Armoire Stealth grow problems-need help!

[joneric1014]

I built a really cool armoire out, and basically tried everything in the book to pimp it out fully. I split it into a top and bottom configuration, so both chambers are about 40 inches wide, 28 inches deep, and 30 inches tall. The top chamber is on 4 CFLs, 45w each, and the bottom chamber has a 400w HPS with a cool tube. I am using an Aeroponics machine for a cloner up top, growing mothers in soil in the same upper chamber, and doing DWC grow in the bottom of the armoire for flowering.

Heres my problem:

The top chamber works like a champ, and Im pushing out clones like nobody's business. Once they get moved into the lower chamber to flower though, the almost immediately die. Heres the weird part: When I turned off the HPS light and basically gave up on this batch of clones, they started picking up their leaves, and actually got better! I turn the light back on, and they immediately wither up again.

Now for the record, this batch of clones came from a buddy growing in soil, and they where already in flowering when I got them. Im not sure if they are dieing because of the close proximity of the light, or because they shouldnt have gone to DWC after soil, or if maybe I should have just cloned them under CFLS instead of trying to dump them directly into HPS.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

 

[joneric1014]

Bump

Come on, no one can help me out?

 

[Jungle6900]

Hey man! good Idea! I can only think maybe you should try conditioning your plant more gradually to the brighter light. try exposing the plant to brighter light only for a few hours for the first week or so! great luck!!

 

[AlwaysFUBAR]

I agree with Jungle, also how big is the chamber? Maybe going with a smaller watt hps would help as well.

 

[joneric1014]

The chamber is the dimensions described above...about 40" wide, 28" deep and 30 inches tall. There are probably 25 inches from the light, which is mounted in a fixed position at the top, and the plants base.

My goal was to LST them all on the side of each net pot, and maximize my yield.

Ill try the slow light adjustment and se hat happens.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[AlwaysFUBAR]

Also keep an eye on temp. I know the hps throws a lot of heat. The cool tub may not be able to keep up. Just a thought.

 

[specialkayme]

What type of growing experience do you have?

No offense, but if you don't have a few grows under your belt, flowering successfully in such a small space MAY be difficult to achieve. I generally advise people to start off much larger, then work your way down. If I were to advise you before you sectioned this cab off, you really should have just gone with one large flowering chamber (28" dee[, 40" wide, and 60" tall, or roughly). But I guess it is a little too late for that.

You will need to let us know what type of ventilation you have running in your cab. In addition to that, you need to tell us what your temps are. This is probably what I would guess is wrong. Also, a 400 watt (at least in my opinion) is WAY too much for such a small cab. You probably only need like a 150 watt or a 250 watt HPS in there, max.

I'm also to assume that you are cloning? Are you new to cloning?

Read up a bit in the GrowFAQ, most of your solutions are in there.

 

[niteowljr]

I think if you can get another 10inches or so of height in the bottom chamber you might be ok.30 inches of flowering area height aint too much for a 400 watter.also what temp is your flowering area with the light on?try to keep it at 80 or below if you can.

 

[joneric1014]

What type of growing experience do you have? None whatsoever. I have a Masters in Marine Bio though, and have built custom environments for zoos and commercial applications for 15 years, and basically approached this grow box as a scientist. I researched all the parameters that needed to be controlled, went to several websites looking for examples, and then finding Al B Fucts grow guide on SoG, replicated it in minature scale, almost exactly.

I realize having no grow experience makes me a noob, but come on, if I can breed captive jellyfish in a mason jar on my office desk, I should be able to master a weed right? LOL

No offense, but if you don't have a few grows under your belt, flowering successfully in such a small space MAY be difficult to achieve. I generally advise people to start off much larger, then work your way down. If I were to advise you before you sectioned this cab off, you really should have just gone with one large flowering chamber (28" dee[, 40" wide, and 60" tall, or roughly). But I guess it is a little too late for that.I didnt section the cab off, it came that way, and I used the existing structure to build out my 2 chambers.

You will need to let us know what type of ventilation you have running in your cab. Cool tube on the 400 HPS, with 2 4" inline fans pushing/pulling cool air from outside across the bulb and out thru the other end. I also have a portable thermostat attached to a second set of small 6" fans,1 in each chamber, that oscillate over the plants themselves, and which are fed fresh air from outside the armoire. In addition to that, you need to tell us what your temps are. 79 degrees HPS lights off, 85 degrees HPS on.This is probably what I would guess is wrong. Also, a 400 watt (at least in my opinion) is WAY too much for such a small cab. You probably only need like a 150 watt or a 250 watt HPS in there, max. I was considering removing it actually, and putting 4 45w CFLs in there, like my clone chamber, and just using the bottom chamber for vegging my clones, and using a second armoire for flowering, in a much larger and taller rig. You may have a point there.

I'm also to assume that you are cloning? Are you new to cloning? Yes, and Yes. I do have an old hippy bud who got me the clones, and who kinda answers questions when he can, but hes a soil man, and so sometimes he doesnt know the answers. I bought the growth hormone/clone sauce and some nutes for both flowering and vegging, and then followed the instructions per Al B Fucts grow guide to the letter, like I was in my lab. I cant stress to you enough how meticulous I have been with my science on this project. Ive been using Al B Fucts guide like its gospel, and replicating his grow guide exactly. This is my first grow though, so I was hopeing the Pros would have some advice for this n00b, since Im obviously dropping the ball somewhere.

Read up a bit in the GrowFAQ, most of your solutions are in there. Did, didnt find the answer, so Im here.

I wonder if the fact that Im hitting 85 degrees with the lights on is my problem. I know my temp read is accurate because Im using lab grade liquid base thermometers. It dont get any more accurate than that.

Any suggestions besides drop the box temp 5 degrees or get a new light?

Should I just replace the HPS with 4 45w CFLs and flower in a larger space?

Thanks in advance for the help guys.

 

[CuriousSoul]

This is only speculation but is there any chance you're damaging the roots when transplanting from aerophonics to soil? You want the temp to be ideally between 72-78F, 85 borders on heat stress in my setup. In my opinion HPS really will outdo CFL when it comes to flowering so I wouldn't switch over but downgrade the size of it. Happy growing!

 

[GrowTech]

an armoire is a nice piece of furniture.

 

[joneric1014]

This is only speculation but is there any chance you're damaging the roots when transplanting from aerophonics to soil? You want the temp to be ideally between 72-78F, 85 borders on heat stress in my setup. In my opinion HPS really will outdo CFL when it comes to flowering so I wouldn't switch over but downgrade the size of it. Happy growing!

On this particular batch of clones, that came off a buddys plant, who was growing in soil, they went from:

Flowering in soil under 400w HPS to clones in a rock wool/ DWC, under 400w HPS. Im thinking those 5 degrees might be my doom. Ill try and drop that and try it with another batch I guess.

 

[joneric1014]

an armoire is a nice piece of furniture.

Thanks, my goal was to be able to stealth grow the whole op, right in my living room, and have it be a clean enough grow my in laws could stand next to it and not even realize what it is. I placed it in front of a window that faces an alley at the side of the house, put one of those window fans it that fill the whole whole window sill, and then dismantled the fan and attached all my intake and outtake fans and hoses on the inside. From the outside, it simply looks like a window fan, and from the inside, its blocked by an armoire in front of the window, so you couldnt tell what was there anyway.

So far, with my Supergirl skunks from Nirvana, its worked like a charm! (Thanks rollitup.org thread on making your own carbon filters.) You cant smell anything in the room, but when you open the cabinet you get a wave of "holy shit!" that rolls out and fills the room like the best incense on the planet.

 

[specialkayme]

First of all, your buddy should have known that you don't clone plants when they are in their flowering stage. The clones that you got from him would get stressed out if you tried to put them into a vegetative stage, and might resist you. But from the sounds of it your issues are with your flowering room, and not with your mother plants, or the clones that he gave you.

Your temps are too high, in my opinion. Not that they are out of control, however. As odd as it may sound, I have had successful grows when I was unable to get my cab under 95 degrees in the peak of summer. But ideally, you should have it around 75.

If you are new to growing, new to mj, new to cloning, new to building cabs (at least these ones, I know of your previous experience), and new to hydroponics, it would probably be best not to try and master all of these at once. Fuck the hydro for now. Fuck cloning for now. Worry about your cab and your plants, and actually being able to flower a plant. Then move on from there.

My assumption would be that your problem is somewhere in the process above. If you have a mother plant that is doing alright under CFLs, then you clone her, put it in hydro, and put it into your flowering chamber and they start to die, my guess is that's where the problem is. I can't exactly say what it is, because I don't know all of the variables, but my suggestion would be to place your mother in the flowering chamber, and see if she does all right. If She starts to wither, take her out and put her back under the CFLs. If she can't stand it, then it's the room, if she seems all right with it, then it's your cloning process.

I hope this helped.

 

[joneric1014]

First of all, your buddy should have known that you don't clone plants when they are in their flowering stage. The clones that you got from him would get stressed out if you tried to put them into a vegetative stage, and might resist you. But from the sounds of it your issues are with your flowering room, and not with your mother plants, or the clones that he gave you. We knew, we just wanted to see if I could pull some clones off his flowering plants and ge them to continue to grow out. I have a full set of proper plants vegging up top, but for sport we thought wed see if I could flower some
of his as well. We didnt put them into veg state. In fact, I kept them on the exact same light cycle as his, and put them directly into my cabinet and used the same timer cycle as his already flowering plants for the lights. I was trying to see if you could clone a flowering plant, and if so, could you skip the veg state in clones and just jump directly into flowering, or is it better to pull off of a veg plant, and then veg it under CFLs until roots developed. Now for the record, My clones are growing like mad in the chamber, its only HIS plants that are dieing out. Maybe I wasnt clear on that, sorry.

Your temps are too high, in my opinion. Not that they are out of control, however. As odd as it may sound, I have had successful grows when I was unable to get my cab under 95 degrees in the peak of summer. But ideally, you should have it around 75. 75....Thanks, I can put an aquarium chiller on the unit and drop the temp np I think. Maybe Im pushing the temps to hard and the clones arent able to process CO2 or something.

If you are new to growing, new to mj, new to cloning, new to building cabs (at least these ones, I know of your previous experience), and new to hydroponics, it would probably be best not to try and master all of these at once. Fuck the hydro for now. Fuck cloning for now. Worry about your cab and your plants, and actually being able to flower a plant. Then move on from there. I am flowering plants, Im just struggling flowering my bros plants from clone. My plants are rocking out with their tiny cocks out.

My assumption would be that your problem is somewhere in the process above. If you have a mother plant that is doing alright under CFLs, then you clone her, put it in hydro, and put it into your flowering chamber and they start to die, my guess is that's where the problem is. I can't exactly say what it is, because I don't know all of the variables, but my suggestion would be to place your mother in the flowering chamber, and see if she does all right. If She starts to wither, take her out and put her back under the CFLs. If she can't stand it, then it's the room, if she seems all right with it, then it's your cloning process. Good use of controls imo. Ill give that a shot and see if I can narrow down the weak link.



I hope this helped.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[specialkayme]

Ok, the problem is much more clear now. You can not clone a flowering plant, then throw the clones directly into flowering. It won't work. the clones need a 'vegetative' stage in order to grow roots and get it's own thing going.

 

[joneric1014]

See thats what i was wondering. I didnt see anyone say that you couldnt put a flowering plant into clone, but I did read that if you clone a flowering plant and veg it will take months to be flipped back into veg. I was trying to see if I could skip that step.

Im not really concerned with pimping out my production for profit or anything, this is more about the experiment to me. Im lucky enough that my hippy bud I mentioned before gives me all the grass I could ever smoke for free, so I dont need to grow really, just enjoying the learning process, and it gives me and my fine patouli smelling friend something to talk about besides guitars, whores and Pink Floyd.

I could potentialy fit alot of plants in my armoir I think, lollipop style, but I want to perfect the art of hydro, not so much the huge production levels. Im only working with 6 plants at a time, even though Im pretty sure I could fit 35-40 small clones across the bottom of this armoir. I just want to perfect a small scale LST operation for personal use, and maybe to return the favor to my homeboy with some sweet buds once in awhile once I got it up and running.

Thanks alot for the time and advice, much love.

 

[specialkayme]

See thats what i was wondering. I didnt see anyone say that you couldnt put a flowering plant into clone, but I did read that if you clone a flowering plant and veg it will take months to be flipped back into veg. I was trying to see if I could skip that step.

Im not really concerned with pimping out my production for profit or anything, this is more about the experiment to me. Im lucky enough that my hippy bud I mentioned before gives me all the grass I could ever smoke for free, so I dont need to grow really, just enjoying the learning process, and it gives me and my fine patouli smelling friend something to talk about besides guitars, whores and Pink Floyd.

I could potentialy fit alot of plants in my armoir I think, lollipop style, but I want to perfect the art of hydro, not so much the huge production levels. Im only working with 6 plants at a time, even though Im pretty sure I could fit 35-40 small clones across the bottom of this armoir. I just want to perfect a small scale LST operation for personal use, and maybe to return the favor to my homeboy with some sweet buds once in awhile once I got it up and running.

Thanks alot for the time and advice, much love.

It might seem like you can fit 35-40 small clones in that armoir, lolipop them, and sog them all out, but in actuality it will be much less. If you were going for AlBFuct's style, it's much less. I personally have a 24"x24" flood table. I fit 9 plants in there (3x3), all in 2 gallon grow bags and even that's a bit much. The plants need much more roots than you think.

But if you are planning on switching to hydro, if you ask 10 people how you should transition, you'll get 10 different answers on here. Al himself recommends just moving to a flood and drain set up. I would actually recommend growing buds with soil. Once you have gotten that down, then switch to either Hempy buckets, or coco. Once you get that down, then you can switch to a flood and drain set up. If you like that, then try DWC or Aeroponics.

From what I have seen on these sites, and from personal experience, if you rush into the more complex versions of hydro without a basic understanding of how the plant grows, or how hydro works, you'll be up shit creek very soon. And I know that the basics of hydro arn't hard, by any means, but you'll be surprised what can go wrong. Just about everything.

I'm really the type of person that works much better when they dive right into something. Throw me in the deep end, that's how I learn to swim. But with hydro, I tried that three times, and I failed three times. First with ebb and flow, second with DWC, third with aeroponics. There are SO many variables that can go wrong, or that you can tweek in one of these hydro set ups, and everyone tweeks it a little different. It would be better not to copy someone, as much as to learn from them, and modify them to your own needs.

I hope this rambling helps a little, and good luck bro.

 

[joneric1014]

It might seem like you can fit 35-40 small clones in that armoir, lolipop them, and sog them all out, but in actuality it will be much less. If you were going for AlBFuct's style, it's much less. I personally have a 24"x24" flood table. I fit 9 plants in there (3x3), all in 2 gallon grow bags and even that's a bit much. The plants need much more roots than you think.Wow really? Thanks. I have 2 10 gallon Rubbermade buckets I drilled 6 holes each in the lids of, for 12 possible net pots in 2 resevoirs side by side in the bottom of the armoire. I wasnt even considering root size, I was just thinking of how many I could squeeze into the top of the lid. My goal is to do 6 plants per resevoir, maybe 9 tops then? I guess Ill have to sort of watch the first set develop and decide if I can push it past 6 plants.

But if you are planning on switching to hydro, if you ask 10 people how you should transition, you'll get 10 different answers on here. Al himself recommends just moving to a flood and drain set up. I would actually recommend growing buds with soil. Once you have gotten that down, then switch to either Hempy buckets, or coco. Once you get that down, then you can switch to a flood and drain set up. If you like that, then try DWC or Aeroponics. Like I said, I have a Masters in Marine Bio, and work in a water / chem lab all day for a living, so the only reason I am doing this at all, is to experiment with a DWC grow, and study the whole process, since its very much like another assay I use at work. My tye dyed friend already has mastered the art of soil, and a discussion on hydro .vs dirt with him prompted me to pursue the science further. I have no interest in growing in dirt, because iIm already watching an indoor dirt grow in progress, and its a pretty hot little op. I mean several of us smoke for free year around and there is no bottom to that sack, and whatever dude make on it in cash.

I do understand your point, but this is more about the DWC process itself for the sport of mastering it and moving to aeroponics units, and creating some logs.

From what I have seen on these sites, and from personal experience, if you rush into the more complex versions of hydro without a basic understanding of how the plant grows, or how hydro works, you'll be up shit creek very soon. And I know that the basics of hydro arn't hard, by any means, but you'll be surprised what can go wrong. Just about everything. Im sure. Water is a finicky mistress for sure, but I think she and I have an understanding. Its the botany of the plant itself, and the grow process Ill be asking questions about. Thats part of the fun though. I mean, after all, if you dont fail a few times, how are you going to learn?

I'm really the type of person that works much better when they dive right into something. Me too Throw me in the deep end, that's how I learn to swim. But with hydro, I tried that three times, and I failed three times. First with ebb and flow, second with DWC, third with aeroponics. There are SO many variables that can go wrong, or that you can tweek in one of these hydro set ups, and everyone tweeks it a little different. It would be better not to copy someone, as much as to learn from them, and modify them to your own needs. Thats kinda what I did. Even though I used Al B Fucts thread to sort of teach myself the SoG process, and mimicked it very close in the cabinet, I do expect to have to fluctuate and adjust as the process continues. This is to be expected when building a custom environment or habitat for anything though. I have my template, now its on to the actual, lets grow some plants and start to learn phase.

I hope this rambling helps a little, and good luck bro. I have learned from you, and appreciate your time and input.

Thanks alot.

 

[specialkayme]

Take what you want, disregard what you like. I hope things work out better for you than they did for me, considering I started a similar starting route than you did.