Build it and THEY will grow!! Stealth Grow Box Design

Thanks! Well that humidity has got me stumped for a cheap easy fix. I currently have a bowl with water and perlite in it and another bowl with just water and a fan blowing on it and I'm currently below 20% RH. I can spray the inside of the box with my water bottle and it doesn't do anything, just gives me water spots on the mylar. My humidity will go up to about 30% just after I water but doesn't stay there very long.

Guess I'll keep trying things, if I find something that works I'll post it, but hopefully someone tells me before that happens.

 

I would rather have a humidifier in the box before a mister, I don't really want a mist falling on the electrical components, safety first. It sucks humidifiers have to be big, unless your gonna fill them 10 times a day. I made my own last night and its helped but still more to go. I took a tupperware container, screwed a 4" fan to it on one side, screwed a big sponge to the other side and filled the container with water, the sponge stays wet and the fan blows on it. Currently I'm at about 40% humidity, but right after the exhaust fan runs it drops to 26%, when the fan shuts off it builds up again. My place is quite dry to begin with so its not helping one bit, I have electric heat.

I'm currently smoking a fatty it should help me think!!

 

Thanks, it did cost quite a bit. I was saving the receipts to add it all up, now I don't even wanna know.

I had to spend another $40 on it today, my seal on my door failed. It happened on the door I always open. It turns out its a bad idea to have the foam on the front edges, every time the door opened to far it was twisting it, eventually ripping it off. After I put on the door surround kit on I knew I should have had foam there instead and nothing on the front, but it was too late then and I was hoping it would hold up. Anyways I've ripped the doors off and installed new foam on the inside of the cabinet so when the doors close they close against it.

I also installed some PVC angles over my intake holes so the light wouldn't come out the back. When I had those cheap boxes in there my wall was lite up at night. I painted the inside flat black which made a difference. I pre-fit them and checked with the light on and it was still coming out, the whole tub was lite up, after painting black nothing comes out.

Here's a pic of what was done.



You can see the new foam around the edges and pipes in the back ground.

Humidity has been a problem so I also made a cheap humidifier, it has helped but it will only be temporary, here's a pic of it.



A small pump constantly shots water at a sponge which a fan is blowing on.

Well that's about all I can report right now, my baby is doing well, I'll post a 2 week comparison picture on Wednesday.

 

Here's what 2 weeks of growth looks like under a 200w CFL light on 24/7, with a brutal transplant a week ago.



I think it got to much nitrogen so I'll be flushing tonight, the original soil with nutes is to blame I'm sure.

 

Well tonight was a big step back!

I decided I was going to flush the plant, maybe a good thing I did, anyways when I started watering it took the water ok, a little slow but not bad, then it started coming out the bottom holes as expected, however that only happened for a few moments, then the water backed up, it took a long time to drain. Turns out my soil is garbage again. After being soaked it turn to sludge and all the perlite was coming to the top. In about 1-2 hours I was only able to get about 2-3 gallons of water through it and its a 2 gallon pot. My run off PH level was high, about 7.6 when I started, I manged to get it down to 7.4. I added some hydrogen perxiode to the water, hopefully the roots can breath, its gotta be tight around them. After all the water my soil level dropped dramatically, now the top of the plant is below the rim of the pot.

So now I have to do something with my soil, again. Its a no wonder it took 4 days to dry out. I guess I have another brutal transplant coming, I'm gonna wait till the soil dries out before I do it so I can break it away from the roots.

Here's some pics along the way.



My baby getting drowned, its in about an inch of water.



As low as I could get the PH from the run off.



When it was all said and done, you can see how low it sits now and the leaves are dark where they sat in water.

I'll be sure to take some pics when I transplant, should be interesting!

A SAD DAY INDEED!!

 

Well things have changed once again, hopefully for the better. All this mud was starting to piss me off, can't seem to get it right and of course its messy so in the garbage it all goes. I decided to make a bubble bucket instead, got it from rumpleforeskin, here's a link if you want one too.

http://forum.grasscity.com/general-indoor-growing/121335-lets-build-bubble-bucket-step-step.html

So I made my bucket and did the big transplant tonight, my soil finally dried out enough to get at it. Here's some pics along the way.



This pic is right before I started, it has gotten more leaves but growth seems a little slow, that packed soil is probably why. You can also see nute burn has happened, the bottom leaves have lots of brown and 2 you can see are quite yellow. I shouldn't have used nutes when I flushed.



From the top, I like this pic.



Here's the plant sitting in a pot waiting to be transplanted. I cut the bottom of my pot all around put it in the pot then cut the side of the pot and removed it. I gently started removing the dirt until I was left with this.



A lump of roots. I was amazed how tuff these are, very few broke. I wasn't able to remove all the mud, I can't see it making a big deal, a few batches of water might be a bit muddy. I had a 6" net pot ready with 2 inches of hydroton rocks. I put the plant over the rocks put some in, then moved some roots across the layer of pebbles and filled pot to the top. This is how it looks.



Its sitting in there nice and firm, I guess if it looks the same in 24hrs I'll call it a success.



The other plant in there is something that sprouted the day after my main plant, its been growing the same amount of time and has been through less then my other plant. When it popped out of the soil it looked retarded, least thats what I say. The 4 leaves were all twisted, it looked like cauliflower, it stayed like that for 3 weeks, now out of the blue it has started to grow, the new leaves look a little more normal. I think I'm going to be tossing this one though, no room for it, another bubble bucket is going in there.

I just picked up some weed and was happy to see it had seeds in it, normally not happy about that. I'm quite lucky, I haven't had seeds for a long time and I really needed some, I was about to order online but just wanted bag seed for first grow. Nice thing is the weed they come from is pretty decent, so a plant from them with no seeds should be better then what I'm smoking. One of them popped a sprout today, it got quite long in a short time, hopefully not too long, about 1 1/4". I have it in rockwool now so hopefully by Wednesday I see something. 3 more should sprout tomorrow. My goal is to switch to flowering for 2 plants by the end of Nov.

 

Thanks!

Yeah more lights will be coming, smaller CFL's around the base of the plants, probably 4-6 of them. Sometime in the near future I'll be trying a 250w HPS lamp, should of had that from the start.

 

Well I did just that, I killed my baby. That's right I'm a baby killer, the little fucker wouldn't listen so I snapped its neck.

Gave birth to another one, hopefully this one is a good one.

Pics cause there fun.



Dead or at least is now.



Replacement



This was the so called retarded one, it decided to come to life, lets try this again.



36 hours later in a bubble bucket, seems to be doing ok. That bottom leaf is the califlower one that was there in the beginning for the longest time.

 

Yeah getting males is definitely a concern but not much I can do about it. My space is very small, only 2 5g buckets fit in there, no extra room. I'm hoping to grow 2 nice females. However I can't even get started, I killed my new little seedling and my other transplant isn't do so well. I just built a muffler for my fan, am I happy with it, not really, anyways I used that foam that expands, after I thought it was all dry or close enough I put it all together, next day I open the cabinet and its an over in there, 93 degrees. My new sprout is curled over and the other didn't looks so well. I looked in my muffler and all the foam expanded to close it shut so no air was getting through.

So yeah things could be better. I just selected 2 more seeds to germinate, hopefully these ones go well. After these 2 I have 16 seeds left.

After all my reading this is how I thought it was done, what am I doing wrong? I'll add mylar on top to my next batch, maybe light is getting to the roots.

For a new plant

• 5g bubble bucket
• water filled 1/2" over bottom of 6" net pot
• 900ppm, 0-8-16 (lucas formula)
• 5.5ph is what it usually sits at, always between 5.3 and 5.8
• 1 - 100 gallon fish pump for bubbles on 2 4" air stones
• 200w 6500k CFL 6" from plant
• sprouted seed put in 1 1/2" rockwool cube
• rockwool sits on a plate with a plastic dome on it under light 6" until it sprouts to top of dome (2 1/2"), I spray rockwool 3 times a day so it doesn't dry out
• remove dome and set rockwool cube in a 6" net backet with hydroton rocks and set in bubble bucket.
• light stays 6" above plant and I mist rockwool so it doesn't dry out

Does all this sound right