RockCitys Amare LED, Organic No-Till Indoor Stealth Grow

The stage has been set!








There's a lot of "firsts" in this grow, but first things first:
Thanks to you guys here at the GC community. I've learned a lot from so many sources here - it's been great.
The organic section\t- All of you, but Fresh Ronin specifically for helping me with Teas and Soil Mix information.
LED growers - past, present and future.
Dutty Panty - who has always been nice and willing enough to answer any question I had, and who told me that when it comes to these high end LED panels "...they are like guitars". That made my decision making process a lot easier.
Amare Technologies - Victor specifically
Many others...



This will be my first:
grow in almost 20 years
attic stealth grow (In a southern, non-medicinal state)
tent grow
organic grow
LED grow
journal on GC
Im sure more I'm forgetting



This grow will feature:
8x4 Gorilla Grow Tent (will not be utilizing the entire 8x4 footprint - closer to 6x4)
880 AmareTech LED (SolarSpec220 x4)
LightRail light mover
7 Gallon Smart Pots
8" vortex inline fan and phresh carbon filter for passive cooling
6" vortex tied to a thermostat trigger set at 74 degrees for forced intake from the house - which is typically kept at 71.
CO2 managed via Titan Atlas2 controls




This grow will contain the following 4 strains:
THC Bomb from Bomb Seeds
[fake] Girl Scout Cookies from Cali Connection
WhiteWalker Kush from DNA
White Widow from Canuk Seeds
Seeds were all purchased from TrueNorth on 8-25 and received on 9-18. The 2 White Walker Kush fems were freebies, as were the White Widow and Jack Herrer fems as well.




I had to completely build out this space for use from scratch which included running 2, 20amp circuits into the attic. Laying a significant amount of flooring for the grow space and walkway. Cutting an intake vent into the top of a closet where I have my media equipment - which needed ventilation anyway - and this is what is tied to the 6" vortex.

My base soil mix is:
Alaskan Humus
Sphagnum Peat
Clay Hydroton Pebbles (I should probably add in some perlite too and may do that when I go into the smartpots)
EWC


Amendments:
Oyster Shell Flour
Crab Shell [mistake, but oh well - I didn't know wtf I was doing (still dont) and I've made a lot of them lol]
Azomite and Glacial Rock Dust
Kelp Meal
Alphalpha Meal
Neem Seed Meal
Humic Acid
Barley Flour
Blood Meal
more EWC


This mix has been cooking for approx 4 weeks. It has 2-4 to go before it's ready.



I have been using an Aerated Compost Tea (ACT) to feed my soil. My recipe is 2 handfulls of both Alaskan Humus and EWC, then 4 Tbs of Unsulphured Molassess per gallon (Thanks Fresh Ronin)


Aerated Compost Tea - this made my whole garage smell like pancakes while brewing. It was amazing. Pay no attention to how stupid I sound while trying to speak on a subject I really know very little about


I will be feeding my plants with an assortment of Sprouted Seed Tea (SST) and coconut (powder) water, and foiler feeding with Aloe (have a plant outside) and coconut water
I have Barley and Clover seeds ready to go.
I will also be top dressing with EWC as I feel like it, especially at the flip.



I will be using Mykos upon transplant into the Smart Pots
For germination [which I started on 9-19] I am using a combonation of paper towel method and then once cracked into rapid rooter starter plugs they go. I will then place those plugs into 3" pots supported with Humus/peat which will be pre-soaked with 100ppm canna grow.
For the first few days/weeks of germ/seedling stages I'm going to be utilizing a humidity dome and a 2' 8bulb T5 fixture.

[As of 9-21, all but 1 THC Bomb and White Walker Kush have cracked and been implanted into RapidRooter starter plugs - I am attempting to germinate a new THC Bomb and a Mystery Bag Seed from some good midgrade I had a while back.]

It will be a couple of weeks or so before we have any activity worth posting, as I wait for these lady's to break ground - until then, stay tuned...

 

Heh within the last hour the 2 remaining seeds, 1 White Walker Kush and 1 THC Bomb decided to pop tails. It figures I was a bit too impatient...


I pulled the 2 new seeds (the THC Bomb and Mystery Bag seed) and will try to save them since they haven't popped yet.

 

Thanks man - I'd do a lot of things differently if I could go back and do it over again.


First off, I'd make NOTHING close to 8x4 (flood table, 2 trellis' etc). I would make everything in 4x4 sections. I don't have any flexibility now - for instance I HAVE to have my CO2 and second vent under the table which takes up at least a foot of vertical space. If I had just put everything on the floor of the tent and didn't use a table at all it would have been a much more efficient use of the vertical (valuable) space. I want to rip all that shit below the trellis out and just put the fan and timers that are below maybe on top of a milk crate to keep them safe from spills, but I'm committed to this design now for the duration of the grow (that means I'm too lazy to go change it before my seeds get put in there lol)


Secondly, my mindset is still too hydro oriented. I bought a lot of things that in the end, I really don't need (The flood table, reservoir, chiller etc). The good thing about that at least is I have that equipment for future use so it won't end up being just wasted cash. But I probably spent over $1k on unnecessary stuff.

 

I also need more/better oscillating fans. Those 2 smalls ones aren't enough to make me feel comfortable about air flow.

 

GSC is the first to break ground.


All 3 GSC's and the WW sprouted within the first 12hrs. I started the WW 4 hours later than the GSC and then when I woke the next morning all 4 had white tongues/tails - so I can't say which were first, but the GSC seems to be starting off strong.

 

For me at the time - keep in mind I'm a HIGHLY indecisive person when it comes to purchases sometimes - I interpreted what he was saying as in *The top 3 best LED company's will all grow quality, comparable bud - just like the top 3 guitars all make great music and sound sick as fuck*. So for me it just made my indecisiveness go away and pull the trigger. Wether or not that's what he actually meant, meh - in the end I've got a setup I'm happy with and anxious to see how it performs so it doesn't matter.




Pef, I should have remembered to thank you specifically as well in the begging of this thread. I read a ton of your posts about LED's while I was researching. I'm sorry for not giving you a little love as well - it's definitely been earned. So I appreciate it.

 

Gift bag from a friend in AZ

 

I'm only gonna move it 6" in either direction, to increase coverage by a foot and not negatively impact yield throughout the rest of the canopy (hopefully). So i'll be working closer to a 6x4 footprint in all actuality. I'm hoping that with some good pruning/defloration that the mover will also help get light into some more of the mid levels of the plant and increase yield in that area. We will see how it turns out.


Glad you're here!

 

I will also say that as soon as I can afford it, I want to ditch the mover all together and put another 880 (or similar) deployment in there. With the way that all 4 of these panels have to tie into 1 single fisheye on the mover it really robs me of some vertical space that I'd like to have - especially since I'm dealing with the loss of over a foot from having the table with some equipment underneath it as well which I mentioned earlier.

 

I spent all day hanging out outside, burning J's of Polar Express and watching this lady grow. Life is good. None of her friends have shown up for the party yet. I just threw them under the T5s for the night and on 18/6 timer.

 

A second GSC broke ground overnight.

 

Thanks for the heads up on the fan. I appreciate it. If I wasn't in a southern state in an attic dealing with extreme temps (hopefully that will not be an issue later in flower as we move thru December) I would love to just have this thing on an interval for exchanges. It turns the space over nicely. I would also like to have it that way for CO2 conservation. As it stands currently - for at least the first half of the grow - Im going to have to deal with CO2 inefficiency and constant passive cooling it looks like.


That being said, my wife and I have tentatively agreed to move to CO next year. If that happens I will have a legit space and not have to worry about these types of obstacles.