JayJammer'z 400w MH/HPS Ebb/Flow closet grow

[JayJammer]

Hey everyone,

This is my first time posting so please bear with me, I will try to give as much info and be as clear as possible. Any helpful advice you have to offer will be greatly appreciated.

This is only my second time growing so I am no expert, but i like to think I've done enough research to come out with a quality crop. I am growing Pure Afghan seeds from DNA Genetics. (I love the stone you get from a nice hard-hitting indica strain.)

I'll start by giving a layout of my 'grow room'

- My light is a 400w MH/HPS with a switchable ballast, and my seedlings are currently under (4) 2ft. T5 fluorescent tubes.

- I have a flood tub (about 2' x 3') filled with hydroton expanded clay pebbles. There are (6) 6" baskets inside but I do not yet know how many of them i will use because there is not a huge amount of space.
This sits on top of a table and underneath the table i have a 14 gal. resevoir that i fill with purified H20.

- A small submersible pump pushes the solution up through 1/2 tubing and into the table for 5 mins. every 8 hrs. The table drains back to the res within about 10 minutes.

- Inside the res I put a 12" airstone that constantly aerates the solution.

- I made a DIY Co2 system using yeast and sugar water, which consists of 2L bottles with air tubes leading up to the plants.


I will be using FoxFarm GrowBig, BigBloom, and TigerBloom. I know their nutrients are very heavy so i dont plan on using more than 50% strength the entire grow.

I germinated my seedlings about a week ago in small 1" rockwool plugs, and shortly after sprouting I placed them into the clay pebbles under the fluorescent tubes. They are currently being fed a very diluted solution of organic BigBloom only.

I only started 2 seeds because i am still unsure of my final goal. Ideally i would like to grow a strong mother plant and continue to clone from her.


Should I attempt to grow a mother plant on this grow?

How many plants can ideally grow in this space?

Should i consider using a screen?


A few things i plan on doing in the next couple weeks include:
- Add mylar to the walls and possibly separate a second small space for clones to be kept or force-flowered to determine sex(as i am working with seeds).
- Invest in a pH/EC meter as i know how important pH and EC are when dealing with hydroponics.

 

[rickross]

Sweet setup dude.. Ill def be followin this wer pretty much in the same point of out growing career an the same point in our grow.....my plan is to grow mothers an clone them simply because once you see them all budded out an u have a particular favorite u can reproduce that plant super easy.....since im jus starting mine an i hope to be perpetual im goin to have 2 plants from seed flowering to get me goin then i will slowly integrate smaller and more clones this way my box is decently full the whole time...

As for how many if ur guna do single cola clones i would say give each one about 10" square then as u get a feel for the strain maybe add more or less....so like 6 or so to start.

Screen oor no screen jus make ur canopy as even as possible to u get the most outta ur light.....either tie branches down or screen it up

Quick question....with water every 8 hrs what does ur little rockwool cube stay like inbetween? Are they always wet or do they get relitivly dry in between? Jus wondering i used rw cubes last grow in my bubble tubes with a recirculating constant water flow taking water from directly over a bubble stone and it worked great....but ive never worked with it for seedling so jus trying to get a feel for how much i should be watering..

Happy superbowl yo! An good luck wit ur grow, i look forward to sharin pics an notes wit u.

-RR

 

[JayJammer]

Thanks RR it helps to hear from someone in a similar situation. I'm gonna go for the mother plant and try clones later in the grow.
Then ill decide on how to train them because i dont have TOO much vertical space.

About the rockwool, my schedule every 8 hours seems to keep them pretty much perfectly moist. The water only touches the bottom 1/4 of the cube so it doesnt completely drench it, but it still gets wet throughout.

Thanks for the support good luck to you too! enjoy the game!

 

[JayJammer]

So i picked up some of that black/white poly plastic to line the room with. I also got 2 zippers and made a door.

Here's a couple pics of the seedlings i just took. 5 days from sprouting.

 

[rickross]

Sweet lookin good! How did u make that zipper door? Sow it on?......seedlings are lookin great mine are about the same an i got 6 more nirvana freebies in jiffy starters waitin to sprout

-RR

 

[JayJammer]

Sweet lookin good! How did u make that zipper door? Sow it on?......seedlings are lookin great mine are about the same an i got 6 more nirvana freebies in jiffy starters waitin to sprout

-RR

actually it was much easier, i just put up the plastic first then stuck the zippers on like a piece of tape. Then you just unzip it and cut the plastic with a razor blade to make an opening.

Nice! How many diff. strains are you working with now?

 

[rickross]

Sweet i feel like thats the only part of my grow room im never happy with is the seal around the door.....always worried about it bein light tight....right now im usin full velco all the way around then a second flap over that wit velcro.....right now im workin wit bubbleicious an about 10 different freebies...so depending on how many freebies are female(bubbs r fem) will be the # of diff strains i have.....im goin wit this for now then after this grow im gruna try to find a purple prodiminitly sativa cross to grow out....i really love that sativa high

-RR

 

[JayJammer]

UPDATE:

Not much new to see. Its day 10 and the seedlings are still developing.

One of them seems to be growing some new deformed leaves. We'll see what happens

 

[Bigz2277]

*pulls up a chair*
*sparks a dube*
Ill be watching ^_^

 

[JayJammer]

*pulls up a chair*
*sparks a dube*
Ill be watching ^_^

Thanks Bigz, good to have you.

Today i changed out the reservoir and filled it with 10Gal of R-O H2O and 50mL of BigBloom.
I'm going to wait another week or two for the GrowBig, I think the plants are doing good with just the BigBloom for now.

Here's some pics, they're starting to open up!

 

[freeshit]

Looking good. I will be following as well.

 

[JayJammer]

<--I plan on filling this tub to the top with clay pebbles very soon to give the roots more room.

 

[Bigz2277]

Hey jay. if your finding your little rockwool is drying out faster than you would like throw a piece of reflective paper over it. I saw a huge improvement. went from hand watering the cubes 5x times a day to 2.

 

[JayJammer]

Hey jay. if your finding your little rockwool is drying out faster than you would like throw a piece of reflective paper over it. I saw a huge improvement. went from hand watering the cubes 5x times a day to 2.

Thanks for the tip Bigz, so far i havent had an issue keeping it evenly moist. I was thinking of covering the clay pebbles with white plastic to prevent any algae buildup.

I just switched over to the 400w MH today so we'll see if they start to take off.
Firing up the Metal Halide--
Much brighter in the room now =)

 

[JayJammer]

Well looks like the last month of everything I've taken the time to put up here is gone... so I'll just start where I left off. Previously I had two unsexed Afghans and a female WhiteWidow clone, about 6 weeks from seed for the Afghans.

I picked up some Botanicare cloning liquid and some rockwool and got to work.

I took clones from both Afghans and the WhiteWidow, about 4 from each.

Now they're gonna be kept in the veg. box while i flower the parents to determine sex.

 

[JayJammer]

So I'm gonna throw up all the pics that got lost with the last half of my journal, just to give an idea of where I am now.


Feb. 19

Feb. 26

Feb. 29

Mar. 3 - Added a WhiteWidow clone in with the 2 Afghans



Mar. 7 - Topped one Afghan and FIM'd the other

Mar. 10

Mar. 13

 

[JayJammer]

Ok well the Afghans are scrapped, one male and the other just had horrible genetics.

Luckily this White Widow clone really took off, especially after I tied it down once. It quickly grew 5 large side shoots. I then tied each one of these down, and now they're all under the 12" mark, creating a very low flat canopy with lots of space for upward growth.

Two pics before tying down the 5 shoots

Two pics after tying down the 5 shoots. The second was taken the next day, after the plant turned toward the light

 

[JayJammer]

Day 18 Flower:

The WhiteWidow is lookin great, buds are popping up all over the place thanks to the even light distribution.

You can also see the little tiny FireOG clone that i decided to leave in there haha. They both went in at the same time and vegged about 4 weeks.

I'm currently running (3mL BigBloom/3mL GrowBigHydro/ 2mL CALiMAGic/ 4mL TigerBloom) per Gal.

 

[JayJammer]

Day 22 Flower:

Just a couple of bud shots..

 

[Bigz2277]

Looks like some frosty nugs man. looking good.