Newbie closet micro grow - 165w PLL bagseed

[CottonwoodJoe]

Hi folks! I LOVE weed, but I hate (and suck at) buying it, so I decided to try growing some myself. I was inspired by the micro grow forum, especially blynx's 2sqft scrog cabinet which is about the same size as what I am working with.

I'm using part of my closet to form kind of a stealth cabinet. It has some shelves at either end, so I took out the bottom ones and left the top one as a ceiling for the cabinet. Then I started painting everything with eggshell white so it would look nicer.


I cut that hole to hopefully bring in some cold air from between the walls. Maybe it will help?

I found a nice piece of plywood by the dumpster that was almost exactly the right size to make the front door. Yoink! I cut some vent holes in it and painted some black on there to cut down on reflection possibly.


The wood appears to be haunted by some spooky wood spirits.


I painted the other side white.

 

[CottonwoodJoe]

I attached it with hinges at the top so I can swing it up and hang it from the top of the closet with a little rope I screwed on. I cut up some cardboard boxes and taped them over the vent holes to act like sort of a light baffle.


At the top, I cut some holes in the shelf and duct taped these DIY carbon scrubbers over the holes. I built them while tripping on mushrooms, by gluing and taping together 4 pieces of thin hobby-type plywood around a 120mm computer fan. There's a piece of window screen attached halfway up to support a layer of carbon. Each one has 2 fans, one at the top and one at the bottom. I painted them black to look a bit nicer.


I wired up the PLL lights using the massively helpful PLL thread. It's plugged into a power strip on the wall. The fans run off a universal power adapter with a fan connector soldered on.

I went with PLL lights because they seemed like a good way to maximize headroom and minimize heat issues. They were pretty cheap compared to other options, but still the biggest expense for this setup.

Here's a ceiling view: 2 x 55w 6500k and 1 x 55w 3000k, and the cabinet temperature hovers around 78-80F


The lights seem to screw with my camera.

 

[CottonwoodJoe]

And the seedlings have begun to emerge! Wow! There's no turning back now!

I started 6 seeds with the paper towel method, but only these 3 germinated. They're bagseed from an unknown strain. I wish I had some way of knowing what it is, but it will just have to be a mystery. All I want is some females!

They're in Miracle Gro Seed Starter Mix for now, but I hope to transplant them into a higher-quality soil when the time comes.




That's where I'm at right now and I will try to keep this updated with any and all progress. If anybody has any input or advice, I would love to hear it!

 

[kosimoto1]

I have seen some beautiful plants come from bag seed, Godspeed!

 

[IndicaCowboy]

Subscribed

 

[justanotherbozo]

welcome to the hobby bro although i have to warn you that growing weed is way more addictive than smoking weed, it kinda gets under your skin if you know what i mean.

anyway, don't sweat about the identity of your genetics, you are still learning your chops so it's better you learn on some beans you didn't have to throw down on, ...other than the sack they came from, lol.

...and i assure you, almost any seed can produce a winner so your bagseed buds may surprise you, either way by the time you finish this first grow you will have some experience and some confidence going into your next grow.

below i've listed a few links that you may find helpful as they sure helped me, unfortunately for me, it took me a couple years to find them, lol, so you'll have a headstart if you read through them.

[URL="https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=191645"]*The K.I.S.S. Method* [/URL]

[URL="https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=98419"]The Official Hempy Bucket Thread[/URL]

this last one is to a list of links to some of the absolute best DIY projects on this site, from cabinet builds (my motherbox build is listed) to DIY carbon scrubbers to very complicated hydroponics systems, if you're building something you will almost certainly find a few threads by other members who've built something similar.

[URL="https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=40637"]ICMAG'S OFFICIAL ~DIY~ LINK-O-RAMA[/URL]

good luck grasshopper and remember to have fun, if you stop having fun with it, it ain't worth the effort.

bozo

 

[IndicaCowboy]

anyway, don't sweat about the identity of your genetics, you are still learning your chops so it's better you learn on some beans you didn't have to throw down on, ...other than the sack they came from, lol.

...and i assure you, almost any seed can produce a winner so your bagseed buds may surprise you, either way by the time you finish this first grow you will have some experience and some confidence going into your next grow.

Yep, justanotherbozo is correctamundus, you can get some nice bud out of bag seed. I started my outdoor grows with bag seed and learned a lot. That being said, their is no substitute for awesome genetics once you get the hang of things either. I am excited for you and cant wait to see how it turns out. Not that I have a bunch of experience, I only have a few seasons of outdoor grows. Moving inside very quickly.

 

[CottonwoodJoe]

Thanks for the encouragement! And thanks for the links justanotherbozo, that KISS one looks very interesting and I might give it a go

 

[CottonwoodJoe]

Here's a small update on the seedlings. Two of them look pretty good I think:


But this one here is looking a bit droopy:


Is that normal? Could it be over-watered? I've been spraying with a spray bottle once per day on average, keeping the soil pretty wet.

 

[Chloemobile]

Don't worry about it my man. She's looking great. I did the Same thing on my first grow with the same forum response haha! I know at first its hard to not look at it all the time and honestly its that excitement and joy and satisfaction the only comes from growing cannabis. But take it from me I've resurrected a few plants now- this thing is a weed! It will grow despite your best attempts to kill it. And if a grow does fail chalk it up to the game and do better next grow. Less is more. I still peek at my grow often and often think about ways to improve my grow And want to tinker with it. and it takes a couple grows sometimes to figure out how you like to grow. So experience is going to be your best teacher. Read and do!

Kiss method is awesome not just for beginners but everyone. That stuff grows great plants. And will never not recommend it. But before you read to much about the shit ton of different nutrients take a peek at the organic soil forum some- of the info on there has been life changing for me.

Keep up the good work. Box looks really good.


=D

 

[Chloemobile]

Dbl post

 

[Mullabor]

Lookin forward to seeing these babies mature.

Great start joe

 

[CottonwoodJoe]

thanks Chloemobile, I'll just try to relax and let them grow lol

 

[vukman]

Is that normal? Could it be over-watered? I've been spraying with a spray bottle once per day on average, keeping the soil pretty wet.

Welcome to the 'hobby' but it will become a way of life.. as someone has it in their 'sig'....weed isn't addictive, growing it is......

The soil/medium should not be kept wet especially at this stage. They will droop as you see plus they will 'stretch' to the point where they cannot support their own weight on their stem.

Also, when you transplant them......plant them with the stem in the soil almost up to the first set of leaves. This will force the plant to release roots from the stem and also give it more support as well..........

Good Luck

 

[justanotherbozo]

Thanks for the encouragement! And thanks for the links justanotherbozo, that KISS one looks very interesting and I might give it a go

mornin' man, here is a pic of a couple White Rhinos that were grown under a 400watt CMH and, as you can see, they were grown in 2liter 'pots', ...hempy-buckets actually, with perlite at the bottom and straight coco as the main medium. (each yielded nearly 2 ounces)

i post this so you can see what you can do with 'simple' because when we are first starting out most of us want to do AWESOME the first time out of the box and it usually ends in failure or a dismally disappointing result because when we are new we tend to have unreasonable expectations and we tend to overcomplicate things.

...i would STRONGLY recommend that you do your first few runs as simply as you possibly can to give yourself a baseline on how your plants react with NO additives, THEN you can begin adding things INDIVIDUALLY, so that you will KNOW the effect of each element that you add.

...some of these products are VERY expensive and of dubious value and so it is better to do without them while you learn to care for your plants rather than just taking on faith whatever your local 'hydro' guy says.

bozo

btw, those WRs were fed nothing but MaxiBloom from the day they were rooted until the day they were harvested, well, just water for the last 14 days to flush them out. ...the only 'additives' i use is silica as a ph balancer and i use it rather than ph up because silica is a useful element for your plants, and an enzyme product because i re-use my media and the enzymes help break down the old roots too small to be removed at harvest.

 

[IndicaCowboy]

mornin' man, here is a pic of a couple White Rhinos that were grown under a 400watt CMH and, as you can see, they were grown in 2liter 'pots', ..

Wow, those are sexy girls right there. Great job for 2 liter pots

 

[CottonwoodJoe]

Welcome to the 'hobby' but it will become a way of life.. as someone has it in their 'sig'....weed isn't addictive, growing it is......

The soil/medium should not be kept wet especially at this stage. They will droop as you see plus they will 'stretch' to the point where they cannot support their own weight on their stem.

Also, when you transplant them......plant them with the stem in the soil almost up to the first set of leaves. This will force the plant to release roots from the stem and also give it more support as well..........

Good Luck

Thanks for the tips. I held off watering a couple days and they all perked way up! And yes I am already instantly addicted. It's all I think about. Wake up - thinkin' about the grow... During the day, wondering how the plants are doing... Going to bed - thinkin' about the grow some more...

mornin' man, here is a pic of a couple White Rhinos that were grown under a 400watt CMH and, as you can see, they were grown in 2liter 'pots', ...hempy-buckets actually, with perlite at the bottom and straight coco as the main medium. (each yielded nearly 2 ounces)

View Image

WOW! Those are amazing! I am in love with the philosophy of K.I.S.S. after reading through about 50 pages of that thread. The Hempy buckets look really fun too. For the next run-through, I am definitely going to try that combination.

For this one, I think I will just plant in soil until I understand the process a bit more.

 

[CottonwoodJoe]

For soil, I have this random assortment of different stuff leftover from re-potting some house plants:


The perlite and Happy Frog are brand-new. There's also about half a bag of Miracle Grow, a small amount of Ocean Forest, and a few handfulls of Hyponex potting soil. Those are all a couple years old.

I was thinking about basically just mixing all of this together and transplanting the seedlings into that when they're a bit older. Is this a terrible idea or will it be OK?

 

[justanotherbozo]

For soil, I have this random assortment of different stuff leftover from re-potting some house plants:
View Image

The perlite and Happy Frog are brand-new. There's also about half a bag of Miracle Grow, a small amount of Ocean Forest, and a few handfulls of Hyponex potting soil. Those are all a couple years old.

I was thinking about basically just mixing all of this together and transplanting the seedlings into that when they're a bit older. Is this a terrible idea or will it be OK?

no man, you should be alright mixing all that together, just make sure you have about 20 - 30% perlite in the mix so it drains well and you should be ok.

...i have to tell you though that running straight coco hempy-buckets and feeding KISS style is about as easy a way to grow as there is! ...personally, i wish i'd found those two threads when i first started out.

the thing is that when you are first starting out everything is so new to you that it's hard to know what's going on, which products are working and which are a waste of money, things like that. ...so in the beginning simple is good, the simpler the better.

i myself started out near 6 years ago and like you i used a collection of potting soils and i fed with Shultz's or Miracle Gro, whatever they had at Lowes or Walmart basically, lol.

...i also had bought a copy of Jorge' Cervantes grow book that i was studying while i was struggling to get some seedlings to survive, my first attempt i'd popped 30 beans and watched as they all died.

...and then i found the forums where you can find so much information that at first i was lost, ...but i struggled on and after a few years i stumbled onto the hempy-bucket thread and the KISS thread and that changed everything.

...not that i hadn't had some fair bit of success before that mind you, but growing in coco hempys and feeding KISS is so simple that it enabled me to finally see just how many products i didn't need while at the same time stabilizing everything to the point where i can now really relax and focus on my plants and not on how many ml's of this and how many ml's of that, blah de blah blah, lol.

here's a picture of my early days, ...i'd been growing about a year and a half i think here and i'd just added a 150HPS, up to that point everything was grown under CFLs only.

and here is a shot of the single drainage hole in a hempy-bucket i'd made from a Folgers plastic coffee can, any water-tight container can be made into a hempy-bucket.

so just try and have some fun while you learn and remember to prepare for losses as you will suffer them like we all have, try to think of them as learning experiences, lol.

bozo

 

[IndicaCowboy]

here's a picture of my early days, ...i'd been growing about a year and a half i think here and i'd just added a 150HPS, up to that point everything was grown under CFLs only.

View Image





bozo

Am I seeing that correctly? Those are just 2 liter Coke bottles that those flowering plants are in? Those are nice looking buds for such small container. You could get a ton of those in a 3' x 3' or 4' x 4' tent or room. I could see where vert would do nicely with those