ambr0sia's DIY 2x150W Mountaintop Medicine Cabinet

[ambr0sia]

I think you all will be pleased to hear that things are just trucking right along in my modest medicine cabinet this week; No new additions or removals, just the same five happy plants doing their thing!

First, a peek into veg:

Afgooey mum-to-be "Mazzy" entering her third week of veg from clone; She's had a slow start, but there's definite new growth this week, and roots already visible through the pot's drain holes!




The intention was for "Judi" to play mum in my Purple Kush runs, but she's sadly the weakest looking one of the bunch, despite being treated identically as far as I can tell; I'm going to try a couple day flush of plain old water to see if that helps.
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Onward to flower!

Emma, Inga, and Wangari soaking up the HPS love...




Wangari, the newst PK girl to hit flower; She's looking exceptionally healthy and responding very well to LST.






Inga's showing some great bud development in her second week of flower, maybe even moreso than Emma did; Can't wait to see where she's headed!
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[ambr0sia]

Last, but certainly not least... Emma!

As you can see, she's filling out quite nicely...










Shhhhuuuuga!
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Until next week,
ambr0sia

 

[Quazi]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to ambr0sia again.

Awesome man.

-Q

 

[onweed]

ambr0sia

Whats the thing on the right side of the pots? silvery and looks like two steps.

 

[ambr0sia]

Either you got some good advice or you just know how to separate the wheat from the chaff. That's a nice lookin' box. Happy plants, too! Way to go!

I attribute my success almost entirely to the kind folks over at the 150W Club; Without them, I would have been dead in the water
Either way, thanks for the props!

great looking cab ambr0sia!!

Thanks, mate!

...keep in mind light proofing each chamber from the next is a very hard task when you have two light cycles in one cabinet.

Ambr0sia's cabinet is quite the exception for (what I believe to be) one of his first, if not the first, indoor grow...

You can say that again, Bulénath - Light-proofing was by *far* the trickiest bit to get right.

And yes, my first grow ever, indoor or out - Heck, this is pretty much my first time playing with cannabis at all, save for quick glances at friend-of-a-friend's gardens throughout the years. Thanks for all the kind words!

Whats the thing on the right side of the pots? silvery and looks like two steps.

This is a box style light-trap, my solution to the light-proofing quandry Bulénath referenced above - Thanks again for the idea, Piepdream!

It's constructed out of styrofoam insulation sheets and aluminum ducting tape. It may make more sense from this angle:




That's two separate pictures butted up next to each other to help you visualize a bit, but it's basically how they look anyhoo:



Fresh air enters through the square grate on the floor of the veg chamber. From here, it's pulled up under the silver shade in the upper left corner of veg, through the wall, down to the floor on the flower side, and finally around its last corner and up into the flower chamber.

The idea being, of course, that the air can make the two 180° turns in between the veg and flower chambers without too much fuss - Light, on the other hand is (hopefully) isolated. As Bulénath has mentioned before, it's much easier to build two separate boxes, though that does require buying two fan / filter sets.

 

[FreezerBoy]

I attribute my success almost entirely to the kind folks over at the 150W Club; Without them, I would have been dead in the water
Either way, thanks for the props!

An honest man, too. I can only imagine what that thread would've done for me in my 150 days. But I got seduced by root porn and DWC and CMH. Now IC has buried me under more weed than I know what to do with. Darn you ICMAG, darn you all to heck!

P.S. Thanks for the cab porn. I love cab porn!

 

[wishbone420]

Now IC has buried me under more weed than I know what to do with. Darn you ICMAG, darn you all to heck!

you could tellaport some this way.lol can't wait till i can say that

 

[FreezerBoy]

You didn't get it? What happ ... oh, that's not a transporter, that's my bong. Sorry.

 

[ambr0sia]

It's been a busybusy week for me, so I'm afraid I'll have to dispense with the small talk and get right to the meat of the matter:

Mazzy (Afgooey) is starting to show some real, honestagawd growth!




Judi is looking much more mum-like. Whatever was ailing her last week seems to have cleared itself up for the most part.




Final peek into veg




Wangari is looking very.. lanky this week; Quite the difference in internodal spacing from her sisters. Anyone know what causes this?



Inga is... budsites! Just everywhere on this girl...








And then there was Emma...





Bling d' Emma
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[aeburnside]

damn, that's a lot of budsites! looking great so far

 

[ambr0sia]

Yes, I know it's been some time since my last update; My apologies all around. Life hasn't slowed down quite yet, and my replacement camera won't be here for yet another week.

I, of course, had to make time for today's special event, though - The harvest of my very first plant ever - Emma the Pur(e/ple) Kush!

Here she is (back right corner) with her Flower-mates Inga and Wangari about 1 week before harvest




Moments before the big chop...






Not a bad haul!
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I'll definitely be taking away a few lessons from my first run:

1) Veg longer! With the space I have available, I can easily let a well LST'd or SCROG'd plant veg out for a month before flipping. I'm pretty convinced that two well-veg'd, larger plants will out-perform 3 quick-veg'd girls like these any day.

2) Watch the pH! I simply hadn't tested it, and didn't realize it was going to be an issue until the symptoms crept in; A top treatment of dolemite lime seems to have kept the problem in check, but I have no doubt it still caused yield to suffer.

3) Nutes: Less is more. 'Nuff said.

I've hung these delicious little nuglets up in a large desktop PC case turned drybox. The drybox is completely sealed and connected to the flower chamber via a 1" vinyl hose. This very, very slowly draws air in through the intake on the front of the "PC", across the trimmed buds, and into the cab where it is carbon-filtered along with everything else. I reckon in the cold, dry winter air they'll be crispy around the edges within 3 days or so, at which point they'll get trimmed off othe main stems and put into a brown paper bag inside of the same PC to finish drying for another 3 or 4 days. Once they're done here, it's off to curing and enjoyment.

It actually worked!!

 

[BlueberryTerry]

awesome first harvest man!! buds look delicious!

 

[teerull]

I have to agree, a really, really nice harvest!

How high was Emma before you chopped her? Looks pretty low from the photos! Did you measure it by any chance?

peace

 

[ambr0sia]

How high was Emma befoe you chopped her? Looks pretty low from the photos! Did you measure it by any chance?

Good question - Keep in mind, this was my first grow, so height control was one of my biggest concerns. The Pur(e/ple) Cush is already a reasonably squat strain; Add to that the fact that she only vegged for a couple of weeks and that she was really trained and tied down (LST stylee) throughout her entire growth cycle and it becomes no surprise that she was only ~16" tall from soil to tops.

Next round is going to see more vegging, a bit less training, and ultimately a larger focus on yield.

 

[daddy fingaz]

Nice little grow mate!

 

[Chomp]

Great first grow man! Much better than mine, but that was pre-OG days...lol

 

[Quazi]

Woot!

What was your yield?

-Q

 

[ambr0sia]

What was your yield?

Grand total dry yield, smoke report, and some halfway decent budshots are all coming your way over the next couple of weeks; Keep'r peeled.

 

[jasonk]

Nice work ambr0sia!
I cant wait to show what the 150W club (including you) has taught me.

 

[ambr0sia]

6 days of drying later and the results are in - 30.8g total dried weight, and what a delicious looking ounce she is....

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Drying was done as slowly as possible, with the first three days being open air and the final three being brown-bagged. Her smell after just 8 hours of post-dry curing is absolutely delicious - A sort of thick, eastern muskberry perfume that just doesn't stop. The high is very "up" and conversational; Easily a social ganja, if you keep it moderate. Don't be fooled though - one too many hits will certainly leave a strong impression, and with the 10-15 minute onset time, it's more than easy to do.

All in all, I'm very happy with the results - I pulled an ounce off a plant that wasn't even using 1/3 of its available height in a space crowded by two other plants. There's lots of fine tuning to do, and yields will only improve from here.

One quick peek in on Emma's little sister, who is in week 7 of flower as we speak and will be getting chopped this upcoming weekend; She's as large, if not a touch bigger than Emma, so I'm very excited to see how she turns out:

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