Grow II

[Neptune]

Yo ICmag!

Kickin' off a new thread here, the latest and greatest grow... aptly named Grow II. Actually this is the 1 year aniversary grow, but only the 2nd run with these tables. I am now understanding rockwool a whole lot more... it's only going to get better from here. Buckle up!


Here we are with the new setup, after some serious labor. many 12+ hour days went into this...special thanks to krowmombe, these are his design. Each table is 3'x6' and iluminated by two 600w GROWBRIGHT 95,000 lumens bulbs. I just found these bulbs, so far they are awesome (half the price of Hortilux, and 10,000 more lumens per bulb. It's like running an extra 400w of light in the room merely by switching bulbs.). Daystar AC reflectors. Each table has 6 slabs, each slab is 1'x3'. On top of every slab is three 6" rw cubes, for a total of 9 plants per light or 18 per table. 70 gallon reservoirs, 1 per table. This enables my hydroponic solution to maintain itself for ~ 14-21 days before a change is needed.

 

[Neptune]

I vegged both tables for 15 days, while I was in Germany for the World Cup. They survived a 15 day leave of absense with zero maintainence..!! amazing. We are now on DAY 11 BLOOM.

On the left table, I am running 18 "GDP" that were mothered up from a club cut. I have since been told that these are fakes, not the real "Ken's Granddaddy." Whatever they are, I hope they do well

On the right table I have 14 "GDP" and 4 testers: 1 Sweet Tooth4, 1 Bubbleberry, and 2 Pot of Gold (god I love this strain!!). You can easily see the difference a strain makes... the "GDP" are much slower, and stouter, while the other testers are highly vigorous with nearly twice the biomass.



"GDP" up close


The right Table, tester strains: POG, Swt4, Pog from L to R. The Bubbleberry is behind the Left POG... these were taken before I trimmed, which I did today.




After Trim:

 

[swampskunk]

looks very nice, got a frontrow seat!

VERY interested in those bulbs

 

[Guest]

I found your new thread Hopefully IC runs smooth this time and we get to enjoy that work of art you have there Nep.

 

[Neptune]

Important diagram, self explainitory.. but some extra info never hurts:

This room maintains a temperature of +12F while lights are on. This is a pretty amazing acomplishment considering four 600w magnetic ballasts are inside this room. Whatever the outside temp is, I am only 12F warmer with lights on. This is acomplished by the ducting system, which is powerful and efficient. My 8" 750cfm fan draws air from outside (8"), silenced, then splits it to 6" for each table.. as my Daystar AC lights are 6" ports. 8" would have been ideal, but hey... we can solve problems in this department. The ducting comes together again at the back of the room through another "Y" and then exits, completeing the circuit. There are very little 90 degree turns in my duct-work. This is important to maintain good airflow. Lots of bends and un-necessary sharp turns will cause severe pressure drop.

I have a small 100cfm fan continually blowing outside air into the room. I live close to the Sea (of course!) and the outside air during summer nights(the lights run at night.) is nice and chilly 65F or colder. Hottest nights are 70F, which means my room runs at 82 MAXIMUM, and usually chillin at 77F.

However, I do have an 18,000 BTU Air Conditioner for emergencies, and also when I need to run my lights during the day.. which I have to do while vegging. Daytime temps can be 80+ here, which means my room can be 90+.... in this case the AC is needed... for veg, which I hope to eliminate with a pre-veg elsewhere, in the not-so-distant-future.





P.S.
I don't run CO2.
Fresh air, lots of it! Sealing a room seems damn difficult, and expensive!)

 

[Neptune]

swampskunk, glad you found the theater! Now showing... some organic goodness coming up next!!

Stoned Silly, Hey brother good to see you around these parts! ^_^ I'll be updating this throughout the crop, weekly at least! Hoping for a record yeild, and a record low-maintainence hassle free grow! But one can only hope, lots of time to make errors still.. lol

 

[Keefhead]

This looks great. I've been wanting to see a grow of this size on slabs.

"Organic goodness". I can't wait.

 

[Camo Thumb]

Nice one Neptnue! You know I gots ta get up close for this one
May the heaviest of harvests be in your future
CT

 

[70s_PotHead]

Bad ass well thought out grow room Neptune, and the plants look pretty good too Definatly keeping an eye on this one

70s

 

[Neptune]

Keefhead, thanks for the kudos. Yes, this is a new experiment for me and I am also eager to see how she turns out. Less hassle and big yeild is the goal!

Thanks Camo and 70's Sure to be fun!

I'll get some updates room shots soon, but for now here is some organic plants in 3 gallon pots, started at the same time, shots taken same day as those above. So far I am not noticing a markedly faster growth for the Hydroponics/drippers vs. my soil.










I trimmed these soil pots pretty hard too, as you can see... all done on the same day as the RW drippers above. I am liking the easy of the drippers, but the taste and aroma of the soil has, in my experience, been much better to date.

 

[BluntItUp]

Sup bro! Manyour room is lookin sweet. I bet that ac is a life savor this past week Keep up the good job man. Lookin foward to your harvest!

 

[Neptune]

yea brother, The AC has come alive this week... But this is why I installed it!! I am now thanking my good intuition and a little good advice from friends to btie the bullet and install a bigass overkill AC. The power consumption is killer, but without this AC I would have a ruined crop.

Hellacious Hot Weather.... even here!! 105F outside, means ~120F in my room without AC. Fortunatly, the AC keeps things at 76F :]

 

[Mampi]

Nice set up neptune... sweet start to... ur lucky mang, getting time to go to the world cup watched most of it though and t'was a decent WC with a few surprises and some great games.

Have u got any dried budshots of the POG?

cheers!

 

[gaiusmarius]

wowee Neptune,

that is one nice setup. very neat and tidy. RW slabs have great potential. i'm well happy to catch this grow at the beginning.

the cool thing is that you can use that same setup for coco slabs too if you wanted to.

i love your ventilation, that's how it's done. even AC no less , very cool.

good growings

 

[Neptune]

Heya mampi, here are some Pot of Gold shots from the last SOG I did. This last grow was just 6" rockwool blocks, packed together with zero spacing. 65 blocks on a 3x6 table.













Gaius Marius, whats up my man! I love your coco widow grows, and the power plant too of course I would love to switch to coco simply for the fact that it's biodegradable and organic. Rockwool is a bummer to throw away... you know its just sitting in a bigass dump somewhere, filling up the land. Booo! I'm not sure what to buy to get this going on coco, any help you can throw my way? Perhaps I should just re-read your grows? I'd like to do a slab, and a cube on top of that if possible.. Thing is, I cut the entire bottom layer of plastic off of these slabs so that the hydroponic solution can drain through the slabs and leave the table. If I did that with coco, I fear a mess and clogged lines! How do you go about drainage for your coco slabs/cubes?

 

[Guest]

hey neptune.. I like what I see. you are so lucky to have been able to go to germany man. and lucky that nothing happened in your absence. I admire that you were willing to not only invest some serious planning, work, effort, and sweat into putting it all together. hopefully the ends will justify the means...

on the topic of your "fake" GDP.. I know that people are saying its really Lavender.. but you know what.. even if it is.. Lavender just won 1st place... so i wouldnt be too overly disappointed, *if* thats what it was in the end...

your POG looks awesome. what do you use to silence your fan, a duct muffler? did you buy it or did you make it, and do you notice a difference?

take it easy.. looking forward to watching along..

 

[Guest]

Very cool style! inspirational!

 

[Guest]

neptune your setup is a thing of beauty!

 

[Mampi]

High Neptune,

cheers for the pics

I'm sure Gaius will pop back in with a reply.... but here's my 2c

You wanna be getting anything between 10 -25% run off. I have used the coco slabs for a few grows and can't recommend them highly enough. Root zone temps become a thing of the past and high rez tmeps are no worry either. Coco is a great insulator as well as grow medium and will regulate the rootzone temps within reason, of course... it looks like you don't have any heat issues with the cooling power u have in your room though.

You would'nt need to cut the bottom of the plastic off because the coco drains well.... best coco systems run to waste.... run off can be minimal 10% to prevent salt build up.

Coco slabs with 3" or 4" coco/rockwool cutting blocks ontop.... is what you want. U could put 1L pots of coco onto the slabs but then things get a lil' messy transplanting and filling cuttings into pots of loose coco.... specially if you run high desnisty SOGs usually... I did'nt have access to coco cubes so I used rockwool as does Gaius... I hear ya on the bio-degradabiltity of nasty rockwool though 'orrible stuff...

It'd be very easy just to chuck out those rockwool slabs when your done and pick up a few canna coco slabs.... oh yea, did I mention that the slabs are re-usable? 3 times no less! And Canna's slabs have pre-added Trichoderma which colonize the roots from the jump off, and help prevent any problems down below as well as facilitaing nutrient assimilation (gawd I sounded smart there no! if only mi science teacher could see me now lol!)

Just a very clean and economical not to mention enviornment friendly way to grow....

[Canna when do I get paid lmao!!]

peace!

 

[Guest]

Great Work Nept

Keep it up!



Stay safe! later