My beautiful system: Description with pics

Hello grasscity community! BigInfinity here. I'm new. I started growing for the CA medicinal community about two years ago. About six months ago I built a new grow project, and it is finally working the way I imagined. I thought I would post some pics and see what y'all think. Here is what the pics show you:

I am growing under 6k watts. I built this custom PVC system using a router and jig. The system can accommodate about 100 plants, depending on plant structure. I am running two 70 gallon reservoirs, and each res has two large pumps (in case one burns out when I am away for a couple of days). I have inverted EZ-clone sprayers on either side of each plant site. They spray the roots for one minute every five minutes. My grow is probably most technically understood as an NFT system, since the root mass of each plant eventually fills the lower third of the 6" PVC gully.

The pics show my grow at about four weeks into bloom. I transplanted these babies directly from my EZ-cloner to this system, then ran my HPS lights at 18:6 for the first week to get a bit veg time. Other than their time in the cloning machine, and one week under 18:6, I don't really veg my babies.

In this grow, I have all Super Lemon Haze. I am conducting an experiment with the two reservoirs, using Heavy 16 in one system, and Cutting Edge in the other. So far I see no real difference between the two sides of the garden. Both look fantastic.

You can see that I try to cut away most of the foliage and flowers below the canopy I want these plants to send ALL of their energy to those big top ripe flowers. This also makes the system easy to see and service.

Finally, I've includes some closeups of the young flowers. I love the smell of SLH, and these ladies are already starting to smell really nice.

Other notes about the system:
CO2 from burning natural gas on regulator.
One big AC unit.
Air-cooled lights, one 6" fan for each pair.
All Reverse Osmosis water
I change nutes every week. Fresh nutes peak at about 1400ppm, and drop to about 900ppm by the end of the week.

Cheers!

BigInfinity

Edited by BigInfinity, 12 May 2012 - 02:54 PM.

71 views and no love for a newb?

btw, this grow represents two years experience. I started with Jose Cervantes, worked my way through Ed Rosenthal, and am now looking to forums to further expand my mind and community.

Some problems and troubleshooting I've been dealing with recently:

I let my RO filters clog up, and my municipal water pressure cause some leaking in my water filtration area (four linked 50 gallon barrels is a side room). The humidity from the leak was getting into the garden space, and my humidity levels were spiking up to about 80%. The flowers are still too small to rot from this much humidity, especially with the total air movement I have in the space, but I definitely wanted to get that under control before they start to bulk up. Here is what I did:

As you can see from the res photos, they were previously open on the top. I've duct-taped plastic sheeting that now covers them to reduce evaporation (and algae, though I've never had algae problems develop before I changed out the res). I am also running a dehumidifier 24/7, and I took care of that RO filter leak. Hopefully I will be back at 50% in a couple of days, the time it will take for the leak to dry out.

Edited by BigInfinity, 06 May 2012 - 10:39 PM.

hey big-i, so you think your system is beautiful do you??? well, so do i!!! very neat and clean, i really like it. i too, do a lot of trimming under the canopy. helps with air circulation too, which is very important. i'll be watching this grow. i think it's gonna be a good one!!!

Thanks, GrowBot (any affiliation with the company by the same name?). I will keep posting photos in the days to come.

Another week passes. My pics from the Friday res change. I've definitely let these girls get too big, and wish I hadn't vegged them an extra week out of the cloning machine. The grow room is looking too jungle-ish.

I started feeding them carbs (bud candy) last week, and bloom enhancer (grotek's monster bloom) in addition to their regular nutes. PPM's peaked higher than ideal (1700ppm) with the extras, but SLH seems resilient to this. I raised the CO2 level (1400) to correspond with the higher nute concentrations.

Humidity has dropped, but is still to high... there is just so much plant matter in the room. I'll investigate picking up a bigger dehumidifier this weekend, and using my current one to my my drying/curing space.

Edited by BigInfinity, 12 May 2012 - 02:56 PM.

Is that place Heaven? I'd love to visit, maybe take a tour lol

Is that place Heaven? I'd love to visit, maybe take a tour lol

Heaven, but a little too bushy. The girls are totally taking over my aisle space, and they are up to the level of my fans. I've only got about 8 more inches of ceiling space to move the lights. I am going to have to carefully tie some of these colas down if they aren't going to get too close to the 'sun.'

Heaven, but a little too bushy. The girls are totally taking over my aisle space, and they are up to the level of my fans. I've only got about 8 more inches of ceiling space to move the lights. I am going to have to carefully tie some of these colas down if they aren't going to get too close to the 'sun.'

Are there any buds yet? It just looks like a greenhouse rather than weed plants

Are there any buds yet? It just looks like a greenhouse rather than weed plants

Flowers are still very immature. I'm at week five of ten, so there is still a month+ more to develop bud structure, but the node spacing is looking good. I have high expectations for these girls.

Edited by BigInfinity, 12 May 2012 - 05:11 PM.

Ok. More pics, and an update. The garden is overgrown. This is my second cycle with this space, and plants are totally THRIVING in the new environment. SLH has always been a big strain for me, but these are way bigger than I've ever grown them. I've gotta scrog or something next time around, and grow fewer plants, because this has gotten ridiculous.

I also realized that I was adding a week to my schedule. The photos I'm posting today come from the end of weeks five and six. I just started week seven, and my SLH usually needs about ten+ weeks to get fully ripe. Things are getting exciting, and the trichs are starting to look very pretty.

BTW, I testing two kinds of nutrients in this room. In one res I am running Cutting Edge, the entire line. In the other res I am running Heavy 16. Cutting Edge has been my nut of choice for a long time, but lately the hydro shops have been pushing Heavy 16 so much that I decided to do a test run. So far the Cutting edge side is producing denser flowers with more trichs, but I'm getting a bit more of the SLH citrus smell from the Heavy 16 side. I'm using the entire line of both products, with very little of anything else (Bud Candy on the Cutting edge side. Heavy 16 claims to need no additional carbs).

Edited by SIRSOG, 19 June 2012 - 03:15 PM.

thats a wicked setup.. i can't do hydro yet, but will keep your design in my mind

I would recommend getting advanced nutrients big bud and overdrive along with that bud candy for some super fat and crystallized bud i use it and will never use anything else

I would recommend getting advanced nutrients big bud and overdrive along with that bud candy for some super fat and crystallized bud i use it and will never use anything else

Yeah? What do big bud and overdrive do, specifically. Right now I'm meeting all of my girls' needs, so if I were going to try them out, I would have to figure out where to find the headroom in the reservoir. I'm already working at 1950ppm at the beginning of a res change, dropping down to 1100ppm over seven days. I'd have to cut something out.

These detail photos are actually cropped from the previous pix.

Can you say AWESOME!! Can't wait till I got that much space to work with. Good Job.

You have a really sweet setup here, that is for sure!

That is a lot of work you've done/ will be doing. I hope everything turns out beautifully!

Yeah? What do big bud and overdrive do, specifically. Right now I'm meeting all of my girls' needs, so if I were going to try them out, I would have to figure out where to find the headroom in the reservoir. I'm already working at 1950ppm at the beginning of a res change, dropping down to 1100ppm over seven days. I'd have to cut something out.

Big bud will maximize your buds potency(crystals,pistils) and size for the first few weeks and overdrive will add so much weight at the end if your stems arent strong the buds will snap the stems. (happend to me twice lol) and bud candy makes the the buds taste amazing and every time i add it to my res(i grow aeroponics) the buds instantly smell amazing and will also add some weight do to carbs in it. And big bud will be the only bloom supplement you beed for p/k in the first few weeks.. Give it a try next go around i guarentee you wont regret it

Edited by Silentnvd, 27 May 2012 - 08:20 PM.

So these photos are taken at the end of week 07. The trichs are coming in nicely, and many of these photos are macro shots of the beautiful little parts of our favorite flower.

As a reminder to anyone following this thread, I'm testing Heavy 16 vs Cutting Edge on the same strain. For a while I was thinking that Cutting Edge was the clear leader, but things are pretty even again. I think the Cutting Edge might be a bit more velvety looking with trichs, but I'm sure liking the Heaving 16 smell. Can't wait to see how these continue to fill out in the remaining few weeks.

Edited by BigInfinity, 03 June 2012 - 05:01 PM.

Wow amazing !

Very nice beautiful grow, good luck. I want more pictures.