hush's grow: 400w MH/HPS in a DR60, several strains, flood and drain style

[hush]

Well I finally had to chop the tops off of the tall Far Outs, so they are no longer the tallest plants. That honor now belongs to the Sadhus. I have also taken cuttings of all the plants, so now I just need to finish them up and determine which ones are keepers.

Here is the garden now:

And here is the tallest Sadhu:

Sorry, that's all for pictures right now. I'll take more when flowering kicks into gear.

 

[Bud Buddington]

What kind of hood are you using in that tent? I'm looking for a hood for the same tent but most are too big either length or width wise.

 

[hush]

I originally thought the same thing, too, my man. I even made the quasi-mistake of buying a mini cool-tube to use in this thing because it was the only thing I found that could fit the inside dimensions. But then after hooking it up I decided that the lighting footprint was horrible, and I was pissed for a little while. Then, I decided to dust off an old Sunleaves Arctic Sun reflector I had in my storage unit. I figured, it's the smallest fully-aircooled reflector still, that is sold on the market, and I could at least give it a shot.

I'm glad I did. Once I tucked the ducting into place and kind of "squished" it here and there to make it fit, I realized that not only did it not cause the sides of the tent to bow outward that much, BUT, it actually now prevents the tent from bowing inward from the negative pressure!

So my advice to you is to stop worrying about how aircooled reflectors don't fit the dimensions of the DR60... they still actually fit them!

 

[Bud Buddington]

Thanks for the awesome response Hush. I've been worried I wouldn't be able to find a decent hood that would fit inside that tent but from your pictures, it is a perfect fit. One more quick questions about your lighting. Is the air being pulled through the hood coming from outside the tent or inside? What kind of exhaust fan are you running to keep temps down?

 

[hush]

The air running through the reflector is coming from inside the tent. There is only one fan on this tent. It has a 6" duct booster fan providing the entire airflow for this tent. Air comes in through the 2 ducting holes which are being used as passive intakes, then flows up around the Megagarden system, then flows up into the reflector, across the bulb, and out through the top of the tent. The booster fan is just resting on top of the tent blowing the hot air to the other side of the closet. This tent is actually inside a bedroom closet that has its own, high-powered inline fan with a carbon filter attached, so the ambient temp inside the closet is exactly the same as it is everywhere else in the house (72-75 degrees). The CFM rating of the closet exhaust fan is much higher than the booster fan, so I don't have to worry about the heat being exhausted from the tent raising the temperature in the closet. So the air being pulled into the tent is always cool air.

I had my closet set up like this before I put a garden in there, by the way. I have 3 stinkin ass cats, and I keep their automatic litter box in this closet. The stinky air is scrubbed through the carbon filter on its way through the wall where it is exhausted into a linen closet in the hallway, which is where the intake for the house A/C is, and the cycle continues.

Since I'm only using such a low total wattage with this garden, the amount of heat being exhausted doesn't seem to impact the cooling of my house in general. So I decided against exhausting into the attic, because when I've done this in the past, my house got cold at night, during winter time... the mj garden was always sucking heated air up into attic! Now I'm letting the heated air stay in the house at night when it gets cold. And like I said, it doesnt seem to make the central A/C work any harder when the weather is warm. Win win.

 

[Bud Buddington]

Awesome, thank you again for the great explanation of your set up. I might be copying it soon...

 

[hush]

I figured it was time to introduce the ladies individually. First up we have the Mandala crew:

Point of No Return

This is the only female I got out of 6 seeds. Not a good ratio. But it's a nice, squat, indica-leaning pheno:

 

[hush]

Sadhu

This is pheno #1, currently the tallest in the garden:

 

[hush]

And this is pheno #2:

 

[hush]

Far Out

This is the only pheno I will be keeping:

 

[hush]

G13 Labs Gigabud

I'm not really impressed by this one so far. I at least thought it might be an early finisher, but it doesn't appear to be too vigorous in the early stages:

 

[hush]

Dinafem White Widow

I am really liking the way this plant is shaping up:

 

[hush]

Dinafem Cheese

This one is also really impressing me:

 

[jorgeblen]

nice grow mate. have you tried 9 flowering plants in the dr60 before? I used to do 4 plants and now I am doing just 1 coco hempy bucket and it is taking the whole space with just 4 week veg. peace

 

[medmaker420]

the girls look very happy brother

congrats

 

[hush]

No, I haven't tried 9 plants in there before, but only because this is a new tent. To be honest, I plan on eventually running 16 plants in there, once I get the mother situation worked out.

It can be done. It's all about pheno selection. I am only choosing single cola growth shape, and even then, I will still have to remove the bottom few branches (lollipop) and defoliate here and there. Plus, you have to flower the clones real small.

When I look at the white widow's structure, I think to myself that I could probably fit 9 of them per square foot. And this is its structure from seed, meaning, clones of this one will probably stay very small. I didn't think I would get excited about the white widows, but I really am. They are so small yet filled with grow tips! Seems like the perfect sog plant.

 

[2000pm]

Nice grow so far, I am thinking of doing something similar up to 9 plants from 4 in a dr60, although probably with mini hempies instead of flood/drain.

5 or 6" square pots?

 

[hush]

^ That sounds like a good plan. I've never done coco before, but my understanding is you can get crazy root development in coco, which makes for big plants. In your case you will probably want to limit the plants sizes, so you might be better off going with smaller pots. But I've never done coco, so take that for what it's worth.

I just like the ease of flood and drain. Always been my favorite, even though DWC gets much faster growth. I simply like things to be easy and trouble free.

 

[hush]

Here is the garden today, on its last day of week 2 of flowering. The tall Sadhu in the front left corner has officially begun growing up above the reflector, and the Far Out in the front right corner looks like it will do the same. Other than that, everything is going great. I've had to settle on a nute concentration that makes a couple of the plants get slightly burnt leaf tips, so that the rest of the plants are happy. There is also one or two plants that could use a bit more nitrogen, but it's all about happy mediums here.

 

[hush]

Update time. These pictures were all taken yesterday, on day 23 of 12/12. First up we have the Point of No Return: