2850w Perpetual Medical Grow - Multi-Strain & Multi-Room - 1st Journal

Thanks for dropping in! I'm lucky enough to live in a state that supports medical marijuana, so I thought I'd share my experience with you here. I've been at it for a few months, but still trying to get everything dialed in. I've learned a lot from checking in with others here on this site, so I figured why not join 'em! I'm a bit of a perfectionist and am always looking for help and suggestions, so PLEASE, don't hesitate to throw in your 2 cents - it'll be greatly appreciated!

I'm currently in the middle of a perpetual grow, although I think in this journal that I will just focus on the clones and seeds that are just getting going. That way I'm not jumping all over the place....

So this is what I'm working with:

Room(s)

I have an enclosed room in my basement, which I have split up into multiple grow areas. At this point, I built 2 separate grow rooms, 1 is being used for flowering and the other for veg. Each room is 4' x 8' and roughly 6' in height. I made the rooms out of MDF with 2x4 framing. It wasn't cheap (about $400 per room for materials), but the quality is awesome and it suits my needs perfectly. I painted the interior walls with flat white paint and put down poly on the floors. The trickiest part were the doors, which have a minor issue with light leaks, so I'm going to be making some modifications down the road. I just ordered a 4' x 4' tent and will be adding that as an additional flowering room soon.

Lights

I have 2 600 watt HPS lights in my flower room. They run off an digital ballast and have Hortilux bulbs. My veg room has a 400 watt MH with a magnetic ballast and Hortilux bulb, a 250 watt MH with a built-in ballast and Phillips bulb along with a 4' T-5 fluorescent. This week I will be adding a 1000 watt HPS with digital ballast and Hortilux bulb for the new flowering tent.

Ventilation

My flowering room has air-cooled reflectors that are connected to a 6" inline exhaust fan. The fan pulls 440 cfm and is connected to a 6" carbon scrubber. I have a 3' tower fan blowing in the room along with a clip-on fan. I use a 4" hole for passive air intake.

My veg room has an air-cooled reflector for the 400 watt, that's connected to a 4" inline exhaust fan. The fan is rated at 170 cfm and is connected to a 4" carbon filter. I am using a 131 cfm intake fan, but I'm planning to take that out and convert it to passive air intake. I have 2 clip-on fans for circulation.

The new tent will have another 6" 440 cfm fan for exhaust, 6" carbon filter and passive air intake.

Electric

I completely upgraded my electric panel running through the basement to make sure that it could handle the load. Everything was done by a licensed electrician and he installed 2 new 20 amp circuits and an additional 15 amp circuit, so I don't have to worry about burning down the house!

Medium

I've been running Fox Farms soil, but have been considering switching to something else. Right now I mix Ocean Forest with Light Warrior (2-1 ratio).

Nutes

I use the entire General Organics lineup. I haven't been impressed with the results, not sure if it's the nutes, soil, combination of the 2 or me.

Environment

My temps for both rooms drop to about 62 when the lights are out and get around 78 when the lights are running. My humidity has been lower than I would like, but short of buying a humidifier there isn't much I can do. It will get better over the coming months when the seasons change. Right now it ranges from the low 20's to the upper 40's.

Water

I use city tap water, and let it sit for a day to eliminate the chlorine. I just bought a Ph meter, but haven't had a chance to use it yet...

Genetics

I've ordered up a mini seed bank, courtesy of Attitude. For the time being, I'm running many different strains just trying to figure out what I like and what grows well in my environment. The plan is to eventually get down to 4 mothers, with a little rotation here and there. Here is a list of the seeds that I'm sitting on or have started/harvested:

Vanilla Kush (Barneys Farm)
Chocolope (DNA Genetics)
Super Lemon Haze (Green House Seeds)
Bubblicious (Resin Seeds)
Red Cherry Berry (Barneys Farm)
Strawberry Cough (Dutch Passion)
Blackberry (Sativa Seeds)
Sharksbreath (DNA Genetics)
Cole Train (Reserva Privada)
Blueberry Gum (G13 Labs)
Pineapple Express (G13 Labs)
Kandy Kush (Reserva Privada)
Rocklock (DNA Genetics)
Exile (Magus Genetics)
Purple Pineberry (Secret Valley Seeds)
Lavender (Some Seeds)
Blueberry (Dutch Passion)
Orange Bud (Dutch Passion)
Mekong High (Dutch Passion)
White Widow (Dutch Passion)
Skunk #11 (Dutch Passion)
Jack Herer (Green House Seeds)
Sour Kush AKA Headband (Reserva Privada)
Purple #1 (Dutch Passion)
Tangerine Dream (Barneys Farm)
Red Diesel (Barneys Farm)
Blue Hash (Dinafem Seeds)
Shark Attack (Dinafem Seeds)
Burmese Kush (TH Seeds)
Kushage (TH Seeds)
Sage (TH Seeds)
Diesel (Dinafem)
Heavy Duty Fruity (TH Seeds)
Darkstar (TH Seeds)
White Widow (Dinafem Seeds)

I'll post some pics later on tonight.

So here is a look around -

This is the veg room. It has 7 girls under the 400w - Headband, Purple #1, Blackberry, Rocklock, Orange Bud, Skunk #11 that are 34 days old. It also has a Purple Pineberry clone that went in 11 days ago. I just topped the first 6 yesterday. Under the T-5 is a cloning tray with 5 Purple Pineberry clones, 5 Lavender clones, and 3 White Widow clones, they should start rooting in 7-10 days.

This is the flower room. I'm not going to focus on the plants in here in this journal, but figured I show you all the rooms. One 600w has 4 plants that were put in flower about a week ago (can't check the dates because it's lights out time). They are White Widow, Purple Pineberry, Lavender and Bubblicious. The other 600w has a couple plants that are 6 weeks into flowering and a couple taller plants that needed the space. The late flowering plants are Vanilla Kush, Chocolope and Bubblicious. The other 2 are Vanilla Kush and Blueberry - the Blueberry stretched like crazy, she was running out of space and just started to flower so I super-cropped her yesterday.

I forgot to mention that I'm running everything organic, so if anyone has suggestions --> please send them my way!

Looks like my clones are rooting faster than before, guess moving them into the veg room with higher temps sped them along. 8 out of 13 have rooted in 8 days, hopefully the rest catch up this weekend. The Lavender and Purple Pineberry cloned extremely fast, but the White Widow seems a bit slower. So I guess that I'll be transplanting in the next couple days.

The new tent arrived today, so it looks like I'll have a busy weekend getting it set up with the new lights and environmental controls. I'll post some new pics after I make a little progress....

Looks like a nice setup, I see you are very thorough. Only tip I have for ya is reduce the amount of light on your clones. They don't need very much to root at all, and they will be much happier looking/root faster for ya. Subd.

Someguy15 said:

Looks like a nice setup, I see you are very thorough. Only tip I have for ya is reduce the amount of light on your clones. They don't need very much to root at all, and they will be much happier looking/root faster for ya. Subd.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip, I always thought you were supposed to keep plants very close to fluorescents. I never gave much thought to the diminished light requirements of clones. I checked your past couple grow journals - quite impressive, props to Michigan MM growers!

looks good upperline subed cant wait to see ur choco and blackberry those r on my wish list just feared to order seeds. i ll breakthrough somewday lol good luck am i watching and learning

hammer6913 said:

looks good upperline subed cant wait to see ur choco and blackberry those r on my wish list just feared to order seeds. i ll breakthrough somewday lol good luck am i watching and learning

Click to expand...

Glad to have you along for the ride! Sounds like you're not too far away - I have a few extra Chocolope seeds, let me know if you'd like to give her a try....

upperline said:

Glad to have you along for the ride! Sounds like you're not too far away - I have a few extra Chocolope seeds, let me know if you'd like to give her a try....

Click to expand...

that d be great i have some dutch treat and some bomberry and some dutch treat with big purple heads my wifes son gave seems like i got something else around here o ya i have 3 thai stick seeds with 2 in to rootbe nice if i got a male and a female i have in the way of clones o g kush green crack alaskan haze and so far my fav blueberry i have a bomberry in flower room sexing how far are u from ludington

https://www.rollitup.org/outdoor-growing/415513-what-most-cost-effective-organic.html


i found this this morn sound int hope it helps ya out

hammer6913 said:

how far are u from ludington

Click to expand...

I thought you were closer to Lansing, that's probably a 4 hour trek for me. I could always throw a couple beans in the mail, PM me if you're interested.

It's been a busy weekend shopping for goodies, setting up the new room and transplanting the clones. I added a 1000w HPS with a digital ballast, hortilux bulb and the XXXL Magnum reflector, along with a 6" inline fan and 6" phresh carbon filter. Definitely excited about upgrading the reflector, this thing is a beast and only cost an extra $100 - wish I would have done this upgrade with the 2 600w HPS's that I'm running in my other flower room. Ran into some noise issues when I attached my inline fan to a floor joist, so I'm going to be doing some refitting this week until I get things where they need to be. I also bought some mylar to refit my other 2 rooms and have been readjusting the light setup for my veg space. It's still going to need some tinkering this week, so expect to see quite a few updates.

i had a noise issue i used duct tape rolled it lengthwise wrapped it around and taped it at the ends together it quieted down it made a diff enough for me hope this helps

Thanks for the suggestion. Think I'm gonna try mounting the fan to 1 of my other rooms, that way it will ground the vibrations through the framing to the concrete pad. If that doesn't cut it, then I'll probably try some rubber foot pads and good 'ole duct tape.

upperline said:

Thanks for the suggestion. Think I'm gonna try mounting the fan to 1 of my other rooms, that way it will ground the vibrations through the framing to the concrete pad. If that doesn't cut it, then I'll probably try some rubber foot pads and good 'ole duct tape.

Click to expand...

duct tape works for everything. i once used it to tape up my exhaust with a coat hanger on the old harley to get me home. the maker of duct tape is a god.. hail to duct tape lol good luck upperline

mad props man, thats a nice setup, chocolope sounds mighty tasty you know you could throw some beans my way haha im limited to bagseed

I finally have a minute to post an update. I have the new tent up and running, it took awhile to get the fan vibration figured out... But mounting the inline fan to another room really helped, although I still think that I'm going to add a layer of rubber in between when I have some extra time. I also refitted my other 2 rooms with mylar and adjusted the light setup in my veg room.

I started a couple more seeds, a Diesel from Dinafem and a Tangerine Dream from Barney's Farm. This is the Diesel this just cracked.




The clones are looking good, finally starting to see a little top growth.







Here are the 3 mothers - Purple Pineberry, Lavender and Purple #1.





Here is another shot of the veg room, we also have some veggie seedlings sharing the room, trying to get a jump on the outdoor garden.





This is the new tent with a little company.





This is the flower room after the refit.

Just found this thread - very nice setup, and an impressive variety of strains to choose from. Should be interesting...sub'd.

Looks like you covered the flat white walls in the veg room with mylar, am I right? Wondering why...