stke's 400w CMH cab "ToG" or "V-scrog"

[stke_fingas]

little about myself..
been growin for +3yrs. tried soil (veg was a joke) tried buckets(proper flushing=too much h2o & temp needs) and now have been working with 3"PVC drip system and love it. i'm working on no9 i believe, but this will be the first round in my new cab and the first documented grow on ICmag! so lets get down to business...

i'm going to have the pictures up in my gallery as soon as i can borrow a nice camera. but for now lets just have a little imagination...

What i'm working with!
my total volume in my space is 6.3~ ft3. working with a 400w CMH in a DIY 7" cool tube connected to a 4" vent. exhausted with a stanley on the lowest setting. (attempted to speed control the blower but motor whine was intense) 3" PVC sitting vertical with lava rock(prefer hydroton but had to use what was available) 4 tubes, 2 plants per tube, bringing me to 8 total. to help out with my heat issues and to fully utilize it's potential i have a Co2 injection system setup.

on to the feed!
using the tri-flex line, liquid karma, blast off, sweet, and hydroguard. that about sums it up for now anyway.... still in veg. later down the road i'm going to add kool bloom to give a little kick in the end. full flush every other res change. i do my nutes at about 1/2 what they recommend.


Where i'm at in my current grow...
had clones in vermiculite waiting on me to engineer a way to keep my space cool enough for my ladies. we are on day 4 of veg, 3 days were wasted by my experiments with tap water. had no visible growth, pretty sure it was my wild ph swing that i never got under control. back on RO and loving it. put the CMH in today! (i was waiting outside for the fedex driver lol) temp's are better and i'll update with my growth compared to the HPS when the time comes.


that pretty much sums it up for now, if anyone has questions i'm more than happy to help out. i'll have my pictures up soon! my goal is 1g/w but with the limited space i doubt i'll be seeing returns like that again. if anyone is interested in my timing and schedule i'll be happy to add it in a later post. i know it's not much but i'll have pictures tonight! hope someone is interested!

stke

Pictures in gallery!
Oh it's a piece of crap computer

sealed grow area for Co2 and easy res access.

crammed! but hey it works!

res (needing some attention i know)

never a dull moment!

 

[stke_fingas]

i know it's not flower yet but give me a week or two to veg and i bet i'll get some replies. these are at day 5 veg from clone. never seen so many side branches with this plant before. sog was the way i use to run her. can't wait to see the cola's in a couple weeks! stay tuned!

weird ducting huh? thinking of trying to insulate it some how.

first day under 400w CMH ON A SWITCHABLE BALLAST! yay for hydrofarm!

side shot (notice the white top on my carbon filter?

balls of leaf! i wish i had pics from 3 days ago.

almost no vertical growth! who thinks i should top them?

pretty much how they all looked 3 days ago. new nodes popping out everywhere!


more to come if anyone wants to tag along. i hope this CMH node machine will pull a nice harvest!

stke

 

[MoleMcHenry]

Hey stke_fingas - I love your setup. What's the total growing area of the netting?

 

[WaterFarmFan]

Very interesting setup indeed! Do the roots grow down into the rez?

 

[stke_fingas]

MoleMcHenry,thanks for the kind words, a ton of planning went into the design. i don't remember it off the top of my head the exact size but i remember rolling it out on the floor and being shocked. i think it was close to a full square yard. i hope it is enough to pull the full potential of my light.

waterfarmfan, roots are contained in the pvc and i do not want them to grow into the res. there is plenty of room in the pvc for root growth. one thing i noticed with the lava rock is that there are large voids in the medium for roots to grow(in comparison to hydroton). this is my first attempt with the lava rock.

i appreciate the interest in my setup, please feel free to comment. any input is appreciated as this is the first run in my cab.

How bout some nute's!? anyone know the shelf life of these? these are 2.5gal tri-flex. way more than i can use.



Co2 gear

 

[Murphy]

Nice job on fitting everything in there! Very creative set up! What size holes are in the screen?

 

[stke_fingas]

heya murphy

it took some careful planning but it's up and running for a lil under 2 weeks and doing great! my scrog screen is 1". i plan to weave it through and keep everything in check and spaced out evenly. i think my light will penetrate any sort of canopy i can build up. i seen a guy on the other side of the pond doing this with a 150w and had me convinced!
check it out!



so i used his basic idea and bumped it up a notch... or 2.v-scrog first link in search

 

[saintgr8one]

AWESOME setup! is that a whole room, or a cab?

 

[bballsk8er333]

ohh your link doesnt work, im asssuming is a competitors site, i dont understand what you mean by the 150 watt? also, is your light vertical and growing is on the net around it...if so ive never seen

 

[stke_fingas]

saintgr8one, it's in a cab the measurements are listed in a previous post. it will be a done on a greater scale one day. i'm thinking 3 400w, would be a ton of work in the veg but would pay out huge in the end.

bballsk8er thanks for the heads up on the link! fixed it so that it's the 3rd link in the google search. it's on HG 420.com, basically it's the came design as mine but done in soil and with a 150w hps. i obviously over do things. should make for some rock solid nugs though!

BTW never mentioned my genetics! they are gifted seed that were from a herm disaster.(turned out awesome for me!) a grow with one of the kush lines(bubba?) and TW had some temp issues and i was rewarded with 3 different pheno's. this current cut was the most devastating of the three. very kushish in appearance with a face sagging stone. RESIN producing monster in cold weather! i honestly can't wait to show off these beauties in flower! not the biggest yielder but can hold her own with fat nugs all the way to the bottom. i was never able to keep the node spacing where i wanted it but what's new huh?

UPDATE!! i'm sold on CMH! i'm running 24-0 at 78~84*F ambient in cab once the room temps get up during the day. seen a new high of 78*F inside the room and had no issues with temps in cab. it seems that it doesn't matter much on the outside temp. i'm going to post pictures tomorrow to show the crazy growth rate! i've seen some wild stretch and equally amazing bud set but never been so shocked at the veg speed! i can't with till i get this in bloom! did a res change today, upped the nutes to 1/2 the suggested for medium size plants.

I GOT A QUESTION!... i want to spray the ladies down with some liquid karma and blast off but don't want to turn the light off and have to wait till my bulb cools. which is a must for CMH i hear. so my question is.. will foliar feeding cause burning? i've done it in direct light before(i know i know) but never while the light was 6" from my plants. i might just give it a shot because i have had crazy growth spurts the day after foliar feeding. i will probably trim all the leaves that are on the plants now by the time i start to flower so i'm not too worried about a little burn.

thanks for any input! looking forward to hearing what people have to say.

 

[Murphy]

I don't use any "foliar feeding" but I do use Liquid Light when the light first comes on, no problems. As far as the growth difference, everything in the soil was popped at the same time. The sprouts in the white bottles and the blue bucket were added to my 12/12 CMH cab a week after the others, they were in a 100 watt CFL cab under 18/6.


Here's a shot before the transplant to see the difference the week made.


.....check my thermometer in the back ground. That's 400 watts CMH in about 12 square feet with only a 4 inch inline fan and a 4 inch fan blowing on the bulb, No air cooled hood, no cool tube, nothing between the plants and the bare bulb.

For Size Perception, I'm 6-8 inches from the bulb depending on the bud site.

 

[stke_fingas]

heya murphy!
great job keepin em green! thanks for the input on your foliar program. i really like to foliar with liquid karma and blast off because the amount of growth is jaw dropping. i only check on them 1-2 times a day because of the Co2 schedule and when there is a noticeable difference in growth it can't be wrong.

a week?! that is the reason i no longer do soil. just gotta love that hydro growth rate ya know?

i'll post up some new pictures today showing the difference that two days make in my cab. i plan to compare the difference in growth between 48 hours CMH vs 5 days HPS. they were already "doing work" (growing) like never before and now it has started to pick up! i'll be back as soon as i can upload some new pics! i'll try a before and after type shot. i bet i get a full screen in less than a week at the rate there growing now.

check back soon for the update! about 8 hours left of veg day #7.

2 days ago

today

2 days ago

today

same 2 as above diff angle

2 days ago

today


hope you see a diff in only 2 days! i will post up my next pic's a week from today or when i decide to switch to 12-12.

thanks for checking it out!

 

[Sammet]

If you grow it, they will come.

 

[nightcrawler]

wow thats a wierd setup, but looks like it might work out just.... FREAKING AMAZING!!

 

[stke_fingas]

UPDATE!!!

UPDATE!!!

thanks for the comments guys! i thought i'd be vegging for weeks but it looks like it's getting close!
just some pic's. i'll leave them to do the talking.
day 8 of veg





only 8 days in veg and look at my preflowers!!!

 

[Propoline]

hey stke


how is it going mate? Your plants looks great it there. They are growing really fast. Cant wait to see that screen full and budding. Still cant believe you are running 400w in there, although I see at mines (which is almost the same size as yours) that there is still some space for upgrading it. I still have some reserves on my inline.

I can see that you did loots of planing for putting it up. You've got everything in it... veg part, hydro, sealed room, Co2, fans....all in that little thing .Good thinking on two level tube height. This way youll get your screen full easier and quicker. Can you open the net in front to get in there and handle with plants?


Wish you best luck with them....and see ya soon




Propoline







P.S. - this one needs to be resized... looks like a high tech lab equipment

 

[stke_fingas]

Propoline my vertical brotha!
thanks for stopping by my grow and thanks on the comments. glad you dig the v-scrog! i cant wait to see that screen full too bro! it won't be long thats for sure! for reaching in and training i cut two small holes out of my screen. i'm using paper clips to hold the plants down and it's working great!

so i went ahead and snapped a few pictures for a quick update.

 

[stke_fingas]

some pictures of day10 veg










day 6 i think

day 10 same as above.

 

[Siddartha]

What are you cab measurements? Specifically I'm interested in the distance of the screen from the light, looks like less than a foot. What are ambient temps in your area, if you don't mind me asking? I need to make sure I'm not gonna burn the ladies where I am. Also how tall is the whole shebang, in fact, all of the dimensions of your cab would be nice, but the net-to-light distance is really all that's super-important to me.

 

[stke_fingas]

siddartha sup
28x22x18 it's funny that the 400w cmh bulb only runs my temps up about 10*F above my ambient temp. and seems to max out around 87*F, but thats in the shade that i'm taking this reading. 105+ summers and dryer than a popcorn fart!(heard than one time) my bulb is.... are you ready for this....... less than 4" away from my plants in some spots! the net is about 8" from the bulb(7"from the glass). my hps curled some leaves when they were small but there basking in the beautiful cmh rays now without a curl in the whole garden. the first post tells a little about the setup and showing it with small plants so you can see more of how it looks. i think i may need to raise my bulb a little to get even coverage cause the bottom seems to be doing way better than the top.

my cab is a computer Armour(desk with doors) that i got from walbogs. don't remember the price but it was cheap for what i'm going to be getting out of it. when i seen it at the store i think everyone around could smell my brain burning in overdrive. i was working on a larger version but my partner bailed out on me so this was my alternative. it was done with 4 600w but had many plants die because of the design flaw where the plants go into the pvc. fixed that with some DIY Y's and vermiculite. still pulled the same weight as i did in a flat garden but with less than half of the tubes filled. if they had all took root like planned i bet it would have been amazing! this just gives me more time to get it all right and turned me on to cmh too. all turned out for the better i'm sure.

i hope i answered all you wanted to know. i'll measure it if you want to know the outside dimensions but they got em at walbogs. i know i like to see things in person.