Check out our Hydro/bubbleponic Grow cabinet...

Here we have an old cabinet, with an old waterpump, an old air pump, an old surge protector, an old Vicks vaporizer, a can of beer and a trashcan with a beat up disposable cooler around it. We've also made our own net pot out of whatever the hell the thing we made it out of is called. What that is, We don't know or care, as long as it works. Oh, and some tin foil. Our light right now is the beautiful custom made hemp FL fixture that you see pictured... but we plan on adding supplemental LEDs and/or CF lights. The main thing we love about the setup is the cost: Zip. That's right, we either had the stuff laying around, or stole it from decrepit old people. (Jk(jk))

The trashcan is our root reservoir. The reason it's sitting in the cooler is to shield it from sudden temp changes (The whole thing's just sitting on the ground in our basement). We've also routed out a hole in the back side for the lamp ballast to fit into, we're hoping this will keep water temps up.

The beer gives us Co2, the Vicks vaporizer provides the humidity (The res is full of nute water, so we'll see how that goes), the tubes provide adequate lighting... Especially when reflected through cabinet with the tin foil (And scotch tape).

Right now we're just running straight tap water in the can, as we figure the peat pellet has nutrition to last little Shakira a couple weeks, and if we wait we probably won't burn her.


Any-who, we've already done some lighting experiments, and are pretty convinced that Supplemental LEDs will do wonders for our plant. We had a single, 1 watt LED trained on the seedling during development, as well as three t5 tubes and a 30w spot light. The seedling grew a somewhat sharp kink towards the LED, and then just kind of leaned it's whole stem... So we were thinking of trying some ZFT, or Zero Force Training as we've coined it... where we'll just make the sapling chase a high wattage led around into whatever shape we please. So obviously more on that to come.

As pictured, the plant sits in a jiffy peat pellet, and is about 48 hours old... This is bagseed from some middle of the road bud, but we're going to make something nice out of it, we're sure. She's pretty big for her age already.

Eventually, we will branch out and use the top shelf for cloning alone, with some CFLs for the little girlies to come, and we're probably going to add a scrog to the mother plant in the bottom, but for now this is it.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask... and If you see anything that we're doing stupid, please just say something. We'd rather not hear about our choice to grow under florescent lights, as we're familiar with the different schools of thought... but anything else is fair game. We've researched for a long fucking time, and are over ready to put some of what we know to good use


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Day 4 of growth!

She's doing alright, we've added a 7 LED flashlight... we don't know the wattage, but it's pretty bright. We realized we were flooding poor little shakira by having the water pump on constantly, so we turned it off.

The one pic shows a bunch of other random non-pot seeds we planted at the same time, and they're not doing too bad.

Also, "Trick or Treat"

Let us know what you think!

This has to be one of the most ghetto grows I've ever seen on this site. There is so much wrong here that I still can't believe you are for real.

Tin foil, LED flashlights, beer for co2, driveway rocks, miracle grow...oh my. Not sure where you did your research but you are doing everything they tell you not to. Those poor plants aren't going to last more than a week or two with that setup. You need way more lighting at the very least.

Ha, yeah... It is kind of ghetto


With a total cost of $0, though... I don't think we could have done any better.

The thing is that I really can't find a problem with any of the variables you mentioned...

If you wrap your head around the reflectivity issue, and are trying to solve the problem with household objects... Tin foil fits the bill perfectly.We used the dull side of the tin foil, so as to reflect an optimum amount of light while reducing hot spots. I can't think of any reason that would be bad... I mean, look at the reflectors on most high wattage lights. Are they metallic, or painted white?

The whole "Beer for co2" Thing is self explanatory... When beer ferments, it creates a shit ton of co2, which is what we want for our dearest little lady. Can you provide your reasoning behind that being a bad Idea? If it'll kill the plant, I'll stop it... but I've seen a couple large scale grow rooms that just use a huge container filled with beer for their co2 with no problem.

As far as the "driveway rocks" go, they are actually pretty lightweight, and came out of an old water fountain we had laying around, as did the pump for the feed tube. We figured anything that allowed for enough space for the roots to grow was fine, and I tell you what, As long as we provide the nutrients, they should work fine. The Idea behind using hydroton is that it is lightweight and PH neutral, and when implemented in a nutrient drip system, it drains quickly. The rocks meet all of these requirements except being light weight, but we left enough space for root growth between them that that won't present a problem.

Now, I can't for the life of me figure out why an LED flashlight is a problem... The main problem (As I see it) with our setup is the lack of light. This can be attributed to the $0 that we've spent on lighting. You said yourself that we need more light, and I've already posted that the plant grew distinctly towards the LEDs. When a seedling is small enough that it can rest in the beam of a high watt LED flashlight, and be completely bathed in light, of course it makes sense to do it.

And as for the miracle grow, I know it's not an Ideal nutrient, but it's what we had laying around. Most of the problem we've seen with people using it, is that they use it at too high of concentrations, and end up burning their plant up. We won't do that; so the MG shouldn't be a problem.



Now if most of those reasons were your own, please explain why this entire grow, in your estimation, won't support the plant for more than a few weeks. I mean, we've really looked at every different variable, and decided after looking at the science behind them that this setup would work. I'm not sure that the majority of growers out there actually do this, or if they just do things because "that's the way it's done". I'm leaning towards the later, and if that truly is the case, it leaves a lot of room for misinformation to sneak it's ugly head into things.


Peace,
-C

Looks like you need smaller rock for your net pots. I use pea gravel stuff works great and its heavy enough to keep the plant and roots sturdy in the net pot. Rinse it good before you introduce it to your growing system. I would exchange the tin foil and reline your cabinet with mylar and definitley get a brighter lighting system going. Buy a book if you haven't already on growing hydro marijuana. Lots of good info there in the palm of your hand to have a successful grow. When you are done with your cabinet it should look something like this if it's done right.



Good luck with your babies!

Ok, we revamped it... We added a fan, changed the co2 res, put our lights on an 18/6 timer, and added a couple 25w CFLs. We also mounted the existing tubes to the cabinet, and ran the wires a wee bit prettier.

We'd like to point out that the running investment in this setup is now only ten dollars. No matter how ghetto it looks, whatever we get off of it is basically pure profit.

Here she is now:

Hey man, I know you are trying hard to make a grow cabinet from scraps you can find but dude what you have there is very primative. Hydro is very tricking you have to constantly check the water ph and you have to make sure you are using the right parts per million in the water depending on the stage of growth. With out these test it will be an epic fail not to mention that you need nutes for hydro. I will say this again the rock you are using is way to big and Miracle grow is not meant for hydro systems. Those peat moss starters need to be planted in small lava or pea gravel rock or soil like soon.

Its not too late to scrap the hydro and get those babies planted in soil. But if you insist on the hydo check this out and you probably can build this with stuff laying around the house you already have the pump.

http://hydroponicsfriend.com/archives/21

I am currentling using this micro hydro system for 2 plants and so far so good. I just double the size of whats in the video to accomodate 2 plants. My babies are really healthy.

One more tip those lights need to be 3-6 inches above the plants or the stems will get stretched out trying to reach the light. Just becareful depending how much heat your set up lets off not to burn the plant. Also you need blue light for the veg state and your lights looks red which is for flowering stage.

Yeah dude, Thanks for the advice!

We've got a 3 gal pot of potting soil set up, so at the first sign of trouble we can easily transplant her.


Having said that, we're going to try to finish up in this cab. In the pictures, the lights were pulled, but they are dropped to between 2-3 inches from the plant now. The LED that is trained on it is blue, and the t5s in the back Are around 2700k, So they're pretty blue too. We should be adding a 175 watt MH in a weeks time.

As far as the PH goes, we are keeping it between 5.2-5.8 with mixed aquarium balancer, as we know that if it drifts too far from that level, the plant won't properly absorb all its nutes.

And the nutrients...

We have ourselves a 30-10-10 Mixture of Miracle grow's water soluble "Miracid", for acid loving plants. We are only using this for veg, and are switching to a blooming formula for flowering. Here's how the numbers work TO the best of our knowledge, and as explained to us by the owner of a local Nursery/greenhouse.

N - The first number (Nitrogen) is for up growth, good during veg and really helps to develop foliage.
P - The second number (Phosphorus) is good for down growth, or flowering and fruiting of many different plants.
K - Third and finally, Potassium. This is a nutrient that the plant uses for all around plant growth.

As she explained it, These nutes when used in hydroponics just need to be diluted by half. Knowing how sensitive cannabis can be to These types of things, we will start at half a teaspoon a gallon, and will slowly work our way up by quarter teaspoons until we see some slight signs of nute burn, then flush and go with our last good measurement. It's important to note that we are still running PH balanced water until the seedling gets bigger,

I know That cannabis is slightly different from other plants, but this lady knew what she was talking about... and to some extent, A plant is a plant.

It may seem that our setup is pretty primitive, but I think that's just because we've used household objects, and bought almost nothing. We've put a lot of effort into making it functional.

The lighting, even though it may not be Ideal, is well over what we need.

The Bare minimum standard that I've seen is 3000 lumens per sq foot.

Each one of our t5s puts out 5000, and our Circular Fls put out 1475 each... That's a total of 17950 Lumens bouncing around in our grow space, which is about 5983.3 lumens a sq foot, and more than adequate. Once we add the MH in there, it should be around 10,000 Lumens a square foot, which is what the sun puts off on a nice sunny afternoon.

Now we understand that our choice in grow media is nowhere near the norm for most hydro/bubble systems, but we also realize that there is no way the large rocks can be detrimental to root growth. They are spaced far enough apart that they will allow for root growth, and are heavy enough to give the plant something to hold onto once it gets nice and big. It's important to note that if we had the choice, we would be using hydroton, but there are no hydro stores within 100 miles, and We don't want to order anything online.

Please correct us if we're mistaken about any of this, but we've done a lot of research. If you do think that something is not right, the easiest way to correct us is to post a link to an explanation. It may be a pain in the ass, but the only way we're going to change our minds is if we can wrap our heads around the right way to do things, which is what we think we've done here.

killerduke said:

http://hydroponicsfriend.com/archives/21

I am currentling using this micro hydro system for 2 plants and so far so good. I just double the size of whats in the video to accomodate 2 plants. My babies are really healthy.

Click to expand...

Man that is a nice little DIY setup... Looks clean! Thanks for the link. The thing I can't get over, though... is that it's basically what we have here, just scaled down.

He has a coffee can, we have a trash can.

He has a homemade net pot, we have a homemade net pot.

He has an air pump with a feed tube, so do we. The only difference here is that we have a water pump for the feed tube, and an air pump hooked to an airstone in the bottom of the res. We're less efficient with our energy use, but we accomplish the same basic principles with our setup as he does with his.


Now, we have some business to attend to... Peace.

Here's a few pics of the setup We've got going for the plant to actually grow in. This should be the final revision.

We have a 6 gallon Trashcan, With a homemade styrofoam lid, An air pump running to an airstone in the bottom of the can. And we have a water pump In the bottom of the bucket to feed the plants until the roots reach the water, and to drain the res when we flush. We are using trace nutrients right now in the res, and The plant is doing pretty good.

In the netcup, there is a layer of really light, stone checkers, and on top of that about 2-3 inches of peat which the plant is flourishing in. The bottom of the netcup has big holes sliced in it for larger root growths, though I don't think that'll be a problem. The system is going to be fed by a moisture switch in the soil (Basically two super close wires, so that when the soil is wet enough, It shorts them together. That way, when they;re not shorted, it means there's no moisture in the soil and I can turn the pump on.
eventually going to be controlled through a STAMP micro-controller, or a parallel output from an old PC... Hopefully everything from temp, humidity, and PH to feeding schedule. We plan on using the timer for the lights throughout the whole setup, though.


Here's a link to a bunch of pics from setup.

http://img717.imageshack.us/g/cimg3744.jpg/

Hey man, TRICK OR TREAT, ROFL. You definitley have it dialed in now.

"whatever we get off of it is basically pure profit."
don't expect any profit my friend. man the things you could do with that cabinet. and i also keep seeing you say "we" . i can not believe this is a joint operation and 2 people could be down to do something so ridiculous.

merch08 said:

"whatever we get off of it is basically pure profit."
don't expect any profit my friend. man the things you could do with that cabinet. and i also keep seeing you say "we" . i can not believe this is a joint operation and 2 people could be down to do something so ridiculous.

Click to expand...

Yeah, some folks would see it that way... But we're in this for an experience. We're trying to take what we have, and make it work Hardcore... And if for whatever reason we're right about how we think this'll work, then We have a lot to gain and nothing to lose. At very least experience for next time.

If you think about it, it's a hybrid Soil/Bubble system, and I don't think it can fail. You just can't get stuck in what it's made out of... You have to think of what it will be doing for the plant, and although this setup is ugly, it is functionally sound.

Until the next update, Peace and smoke.

Yeah, this is a two man coop med grow. It's mostly one of us writing it, so Sometimes the articles get jumbled up.

So we've made a few changes.... we got a 5 400 watt HPS lights for 100 BUCKS, So The plan's changed. I also got a pretty beefy air pump, and a 2.00 Hepa filter with a fan like output.




Here she is on the start of her 11th night. of 18/6 timing. We moved her to a black out trashcan, and are pumping 120 GPH of air into 6 gallons of nutrient solution through 4 1" airstones. The stones are weighted to the bottom symmetrically. PH is at 6.5, and the temp stays constant at around 75. I am still using miracle grow, and I don't plan to switch for this grow at least.

The wind is provided by the HEPA filter, which also does a standup job of removing any and all smells. We smoked today near it, and nobody could smell the ganja, just five minutes after we got done.
The lighting is provided by one 400 watt HPS, but as soon as she gets bigger, she'll be bathed in 3 lights, and then all 5. Four lights for the side, and one light for the top. They'll be stacked with two more under the existing ones facing in, The picture should clear things up.



There are six other germed seeds mixed in with her dirt, and if they sprout, I'll move to a much larger res and grow a tree. I think we've got the lights for it.

Please let us know what you think, We'll be very grateful for any help.

well man you have to build a grow box 2x2x6 or so... it has to light proof... meaning no light gets in when its dark time.... and it has to be ventilated meaning air get in from below and exits out the roof.... and your 5 lights its to much you would only need one...this is all the heat your box can handle.... unless you want to grow a lot in a room then you can use all the lights. so look for some models of grow boxes or just get a grow tent. the bigger your space more light you will need.... watch a video to learn more from the links in the noobies

BCbudEZ said:

Yeah, this is a two man coop med grow. It's mostly one of us writing it, so Sometimes the articles get jumbled up.

So we've made a few changes.... we got a 5 400 watt HPS lights for 100 BUCKS, So The plan's changed. I also got a pretty beefy air pump, and a 2.00 Hepa filter with a fan like output.




Here she is on the start of her 11th night. of 18/6 timing. We moved her to a black out trashcan, and are pumping 120 GPH of air into 6 gallons of nutrient solution through 4 1" airstones. The stones are weighted to the bottom symmetrically. PH is at 6.5, and the temp stays constant at around 75. I am still using miracle grow, and I don't plan to switch for this grow at least.

The wind is provided by the HEPA filter, which also does a standup job of removing any and all smells. We smoked today near it, and nobody could smell the ganja, just five minutes after we got done.
The lighting is provided by one 400 watt HPS, but as soon as she gets bigger, she'll be bathed in 3 lights, and then all 5. Four lights for the side, and one light for the top. They'll be stacked with two more under the existing ones facing in, The picture should clear things up.



There are six other germed seeds mixed in with her dirt, and if they sprout, I'll move to a much larger res and grow a tree. I think we've got the lights for it.

Please let us know what you think, We'll be very grateful for any help.

Click to expand...

well man you have to build a grow box 2x2x6 or so... it has to light proof... meaning no light gets in when its dark time.... and it has to be ventilated meaning air get in from below and exits out the roof.... and your 5 lights its to much you would only need one...this is all the heat your box can handle.... unless you want to grow a lot in a room then you can use all the lights. so look for some models of grow boxes or just get a grow tent. the bigger your space more light you will need.... watch a video to learn more from the links in the noobies

Light bulbs are only efficient for a year or so of use. I have 2 old 400w HPS bulbs collecting dust in a drawer because they don't do shit. I would highly suggest buying new bulbs for everything and not using old crap, you will notice a huge difference. Nico was right about light sealing the cabinet too, you are probably going to get hermaphrodites come flowering time otherwise. Nice effort though. I hope it kicks ass.

Yeah, we'll be getting son Agro bulbs once our cab's set up( hopefully within a week or two. The top bulb is a new one, but all the others are old as sin. Even if they're old, though... 1600 watts of side lighting, and 400 watts of top lighting should make whatever we end up growing a beast.

We're buying this cab: http://www.homedepot.com/Storage/h_d1/N-5yc1vZas7eZ61bb6/R-100580672/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

We've got a really nice air pump, and all we need to do is figure out Whether we want to try aeroponics or DWC.


As far as the light goes, The light escaping would only be a problem if we had another light source near the grow box. We've done our research and blacked out all of our basement windows, and there are no other lights that will be on during the dark cycle. It is 100% dark with the cab lights off, so hopefully we'll fight the hermies off with an ounce of prevention.

Thanks for the input!

BTWs, Sounds like a nice grow you've got (Didn't load the pics, though)... I'll need to catch me some mantis pest control come spring.

I can't wait to see the end result of this grow!!! That's a lot of light for one plant. she's gonna go crazy. good luck gonna be a monster