Organic Kandy Kush Custom CFL Grow!

Discussion in 'Organic Grow Journals' started by Gnarkotics, Jan 11, 2013.

  1. Hi Gnarkotics, I'm new to the forum and just thought i'd stop lurking in the shadows and say hello. Your setup is pretty much exactly what i'm intending to do once I start my grow. I too read the same material as you decided on for your setup, and was pretty content that it was a good option for my first grow (and relatively cheap), but there seems to be a lot of division on GC as to which light setup is better: HID or CFLs.

    I do have a question, however. It was my understanding that if you go organic and make your own organic soil then you don't have to Ph test your soil or play with the balance, but i see you doing that. Are you just being over cautious?

    Sorry, didn't want to hi-jack your thread. Looks like everything is working well and good luck on your grow. As mentioned, i'm pretty much going down the same path as you, so i'm taking a seat and enjoying what i hope will be a fruitful show!
     

  2. Absolutely! I drew up plans for both 4 and 3 arm designs, with 1 and 2 hinges on each. Looked for my origninal plans but must have thrown them away. Showing you what I am talking about will be much easier than telling you. I will hopefully re-draw them today and get all that information to you guys really soon.


    No worries man, we are here to learn from each other! Feel free to bring any questions you guys have.
    Okay, firstly the soil. It is my understanding as well that when you are 'cooking' your own soil, the pH levels will balance themselves out as the microbes do their thing. I have grown with this recipe a few times and never had issues with SOIL pH. However, when giving your plant WATER I find that it helps a lot to adjust the pH to your desired levels, as the soil will not have time to balance the pH of the water based on it's own pH before the plant gets a hold of it. If that makes sense...? I don't really have any science to back me up on this one, just kinda what I have found to be true, and since adjusting my water pH takes all of about 30 seconds, it's well worth it to me.
    As to the HID vs CFL debate I can't really say much. Don't have any experience in cheap HID's, but have heard very positive things about the larger more expensive ones. I go with CFL's just because they are familiar to me, inexpensive, easy to and acquire and wire in, and if you ever have to tare down you can repurpose them in your kitchen or something : )
     
  3. Last night I pulled out my beautiful Kandy Kush from her t5 that is 2 weeks older than the one I have on this post and did a side by side comparason. From both views it is amazingly easy to tell which is which lol. The overhead view makes the t5 KK look like a monster!!!! Where as they are much more even on the side view.

    Vertical Lighting vs. Overhead Lighting

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]


    Also something interesting I noticed last night, the leaves on the CFL KK are growing differently based on if the nearest light is above or below them. A few top leaves have this undercurl going on, where as a few bottom leaves seem to be curling up. Not sure if just coincidence or real interesting yet, but thought I would share.
     
  4. #24 monkeysquad, Jan 16, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 16, 2013
    Sweet!! drawn up plans would be awesome... I'd use as many cfls as you can.. One thing I've learned with my plants under them is as long as you can keep the heat down you can never have enough lights. I my current grow I use 12 23w (60 equivalent) and one of those big guys you have. And I'm adding two more big ones this weekend for flower...could be the reason for the strange leaf growth.

    Check out my journal in my signature if you have time ^_^
     

  5. Thanks for your reply, i've found from my lurking that everyone on this forum is super friendly! No, that makes complete sense when you explain it to me like that. It's just i've seen a few of the organic growers claim that with their 'cooked' homemade organic soil all they use is tap water, it never occurred to me that you may need to change the pH of the water...

    Yeah, of all the info on lighting i'm still a little bit unsure of which way to go. CFLs just for some reason appeal to me, probably because of cost and the setup seems easier to me. I just thought i'd get your opinion since i'm planning a similar grow.

    Oh, one other question. I noticed you weren't using reflectors. Any reason why not? Not trying to pick apart your grow, just trying to educate myself as much as i can. I've been spending hours a day for the last two weeks reading every bit of info i can find. I'm loving it! Can't wait to grow!
     
  6. subbed might make a smaller version of this
     

  7. Couple of answers. 1-I am trying to build a tent for this as the light leaks are bright enough to effect my sleep so I haven't put much thought into anything in particular. I just wrapped the whole contraption. And 2-I don't see a practical application for a reflector as in like, a hood around the bulbs. The reason for this is that with the angles that I am interested in getting on my plants the reflector itself would have to be sort of satellite dish shaped maybe? If i could come up with something easy and noticeably better than housing it in a panda plastic tent and maybe cover the inside of the wooden arms to reflect a little more, I would consider it. But as of right now I am just going to do a Panda Plastic Tent with a Pvc or maybe wooden frame.
    I had a few too many dabs and ended up being very busy yesterday so I forgot to take a picture. Here is my stunning little lady today-

    [​IMG]
     
  8. I think your largest gains in photons reaching the leaves would be worklight reflectors on each CFL like this one [​IMG]
    but without the clip of course.
    My reasoning is that these would focus the intensity of the incident light much better than the reflected light off the mylar or panda tent.
    But they do nothing for your light leaks.

    I would have liked to use them in my setup but since my lights hang down on either side of the plant, the reflectors would not help. If I had designed a skookum (west coast slang for kick ass) light rig like yours... well things would be better.
     
  9. I cut mine in half to face the side of the bulb to the plant.. Which gives me the option to focus the light where I want above or beside the plant and maintain airflow around the bulbs as not to focus heat at the plant as well. I can even still use dual socket splitters
     

  10. Very strange. The natives up in western Washington call the Bigfoot or Yeti the "Skookum". That's the first time I've ever heard of it being slang for anything lol.

    But yeah both of you make very very valid points. Thank you for your input! I will definitely keep my eyes out for something along those lines, or perhaps make something myself. Cutting those standard ones in half is borderline genius. I would probably line the inside with something a little more reflective, if I'm not mistaken those are mainly used for reflecting heat? That's all I have ever used them for anyway, when I raised chickens.
     
  11. #31 StayLowGrows, Jan 18, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 18, 2013
    Just want to put my two cents of experience in with regards to pHing your water in organics.

    When watering with pH at 7.0, I would get spikes in soil pH up to 7.5. With 6.5 water, soil would get up to 7-7.2. Water at 6.0 would keep things nice around 6.5-6.8. My thinking is that microbes are still doing their jobs in the soil, decomposing matter, as well as eating each other. I remember reading that as bacteria break matter down or eat other bacteria, it tends to raise the pH slightly.

    Can anyone back that up?

    EDIT: And this could be because I have a very diverse, very alive soil. A lot of activity going on. I have been completely natural in my last few soil mixes, meaning I don't even use perlite (I did have to barely use some bagged organic nutrients to be safe as I'm new to it. So I still decomposition going on in my containers even while the plants are growing.
     
  12. very good work you've done with those lights! I'd probably put a surge protector instead and then use adapters to connect even more CFL's all over the place. But overall good work!
     
  13. Looking good :) Perhaps i'm over-thinking how i'm going to set everything up in my own box. When I see someone doing something different i figure that i could have my facts wrong or that they have some sort of 'magical' insight that i have overlooked myself. Being new to this whole growing business i'm just a little nervous that i'll build something with a HUGE flaw and i'll end up killing my plants because of it.
     

  14. Well I learned something today (source wikipedia):
    Skookum is a Chinook jargon word that has come into general use in the Pacific Northwest region of North America.
    The word skookum has three meanings:
    a word in regional English that has a variety of positive connotations;
    a monster; similar to the sasquatch.
    a souvenir doll once common in the United States in tourist areas.

    :)
     
  15. Don't worry. Give it a go... You'll prolli find out you're more knowledgeable than you think. I know after reading threads for weeks and weeks and weeks before I started my grow, it turned out to be way easier to understand once I had a seed in the dirt. The plant will do a lot of the teaching herself. And if worse comes to worse you've already found the biggest group of experts out there ^_^
     

  16. Thank You! I do have everything plugged into a surge protector, and every time I drive by a hardware store, I consider buying a few 'Y' sockets. I am just not sure that I want the nodes to grow any tighter than they already are.... : )


    Are you from the Washington area? Thank you for sharing!



    It's like parenthood man, you are never 100% ready for them, but you will always rise up to the occasion and do what it takes to make sure they are healthy. The mere fact that you are this concerned tells me you will a great job on your grow. All you need really is Light, Earth, Wind, Water, and you should try to hold off on that Fire thing until the end ; )
     

  17. Very interesting. It would be nice to hear about this from a soil biologist. I have never done any experiments with soil pH, so I can't weigh in on this too much.....That being said, it makes sense to me. The microbes and bacteria thrive best in a neutral pH'd environment so it seems that they wouldn't cause it to fluctuate to far out of the 6-7 zone? After cooking for months it is usually going to be in that range, maybe the water causes them to release something or raise the pH in some way?
     
  18. Plugged in that big bulb yesterday, forgot to mention it. Going to have to thin her out a bit today probably. New nodes are coming on strong.
    [​IMG]
     


  19. Cheers guys :) I've never been one of those impulsive kinds of people. Sit back, think, scribble plans...think plans are horrible, think more, etc, etc. I just want to understand as much about setting up a grow box as i can (unfortunately stealth and smell are a big issue for me unlike some people around the forum). Initially i didn't really understand just how much goes into maximising the environment but i keep learning more every day. The funny thing is i've done more research on this than i ever put into any project in school! :D
     

  20. This can lead to a lifetime of enjoyment.
     

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