Help Me Turn My Attic into a Grow Space!

[Lone Wolf]

well, I am not an electrician by any means, but I wouldn't see a problem with grabbing some 10-3 wire, installing a new 30amp double pole breaker in your breaker box, and running the wire up through the wall... maybe you can follow existing wiring back to the breaker box and run your 10-3 wire along that same route... then where you run this 10-3 wire, you can hookup a bunch of 120v recepticles down throughout different areas of the cab. Or you can just hook them up in a single spot at the end of the 10-3 line that you run.

Personally, I think myself would never run anything other then HID lighting in my grow spaces... I think you would be able to rock this space out with some 400w cool-tubes, or even use a reflector that is thin in height and just string them along the grow space.

If you REALLY wanted to take advantage of this space, then hook up some light movers in that bitch and hook them to your reflectors... you could get light coverage on every square inch of the room...

just make sure you know the stretch potential of your genetics and flower them accordingly so you do not overcrowd the room.....

Stoned,
LW

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Much has happened since last September. If you’re reading this, thanks for sticking with me! All I can say is that no one wants to see this space produce more than me! The AK-47 plants that were growing in my last post were harvested. The results are here:

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=190021

That test grow told me quite a bit about air flow & odor control in my new grow area. I used what I learned to make a list of all the things that needed to get done & started knocking them out.

Iron_Lion helped me with my electricity issue, so the flower side & the veg side both have their own outlet/powerbar now. It was a PITA to run that Romex, but now there’s power inside without having to run an extension cord from outside the space.

This is a pretty unique internal circulation system for the air in my grow space. I’ve always valued having a spare vortex fan that sits on top of a spare charcoal filter. Setup couldn’t be easier & it works just as well as an oscillating fan for internal circulation, but on top of those things you also have the added benefit of your smelly air being scrubbed 24/7. I’ve found this to work incredibly well as long as humidity is under control.

For the set up of this new space I wanted to do the same thing mentioned above for internal circulation, but I also needed to keep a constant flow of air going between the veg/flower areas and have the fan mounted outside in the crawl space to avoid the heat it produces building up in my space. After I mounted the fan in the crawl space, I constructed a shelf for the filter inside the veg area, put the Phresh Filter on it & ran some rigid duct work to it by going through the back wall. I now had my inlet, but the fan was still dumping outside the grow room, so I ran a longer piece of rigid duct from the fan’s exhaust to the far side of the flowering space. It runs 24/7 and it does a great job of killing almost all the smell, and an even better job of keeping the two temps consistent. I even hooked up a 4” duct elbow with a HEPA filter to the exhaust side in the flowering area. This keeps the noise of the rushing air down, directs the air over the top of the flowering plants & towards the passive intake hole that leads to the veg area to start another loop.

After the outlets & the internal circulation were taken care of, I used wood fill & then foam in all the cracks I could find. The cutouts for the duct work, etc were all sealed up. When I was done with this step, the space was already 500% better than it was for the trial run of AK-47, and I hadn’t even hung plastic yet!

When I did get around to hanging plastic, I used as few pieces as possible. It was a bitch to climb into that space with a huge sheet of plastic, but it paid off big time. I was able to seal up 90% of each side with a single sheet. It’s laid on the floor of the space, squared up as much as possible, stapled into place, then run up the back wall & stapled again before getting stapled to the ceiling and coming down the front where it was cut into doors. Seems to be very light & air tight. This pic is of my door rolled up so I can check on the gals. The door was cut to size and a dowel was stapled to the bottom in order to keep it taught inside.

I threw up a 100 watt T5 with cool spectrum bulbs on the back wall. It’s adjusted for the height of my mom plants when they’re in their square 4” pots. Another 100 watt T5 with mixed spectrum bulbs hangs horizontally near the front. This is used for cloning, vegging & simple breeding/selection projects. The tray for my run-off is the bottom of a large Rubbermaid bin & it’s been a dream come true. It has a slight tilt to it so the waste water collects right in front of me. It’s very easy to slurp it up with the $25 Home Depot wet/dry shop vac I have. Right now the space is occupied by some Sour 60 kids that are buried under that horizontal light!

The flowering side was next to have some hardware bolted up, so I started with the LED. I hung the lamp using blynx’s method which can be found here:
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=163961

It worked very well & I don’t think there’s too many ways to get that lamp higher without going to a physically smaller unit. His tutorial saved me quite a bit of time. The LED is at a fixed height, but given the height stipulations of my grow, it should work out just fine.

The SCROG net is made with 1” hexagon fencing that ran $3 for a roll that was 3x longer than needed. The frame is extremely sturdy and shouldn’t move even when totally covered & full with thick branches. I’m using 10 gallons of coco coir in each of the 2 containers, which puts the medium at 10” of height, plus there’s a solid 1”-2” of hydroton on top of that to keep the breeze off the top of the medium, although from my experience this eventually settles into the coco. The net is roughly another 6” above that. I’d like some more room under that net but with height being a concern, I’d rather have the headspace used above the net. Usually the container on top of the net and the starter containers on top of the medium won't be there, but as long as the flower side is vegging the screen out, I try to take advantage of the light for any other vegging kids I have!

For right now, ventilation is taken care of by simply putting a small oscillating fan near a door I leave cracked an inch or two. The LED produces no heat to speak of. From what I can tell with my own casual tests, just one of my 100 watt T5 fixtures generates over twice as much heat as the LED fixture that covers the whole flowering area! Basically, my space is at the same temp & humidity levels as my house, maybe 2°-3° higher. For right now that means 64°-76° & dry. It seems to be working & although it’s a far from ideal setup I don’t think it will be the weak link during this grow.

I always appreciate advice and critiques. Here’s a quick list of some issues that are still pending:

• When I bought my 205 watt LED, the manufacturer’s recommended installation height was 6” above the canopy for my particular model, while the rest of the models had a recommended height of 12” above the canopy. So. . . even though it cost me 5” of valuable headspace, I bought the 19”x19” 205 watt CLUNKY SQUARE unit thinking losing 5” of height from the fixture’s itself was better than losing 6” of height from the light being hung inefficiently. Lesser of two evils, right? Now the manufacturer has changed it to 12” like the rest of the models. This isn’t the end of the world, as I couldn’t be happier with the growth the LED stimulates, even in my short quarters. But, as I expand & add more lights to the flower area, I have the option of using 12”x19” 126 watt SMALLER NARROWER model. We’ll see what happens, but gaining 5” of headspace would be huge and it’s on my mind.

• I need to get a 126 watt LED for the veg side of the grow. The difference in heat & electricity alone makes it worth it, but it would also allow me to grow wall to wall to wall to wall in the veg side, instead of being restricted to the footprint size of the T5’s. It’s tough to make good use of fixed-dimension spaces that are small because there are only so many different sized T5’s out there. An LED would allow me to hang a single fixture in a fixed position and gain space in the process. Given that I take my outdoor cuttings in a couple months, I might even make this upgrade before adding another flowering fixture.


• Not being experienced with SCROGs, I have no idea what my timetable is and it’s killin’ me! I’m taking meticulous notes as to the dates of different events so next time this will be predictable like any other grow.

• As of now I have nowhere to dry. Not a huge problem but I’d like to come up with a permanent solution in the next couple months so I don’t have to scramble again next harvest.


• I obviously need to come up with a permanent way to vent my space. The purpose of holding off is so I can see what temps are like throughout a full grow cycle. The way I see it, I have two options. I can hook up my Sentinel environmental controller to a dehumidifier and a CO2 tank/regulator to keep the gals happy, or I can install (2) 4” ducts that go from the garden through the crawl space (where the fans would be mounted) & directly outside. I should know what meets my needs better after this grow.

 

[growingcrazy]

I like your setup and am very interested in the rest of the grow. Can't wait to see how this goes, it may change my mind on LED. I have similar space restrictions as yourself.

 

[Claude Hopper]

I love your settup. Looks like lots of crawling around, but its clean and safe looking.

I think you'll love the LEDs in here. I have to keep my LED at least 9" up or it keeps my plants from stretching enough.

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Thanks for stopping by!

I love your settup. Looks like lots of crawling around, but its clean and safe looking.

I think you'll love the LEDs in here. I have to keep my LED at least 9" up or it keeps my plants from stretching enough.

It was most defiantly a lot of crawling around during the setup. At this point though, since I only have a couple of plants flowering at ay given time, it shouldn't be too bad. I put the two LA Confidential girls under the screen a week a go and they still haven't needed to be watered/fed yet! The veg area is a little more work due to the small pots I have my moms in and the finicky nature of clones & seedlings, etc, but even then with that new tray I got I just hand water a few plants, use the shop vac to slurp up the mess & that's it.

The LED's have only been used to veg so far, but I never want to use a T5 again! The LED's run soooo cool that the temp reduction alone is worth it. I can't wait to see how this LAC cut does under the screen with the LED. I've been growing this cut for over 4 years on & off under HPS, so I'm anxious to see what the LED produces. . .

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Here's an update to show how things are coming along. Pretty much everything is going as expected. . .

Overall of the veg area. LA Confidential mom in the back left, Sour 60's up front & my AK kids in the back right.

What I'm most excited about. . . three potential AK-47 moms! They aren't showing sex yet.

Here's an AK on top of a Sour 60 container. Speaking of Sour 60. . .

Sour 60 #1 is showing sex. . . it's a girl!

Sour 60 #2 is showing sex. . .also a girl!

Sour 60 #3 is a girl too! Good luck I guess.

And of course, my mom plant, Old Reliable. . .

The SCROG is still doing it's thing filling up that screen.

At least the tips have reached the screen and are starting to be trained every morning.

And this is where we're at as of a few minutes ago. They still haven't needed to be watered and they've been in those containers for a couple of weeks now at least. Gotta love large containers! LA Confidential's nodes are a little too close together for this type of grow, but live & learn, right?

 

[SupraSPL]

Hey man interesting setup. You are probably correct about the fluoros throwing more heat than the LEDs. I have no idea which LEDs bins they are using but if we assume they are middle of the road-good they could be 25-30% efficient. The fluoros are ~15-20% efficient. So the LEDs have slightly less heat/watt, but since they have better spectrum and directionality it translates to getting the same job done with much less heat.

One thing that really surprised me is how efficient LED is at vegging. I was able to veg with only 25w LED and flower with 160w LED. Of course we are talking about short plants but in another case we used only 70 LED watts to veg for 600w HPS + 160w LED.

Anyway if you use the 205 for flowering then the 126 would probably be very overkill for the vegging side (IMHO). Good luck in your new space!

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Anyway if you use the 205 for flowering then the 126 would probably be very overkill for the vegging side (IMHO). Good luck in your new space!

Thanks for stopping by. I don't have much experience with the LED yet, so I'm trying not to jump to conclusions based on what I've seen and keep an open mind. Your successes are encouraging, especially because your experiences are consistent with my own.

I think a 126 watt unit or one of the 6x (63?) watt units would both work, but the 126 would make it easier to use that space for projects that require veg space. I usually find myself in need of more veg space so I'm trying to plan accordingly.

That screen is filling up pretty slowly, so I should have some time to think it over.

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Day 22 of Veg

Day 22 of Veg

It was Feb. 27th that I transplanted these gals into their new 10 gallon homes & put them under a 205 watt LED/SCROG screen. That seems like a reasonable time to start the Veg Day count, so. . . . that makes today Day 22!

Figured I'd update with a few images. . .

Both gals are filling up their respective sides of the screen nicely now, but I'd still rather be growing AK-47 or some other strain that's more branchy. Now that all the main tops are being trained on a daily basis it's filling up faster & faster.

For the most part things have been going as planned. The leaf tips are slightly burned, but nothing that's slowed them down at all. A few of the leaves have taken a beating from the oscillating fan, but again, nothing to worry about.

I'd say my biggest problem right now is the medium being so saturated from the initial transplant. Ideally I wouldn't need to go directly from little starter containers to 10 gallon beasts, but because of the screen height that's the breaks. Next time I'll work around it by flushing my coco well, but then letting it dry before I put the little gals in there. That way they don't start out with a water logged container & need to grow for a month before they can finally gasp for air!

These LED's really pack on the nodes unlike HPS, MH or T5 lighting ever did. It really is amazing. For the first time ever, I want length between nodes (to a certain extent) instead of nodes stacking up on top of each other, yet all I'm getting with this LED is nodes & branches then more nodes & branches! It'll eventually be a good thing, but right now it's painfully slow.

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Veg Day 27

Veg Day 27

No pics today but a quick update regarding a few things. . .

• 1 of my 3 Sour 60 plants turned out to be (mostly) a dude. That leaves 2 left, which should be done in about 30 days or so. They've been moved between the LED, the mixed spectrum T5 and window light.
• 2 of my 3 AK-47 kids have shown sex. So far one is a dude & one is a new mom! Super stoked that I have one of each! Now I can cross my male AK-47 with my female LA Confidential cut, but more importantly, I have a new AK-47 mom for the next SCROG run. Still waiting for AK #3 to show sex.
• The SCROG. . . so much has been learned! I've been lurking around in the coco forum and have expanded my knowledge of feeding & watering coco. Improvements can already be seen as a result of the changes I've made! I'm starting to see how different ways of training the plants to go under the screen results in different growth rates. She's filling up though! The screen is about 1/3 full, so hopefully by day 45 of veg the screen will be close to full. Last, I will definitely be using VerdantGreen's modular SCROG idea next time around. Allowing each plant to fill up it's own screen is just too big of an advantage to overlook, not to mention the fact that I could split up my work/rewards by having a perpetual harvest. Sounds good to me!

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Veg Day 44

Veg Day 44

Much has happened since my last update!

My (2) Sour 60's just got fed their last 600 PPM flowering mixture before starting their flush in a couple days & getting harvested around 4/20. They look to be doing well considering they've had absolutely no consistent routine to speak of. One day they'll get T5 lighting and plain water, then the next day they'll be under the LED and get a full strength nutrient mix. It all depends on what I'm doing to take care of my other more important plants. These have been my last priority. They're very hardy plants that can take a beating and still do their thing. I can't wait to harvest them so I can have my veg space back!

Sour 60 side cola. . . I should pull about 10 grams between the (2) plants. Haha, I'll have enough for one cone for 4/20!

A while back I took (6) clones. The (2) AK-47 females rooted in 8.5 days! That's the fastest I've ever had clones root in plugs or cubes. The (2) AK-47 males rooted in about 10 days, which is still pretty fast. The (2) LA Confidential chicks are still waiting for roots, but from my experience they take about 18 days to pop roots.

I also germinated (10) Early Girl beans for this year's outdoor run. Seed Boutique was as speedy as ever with a less than 10 day wait on the order. Only 7 popped, and then 4 died as sprouts due to my own negligence, so I have (3) going in little starter containers right now vegging up. Hopefully one will make a good long-term mommy for my colder, short outdoor season.

From left to right you've got the Ak-47 females, the Early Girl kids, & finally the AK-47 dudes.

The initial SCROG run is turning out to be a nightmare, but now that my AK genetics are secured I'm not so worried about how the LA Confidential turns out under the screen during this initial run. Don't get me wrong, I've gained quite a bit of valuable experience from this first run using a net, and it will help me later on in future grows, so in that sense this grow is great. Of course I'd like to see more product harvested rather than less, but in the end I feel that switching genetics is going to be such an epic game changer that a lot of these lessons will have to be re-learned with my new strain.

This isn't a pretty image, but it's tough to get light under that dense bush/monster/mess of a plant! The stem is very thick and the side stalks are big as well. At this point, they look almost exactly like the plants I used to harvest from 8" pots that would yield about 1 oz. each in my ebb & flow trays. I'm anxious to see how physically large it is at harvest. Unfortunately, the plant hasn't so much been filling up the screen as much as just growing more & more nodes on the stalks it already has. I don't think my yield is going to be anything short of embarrassing to be completely honest, but that's the way it goes when you try 10 new things at once I guess.

One positive aspect of this grow is that my efficiency with coco is getting much better. This is my first coco grow that hasn't needed any flushing. The two scrogged plants haven't had any water drain into the collection trays up until today. Next time around I don't see going higher than 600 PPM's in veg. This time I went as high as 1000 and they're showing slight signs of burn despite receiving plain water every few feedings. I guess there was too much build up in the medium to dilute/use it all with a single feeding of water.

Today they were flushed with a 600 PPM flowering solution. Each container took 3-4 gallons of the mix. They're going into flowering tonight, so tomorrow's count will be Grow Day 45 & Flowering Day 1!

Until next time. . . .

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned

I'm a perfectionist. I like things to go well, especially after I've put effort into them. This grow is not going to turn out like I had hoped, so in an effort to make the next round much better, I've been scouring the forums sucking in all I can. So after much searching I found someone who could help me out! Rather than explain what I've been going through, I've added emphasis to CC's quote below. . .

To quote Crazy Composer, from one of his threads, when asked about pot size for flowering: https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=209274&page=3

"Then they go into their final containers and allowed to veg until the appropriate height is achieved for flowering. Things to take seriously about this time are... Make sure the root system has colonized the container very well, not root-bound, but firmly entrenched in the growing medium. Why? Well, most indoor varieties are indica dominant or hybrids thereof, and indicas come from areas where there are very definite growing seasons, spring, summer, fall. During the srping and early summer, the plants are growing new branches, leaves and roots... then, when they begin to bloom, all their growth energy is diverted to flowering. This means that these indica varieties will stop producing new roots after they are firmly in flower stage, so, if the roots have not completely colonized the container they're in, they never will. Problems arise when you are flowering a plant with more growing medium than the roots need. Uncolonized growing medium is a breeding ground for troubles, like bacteria, fungi and pH and toxicity issues caused by adding nutrient to the medium that has no roots there to use it. After a while, these areas devoid of roots can become toxic, and the plants will start to exhibit strange problems that drive growers crazy because they don't know what the hell they did wrong.

The moral of that root colonization story is... make sure you allow the plants' roots to thoroughly use up the space in the container BEFORE setting them to bloom.

There IS an exception to this rule... sativas. Sativas can be transplanted immediately before setting them to flower because they come from places where the growing and flowering seasons are blurred into one long season. Therefore, sativas will grow their roots and their buds at the same time. Longer-term sativas (90-120 days) can even benefit from transplanting DURING the first half of bloom. The general rule with sativas is... the buds will grow as long as there's room for the roots to grow."

______________________________________________________

I've been having all kinds of messed up problems! The odd thing is that I haven't changed many elements of my routine. . . nutrients types & strengths, lighting, coco as a medium. . . all these things have worked together for me in the past, including with this strain! Really the only thing that changed was my container size. Of course, now I know that this effects how much water the plants gets, which in turn effects everything from oxygen levels in the medium to toxic effects from the roots not using the nutrients fast enough.

If you want a good read with some killer pictures to go with it, check out his thread, you won't regret it.

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Day 18 of Flowering

Day 18 of Flowering

This is what the canopy looks like as of 10 minutes ago. Many of the nutrient issues have gone away now that the plant has grown into its container. I'd say about half of the screen is going to be full at harvest. Live & learn!

This is the plant that's directly under the LED. She just got trimmed today. Up until an hour ago it was literally one big mat of pure green that NO light penetrated through.

This is the plant on the side that was supposed to grow towards the light but never quite made it.

Part of the canopy.

My veg area has converted to LED! That's a brand new 126 watt fixture in there. . . both T5's are gone. The T5's have been used to set up a dedicated cloning & early veg space. Most of the time it won't even be running, but this way I won't have to cram a humidity dome into that cabinet. My current veg space now has plenty of room for all my moms plus about (25) 5" square pots or whatever else I want to throw in there. It's great to be free from the T5's in that small space. The heat was just too much and being restricted to the footprint of the light was a real limitation. The LED hangs stationary yet it illuminates all 5 sq ft perfectly from wall to wall.

The final yield on the Sour 60's was 5.7 grams & 5.9 grams. It's very tasty & has a very sativa-like high! I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

The Early Girl kids are doing great. All three are heavy feeders and were just transplanted into 5" pots. Still hoping for at least one female. . .

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Day 29 of Flowering

Day 29 of Flowering

Here they are! Frosty, dense, sticky & stinky, even if they never filled up the screen. . .

I'd like to reiterate the fact that this grow space still doesn't have any external ventilation other than an 8" oscillating fan inside the flowering area that once per rotation blows a little puff of air out of a cracked cabinet door. I can't imagine how efficient my ventilation will be once I install my Sentinel climate controller & vortex fan that vents directly outside via a soffit vent. This makeshift system with my partially-broken oscillating fan is working great and it was above 80F here yesterday! I love simplicity in my grows and this LED has been the best single investment I've made in a looong time.

 

[B. Self Reliant]

I'm amazed at how much trichome coverage there is at only day 30. After growing a strain for quite some time you get to know it very well. . . including how far down the leaves the trichome coverage extends. This time with the LED's the coverage extends much further down the leaves, especially the top leaves. My Sour 60 was the same way, and my buddy's AK under the same HG LED's are similar.

With all the comparisons between LED & HPS, it seems everyone wants to ignore the key fact that the plants grow differently. They're apples & oranges. The leaves & calyxes grow differently, in my opinion not as dense, but the flip side of the coin is that the resin content seems to consistently be better. For growers like me who grow for head stash, it only seems reasonable to admit that we're not ultimately after density or weight, but resin. That's how I see myself. . . as a resin farmer. I for one am fine with growing bud that isn't quite as dense if the trade-off is that I get a higher percentage of resin coverage.

I have quite a few friends who are used to my HPS-grown LAC and are anxious to see how this LED batch turns out. I guess only time will tell. . .

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Filling Up the SCROG Net

Filling Up the SCROG Net

It's day 40 of flowering and I ran some numbers.

My 22"x30" net is 4.6 sqft. After measuring the sides of the net that never filled out, I figure I'm actually flowering 2.35 sqft, so 51% of the area I hoped to fill.

As far as the height of the tops above the net, things couldn't have worked out more perfectly. The LED is 6" above most of the canopy & the light is growing dense nugs all the way to the edge of the 30" width. Exactly as the product was originally advertised. So, even if the screen didn't fill out at least I got the height correct and I now have some solid numbers in terms of how many sqft this light covers & how high above the tops to hang it. All crucial information for planning my next grow. On a side note, the few tops that have grown closer than 6" don't appear to be harmed by the LED's.

Before I even had plants in this space I estimated that a high yielding strain such as AK-47 could produce at least 6 ounces in the same 22"x30" area once dialed in. Well, the LA Confidential I've got going now doesn't yield anything close to what AK does, so knock that potential number down to about 4 ounces. . . then factor in the fact that this is my first grow in this space and the fact that the net only filled up half way. . . . so based on my best realistic estimates, I should get about 2 ounces (hopefully).

Whatever the final harvest weighs, if I multiply if by 6, that's roughly the potential of my space with the current setup. I can fit at least 3 of these lights in the flowering area, and this canopy only fills up about half of the one light, so even if I only pull 2 ounces I can live with that because it means my space is capable of producing at least 12 ounces before switching to a high yielding strain. Not bad for a cabinet!

 

[DnKNg5]

Resin Farmer. Very nice! It's good to see there is a trade-off for the nugs not being as dense from the LED's. That is something I had noticed with some of the LED reports I have been reading.

 

[supermanlives]

try tek foil from farmtek.com you can get it really thick . its like reflectix but way thicker. and you can get it in 6 ft wide lengths

 

[B. Self Reliant]

The gals a couple weeks from chop. . .

The gals a couple weeks from chop. . .

Here's a couple pics of the LA Confidentials under the screen. The LED is kickin' ass. . .

 

[DnKNg5]

Here's a couple pics of the LA Confidentials under the screen. The LED is kickin' ass. . .

Those trichs are looking delicious. What lens is that? 50 f/1.2?