dresser stealth grow

[buthidae]

Inside of the dresser is primed, but I'm going to run out and grab some more white so it has a more solid base coat. Hoping that by getting a better base down I'll avoid having all the metallic silver soak into the wood. If this still doesn't come out the way I like, I'm going to just buy a bucket of gloss white. I'm getting sick of spray painting the inside of a dresser... way too many fumes, and it's too difficult to get to certain areas. Pictures will be updated later, once I've got more done.

[pawlywog]

i'm pulling a chair up for this

[buthidae]

Ok, so it could have been the bowl, or it could have been the fumes... in any case, the silver seems to work REALLY well. I put two coats of gloss white down, and once they were dry decided to try the silver again (I bought two extra cans of white in case it didn't work). The white looked all right, but there were still shadowy spots. I started spraying the silver in and was disappointed at first, till it started drying.

I used just a light coat, and I wont be doing a second. I think the white is showing through a little bit, but it's hard to tell. Very reflective, first picture is in a closet with no windows and no lights on. Second has a flouro about eight feet above it.

Now I just have to decide how to go about mounting the barrel locks. Either of the ideas I've got would be visible from the back. There's a trade off, I can have slightly less visible, or slightly more effective at sealing light and smell, but not both... I'm leaning toward the second option.

[buthidae]

Started getting the bucket ready, used plastic hooks taped to the bottom of the bucket to hold the lines in place for all six air stones. Though the last picture looks cool, I'm not sure if the pump is putting out enough air.

It's an Aquaculture, suitable for 20-60 gallon aquariums. I thought this would pump much more air than it does, maybe the check valves in the second pick are inhibiting air flow? Going to have to work for now till I get more line to take out the check valves, or till I have enough to buy a stronger pump.

[buthidae]

Getting Close! Resprayed the hood, two coats of white, then a light coat of the silver. It is noticeably brighter, so hopefully this works. Ran out of the silver paint though, which I'm going to use to my advantage.
I'm just going to paint the door white (I know it's not quite half, maybe a third of the wall space), and see which way the plant tends to lean towards to determine which works better at getting light to her.

Also got eye bolts into small blocks of wood, the paint is drying on those as I type this. They will be glued into place to both hold the lights in place, and to run the string for the lights down to the bottom, I'll figure something out to hold it there so it's adjustable.

Two small strips of wood are also painted and drying, they'll be glued just inside the door on the dresser. They'll be essentially behind the barrel lock on the panel door. This is so that when I run the weatherstripping around the perimeter of the opening, there is somewhere to stop light coming out by the locks. The pictures below should demonstrate why. Locks are finally on the door, and I've gone with the method that will give me better light and smell restriction.


First pic is just the way I cut the locks, it was much easier and more accurate to lay out a pattern on a single board and get everything scored before beginning to cut it apart. (keep in mind I'm using a hand saw to prevent alerting my room mates, everything I've cut had to be done with said saw)

Second pic is while they're drying on the door, to give a general idea of the layout.

Third pick is an example of how the bolts on the top and bottom are mounted.

Fouth is an example of how both the bolts on the sides are mounted. You can see by the cuts I had to make to get this to work why I need the wood underneath. There is a gap here that light would leak out of.

[myles117]

awesome grow serup!!!! love your use of the CFLs with the reflector Im def subscribed to this one for the long haul. My names Myles.... nice ta meet ya!

[buthidae]

Originally Posted by myles117

awesome grow serup!!!! love your use of the CFLs with the reflector Im def subscribed to this one for the long haul. My names Myles.... nice ta meet ya!

Thanks man, nice meeting you as well. Nice to have you aboard, I'll probably have a lot of questions as this gets going, lol. Such as this one, anyone:


Would a Grodan 3" block of rockwool be large enough to grow a plant till it's able to be sexed?

I'm getting ready to germ (hopefully tonight yet), and I'm only going to do one plant. Don't know if I should plant one and wait to see what it is, or if I should plant a couple?

The only problem is, I only have one site once they outgrow the rockwool, so I need to sex beforehand, or only try one...

[myles117]

hmmm....it should be enough... not much more then enough to sex though. You are gunna have to sex when they are small too or they'll have too large of a root system and they'll be quite pissed off.

How tall is the 3X3 cube? Jusst wanna maake sure it is a cube and not a shallow rectangulaar type.

[buthidae]

Originally Posted by myles117

hmmm....it should be enough... not much more then enough to sex though. You are gunna have to sex when they are small too or they'll have too large of a root system and they'll be quite pissed off.

How tall is the 3X3 cube? Jusst wanna maake sure it is a cube and not a shallow rectangulaar type.

Awesome, I hope they show early then. Think I'll still only do two, hopefully I can find someone to take an orphan if I end up with two girls. As soon as I'm sure of a female (or in the case of two females, then the stronger looking of the two), the cube will be put into the clay pellets and the plastic removed.

I don't have a ruler, but I'd say it's not quite a cube, it's about 3x3x4.

Also, for veg before sex is established, what should I have the cube in? Would I do a small scale set up like the jiffy planters, just a shallow basin with some water (I've read in a lot of places, no nutes for first two weeks)?

[waterfarmer]

I don't do DWC but from what I understand I think most of the roots will be in the water by the time it is sexed. So I don't see why it matters much how large the rockwool is. Again, I do ebb and flow, so maybe I am missing something. No nutes for the first two weeks is right, but I usually give 1/4 strength starting on the second.

[pomangro]

You are off to an excellent start man! When i first started i used a halogen bulb and ended up with a five foot tall girl with about three bud sites;'twas terrible. I am watching this one for sure.

[buthidae]

Hit a snag, was a short in one of the "Y" adapters for the lights, gotta get a new one tomorrow. At that point, everything will be ready, with the exception of the hole being cut in the bucket's lid. More pictures of that tomorrow once I get my replacement adapter. Hopefully I'll have a couple of germed seeds as well.

Thanks for the input Waterfarmer. If you check earlier though, the problem I'm going to have is that I can't put both of them in my single pot. I need to grow them to a large enough size to sex BEFORE the stronger female gets put into the pot. Hence my problem, how do I grow them up to that point? Any ideas anyone?

[buthidae]

Originally Posted by pomangro

You are off to an excellent start man! When i first started i used a halogen bulb and ended up with a five foot tall girl with about three bud sites;'twas terrible. I am watching this one for sure.

Wow man, you read my mind. Don't know if you read the whole post, but I'm planning on upgrading lights at some point. Was actually looking at halogens the other day, figured I'd do some looking into it first. Glad I didn't get them then, thanks for the heads up! +

[myles117]

Originally Posted by buthidae

Awesome, I hope they show early then. Think I'll still only do two, hopefully I can find someone to take an orphan if I end up with two girls. As soon as I'm sure of a female (or in the case of two females, then the stronger looking of the two), the cube will be put into the clay pellets and the plastic removed.

I don't have a ruler, but I'd say it's not quite a cube, it's about 3x3x4.

Also, for veg before sex is established, what should I have the cube in? Would I do a small scale set up like the jiffy planters, just a shallow basin with some water (I've read in a lot of places, no nutes for first two weeks)?

correct. no nutrients for 2-3 weeks. Then start with 1/4 recommended strength. the basin shouldnt always have water in it. Just water the cubes and allow them to dry out (without getting completely dry which the plant wouldnt like one bit). Itll obv stay moist longer when the root system is not yet established.

Im real drunk n high.... i rly needa get some slp peace out man

[buthidae]

Originally Posted by myles117

correct. no nutrients for 2-3 weeks. Then start with 1/4 recommended strength. the basin shouldnt always have water in it. Just water the cubes and allow them to dry out (without getting completely dry which the plant wouldnt like one bit). Itll obv stay moist longer when the root system is not yet established.

Thanks, that's exactly what I needed to know. I think I'll put them in containers in the rockwool once they germ, then wrap the tops for the first couple days to keep the humidity up.