Perpetual DWC Closet...here we go!

Wassup GC!

Been a LONG time since I’ve been on here. Finally settled in my new house and took care of the larger expenses/projects...now time to get back into growing! I’ve been putting together a little setup in a spare closet in my basement, figured I’d dust off the old GC account and fire up a grow log.

When buying this house, I was particularly excited about this room, I knew it’d make a great grow space. The PO converted a larger closet to a wine-making room...added a sink, cabinets, nice drywall and a drop ceiling. Couldn’t be more perfect!

Before:




After:



The plan was to build out a perpetual room to take advantage of every inch of the space. I’ll be growing up to 4 plants in 5-gal bubble buckets (2 in veg and 2 in flower) as well as keeping a few mothers around of my favorite strains.

I’ve always been super budget in the past, this time around I wanted to really do everything as right as possible (especially with ventilation) to avoid headaches and actually enjoy the process. This will be my bonsai garden in a way, my own little escape for a little each day right at home. I actually won my fantasy league this year and put the winnings into this setup!

The room in total is about 9’ deep by 6’ wide. In the back there, I have (what will be) a 38”x24” tent I built for veg-ing, clones, and mothers. The rest of the open floor space will be for flowering.

In the tent, I’m running a 150w LED in the veg space, and CFLs up top for the clone/mother shelf. That will seal up 100%, and also be running on it’s own exhaust system.



For the rest of the room, I have a 300w LED to flower with, and an active, filtered ventilation system that runs through the whole space.

Today I was able to get everything fired up and running to test out, working great (knock on wood) so far. With all my lights cranked up 100%, temps hold steady at 68-70. I’m not surprised being winter, but still take it as a win. Summertime may be a challenge since my basement has no central a/c, although it does keep relatively cool on it’s own. I’ll relax more when the tent is fully sealed and keeping good temps, but I’m still stoked nonetheless!

Stay tuned, genetics arrive next week and then the real fun will begin!

 

Sadly, at a standstill until my seeds arrive. Been in transit for almost 3 weeks with the USPS delays going on. I’m chomping at the bit to get started.

 

Sorry for the lack of updates, still waiting on beans so I haven’t had much to share. My order has been held up in customs since 1/8 (shipped 12/31), I’m assuming it’s due to all the USPS delays so I’m trying my hardest to be patient. Hoping I didn’t “get lucky” for the first time in 12 years and get a package snagged.

With time to kill, I put some finishing touches on the room and also gave everything a thorough test. I want everything to be as perfect as I could, so I can really focus on my plants. I did a test run for a few days with everything operating and sealed up, room is functioning spectacularly. Primarily, I wanted to test temps in a variety of different scenarios so I didn’t have any surprises come grow time. I also wanted to bake that paint on there good and vent out any fumes or chemical odors left over from construction, it was starting to stank a little odd so I felt better having a good 48 hours of so with my fans cranked to freshen everything up.

Temp wise, things are great. I’m holding a steady 71-72 deg under the flower light, 73 in the veg area, and 77-78 in the prop area, all with ambient temps of about 70 deg outside the room. Needed to nix 2 of my CFLs in the prop area to keep heat down and out of the 80s. I had 8 23w CFLs for a total of 184w, reduced to 6. That puts me at 138w, which should still be plenty of light for what I need the space for.

Prop/veg tent nearly 100% complete. Exhaust hooked up, zipper door on. Also decided to throw a coat of white paint on the interior wood to help prevent any mold. My OCD coudn’t handle exposed wood, even though I’ve never had any problems in the past.





Main door sealed up with panda film. At this point, we’re almost totally light proof. Just need to rig up some panda film and velcro to cover the zippers, and make a trap door for my tent intake. Won’t be flowering for a while though, so I’m not in a rush.





Preemptively cut a hole for a portable AC exhaust so I can vent that separately from my main exhaust fan. I’m fairly positive I’ll need to run one once the warmer months come around, since my basement has no central air. The last thing I want to do is be hacking holes in drywall with plants all over the place.



2 of my bubble buckets rigged up and ready to go. Keeping things simple (and cheap) - basic Lowe’s blue 5-gals, aluminum tape, net pot lids, air pumps, stones, and tubing from Amazon. Probably spent about $80 in enough supplies for 4 complete buckets. I’ve had great success with these types of buckets in the past, so I’m going with what I know. I considered doing RDWC, but ultimately nixed the idea since I have such limited floorspace for a main res and all that additional tubing. Maneuverability and space efficiency is key, I also love the simplicity of just a single bubble bucket.



Pretty impressed with these air pumps! $20/each from amazon, 8.5w/18LPM with 4 outlets. Running both buckets with 2 air stones each, you can see they bubble up real nice.





Nute lineup, keeping this simple as well. Basic GH 3-part that I’ve been running for 12+ years, RapidStart as needed, Cal-Mag, Hydroguard.



That’s all for now! Hoping my next update covers some seeds going into my prop area…

 

Boom! We have seeds! Package finally arrived yesterday from True North. Super quality packaging, very impressed…they also shipped my order out almost instantly, it was USPS that had all the delay. Going with Sour Lemon OG and Critical Kush...one social and energetic sativa dominant, one heavy relaxation indica dominant. My wife and I do just about everything with the plant (and I love growing just for what it is), but a big reason for growing is to be able to have enough quantity to make our own extracts and infusions without spending a fortune at the dispensary. I am especially excited for the Sour Lemon OG, I’m a sucker for anything lemon!




Trying something new, and germinating directly in rapid rooters. Kind of an experiment this time around as I typically germinate in paper towels and then transfer to rockwool, so it’s my first time both germinating in a medium AND using rapid rooters. I have been researching that this really is the best way to go and safest for the seedlings, no introduction to pathogens, better initial root growth, etc. Hopefully all goes well! I have 5 seeds of each strain, so if this fails, I’ll go back to my old ways.


I reached out to a friend who runs a commercial grow-op in CO and he gave me this germination/sprouting method to try. I soaked my rapid rooters in 6.3 pH adjusted water overnight, and I also let the seeds sit in a damp paper towel rig (much like I used to germinate with) for a few hours prior to planting. I then flipped the rapid rooters over (sort of like a volcano shape) and sliced in a new hole with shears about 1/4 inch deep. Dropped the seeds in with tweezers, then covered the hole up with a piece of rapid rooter I snipped off a corner to keep things dark for germination. These then go in a seedling tray, under a dome, with my seedling mat set at 78 deg and CFLs ON, kept moist throughout, RH around 80%. Lights should help the seedling orient itself correctly and also keep consistent warmth (not just on the bottom from the mat). My friend has sprouted thousands of seeds this way, so I trust him!



Let’s hope the next update involves seeing some green!

 

First signs of life! Both seeds started a tap root this morning, the critical kush even begun to break ground tonight. Sour Lemon OG is right behind it, the seed is almost poking through the RR. Thoroughly impressed with my new germination method.

 

Both girls are out!

SLOG is already vertical, CK is a little bent over, but getting there! She was a tad dry this morning, so I moistened up her RR a hair. Scooted ‘em closer to the lights, ready to get them growing.

 

Little update, thought I’d share a remedy here: almost had a disaster last night! I took my babies out of their dome in the AM, everything seemed fine all day, checked at noon and again at 5. Went out for a few hours in the evening, came home to both sprouts completely brown and wilted. I was certain they were dead! In a panic ditch effort, I used 2 toothpicks to make a little support stalk and gently propped my seedlings up against it. I gave each RR 5ml of water and a thorough misting, then popped back into the dome. I noticed they took decent rooting, so I thought there’s a chance they could bounce back. This morning they completely came back to life (I wish I had before pics). Incredible how resilient these plants are.

SLOG:



CK:



Turns out they did not like being out of the dome just yet. I think I was introducing too much airflow too early, the RRs were drying out too fast. First time using these, so now I know.

 

Quick update! Both girls are still tiny but had roots poking out of their RRs yesterday, so I transplanted into their final DWC buckets and switched over to regular veg mode. It has been a real challenge working with seedlings in rapid rooters, they dry out SO FAST, even under a dome with 60-70% RH and sitting on wet hydroton. They seem to go bone dry every 2-3 hours which is the exact opposite of rockwool, which stays wet for 1-2 days at least.

I probably should of let them grow a little more before transplanting, but it was a major PITA otherwise and they were beginning to show some N deficiency as we’re approaching the 2 week mark and I’m fairly positive RRs are inert. Above soil growth has been stalled for a few days, I’m a little worried, nothing past the first set of leaves yet. Roots look white and healthy though! I’m sure once the roots drop into the bucket, I can start up with nutes and they’ll take off. That and shifting from 24/0 to 18/6 hopefully boosts some root growth with a solid dark period. I raised the water level up about a 1/4” into the net pot and top feed res water 1-2x a day to help keep things from getting too dry. I feel like it’s impossible to overwater rapid rooters. If this goes south, I don’t think I’ll be using them for seedlings again. Clones, maybe.

SLOG:


CK: