Auto AK47 PC case grow

Hi, I am just coming to the end of an experimental PC case grow with two Lowlife automatic AK47.
Planted four seeds, two males, two females, but I didnt keep the males this time, as my spare box was just entirely not big enough for the AK47 males stretching.

Of the two plants, one is in a home made DWC bucket, and the other in a hempy bucket.

The hempy plant was waterlogged for half its life, due to a mistake on my behalf (as far as i can tell, you cant saturate a hempy bucket until the plant is well rooted, or it will just not dry out at all)

The DWC plant on the other hand, has done reasonably well, which i am impressed about as it is the first time I have tried DWC.

Anyhow, some pics. First the box. This is a full tower pc server case, with a 125w envirolight in it. The light fits almost perfectly filling the top of the case, and with the fan over it, is only warm to the touch. I have a 12v pc fan above its ballast bit, exhausting upwards, and a bathroom fan (not pictured yet) below and to the side of it. Its not silent, but its not (much) more noisy than a regular PC

Oh, one important note! The box is NOT light safe whatsoever. Any attempts i made to make it so, or indeed add air filtering, reduced airflow to such an extent that the box (slightly) overheated. With autoflowering strains this is not a problem for the plant.

I got a nice little indoor/outdoor thermometer so i could check inside-box temperatures without disturbing them by opening the doors.

As for the DWC system, I had an aquarium air pump laying around already, and some airstones. Made a home made net pot out of a squirrel nut dispenser, as seen in the pics, and a lid for the bucket made out of the drip tray of a regular plant pot.

The hempy bucket was an identical bucket, filled with 80% perlite 20% vermiculite, and a hole directly in the bottom (cause my last experience with them failed due to over watering also)

DWC pot was coated in mylar for light protection.

Word! Thats whats up! Shady my boy...
Droxster the Dro Chokester Is know Subscribed!
..i will be following u on this grow dude..sweet setup and i wish you sweet fat nugs in the near future!

Note that this was the first time I had made a DWC bucket, and if i was doing it again i would find some kind of 90 degree bend for the water level bit, as the kink in the tube became worse and worse, leading to inaccurate measurements. As i also used this tube to siphon water when i was away for a week, I would consider this now to be an ESSENTIAL fix in my next bucket.

Also, to begin with i did not realise how low a water level was required in the pots. I initially measured it to just below where the net pots were, but this resulted in saturation from the bubbles.

Over watering due to this maybe cost me 2-3 days growth including recovery time.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, the DWC pot is filled with clay balls, and the seed was germinated in a peat pocket, placed in the middle of them.

Now for some plants!

This is the DWC ak47 at two weeks old.

As you can see, its quite a healthy little chap. Immediately following this, it began to be LST'd (pics to follow of course

Right now things get serious! Growth continues exponentially on the DWC ak, and you get to see the tiny little one who is still not recovered from her first (and ONLY) watering yet.

Notice that the small one is happily starting flowering, whereas the big one is putting much more energy into growing bigger at the moment.

You can also see where the probe to the external thermometer is taped to the inside of the case, and the vent for the big bathroom fan.

Around this time, I added a second airline to the DWC. At no time did it actually indicate it needed it, but a two outlet pump became available, so I drilled an extra hole and added another airstone.

Which reminds me actually, by this time, in small buckets, the ak was drinking maybe a pint of water a day, and the airstones were beginning to clog. This isnt apparent (yet) and i didnt notice it...

Anyhow, this is week 4 or so

I was excited the hempy bucket one seemed to finally dry out, and so i gave it some nutes.. and it dried out again and got burned.. completely due to carelessness on my behalf.

OK, so maybe a week or two after that, I had to leave for a week, and with the DWC using so much water I had to come up with a solution. No pics for this, but what i basically did was buy some dripline hose from a diy store (like £5 for 10 metres), and set up a syphon from a large tank of water outside the case to the bucket within the case via the transparent tube on the outside. This would obviously dilute the nute mix in the bucket more and more, but the girly could manage fine without quite so much constantly

As a note actually, I have fertilised at the level of 1tsp per pint, which is the minimum my ferts recommend for flowering, and at that level my ppm meter reads 1.6ish when freshy nuted and ph adjusted, going up to about 1.8-2 when the water is 50% gone, so almost an optimal level, but slightly more than the plant is using. With the small sized buckets, i found it easier to discard mostly empty reservoirs and refil than to adjust it.

So, in the week before i left, i tested, by siphoning for 6 days. Everything looked good until day 5.. when i noticed a bit of nute burn.. The kink in the tube had held the level at what i thought was a decent amount.. but the bucket had completely dried out. Plants werent DRY, but they were over ferted from the rising concentration of nutes.

The siphon worked great apart from that however, i will use it again when i fix the silly bucket design

Anyhow, these are pics from when i got back a week later. (week 6 or 7? i forget)

Chopped the little plant yesterday, its hanging in my wardrobe now
The big one is being flushed till monday, then i'll post some harvest pics.

Thanks for reading

Very nice work shadybeep.
Enjoy those nugs

Harvest pics

Just the fattest buds here, got a decent amount of popcorn buds also.

Not trimmed especially closely, but last grow i ended up vaping my trim and was surprised at its quality, so i just left on anything with significant crystals.

More pics and dry weight to come, but i estimate about an ounce fully dry from the big plant.

Some bud porn from just before harvest

33g Dried from the bigger plant. Plus 8 or 9 from the small one (not pictured due to being smoked already)

Obviously the small one was a problem, but the DWC could easily have outgrown that case and light, so I think perhaps the extra effort (well, noise) of pumps and things is unnecessary, and im just going to attempt a second go at the hempy bucket method, but in smaller cups for transplanting when sexed.

Next time I think I will also trim a bit more, as the lower buds were quite shaded out. I am not convinced this will increase yield due to distance from the CFL, but maybe.

Hopefully next time I can get 2oz from 125w, (2.2g per watt), which isnt great for a decent sized grow, but I would view it as a success in these conditions, and definately attainable.

Any comments, suggestions, comments are welcome, thanks

Great grow. Very inspirational and motivational to get mine up asap. Sorry you had so much trouble with the small one.

-X

MMM looks so tastey, nice work.

great read and great grow! thanks!

Just check your maths there.
2oz from a 125w is about 0.4g / watt not 2.2g. Still mighty impressive though.

v12xjs said:

Just check your maths there.
2oz from a 125w is about 0.4g / watt not 2.2g. Still mighty impressive though.

Click to expand...

Erm yeah, 2.2 watts per gram... not grams per watt. Apparently my brain thinks in reverse sometimes.

Xander: The small one wasnt really trouble or anything, it just took so long to dry out initially that it never got a chance to get big. Who doesnt always want more though

Thanks for all the comments, hope I made it seem as relatively easy and effective as it is.

Itd be excellent to see small grows such as these become more and more maintainence free, effective and reliable in terms of results.

nice grow mate!

just a quick question about the light, ive just ordered a 250w envirolite cfl

what spectrum of light was the bulb you had (blue/6700k) or (red/2400)

ive bought the blue one and am wondering if this will be sufficent?

im growing the autoflowering ak47 also

I used the blue one for the first two and a bit weeks, then switched to the red one afterwards.

I'm not really sure how much of a difference it makes, when I sprouted some seeds under the red one they werent noticably any slower growing. I mostly bought both because I figured each bulb would be used half as much, so wouldnt cost me any extra in the long run.