Stoophead's First Attempt -- 400w HPS + 450w CMH

[StoopheadFred]

Hey guys, finally got off my ass after far too many years of lurking around growing forums and decided to call the Mag my home! Learned basically everything from you guys, and unfortunately you won't get to see a first-rate grow this time because of factors I will discuss but know that I have been reading non-stop on here and will hopefully do some impressing on my next round!

So the deal is my friend allowed me to basically make a setup at his house. Sweet! But uh-oh trouble in paradise! Friend doesn't like to put in his own hours on research... but also doesn't like listening to my input too much either. No worries though, he listens when it counts and it helps when I link him to ICMAG articles so we've made some progress!

So we got 2 Lavender clones and 1 Speed Queen clone from the local dispensary. They started their lives in my friends filthy attic under a few 2700k CFL's (dang friend doesn't listen!) in FFOF. Plants weren't doing so hot at the start!

^ Looking a little sad haha. Still figuring out the watering thing at this point.

Then we transplanted into 5gal buckets that we drilled holes in the bottom of. Also slightly upgraded lighting. Friend bought MORE 2700k CFL's haha

But with a stroke of luck the plants grew too big! And my friend didn't want to LST because he didnt want to do anything "unnatural" to the plant. So they got moved to a nice clean room instead of the gross attic! That along with the addition of about 260w of 6500k CFL's and vegging really took off.

^ Lavender on the left and Speed Queen on the right, and that's not nute burn or anything it's Diatomaceous Earth that helped eradicate those pesky SM! These guys were still in veg at this point.

 

[StoopheadFred]

^ Lavender that we decided to throw into flower a little earlier than the others

^ Lav close up, starting to get some trichs goin!


SO then I finally got some cash together and bought a legit light setup. Got a 400w magnetic HPS setup and the plan was to get a Philips CMH to go in it... but wouldn't ya know it? I ended up getting 3 super nice 150w GE UltraMax electronic CMH ballast setups from the guy as well! Just my luck! Ordered some 150w Philips 4200k CMH lamps for it and those should be here in a few days. Talk about stoked! Oh yea... and I finally convinced my friend to invest in some cheap nutes with me. We got some General Hydroponics MaxiBloom and Dyna-Gro Pro-Tekt. The plants have responded to the HPS and the nutes with AWESOME GROWTH!

Decided to throw all the plants into flowering now that we got this 400 watter.

^Bushin! I wanted to give defoliation a try... but then again I really like making BHO so I dunno if it's worth it!

 

[StoopheadFred]

^ Early flowered Lav starting to pack it on!

Getting somewhat close! Can't believe things are looking as good as they are considering their "humble" beginnings under 2700k CFL's and no nutes for pretty much all of veg!

^ Speed Queen starting to do some showing off as well!


So yea things are moving along at that grow quite nicely and I'm very happy with how it's turned out thus far, but I can't wait to get that extra 450w of CMH in there because we just accepted 2 new teens into our garden! I believe we got 2 12" plants, a WW and Purple Urkel or something along those lines.

Unfortunately I just got knee surgery the other day so I haven't been over there in about a week now but I'll shoot some more pictures up here when I can hobble my way to the grow!

 

[StoopheadFred]

The plan for my own personal grow has been mutating and evolving throughout this process. I'm not moving about a whole lot now so I tried to get this project as close to complete as I'd need it to be so I dont have to worry about moving around a whole bunch of heavy shit.

Bought this cabinet for $5 on craigslist on a whim and fixed it up, but the dimensions were just too small and it wasn't very stealthy...

^Best CFL fixture design I've ever seen check out Terpene's grow if you want more details on them. They're super adjustable and even have weatherproof inserts for outdoor use. All parts purchased from Home Depot and I managed to put them together easily with zero electrical experience.

^Monster 65w 6500k CFL compared to a 14 watter! These things are an AWESOME deal... picked 4 of them up including shipping for only $25 from Julius Studios! They also have a pack of 6 43w 6500k's for only $22 shipped!

So yea that other cab was a little too conspicuous in my apartment. But wait... an idea...

 

[StoopheadFred]

All of the sudden... Poof! A mysterious box appears! It's not quite complete, going to put some trimming on it and vents and shit to make it fit in a little better.

Still feels a little conspicuous to me... so I'm considering just doing a stealth minifridge... But I've got to get atleast 1 run in on this bad boy before I do that! What do you guys think though? With some vent grills on there and a little trim and paint work you think it looks pretty normal?

Plan on this one is to dump a few 5 gallon dwc totes in there try and fit that 400w HPS in as well. Might try and put use to this 450w of CMH ballast power I've got coming my way in there... or I may possibly just get a 400w CMH retrofit and try and use 1 or 2 of the 150w CMH's in a stealth minifridge setup. I've also got those 65w 6500k CFL's and a bunch of 2700k cfl's...