Anti's MicroStealth Cab Design (Dr. Bud Method)

[maddr101]

They keep your ship from falling over in the wind until you can replace it with cargo. Ba dum bum. I'll be here til thursday.

Ballasts keep our lamps from sucking up too much power too quickly and going Kablooie!

So what's the minimum amount of watts to require a ballast in terms of the CFLs? if you understand what i mean by that.

 

[Anti]

So what's the minimum amount of watts to require a ballast in terms of the CFLs? if you understand what i mean by that.

Ok. See the metal part that screws into the socket? See right above that, the plastic part that the two ends of the coil are going into? That's the ballast for a CFL. It's built in to the light itself. You don't need any external ballast.

 

[Anti]

I may have missed it in the thread, but have you stopped adding nutrients yet? You know, 5-10 days of flush with just water. Redgreenery is a good guy to talk to about this stage of your grow. Besides flushing, he leaves them in the dark for the last 72 hours before harvest. I asked him why, but I can't remember what he said. Must have been medicated.

To be honest, I'm not fully convinced that flushing is a good idea. I've been reading both sides of the issue and the people on the "don't flush" side seem to have better arguments for NOT flushing than the people who swear by it. I have no real experience with it myself.

This is a link to something originally on OG by Vaaran on why NOT to flush.

Here's the summary of the link above:

Summary:

Preharvest flushing puts the plant(s) under serious stress. The plant has to deal with nutrient deficiencies in a very important part of its cycle. Strong changes in the amount of dissolved substances in the root-zone stress the roots, possibly to the point of direct physical damage to them. Many immobile elements are no more available for further metabolic processes. We are loosing the fan leaves and damage will show likely on new growth as well.

The grower should react in an educated way to the plant needs. Excessive, deficient or unbalanced levels should be avoided regardless the nutrient source. Nutrient levels should be gradually adjusted to the lesser needs in later flowering. Stress factors should be limited as far as possible. If that is accomplished throughout the entire life cycle, there shouldn’t be any excessive nutrient compounds in the plants tissue. It doesn’t sound likely to the author that you can correct growing errors (significant lower mobile nutrient compound levels) with preharvest flushing.

Drying and curing (when done right) on the other hand have proved (In many studies) to have a major impact on taste and flavour, by breaking down chlorophylls and converting starches into sugars. Most attributes blamed on unflushed buds may be the result of unbalanced nutrition and/or overfert and unproper drying/curing.

In addition, here's a post by HellaFella420 in the same thread that I grabbed that last one from. It made a lot of sense (to me).

People spend up to 12+ weeks sometimes trying to keep a plant as healthy and stress free as possible, then in the MOST IMPORTANT growth phase, you think its a good idea to whack it over the head when 1000% of its resources should be channeled into bud production, that IS afterall what we all like to smoke.....

The logic y'all present is that the plant is breaking down "chems" in the "plant tissue," but the only place that things [not even "chems" but...] are breaking down is in the LEAVES..... Ive never seen anyone smoke yellow leaves before, have you?

Now, if the BUDS were slowly turning yellow as well, then I could see your logic that there is less SOMETHING "gross" to be inhaled, but thats not the case, they may garner other "fall" colors from the complete maturation of the plant but this still isnt any "chemmy" degradation that you are hoping for, but natural pigmentation changes....

From what I've been reading, most of the people who advocate flushing don't seem to be curing. Most of the people who advocate NOT flushing seem to feel that properly curing the bud has the same effect on harshness and smokability.

Feel free to disagree. My mind is open to all possibilities.

 

[maddr101]

Oh ok how dumb of me lol i thought it was something the guys were putting on themselves when they had a high wattage or something lol i wasn't aware that the CFLs came with there own. Anti you've really been a help to me. Waiting on the harvest to see how it goes but looking good though, good luck

 

[Anti]

You know, 5-10 days of flush with just water. Redgreenery is a good guy to talk to about this stage of your grow.

I have tons of respect for Red. My cab has glass and 3 fans instead of no glass and one big fan thanks to Red. My cab temps have never been a danger for even a moment. My carbon scrubber is almost a literal carbon copy (pardon the pun) of his.

I think the idea of doing a 48-72 hr dark cycle before harvest is an interesting concept. Unless all my plants happen to be ready at the same time, or unless I stick them in the "drying" chamber a few at a time I doubt I'll be able to make use of this technique.

As a beginner, I have no personal data to form opinions from. It seems to me like I'd have to have many many harvests before my data will be statistically relevant. (Harvesting 13 plants, or even 100 is simply not equal to a lifetime in botanical research.) I'm willing to offer my opinions on things, and rest assured that I do hold certain opinions from time to time, but I try to stay fully aware that my opinions are currently based on the way other people's work has resonated with me and may have no correlation to actual reality.

Quickly jumping back to the subject of pre-harvest flushing, I wanted to add something I neglected in my last post.

I'm going to be putting these plants back into 18/6 (or 24/0) immediately after harvest. I don't know if I want to further weaken their chances for reverting by depleting them of all their resources prior to the cut by flushing them.

I have 14 clones sitting in a plastic storage container that are dying for a chance to get into the main cab under 12/12 light. They're already so big that I'll probably have to top them to avoid having to do all this crazy bending on the next harvest while I reveg my moms.

From then on out, it'll be a perp SOG of only the most potent, high yielding producers in this group, plus whatever genetics I may acquire later. The AK is a no brainer. It will be there. I wouldn't be surprised if it yielded two to three times as much as some of the others.

3 of the clones in the tub are clones of this AK. So, if nothing else, there's that to look forward to in the next harvest. Many of the random bagseeds in this grow just can't compare to the AK... and they were given the same nutes, in the same soil, in the same container, under the same lights. Every 3 days at least all plants come out and get watered and they never go back in in the same configuration that they came out. So it isn't that the AK is getting prime lighting or anything. It's just better stuff.

 

[Green Smoke]

I'm going to be putting these plants back into 18/6 (or 24/0) immediately after harvest. I don't know if I want to further weaken their chances for reverting by depleting them of all their resources prior to the cut by flushing them.

Nuff said. I knew I had overlooked something from earlier posts. You were planning to reveg all along. No matter what your prefrence, you cant hold up nutes when you're gonna reveg. Shutting up now.

 

[Anti]

Nuff said. I knew I had overlooked something from earlier posts. You were planning to reveg all along. No matter what your prefrence, you cant hold up nutes when you're gonna reveg. Shutting up now.

It's all good, brotha. I put things in bold or italics because marketing research shows that when you vary the text and break it into smaller chunks, people have an easier time digesting it. Also, if you put your main point in bold, people are sure to read that part.

 

[Black Sheep]

wow beautiful cab man!!! and the ladies are looking very nice. i have a question about the drying portion of your cab. im researching for my cab and was wondering if its ok to run the air thats being exhausted through the flower and veg room into the drying room or if fresh air is a must?

 

[nsideguy]

that could potentially dry your buds out too fast which I've heard negatively affects the taste. Ive heard the slower the dry the better the taste. But like Anti I am a beginner resonating with other peoples work and have no connection to reality.

 

[Anti]

im researching for my cab and was wondering if its ok to run the air thats being exhausted through the flower and veg room into the drying room or if fresh air is a must?

I would (and did) go with the fresh air approach. From what I read, drying too quickly is a bad thing, and I think that might be a factor if you do it that way. Plus... you want to filter the smell of the drying plants, too.

If you do it the way I did, the air coming INTO the cab will move steadily across and through the drying buds, while they remain around room temp in complete darkness. The air that moves over them (and carries their scent) moves through the grow rooms and then through the carbon filter on the way out the back of the cab.

I'll be posting pictures of the entire drying process, once I get to that step.

 

[grady]

IMO longer the better/long lasting high, but its what you like. I agree on keepin them healthy for reveg & the 72hr darkness.

Sonds like you have taken notes of good info on this site

check out vermi tea from vermi crop.com if u can get it get it.-grady

 

[Black Sheep]

thanx for the advice unfortunately i thought i was going to be told ssomething like that. im trying to do an NGB style box and the easier way of drying is for the air to finish throught the dry chamber. o well back to the drawing board lol. thanx again nsideguy and Anti. and il definitely be checking out how your drying goes

 

[ryminol]

Hey Anti,

Great job on your cabinet design and grow. Mad props + restecp.

I just meticulously read through your whole thread, and came up with my own growbox design. I would be honored if you would take some time out of your day to check it out and give me your opinion. My thread is located here.

Ryminol

 

[RetroGrow]

Nice cab.
About re-vegging after flushing: I do it all the time. No problem.

 

[Anti]

Well kids.... it happened. Last night I pulled my plants out to take a look at the trichs and they were as close to 50/50 cloudy/amber as I can imagine any plant getting. So I spent most of the night chopping 'em down and hanging 'em up.

So, officially, the first test run of the cab is done. All that's left to do is let 'em dry and transfer to jars. And, of course, I'll be posting pics of dry weights and everything.

I only managed to get a couple of shots of the AK47 before my camera ran out of batteries, so unfortunately, I was not able to get a "final" picture of each plant for the album. I will post pics of each plant's buds and final weight when they've dried.

Got a shopping bag full of trim and sugar, so I'm planning to make a tincture with that that I can take with me when I go on my little mini-vacation in a month or so.

My "drying" chamber was never intended to dry 13 plants at once (because once I'm into a perpetual harvest I'll only be harvesting 3-5 a week) so for this grow, I am using the right flowering chamber as an additional drying chamber.

The girls who were harvested last night are already back in the left chamber, freshly watered and enjoying 18 hours of daylight. I'll post pics of everything as soon as I get to the store for more batteries.

Feeling pretty good about how things turned out. Seeing a chamber full of drying bud was a delight! Can't wait til it's a chamber of heavy hitters like the AK.

 

[Anti]

UPDATE! Plants Harvested on day 98 (67 of 12/12) w/pics!

UPDATE! Plants Harvested on day 98 (67 of 12/12) w/pics!

Well, I managed to squeeze enough juice out of the batteries to get a few shots of the results.

Here's the AK before the batteries died last night:

AK47 on Day 98 (Day 67 of 12/12)
approximately 24.5" from floor to tip

Here's a couple of pictures of everything hung to dry. All I did for this harvest was to hang twine from thumbtacks and hang the plants upside down from these. I put a twist tie on each plant segment with a piece of paper labeling which plant it came from. When it comes time to weigh, I'll weigh each plant's harvest individually. There are two plants in the "official drying chamber": MMP#3 and AK47 (The AK is hanging front and center.) The other eleven plants are hanging four rows deep in the right grow chamber (w/lights off):

​

Left - drying chamber, AK47 in front, #3 in back
Right - eleven others, 4 rows deep
​

Lastly, right before bed, I put all the ladies into the left chamber and reset the lights to 18 hours on/6 off. I tried to be very conservative and leave each plant enough to survive until it can grow new foliage. If anyone who practices reverting would care to make any suggestions, I'd appreciate it.

​

I'll be around to answer any questions and to post in other threads, and I'll update this thread again with the weights as soon as they've dried.

Thank you to everyone who chimed in, asked questions (forcing me to figure out the answer) and pointed out issues. Whatever failures or shortcomings there may be in this grow are mine alone. All of the successes - all of the results - belong to you.

 

[jwop]

awesome anti!

im going to have a look through your thread and get some stats on height at day 1 12/12 and how far away you kept your lights

looks great

 

[theUpsetter]

Nice stuff man! I like how you think! +rep on the box and the grow!

I've been doing pretty much the same thing as you except I've chronicled it over on GC - here's my link: 2nd Grow, New Box, Mazari, Power Africa, Super Lemon Haze, Red Dragon

I was inspired by both DrBud & Yukon. The result, pics of my cab follow...

- my cab. flower room on left, mech room top middle, clone room bottom middle, mom room right

- mech room control panel (ballasts & fan behind console)

- flower room w/ 20 plant(lets)

- a DrBud style cola

 

[HOODOOBLUESMAN]

upset dude

upset dude

what is g c??
is it another forum???

 

[phr3d0m2gr0]

Just got done browsing over the thread. Looks great and can't wait to hear a smoke report, final weights, and see another round of ladies go through the cabinet. K+