Roseman's Closet-Grow Tutorial

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Preparation.

You have to have supplies, that can be obtained at any Pet Store, Aquarium Department, Hardware Store, Walmart, Lowes, Targets, or Home Depot. If you can order off the internet, www.amazon.com has everything.

A list to consider is
a Camera, Reflective Material of Mylar or white paint or panda film, or white plastic sheets like they use for garbage bags, 2 sided tape to hang the mylar, a hammer, two screw drivers, flat and phillips, a box of extra large thumb tacks, a roll of duct tape, a roll of masking tape, 2 dozen extra large twistie ties, large scissors, a black magic marker, small scissors, a razor knife, wire cutters, two clean empty plastic gallon water jugs, a clean quart jar, a large collander, a tea strainer, a straightened wire clothes hanger, a can of pressurized air, a big spoon, needle nose pliers, regular pliers, wire cutters, a measuring cup, clean water, seeds, nutrients, lights, pH UP and Down, reflectors, extension cords, surge protectors, an extra 5 gallon bucket, a syphon hose made for aquariums, 24 feet of small cheap chain to hang lights and reflectors from, a large trash can, trash bags, vacumn cleaner, oscilating fan, styrafoam saucers to make lid covers, fishing weights to hold down the air stones,
sun glasses and a cap to wear so the lights don't blind you, my Grow Bible, a notebook and ink pen to take notes and make a daily diary journal, pH test strips, grow cups, rockwool, hydroton, water pump, air pump, air stones, 1/4 inch plastic tubing, ODOR CONTROL, Pesticide, Large Spray Bottle, and the Reservoir TANKS.


Ask me or the BubbleHeads at :
Questions about Bubbleponic Growing Thread
where to get those supplies and what to expect to pay.

Preparation
SAFETY
If you are not in a legal medical growing state,
Rule One, DO NOT TELL ANYONE. Even if you are a legal grower, DO NOT TELL! Someone will steal your grow.
I've been on this site 3 years. The NUMBER ONE reason for getting busted is the X-wife or X-Girlfriend got mad and psissed off and told the Law.
#2, Nosey Neighbors. don't let them see you hauling in strange things. Don't let them smell your grow.
# 3, Cats! Yes, house cats sure do ruin a lot of grows.

Location
Is it empty?
Can you control the smell? the household pets?
Can you control the Humidity? the Heat?
Can you make it ALL Dark with NO Light?
Central Heat and Central Air Conditioning sure help.
Is the area private, and away from visitors?
Is your area clean and bug free?



You can not bring in buckets, tools, or anything from outside, into the indoor grow area. You wil be bringing in bug eggs, spider mite eggs and all kinds of undesirable bugs and microscopic creatures and things that will ruin your grow.

To do anything well, you have to understand it, so let me provide a little background and information here.

Hydroponics
Way over 2600 years ago, a great king named Nebuchadnezzar built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon....the first Hydroponic Garden. 2000 years later, all man had learned was to grow in water, the water had to be flowing or moving. I think most of us have seen hydroponic vegetables growing in containers that look like giant rain gutters, with water running over the roots.
About 50 years ago, man figured out that if the water was highly oxegenated, with air bubbles, then the water did not have to be mofing or flowing.

Today there are several Hydroponic Systems.
I will explain a few here, VERY Simply.

DWC, Deep Water Culture, is the most simple. It is simply roots dangling in water with air stones in the water making bubbles. (sometimes this is mistakenly called bubbleponics)

DWC:

There is also Ebb and Flow, also called Flood and Drain
That is simply a system of flooding water on and off the roots, timely and systamatically.

There is also the N.F.T. System. (Nutrient Film Technique)
I can't find a pic of that, but it is simply using a SPRAY or a flow of water on a timer, spraying the roots.


There is also a DRIP System.
This is a DWC with feeder tubes DRIPPING water onto each grow cup and root base from above. That DRIP has to be on a Timer.

And the Aeroponic System, using a MIST on the roots from below, inside the tank.

A true Bubbleponics System is my favorite. It uses a submersive water pump, that pumps water to an Irrigation Hub, also called an Irrigation Manifold, that divides the water into 6 streams to each grow cup and root base. It is the MOST rapid growing system available. I can get an average of one inch growth in height daily using the Bubleponics Sytem.

So, What Is Bubbleponics, Exactly?

The world’s first continuous plant feeding system, Bubbleponics is a hybrid design that takes the best from both worlds of the Deep Water Culture (aka DWC, “bubbler&#8221 and drip systems. Since the nutrient mix is highly oxygenated, Bubbleponics converts its drip function to a constant feed flow directly to the inner roots. Without needing to take breaks to allow the root base to drain and absorb oxygen, plants in the Bubbleponic system are able to deliver unparalleled growth energy.

This advantage is particularly pronounced during early vegetative phases when the plant’s root mass is still relatively small. Cuttings placed into the system experience no noticeable transplant shock and practically start growing immediately. In experiments measured against leading aeroponic systems, the Bubbleponic design shaved, on average, four days from a two week growing cycle, a 30% growth rate increase over Aeroponics in the early vegetative stage; truly amazing. As the root mass of the respective plants grow larger, growth rate advantages were less evident, however, the plants in the Bubbleponic planter maintained their 4-5 day lead over the aeroponic plants throughout the cycle.

In a series of stress tests, plants in the Bubbleponic system performed remarkably when recovering from an over-fertilized condition. With almost the entire root mass destroyed, Bubbleponics was able to revive 67% of the plants which started re-growing new roots and were able to complete their cycle. None of the other plants in the aeroponic products survived this stress test. The tests concluded that the Bubbleponic system provided significant recovery advantages over other systems when it came to anything that stressed or killed that root mass.

Hub Feeding Ensures Consistency

The Bubbleponic design is, ironically enough, one of the first hydroponic products to use real irrigation parts. This includes a hub feed system, where the main flow from the water pump is broken up into 6 smaller feeder tubes via a pressure regulating irrigation distributor. No other plant’s sites are thus dependant on any other as they would be in most drip systems that use T’ed designs. This also ensures identical feeding conditions at each site.

For this grow, we wil use Bubbleponics . If you do not want to get the water pumps, that is OK, you can still follow along and do a plain DWC.
You will still learn alot here.

of course I'm subscribed

Roseman....what do you use for the Gnats that love to lay larvae on the hydroton. Both as a preventative and once you get an infestation in the DWC ? This would be most helpful.

From Post # 11, J R


The Home Defense Pesticide in the next pic is odorless, stainless and works great.
Every week on this site, I see 4 to 6 new posts, complaining that spider mites ruined their crops. Eggs and larvae and all kinds of critters can ruin a crop, and better and easier than finding a remedy and cure, is using a preventative.
You have to make your grow area "bug proof"!
SPRAY the walls and floor good with a good pesticide, not one just made for ants or roaches.

J R, good question.
after 7 grows, I've never had one gnat, bug, mite, or egg, no critters. I don't ned a cure, if I don't get the problem.
I use Home Defnese Spray, and Stickey Big Strips. You have to go through 4 doors to get to my grow room from outside. I never bring anything into my grow room that a bug or egg could be on. As I previously posted, I throughly wash all my tools and equipment before they get into the room.

I am a very extra cautious grower.
You can't get a DUI offense if you don't drive drunk.
You can't step in cow dookey if you dont walk through the cow pasture.
You can't get algae in the tank, unless you let LIGHT in it.
You can't get root rot, if you don't allow the water to get too hot.
You can't get gnat larvae, if you wont let gnats in the grow area.

hubebaba said:

Good luck friend! I subscribed, not only to see all I have done wrong, but to see what ALL of those lights are for. If I need that many lights, I am in BIG trouble. That looks like a lot of money for someone on disability (actually for a lot of people I would think).

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Looks good Roseman, subbed.

yuppiescum said:

Awesome, Roseman. Love your threads. I'm got 2 growing in a small crappy closet about the same size.

Hope you have some blinds or something between the blanket & window. We call that a 'crack sheet' (aka crackhead window covering) where I come from.

Click to expand...

Uh, apparantly you didn't read the post # 6, that there are BLINDS behind the blanket on the window.

good idea roseman, subscribed

3 days ago, I cleaned the closet, washed the walls, and vacumned the carpet. Today, I sprayed with HOME DEFENSE, an all purpose, "lasts for 12 months" odorless, stainless pesticide, for critters, bugs, eggs, whatever. I just can not emphasis this enough.
You MUST spray the grow area, to not only kill what is present, but to kill the eggs and prevent future eggs.

Clic pics to enlarge and click again to enlarge more.

Well, I need to soak some things in pH prepared water.
( I need to soak everything that goes in the tank or grow cups in pH prepared water.)
To do that, I have to get my pH meter ready.
That means replacing old batteries, cleaning them and calibrating them.


Here you see me replacing the batteries, Triple A size, in my Trunchone EC-ppm meter.

The pH meters all use 4 1.5 volt button batteries.


Let me say again, the meters are not absolutely necesary to grow successfully.
I 've done at least 3 successful grows without a ppm meter or a pH meter. You do need and should have pH test strips if you do not have a pH meter.


I'll discuss " pH " later. I'll also discuss purchasing the meters, and what to look for and insist on.

Here you see my meters.

When you buy any meter,
1, do NOT buy used meters, expecially from ebey,
2, Make sure they are Water-Proof,
3, Be sure they come with Batteries
4, And be sure they come with Calibration Solution


BTW, I have two pH meters, because one was a gift for a grower buddy and she got paranoid after her first grow, and gave it back.

These meters have been loaned to three other growers besides me, and they have really benn used and abused.
I bought a bottle of LCR, LIME, RUST and CALCIUM remover,
poured a small amount in a quart jar, and as you see in these pics, I soaked the tips of the meters in the LCR in the jar, for 20 minutes.

After I rinsed the meters and brushed the tips with a tooth brush, I rinsed my jar very good, and poured some household vinegar in the jar.
Then I soaked the tips in the vinegar for 20 minutes. Later I rinsed them in water again, dipped them back in the vinegar, and dried them with a paper towel, and left them to air dry for an hour.

Time now to calibrate the pH meters.

One of the most aggrevating things I've ever attempted was calibrating a pH meter.
Makes me want to just pee straight up!
And what makes it worst, is having two pH meters to compare results.

Let me give you a heads up about calibrating a pH meter and using it. You have to just use it as a "rule of thumb" so to speak, and use it to try to stay within range.
For those that already know and those that do not, you can put an expensive $54 super-duper pH meter in water, test it, read it, get 6.8 and take it out, stick it back in, and it will be a little different, like 6.6. Shake it around in the water, stir it in the water and you'll get a different results, like 6.4, in the exact same water. Then take it out of the water, turn it off, and put it back in the same water, turn it back on in the water, and read 6.5, blow on it and get 6.9.
Temperature of water makes a big difference in the pH of water.
Shaking and stirring the meter in the water, makes a slight difference.
Turning it on IN the water and turning it on OUT of the water, makes a slight difference.
Turning it OFF and ON in the same water, makes a difference.
Waiting three minutes yields a different reading too.

I had year old calibration solution, but it was still clear looking and smelled OK. I used it and adjusted my meter, and then I used it and adjusted my meter, and then I used it and adjusted my meter, and then I used it and adjusted my meter, and then .......well,,,that took an hour.
I would put it in the 4.0 solution, get it to read 4.0 by adjusting it, (there is a SET SCREW you turn to make it go up or down) then put it in the 6.8 solution, it would read 7.1, I 'd turn it down to make it say 6.8, then try it again in the 4.0 and it would read 3.7!

After I spent an hour, spliting the difference, going back adn forth, it was very close to accurate to the calibration solution. In 6.8, it read 6.7, and in the 4.0, it read 4.1. Sounds good enough, huh?
Then, I checked it with my old meter, and good grief! The old meter said the 4.0 was 3.5 and the 6.8 was read as 6.2.
Took another hour to get the two meters to agree within .5 difference, which is really a broad difference, but one I will accept.
AND I am not even going to compate them to the tEST STRIPs tonight, although I will later.

If you ever want to really drive someone crazy, or start them drinking early, buy them TWO pH meters, and ask them to adjust and calibrate them to perform the same.

Anyway, I got two pH meters, fairly close to reading the smae, but not really. What's a pot head to do?

The pics show my efforts.

nice thread, subscribed!

OH man, I'm so glad Roseman is going through this like this (journal style) just slightly a week or two before I do the same thing. LOTS TO BE LEARNED HERE!!! Like the bit on the bugs coming in from stuff in the garage - GREAT ADVICE - HAD NOT EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT THAT!