, once its fully dry, seal the jar and don't open it up to check on it. Put it away and come back to it at some far off future date. Build up a supply of stash that you can rotate in that manner. You'll be surprised by the results. The wattage of your bulb, has nothing to do with it.

Red Greenery - An absolutly beautiful box. Well thought out and built with pride! Here's wishing you many, many successful and safe grows with it.

 

[sugabear_II]

yeah - I've grown under a 150 and a 400 and there is no difference in smell - same strain same nutrients.

Some of my strains smell when dry but others do not. grapefruit as well as nl x c99 - both have a lot of c99 in them and they don't smell much at all when dry. my ice doesn't smell at all in flower right now.

but my burmese ... I cannot keep it in a bag without everyone smelling it - same with the trainwreck - skunky lemony buds that cannot be kept in your pocket in a bag - has to be glass jared...

so strain makes a huge difference. also ferts can make a difference. I did a run with advanced nutrients and found odor to be diminished over my usual organic based floranova...

so fertilizers and strain make a difference, wattage doesn't

also in my experience very few new strains smell "dank" - you've really got to grow skunk or nl or something old school to get the "dank" smell.
finally I think we personal growers tend to dry our buds more completely than do the commercial guys. Try taking a bud when it is a few days before what you would normally dry to and sticking it in a bag - you'll keep more smell while it stays fresh but you'll also increase the risk of mold. remember the commercial dank is never cured before sale. I've taken super stinky superskunk I bought and cured it for a few months and the smell gets considerabley less.

nice box red greenery!

 

[gzzmo]

hey everyone!
do you know that cracking sound when the main stem breaks?just happened to me while adjusting the branches under the screen. this one, unfortunately, was too strong to be bent. so there's just about 1/8 of the stems perimeter left connected to the rest of the plant. right now i'm 10 days into 12/12, so i think the loss in yield won't be too bad. first of all i LST'ed, making other branches just as big, secondly it's rather early in flowering and the stress shouldn't affect overall yield by the end of blooming (what do you think?)...hm...never treated my own wounds as good as i handled this one it's all taped up now, and if i'm lucky, the part that's still connected grows stronger and the branch survives...don't think it can handle the loss of water supply tho.
after all, hopefully the remaining ~10 branches of the plant make up for the loss.
so as to trimming down to some 20 branches for 2 plants to not get it too busy in there: good job, best branch trimmed

ah screw it, ruins my afternoon!
what happened to your grows when something like that happened in early flowering (before onset of buds, still in stretch)? and don't tell me that never happened to you

 

[BonsaiGrower]

Hey Everybody...just before I run I wanted to add my contribution to the 150 Club!!!!






Gotta run ...check out my diary if ya want details and more pics...see y'all

BG

 

[sugabear_II]

hey gzzmo - no worries - I've broken a few main stems before early in flower - shouldn't really hurt yield too much - many times that break will heal even stronger.

suga

 

[spreadhead]

thanks pipe and suga!!! i think my buds are drying to quick out the gate. after 4 days the lower buds feel dry to the touch. i am outting them in jars tonight.

by the way both suga ande pipedream got me where i am today. i have incorporated both you methods into my success. i will smoke one for you guys!!! thanks again

 

[Guest]

Hey Red Greenery, this is a beautifull growbox. I wish you happy grow and sweet weed from it. BTW: what strain is it?

Thanks for all the compliments!!!

I'm growing Shiskaberry X DutchTreat from Cash Crop Ken. They're a week into flowering and I'm just filling my SCROG screens.



Hey Grunwald, I noticed your are using a glass sheild too. Are you using any fans for ventilation?

 

[Guest]

Q_ba1 - It's a good one.

Red_Greenery - Great cab man. And thanks for the tip on the intake ratios it helped out a lot.

BonsaiGrower - Nice canopy.
.......................................................................

O.K. Well I'm done with my box again. And with all your guidance and good advice the temps are down. While they weren't too bad before, I was afraid of how high they would get in the summer.

I used 3" PVC pipping and dyer ducting for the new vent system. Then made the flower section with two intakes. For the 150 HPS, I enclosed it (with the ballast) and attached it to the fan. In the mother/clone section I add a 50 CFM fan . This decreased the area for the mothers but I think I can fit 2 good size "Bonsai" mothers in there with a few clones.




I'm not truly done yet. I'm going to put some deflectors on the exhaust port to push the heated air away for the back of the box. And paint the back wall.







I was surprised by the new temp in the flowering section. I waited to check the temp for about a hour. But then thought about the floor temp.





Thanks again for all your support and advice.

Good growing to all.

 

[gzzmo]

sugabear, you might even be right about that. i removed all the fanleaves to reduce evaporation and, as i said, taped it. i'll also be keeping the cut moist - not so that it rots but to support the part above the cut until it's either dead or the remaining part has grown strong enough to supply the growth.
lecture learned tho.. this happens when you don't "train" your plants with airmovement. they just grow thick and beautiful, but you be dammed if you happen to bend a stalk. they just break like a carrot. no fibers at all it appears.

but cleaning up above the screen really helped. now i only have some 20 branches above the screen. everything that was not going to make it to the screen was also trimmed.
what'S the penetration depth of a 150? i'm asking because on one side of the screen i already accomplished a perfect stadium look, but the branches on the "inside" are only some 10cm. well, they will be growing some more, but as of now it all looks very orderly. if the 150 doesn't penetrate much deeper anyway, that's one hell of a nice canopy! stretch should be stopping soon, then i'll post up some pics after finally placing the buds in the right position.

just remembered that my 70w gave me up to 15cm buds...not very compact or thick of course, but i'd think that only 10cm branches might be a waste of light...5-10cm of additional vertical growth should help to make it a perfect screen. so again a question: given the fast stretch stops now. how much more will the branches grow in budding? with branches at 10cm (and more) above the screen, what kind of branches will i end up with at the end? preferably, to get most out of the light, i'd like some 20 cm...
so actually i just noticed that the question boils down to when do the plants stop upward growth given a 8 week flowering period and ignoring differences in strains (just need an estimate, and can't quite remember the time from last grows...i tend to guess after week 3 stretch and upward growth is finally over)

 

[sugabear_II]

hey gzzmo - optimum distance for the 150 is 5-10" but it will penetrate further.

Some strains break stems easier than others - trainwreck is like a vine and you could tie knots in the stem w/o breaking it. But I have an indica that just snaps soo easy - it has big fat thick hollow stems and they just tend to snap.

-suga

 

[Guest]

Thank you all for your comments.
Red Greenery, yes I use a sheet of glass and 2 PC fans. It is a regular glass and at that moment there are 2 sheets of it. Just look:



It is quite stealth, isn't it?



My RedBox is upper part of this wardrobe in my bedroom.

6/6 seeds germinated. Tomorrow they will go to the RedBox

EDIT: Veg day 1st.

 

[LLCoolBud]

Hey all im about to join the 150w club myself...that is it i find a suitable socket lol im a dumb sotner didi 2 + years of reasearch of indoor and i bought my venture ballast and bulb and didnt know there was no socket or no assembly im lost now but from the looks of it it shouldn't be too much trouble.