Project Closet: Ebb & Flow, 600W, 4 plants, 2xLambo, Sour Diesel, GSxOG

Hey dudes! After a bit of consideration and I decided to undertake growing my own cannabis. I'm somewhat a science geek and I live in a state (Colorado) that allows me to grow up to 6 plants.. so I'm taking advantage! :woohoo: :dance013:

Not much of a talker, but I'm looking for some experienced feedback during my grow. So please feel free to chime in, I would love to hear feedback!

Here's the rundown:
Setup:
I have an unused closet in my basement. It's about 20"x96". It luckily is connected to my crawl space - so I replaced my crawl space door with 2" thick insulation and ran some 6" duct out that door into my crawl space where a 6" inline booster fan pulls air from my closet/hood.

I decided to create an E&F table for this grow. I read a bit about E&F vs other methods, but I liked the simplicity of E&F and I felt I could get a decent setup to fit my closet at a decent price.

I started by building this DIY E&F table, it was very simple to build but I can already tell (3wks into usage) it will be a PIA when changing the reservoir. I may address this sometime soon..

Plants:
2xLambo
1xSour Diesel
1xGSxOG (Grape Stomper x OG Kush)

Like I said, I live in an awesome state and was lucky enough to pickup some clones from the local dispensary. $15 for a rooted clone in a rockwool plug - plus a 30 day guarantee. Deal!

I originally started with 3 plants, but lost 1 right away to a drought (see posts below). When I replaced the dead plant, I decided to pick up another lambo which brought my total to 4 (why not?).

Nutrients:
I decided to go with the 3-part Flora series from General Hydroponics in combination with General Hydroponic's cal-mag.

I've also applied a Magic Green foliar spray from House & Garden - I plan on applying this every 2 weeks right before lights off.

Medium:
I have put a lot of thought into medium and have decided to go with rockwool blocks from GroDan. I first started by putting the clone plugs into a 4x4 block where I then top fed, flooded, and hand sprayed for the first few weeks. It took me a while to get the watering down and the roots to pull through.

After the roots pull .5"-1" through the bottom of the 4x4 blocks, I then put those on a 6x6x6 ParGro blocks. The ParGro blocks have the vertical fibers which apparently dries the block out and is better for E&F systems.

All said and done, I'm hoping to flood the 6x6x6 blocks about 3" up the block and top-feeding as necessary (but at least once a week with a DTW flush to rid salts).

Photos coming up in the next several posts..

My table is alive!

12/7

My closet pulling air into my crawlspace..

12/7

These are what the babies looked like on the ride home.. I was so PUMPED!!

12/7

Week 1 (12/8 - 12/15):
I didn't pre-soak the GroDan blocks right away, so I believe all the water from the plugs were pulled by the dry block which resulted in sever under watering..

My 600W metal halide ran 24hr/day during this week.. I wish I would have done 18/6..

After night 1, fuck!

12/8

I picked up a new lambo and sprayed the shit out of the sour diesel, my original plant is not recovering..

12/8

I replaced the dead plant and soaked my 4x4x4 blocks in 5.5ph water. I had to break a few roots to get the plugs out when I soaked them, but it wasn't too bad.. and I think it was worth it in hindsight. I took the following pictures 5 days into the grow after the soaking. At this point, I'm using 1/4 strength nutrient mix as prescribed on the Flora Series bottles. No cal mag or magic green, yet.

All 4 plants from the top:

12/12

All 4 from the side:

12/12

Week 3 Update 1 (12/24-12/26):
I made some big changes in my closet recently, so I wanted to post an update (and start this journal all together).

All of these pictures were taken today (12/26). I still haven't been flooding with the timer, but I have been manually flooding maybe 1 time a day for just a minute or two. My 1 block not showing roots through the bottom get flooded less.

I picked up some 6x6x6 pargro blocks to put my 4x4x4 cubes onto. I really wanted the 6x6x4 block to put my 4x4x4 on - but my local hydro store didn't carry the 6x6x4 - so hopefully this 6" cube works.

I went with pargro because grodan recommends it for E&F systems since it dries quicker. I'm fairly certain starting tomorrow AM I will need to start flooding my table more regularly. Luckily I'll be home all weekend to check on it!

I soaked and flushed the 6" cubes with 5.5ph 0ppm water, for about 30 minutes. Then I flushed (DTW) the blocks with my old reservoir solution (~940ppm). I have a new solution made up around 1010ppm at 5.5ph in my reservoir now (I'm using the week 3 blend in this solution plus about 200ppm of cal mag.

Sour Diesel roots:

12/26

Lambo 1 roots:

12/26

Lambo 2 roots (FRESH!):

12/26

GSxOG root tip:

12/26

Roots new mansion:

12/26

Santa also got me some new coco mat covers instead of the annoying plastic sheets. Thanks santa!

12/26

Notice, 1 plant (GSxOG, which is barely rooted) is not put on a block yet. When it gets roots about .5"-1" below the 4" block, I'll flush the big block with nutrient solution and place the 4" block on it. I'm hoping that's soon since I can see a little root popping out now.