600w 4x4 organic grow tent

mrorganics

Active Member
Hello everyone at RIU,
A little info on myself. It is my second grow, first one was a hydro setup, however i am very excited to do a organic soil grow.

SPACE
4x4 grow tent inside of my large closet

MEDIUM
foxfarm ocean forest mixed 50/50 with light warrior

NUTRIENTS
Entire General Organics line including Diamond Black and BioMarine
Humbolt Nutrients Myco Maddness

CONTAINERS
#3 3 gallon Smartpots

LIGHTING
for Seedling and possibly 1st week of veg
1x 4 foot T8 with 2 6400 K bulbs
For flowering
1x 600w hps Phantom ballast, Xtrasun Hood passively vented out sides of the tent

CIRCULATION
2x 8 in oscilating desk fans
1 box fan pulling hot air out of my closet
i will put one of the small fans in light ducting if temps become a problem

Strain is unknown bagseed, they were nice and strong looking seed got me a good cerebral and body high, fingers crossed.

Right now i have a little under 40 seeds in rapid rooters 3 have popped
Plans as of now are to hopefully get 25 strong sprouts and nurture them till preflowers then cull males transplant wait a week while keeping 9 nice females, take 2 cuttings off of each one and clone them switch to flowering keep my favorite female and get 9 cuttings to run and begin a seeding project of some sour d and some tahoe og or blackwater og to run perpetually side by side after the first 2 harvests from my tent.

Thanks for stopping by you are welcome to post just please dont spam it up.bongsmilie
 
Neat, I'll be starting a very similar setup in a couple months so I'll be following this closely. Good luck mrorganics.

Edit: just out of curiosity, what kind of grow tent are you using (or is it homemade)?
 

mrorganics

Active Member
Its is the 4x4 hydroponic buddbox on ebay...it will come tommorow but im having it shipped elsewhere so tuesday i will let you know about construction and durability. it was 115 shipped so we shall see. i just looked for mylar interior and steel poles and vent holes and it had em so :).

quick question, what is the fastest and most effecient way to sex, ive heard the switch to 12 and 12 then revert or take clones and whatnot but how about just waiting for preflowers, do you think a 1 gallon pot would be large enough to accomidate the size needed to mature a plant to preflowering i have 9 3 gallon smartpots which i would like to fill with females. and i also want to have a packed tent.
 

mrorganics

Active Member
Ok so something came up today and I need someopinions.
1 my friend offered me some cuttings but they won't be ready for about 2 weeks
2 I don't really wanna sex all my plants and have the possibility
So question is what's going to be the fastest, growing out from seed or starting clones in 2 weeks. I don't wanna scrap all these little babies but with the benefit of name brand weed and ease I just may. Input is appreciated on this matter.
 

mrorganics

Active Member
Ok so something came up today and I need someopinions.
1 my friend offered me some cuttings but they won't be ready for about 2 weeks
2 I don't really wanna sex all my plants and have the possibility
So question is what's going to be the fastest, growing out from seed or starting clones in 2 weeks. I don't wanna scrap all these little babies but with the benefit of name brand weed and ease I just may. Input is appreciated on this matter.
 

mrorganics

Active Member
g clones as i Idont don'twant to travel 5 hrs with them in stasis and be at the same point with the same harvest time.
update on the room, tent arrived today, I will get it after I get off work. Bad news, I left my closet open while I slept (I work 3rds) and my dog went in and tipped over all my cups and buckets and made a huge dirt mess, 5 cu ft in my closet lol, I got it all cleaned up and sifted through for excess debris. I loaded up my pots again. Guess he's gonna have to go in his cage while I sleep or at least I need to close the door, well nevermind because after today I will have it in a tent and zipped up! Take it easy RIU pics tommorow :)
 

mrorganics

Active Member
ok well the day that has been awaited please lemme get some hits off of this :/
2011-02-15 15.09.45.jpg2011-02-15 15.01.46.jpg2011-02-15 15.02.27.jpg2011-02-15 15.03.00.jpg2011-02-15 15.03.43.jpg2011-02-15 15.09.22.jpg2011-02-15 15.09.52.jpg2011-02-15 15.02.09.jpg
ok well the pics are pretty much self explanitory, they are just babies so, seedlings, how much space is in my closet with the tent, very tight fit do you think i will have vent issues with a 600? temp and nutes.


edit: of the 3 that popped one threw a root out the bottom so I put that one in the cup, ill look for roots in about 2 days i think they will be looking good about then look for updates in the next few days
 

Gastanker

Well-Known Member
Looking great! I'm doing almost the same set-up - 4x4 tent vegging under CFLs then using a 400/600w dimable ballast for veg (throwing a 1000watter on at the end) and running organic and in smartpots. Have subscribed so I can compare.

I'm glad you are going to keep the seedlings. Im ny experience plants from seed grow much faster than clones so even after weeding out a few you are still further ahead than going with clones from the beggining.
 

mrorganics

Active Member
Well its only my second grow and I'm new to this line of plant food, I'm also thinkin I may run into heat issues when I throw in the 600 in 2 weeks. On ebay the phantom ballast 600w hps bulb and xtrasun 6"ac reflector is 380 after tax, can't beat that! I have ducting an extra desk fan and top and bottom vents so fingers crossed I won't have to use the desk fan and ill just leav the door open during lights on with a fan exchanging heat out of the closet, time will tell and we will see, thanks for subbin
 

mrorganics

Active Member
update, i have 18 sprouts, I have been transplanting as soon as the tap root has been making it out of the root cube. still have a few seeds coming up i think once i get 25 or 30 nice ones sprouted im going to cull the other ones that havent popped or are not growing. well thats all RIU, I will add pics on monday.

EDIT: do you think i should take off my closet door to increase circulation for when I add in that 600 next week?
 

Gastanker

Well-Known Member
update, i have 18 sprouts, I have been transplanting as soon as the tap root has been making it out of the root cube. still have a few seeds coming up i think once i get 25 or 30 nice ones sprouted im going to cull the other ones that havent popped or are not growing. well thats all RIU, I will add pics on monday.

EDIT: do you think i should take off my closet door to increase circulation for when I add in that 600 next week?
More circulation the better. In the winter here my tent gets up to 85 if I keep it closed running my 1kW and that is with a sealed vented hood with a 440 cfm fan (it's snowing right now and I don't heat that room). HIDs put out ALOT of heat.
 

mrorganics

Active Member
just a little update, finished transplanting them all today, i have 25 in cups under my 6500 K t8 and cfl. i ended up culling 7, 3 no seed activity and 2 were ot growing just yellowing and 2 were just slow. in the pics I have one fan but now I have 2 fans one in each of the front corners oscilating 90 degrees, just for circulation and airflow i may put a box fan pulling air into the closet in a little while when the 600w hps arrives arrives which im ordering today :D2011-02-18 10.25.45.jpg2011-02-18 10.38.00.jpg2011-02-18 10.25.31.jpg2011-02-18 10.37.02.jpg2011-02-18 10.36.55.jpg2011-02-18 10.37.39.jpg2011-02-18 10.36.43.jpg
 

mrorganics

Active Member
btw pics are my tent, a mutant, the side views are all the seedlings and the buggest one is a diff unknown started 2 days prior. lemme knwo what you think?
 

Gastanker

Well-Known Member
Looks good. At this point airflow really isn't all that important so you could probably get away with just 1 fan or none at all. They like the heat when they are small and don't have enough foliage to be constricting air flow. I hate culling plants - makes me so sad but is really the right way to go. I'm germinating more than my limit and will have to do the same soon :( and then pick which lucky ones get my smart pots (only bought 6). Don't you feel bad like you have hurt their feelings when you do that? hehe.

Just saw this:

I Personally would like to see a organics vs chemical fertilizer grow, perhaps a bottle organic line vs chemical line, dunno how much you would try to spend on it, well very nice box i might say, Im in for the ride and not far along behind you, well probably 2 weeks. Take it easy. quick question,I think i have a similar vent set up like you. If i sealed my hood,a 600 from the bottom left vent to the top one like the one you use and just throw my carbon filter to circulate inside do you think my temps would stay down with a ambient room temperature of around 72-74?
I'm a little confused by this. Do you mean you would pull from outside the tent, pass it through your light, and then exhaust outside while also having a second fan for the filter on the inside? I could see you going two ways:


First way is how I have it set-up. Air is pulled from inside the tent through the carbon filter, through the lights and out of the tent. Pros for this is that it cirulates the air within the tent and only requires one fan.

Second way you would pull from outside the tent, through your light, and back outside your tent. As second fan would be fitted to your filter inside the tent and filter the air inside. Pros for this are that the tent is sealed and you could pump C02 without exhausting it all through your ducting. Cons are that it will stay quite a bit hotter as the tents air isn't being exchanged and you have to run two different fans.

This is a drawing I did for someone else but shows a third way - pull through filter in your room, tents are still sealed from the ducting. This way the entire room (both tents and the room in this case) gets filtered. You could have the tents sealed from the room at some points and then by turning on duct booster fans exchange air from the tents to the room when you wanted.

 

mrorganics

Active Member
haha hell no, Im thinkin more for myself like I know its for my benefit so I have no feelings about that haha, i was thinking about culling the mutant but im up for a suprise since its already transplanted, when should I start feeding and how long can they stay in solo cups?
could i keep them in solo cups till they show sex naturally or should i take 20 or so into 1 gallon pots before culling to my 9 fems?


EDIT: the guy at the grow shop told me to do the second option only dont use a fan to exaust the light let it exaust passivly but i think i will be going with the 1st option after reading on here a little bit about it,
i could get it all set up and dialed in this next week but id have to downgrade to a cheapo ebay ballast,reflector, inline fan and carbon filter. Or i can order the phantom 600 with xtrasun reflector till i start flowerin, then ill be able to fford to add the filter and fan. i dont think ill have issues with heat as long as i have a box fan pulling air from my closet with the tent open, the tent is in my 5x7 closet.
 

Gastanker

Well-Known Member
haha hell no, Im thinkin more for myself like I know its for my benefit so I have no feelings about that haha, i was thinking about culling the mutant but im up for a suprise since its already transplanted, when should I start feeding and how long can they stay in solo cups?
could i keep them in solo cups till they show sex naturally or should i take 20 or so into 1 gallon pots before culling to my 9 fems?


EDIT: the guy at the grow shop told me to do the second option only dont use a fan to exaust the light let it exaust passivly but i think i will be going with the 1st option after reading on here a little bit about it,
i could get it all set up and dialed in this next week but id have to downgrade to a cheapo ebay ballast,reflector, inline fan and carbon filter. Or i can order the phantom 600 with xtrasun reflector till i start flowerin, then ill be able to fford to add the filter and fan. i dont think ill have issues with heat as long as i have a box fan pulling air from my closet with the tent open, the tent is in my 5x7 closet.
I would advise going with the first way. It's simpler and works alot more efficiently. The second way really only works if your enclosure it totally sealed, if not the inside fan attached to the filter will push unfiltered air out of the cracks and the smell will escape - with the first way you create a vacuum that sucks hard enough to pull air into the tent passively and thus lets NO unfiltered air out. (either hydro store owners/workers know a ton or are retarded, make sure you figure you what one your guys is). Definitely transplant out of party cups. Transplanting quickly makes a huge difference in the end total plant size. Once you see roots hitting the bottom of the cup (preferably before they start coiling) transplant as many as possible into larger containers.

When to add nutes can be tricky based on the nutes and grow media. I soak all my soil before transplating with regular water and then drench in bat guano water before I even drop the cracked bean into it. Really hard to over do it with bat guano though. You might be able to start your seedling on nutes at 1/10th strength. I usually wait till the plant has 2 or 3 true nodes before fertilizing with 50% strength and 4-5 nodes for full strength and then I lay it on heavy. You can always just test a couple with 10% and if they do ok then try a couple more with 20%...
 

mrorganics

Active Member
how long would you say with good root development in the party cups, you think I should go to 1 gallon next saturday? cn they stay there till final sexing then go to 3 gallons? also how long of a veg am I gonna want on them to get a full canopy with 9 3 gallon pots?and how long till I can see some preflowers?
 

Gastanker

Well-Known Member
I transplant as soon as I see roots touching the container . In party cups that is generally around the time you have two true nodes (when your first pair of leaves with three parts grows in). I have flowered in one gallons successfully so they should last a while - check out my 388 w cfl grow and it should give you an idea of how much they grow during flower. I might suggest a three week veg for nine in your tent but it really depends on how fast they grow. I wouldn't let them get larger than the seventh node before flipping

I would trAnsplant the last time at least a week before flowering
 

mrorganics

Active Member
i have always hear to transplant a week before flowering, so I will probably do a week and a half. what about culling out the males, i dont wanna overgrow in there but i dont know if i can wait 2 months for preflowers. what do you reccomend? how much harm does transplanting a week into flower do, like once they show their parts?
 
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