Red_Greenery's Handyman's DIY Grow Tub

[pieceofmyheart]

Sizzlrod, nice set up and good pics too. You should do a grow thread and we'll watch those babies through to harvest.

Welcome to Micro Grows.

 

[Guest]

still got to finish the bottom half...but this is the top

4 23 watt (2700k)
2 42 watt (2700k)
2 20 watt daylight (6500k)

i got a fan and an intake hole..and put the plexiglass in too...kinda rough going in but its a pain in the ass to cut it. i put pvc piping in just a little smalle rthan the 4' ducting..so it has somthing to "grab"..

emergency blanket done up all with duct tape...and shes a toughy to size up...had to cut ti in peices.

i figured the wood looked prettier than just sockets ,drillled holes for wires and bolts....im using the long ones cuz when i put the scrubber base it lines up(figured it would help it stay in place)

got 2 holes in the sides for the ducting to suck air out of bud chamber....

thats abotu it for today...gonna try to finish tomorow...


also would this carbon work? i figured it would just seeing if im right

 

[Guest]

Hey Sizzlrod - you're plants are doing great! They are still growing with paired nodes so they aren't mature yet. I wouldn't count on seeing pre-flowers for at least two more weeks or more. If you put all the plants into 12/12, you're box will become pretty overgrown because the plants stretch and basically double in size during early flowering.

I'd pick two of the best plants and flower them. You're probably ready to repot soon anyway. I'd repot into 8" pots and install the SCROG screen.

On my last grow from seeds, I grew 3 plants and flowered 2. I parked the "spare" under a couple of 42W CFLS until the other ones showed sex. Luckily, they both were females and I never did find out what the spare was.

Starting from seeds is a pain compared to clones. You're going to have to grow and sex each plant with only a 50% success rate. The clones taken from a mother plant are already sexed and are mature too. I don't think clones make better SCROG plants compared to seed. The problem with starting from seeds is having to grow a plant for 6 weeks to find out if it's a keeper.


Hi Darren - your box is coming along really good. You might want to cut your intake on the light section to 5" x 5". Just ask Sizzlerod, he had a 4" duct opening like yours and had to cut his larger. That's the right carbon for the scrubber.


Hey I2Kangrow - woohoo you got you seeds!!! I hope you found a nice warm spot for them. I prepare my soil mix and put it into beercups with lots of drainage holes in the bottom. I prewater the soil until it runs out the bottom and let it drain. It will hold the right amount of moisture for the seedling to develop in. I'll mist a little water on the seedling and soil surface but generally, I don't water my seedlings until the cup is drying out and is very light.

Red

 

[Guest]

question...i currently only have 2 bulbs in the 6500 light spectrum....do i need all 8 bulbs or can i mix 4 6500 with 4 2700? if i need to i can get more bulbs tomorow..

also...my bottom tub has 4 2 inch holes on the bottom....should i add another 5x5 hole on one of the sides? or on both sides...thnaks

 

[I2KanGrow]

I have also been reading The Cannabis Grow Bible by Greg Greene (I highly recommend this book to any new growers) and in the section on Scrog it says that it is best to start a scrog grow from clones.

Do you do any Scrogging when starting from seed?
Sizzlrod

I too, have been reading "The Good Book", Sizzlr , and I think he says that because of the chance of scrog-ging a male plant, and fragging your whole grow... not because there's something different about a plant from seed Vs. a clone @ that point in time of their growth - clones always take the sex of the host. (Yeah - what the Red-ster say!! )

I'm personally going the feminized seed route - I'm sure it's not 100% (but they claim over 99% - but I'm wondering how much of that claim is hype). I'm betting (OK - really, really hoping!) that all seeds I start will be ladies.

...But my assumptions may be wrong here - anyone correct me if I'm in error!

 

[ABlueDuck]

Quick question for Red:

How far away is your heat shield from your bulbs? Im putting my tubs together and i want to maximize the amount of space inside, so the acrylic is basically touching the blubs. If i leave things how they are now will the building burn down?

front



top of mum and larger chamber


bottoms

 

[Guest]

Hey ABlueDuck- looking pretty stealty! My acrylic touches the lights. Is ok as long as you get your ventilation in the lighting section right. A 5x5 intake is necessary.

Darren - I wouldn't worry too much about light spectrum, just to get your grow started is going to keep you busy. You have enough lights for vegging and you only need the high intensity lighting for flowering. You'll need the 5x5 intake for the lighting section otherwise it will run hot. The growbox isn't too critical, you can tinker with that later.

Hey I2KanGrow - that's great that you have a grow bible. Mine is OG and now ICMAG! I can see that you're still trying to figure out the logistics of sexing plants and making best use out of your growbox. I'd make a veg/drying box and park two plants in it and flower the other two. If you get a male, you can move in another plant. Sexing plants from seeds means you have to grow and cull 50% of your plants. Feminized seeds are ok but are more prone to hermi's.

 

[I2KanGrow]

Yo Red & gang:

Yeah, In all honesty - my best information has been gleaned from this thread, not the grow bible. I've started 2 seeds only; 1 WW and 1 NL fem seed each (your suggestion, Red).

I'm only doing 1 of each seed, because I've never been able to grow... ANYTHING! We're talking black thumb here, so I figured I'll make my mistakes now, and come away only 2 seeds down. Hey, who knows - I just may succeed! (Now how's that for confidence!)

I did-indeed make a veg box of sorts (I have 2 more tubs - but I was thinking of making another R2 unit - then I'd have 1 for veg, the other flowering - and rotate them.)... but that's for later.

D-ohhKaay - my veg/drying box... it's a freebie from stuff knocking-about: here's some pictures, tell me what you think (and remember... freebie, so don't be laughing too hard - OK?)



It's an old Rubbermaid (is there anything else??) trashcan that my daughter abandoned... the fan came from an old AT (not ATX, we're talking vintage early 90s) power supply... powered by an old wall wart who's heritage I'm not sure of... the lid is made from the scraps from my R2 unit - I stole the paper clips from work and had the work lights (I removed the shades).

Let's look inside...




The mylar was left-over from my R2 unit. I can adjust the height of the light by removing the paper clip, raising/lowering the cord, and repositioning the clip so that it clamps the cord and rests on the lid. The lid holes offer ventilation in addition to giving me a place to drop my lights by.

BTW - both seeds popped - they're now in beer cups on top of the heater... soooo, how long till I see some green??????

....I'll answer my own question - seedlings popped-thru the soil this AM 10/14th... I'm a DADDY!!

 

[StayHigh149]

I closely followed the Rubbermaid grows on OG & now here on IC. I popped 4 bagseed (I keep my bagseed seperated, when I get some nice stuff & label where/what it was)directly into jiffy pots & ended up with 2 sprouting....turned out 1 was male. The female is bagseed from Kentucky.

Anyway, I popped them in the Jiffy pots cuz I planned on having my RM box ready in time but of course "murphy's law" took over & that didn't happen. I ended up doing 24 hr light cycle by placing my plant on top of a ladder rite uder a flouro in a bathroom downstair at nite & popping in outside during the day...ha ha. Started getting dark outside too early so I finally made time to construct the rubbermaid box.....ok, well, it's halfway constructed. It has no fan or plexiglass heatshield yet. My screen is a bunch of wire hangers that are bent back & forth over top of each other. The plant was too tall by the time I put the bent hangers in so the stalk snapped on me..LoL.

Still growing, smelling good & starting to show a little resin build up. The plant is approx 2 months from seed. Pics will come later.

This grow was just thrown together out of desperation cuz I moved to a new state & don't know anyone....if I get a 1/2 O, I'm happy. I'm going to make a small veg box, so I can get some more plants started & take the time to properly re-construct the flower box before the new plants go in the box to flower.

This has got to be the lamest excuse of a rubbermaid grow.....ever!!! But the moral of the story is that weed is a just a weed & weeds will grow with soil, water & light. Even if it is Miracle grow soil & 26w flouros....LoL.

Happy growing to all & to all a good nite.

 

[Guest]

Woohoo! I2KanGrow is a daddy!!! Pass the bong around! Nice ghetto job on the little veg box too. I like to see when you can make a working grow box out of junk.

Hey Stayhigh - welcome to the tub club! Wow a 2 month old plant would be getting pretty big. How tall is it? It sounds like you're ready for a growbox if you've been moving the plant around that much.

 

[watermelon]

does the acrylic effect the intensity/quality of the light much?

 

[duggy]

I2--is your exhaust fan on the bottom? you might want it high in order to suck off the rising heat.

Or is that an intake fan? All exhaust and passive intake will keep your smells from getting pushed outside.

duggy

 

[Guest]

Just thought i'd post a little update on my 5 AK-48's for anyone who cares.

Here are the plants at exactly 4 weeks. I fed the plants a really dilute solution (like 1/8 strength) fertilome root stim at the beginning of the second. This made the roots grow really fast and the plants suffered from being rootbound for a couple of days. this resulted in some defencies. At the end of three weeks i transplanted them from 20oz beer cups to 6L trashcans. The plants worsened for a couple of days after the transplant and the last 5 days have grown surprisingly fast (about a node every day or two). I used red's soil recipe except that i added 2 tbsp per gallon of lime because mine is pelletized not powder, and i skipped the vermiculite. The plants went from lime green to really lush green. I plan to give a little more root stim (1/8 th of directions) in the next day or so as they are almost ready to be watered after the transplant. Most plants are about 7 nodes. Some have lost the bottom two from the rootbinding, others only one. I'm hoping to flower in about 3 weeks. more updates as they progess.

aerial shot



Plant 1: this one looks the best



Plant 2: Trying a little supercropping



Plant 3: more supercropping



Plant 4



Plant 5




The plants are about 8 inches tall now. They all look similiar. I think the growth rate has been fairly fast for f2's, despite the minor setback. Had I transplanted a week early they would be a good bit bigger. Oh well, live and learn. Hopefully we'll see some private parts in a week or so.

 

[Sizzlrod1]

Red and my fellow tubbers, I posted some pics of my 4 plants 5 days into 12/12, I was looking for some help with the sexing, I am pretty sure one is a female but I am uncertain about the other three, any help would be appreciated here is the link
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=39101 or it is in the microgrow section titled Sex Ed ?'s.

Thanks for the help,
Sizzlrod

 

[SuperZero]

I think A looks like a male too, sizzlrod1.

Good to see you got the deficiences taken care of PhilosophyAskew, they're looking good.

Here's an update from what's going on inside my tubs.




Newest Female below:

 

[I2KanGrow]

Hey Doug... That fan is an intake - the heat exhausts right out of the holes in the lid... I look forward to worrying about the smell!!! Seriously, my growtub has charcoal filtration... if I ever get to that point. Yo SuperZ and PhilAskew - DAMN nice looking plants ya got there!!

Well, my 1st parenthood attempt crashed-and-burned - My WW took-off like a ton of bricks, an inch in about 2 days - but looked spindley... it folded-over. I tried proping it, but then the leaves fell... RIP, WW1!

My NL was slower to germinate, and slower to pop the soil surface once planted, it just barely broke the surface - 2 leaves... then just stopped!! It looks the same it did 4 days ago - it think it's toast, but I'm still nursing it... we'll see.

I moved my ghetto-tub to an area I think will be less volatile, temp change-wise. I'm now at a fairly constant 72F-77F. I'm also attempting to germinate NL #2 right in the ground. WW #2 was germinated using the damp-towel method, went into the soil this evening - fingers crossed here.

I'm wondering about our water. The water I use is well water that has been run thru an aerator, iron remover, a water softener, then finally a charcoal filter (we charcoal filter our drinking water, I used that). The water looks very clean, but I'm wondering if the charcoal filter didn't remove the salt from the softener - anybody use softened well water w/ their plants?

As always, any thoughts, comments or advice is greatly appreciated!!




TOAST??????

 

[Guest]

I2kangrow - hey man i would get some gallons of distilled water from wally world for about 65 cents a gallon and use that. Well water can contain god knows what. I knew a buddy who had well water and it smelled terrible, like rotten eggs. Water softeners can be tough on plants. Unless your using a reverse osmosis filter then I wouldn't try to use tap water. Especially on seedlings. check that pH too. my guess is that you've got some heavy metal toxification going and or pH issues.

SuperZero - looking good dude, when's that maid coming over?

 

[SuperZero]

looking like sometime in november

 

[Guest]

yay my seeds germinated...now just waiting for a sprout to come out...

question..do u put somehting in your tub to move the plants right next to the heat sheild? i thought cfls had to be only a few inches away form the plants...ive got them sitting on a box near the top right now....

 

[Guest]

Hey guys! Looks like everyones doing really good with their plants except for I2Kangrow. I'd say the pH is the most likely culprit. It looks like your soil is very wet too. Do you have drainage holes in the beercups? If you overwater or don't have good drainage, the roots will rot. Seedlings are the most sensitive to overwatering. I'd get your pH tested right away and switch to bottled water until we can figure this out.

Hey darren, I use some small carboard boxes to lift the plants up to the lights. The closer the better.

Philosphy - looking really really good. Adding the lime will make a big difference in stabilizing the pH. Without the lime, you will have to flush the soil out when the pH goes off. I'd get in the habit of checking the runoff water regularly. Your plants stalled because they were overwatered in the new pot with way more soil than roots. They had to dry out the soil to get some oxygen then they took off. What you need to do is establish your water cycle. Let the plants go dry until they droop and then water 1 day less than that. You'd be surprised at how long they go until they need water.

Actually the hardest part in growing in soil is learning not to overwater.