Zoidberg's 85/125W CFL Full-Tower Grow

[trem0lo]

^^yeah that. Nice broadleaf indicas there

The girls look a bit waterlogged too, careful there, it's a mistake I've made and curled/funky leaves are the first sign before growth slows to a grinding halt. Let the medium dry out.

 

[Dr.Zoidberg]

Thanks for the input trem0lo, I watered them today as the soil was dry on top and 1-2 cm down. I will give it a longer dry period before the next watering.

 

[Canna_Gnome]

yeah i agree with trem0lo , your leaves are looking a bit odd. nice grow though, looking very green!

 

[Dr.Zoidberg]

Well if you are referring to the top leaves that look a bit "mowed off", thats because of the fimming

 

[Oregonism]

You need to wait, stretch can happen over 2-3 weeks and it might not happen until the 2nd week, be patient at least for another week or so.

As far as FIM'ing, just curious on what method you are following, you are clipping the ends of leaves? Please explain, always willing to hear new theories.

Looking good, you are able to keep your humidity down a little more than me, thats good, I have been fighting back and forth over 35-45%. Looking good.

 

[Oregonism]

I like the veg bulb, just looking at pretty much the same one 2nite, how many lumens is that 125w putting out?

Going back to your case, don't know if this helps for the future, but I always offset my intake and exhaust, i.e. don't use them on the same side. This will help your suction a bit for better circulation and keep temps down that much more. It might also be a bitch when everything is already wired, but just a thought. o.

 

[Dr.Zoidberg]

I have read quite a few guides about FIM and topping, this one was really useful.

I also liked this one.
I tried to cut it in a way to leave 20-30% of the new shoot intact, it actually worked good on the plants, the leafs look mowed off though but that shouldn't harm the plant as for what I know.

I thought that too but I decided to just have both on the backside because placing it on the front would have cost me another 2,5-3cm on the frontside which would eventuall have led to being to small for the 3 plant containers (I measured it a couple times before i decided to build it).

Although I might add the cooltube thing later which will make the air move through the case (backside -> frontside -> backside (filter)) anyway. When I add this thing I want to fix it with rivets, thats actually why I didn't do it for now - too much work while the plants are in the cab and I didn't want to waste light hours for this atm.

I don't know how much light the 125W is putting out as of now, haven't used it. I still have the 85W 6500k bulb in there, will wait another week like you suggested before I switch to the 2700k to reduce stretching. I'm still a bit concerend about the plants getting too tall, even if I have enough spare height at the moment.

 

[soursmoker]

if they get too tall you can always supercrop them or tie them bitches down/

 

[Dr.Zoidberg]

Alright guys, when I checked on the ladies today plant 2 was only like 1cm fromt he bulb so I decided to give supercropping a try even tough I flipped lights 8 days ago.

Here is a pic right after I snapped them, had to fix the stem in the front with tape, I seem to have snapped that one a bit to hard - I tried to have all snapped stems in a 90° angle, I hope this is correct.

The snap-spots turned a bit browner now (like 2-3 hours later). Besides that the plants are looking good. I took your advice and took a break from watering. Gave them no water for 3 days before watering them again on the 4th day. Seems to be all fine. Will water them tomorrow again.

 

[Dr.Zoidberg]

Ok so I did quite some stuff today, did some basic LST because they were still stretching, I will wait if they stretch now and redo the LST for a better canopy next week.

AND - I changed the carbon in my filter - wanted to be sure it works properly when it hits full flower so yeah.. took some shots of my construction for better insight on this thing. Gonna split the posts because of the picture limit though.

The Carbon Filter:
The main idea behind this design was to have a carbon filter which was easy to attach to the case and can be refilled very very easily. And I think I did quite well afterall.

Things used in the making:

• 2x Scythe Gentle Typhoon 1850 RPM
• U-shaped Aluminium Profile (cut out 3 pieces and assembled them)
• Thin mesh
• Plexi-Glass (between carbon-chamber and rear-fan (to give it some space so it doesn't scratch/block the fan) - it's painted black and has duct-tape over it so theres no light leak
• Acrylic ducting compound which is an adhesive too (black, used to glue the pieces together)
• Aluminium piece
• the brown thing is some "door ducting", you can find those at home depod too
• Aquarium granulated carbon
• Hinges

Basically I cut the U-shaped aluminium profile into 3 pieces, each 3 are 12cm long (because the fan is 120mm obviously) and cut out the depth of the u-shape one of the pieces so I could assamble them.

The next step was to attach the mesh to the carbon chamber. In the meanwhile I attached the Acrylic-Glass pieces to the fan so I can put the pieces together faster.
When the adhesive was dry I put the fans & the carbon chamber together with the adhesive and let it harden with 4 ferrules (1 on each side) to have it perfectly assambled.

When the this was done I too a powered drill and cut in holes for the rivets and attached the hinges. The "door" on the top is aluminium too. The door and the chamber are sealed off perfectly by the door ducting thing. Perfect ducting right there.

Here are some pictures:

 

[Dr.Zoidberg]

Ok carbon-filter update done. So here comes the rest:
The ladies have been supercropped 5 days ago and have been doing great, couldn't find any bananas yet. Don't think the stress let it hermie.

As I said above they kept stretching and I did some basic LST to keep them away from the plant (one leaf got slightly burned when it touched the light directly for 1 hour). If the stretch continues I will just LST them further. The canopy isn't perfect as it is but it will keep them from getting burned - I will definitly fix the canopoy and LST it to a better one next week when I have more time for it.

Some leafes on the very bottom of plant 2&3 have yellowed and fallen off, think they just don't get enough light. I removed them.

Smell isn't an issue at the moment, don't have problems with it as of now. The only time you can smell something is right when the lights turn off - I don't know why the carbon filter dosn't work right there but I guess it might be the sudden rise in humidity that lets the carbon filter fail - I just don't know. The smell fades after 2-3 minutes again - so not that big of a deal really.

Also I switched the bulb to the 125W 2700k today, just felt like it was time.

So well, here are the pictures:
Day 40 - Day 8 Flower -

Day 42 (today) - Day 10 Flower - after basic LST

Day 42 aswell:

Day 42 - from above:

Day 42 after changing bulb to 125W 2700k:

Looking forward to your comments. (smile should go here but image limit is fucking with me D: )

 

[trem0lo]

Looking great! They're really going to take off now...

 

[xmobotx]

pulling up a seat to say; yes they do look quite good ~starting to seem like 2 plants might work out fine in there?

 

[Dr.Zoidberg]

Yeah the problem with the 3rd plant (#1) is that it's under the fixture and gets really less light, I already thought about modding my case and place a 2nd bulb in the other direction in it somehow but I'll check that out when I'm done with this run, otherwise I think I'll just do 2 plants next time and train them to fill the whole cage, might give SCROG a try next run.

 

[xmobotx]

i mean; how much light matters as much as plant count {to varying degrees} i.e. w/ potentially more root space in 2 {larger} containers and the potential for the same canopy getting hit by the same light; you may find 2 plants performs the same {or better} than 3 ~particularly in the micro-grow environment & especially SCROG'n

 

[Dr.Zoidberg]

Just a little update right here, they are doing really well and I managed to create a somewhat ok canopy using LST beneath the bulb so they get as much light as possible.

I was wondering if I should defoliate a bit because its just really really crowded with leaves right there and I felt like it could be beneficial, gotta read more posts about it first though. Any advice and experiences with defoliation especially in PC grows would be greatly appreciated.

Here are some pics:

Day 44 - Flower 12

Day 44 - Flower 12

Day 46 - Flower 14 (today)

 

[Dr.Zoidberg]

Girls are doing very fine Day 52 / 20 of flowering now:

 

[Dr.Zoidberg]

Why the fuck didn't the update bump the thread up again? Weird errors :/

 

[Dr.Zoidberg]

Day 60 overall and day 28 of flowering today, they start to smell real good - I love it.

Here are some pictures.

 

[BudWeizer]

Hey Dr. that looks like a chieftec case and it looks like you took the motherboard tray out so that you can access your grow from the right side of the case. Did you notice any problems with the structure of the case when you did that? I took the drive bay racks out of my case and it is a bit flimsy now and I am worried about taking the motherboard tray out will make the case really weak.