Foxysox rocks the cinderblocks

[foxysox]

Yeah... it's in the basement.

A'ight... new log time. It's been a while! Lots of changes since last time around, and I've gone over to flood n drain since then. And bought an EC meter. Finally.

Strains that I am flowering out seriously, after going through almost 50 of them trying to choose, are these:

Motarebel's Toxic Lemon via RushMan seeds- Heavy yield of silvery-lavender buds that REEK of spiced citrus.

BlueJay x BOG Bogglegum from KD in Toronto- This one is a winner, and gives some of the most amazing product I've smoked. It smells like fresh wild blueberries on the plant, and cures spicy. The appearance of finished buds is silver, and the BlueJay parent gives commercial-level yields and vigor.

Yeag's Kenai MTF #4- Sourced from an older dude in Soldonta AK. Deep plum purple, very dense, chocolatey, and with an amazingly drawn-out high experience. Yield is average, but she tolerates cool temps better than her buddies, and I live in NE and it's often COLD in the cellar.

Massachusetts Super Skunk- This cut has been passed around New England since back in the day, and there's a good reason- It's delicious, hardy, never herms, balanced, and just generally a very high quality strain.

Afghani Dream- This is another High-yielding, high-end product that is a darling of the local oldsters.

Plan B Black Indica- Mmmmmm DRIPPINGLY spicy. Looks stellar too.

IR Seeds Daddy's Girl- A great sativa-based plant that gives some of the best product I've ever seen, period.

Shown are mothers, the next generation of fine ass ladies, and the contents of the flower room as of last week.

foxysox Reviewed by foxysox on 08-08-2008. Foxysox rocks the cinderblocks Yeah... it's in the basement. :D A'ight... new log time. It's been a while! Lots of changes since last time around, and I've gone over to flood n drain since then. And bought an EC meter. Finally. Strains that I am flowering out seriously, after going through almost 50 of them trying to choose, are these: Motarebel's Toxic Lemon via RushMan seeds- Heavy yield of silvery-lavender buds that REEK of spiced citrus. BlueJay x BOG Bogglegum from KD in Toronto- This one is a winner, and Rating: 5

[foxysox]

It's not sealed, but it's still appropriate for a space with crappy ventilation and no reasonable way to introduce fresh air without running meeeelions and meeeeelions of miles of ducting!

So here's a couple pics of a space I just slapped together for a large PU sized grow, that WILL produce excess.
Total watts including all air handling and cooling systems run right around 3200w with both k's running, but the same system is also configured to run a single k and the usage would drop down to about 2000w (cooling is more difficult with both big HIDs going).
Total length of all duct used is less than 2 feet!
The duct is STRAIGHT and unobstructed.

Air moves OUT of the bloom chamber and INTO the lung room in this manner:
-It enters the air handling system at the far light, which is an air-coolable hood with one end left open.
-It passes across the far bulb, through about 4" of duct, through the near hood, andthrough about 18" of duct which goes through the wall.
-It passes through a 6" HO blower that does ~250cfm
-It exits into the lung room through a 6" OdorSok.

Air moves INTO the bloom room via a 6" hole cut LOW in the bloom room wall, with a 9,000 btu portable a/c right in front of it for pre-cooling.

CO2 is introduced into the bloom room via a tank and timer-enabled regulator that has a solenoid set to seep for 15 min every 2h when the bloom room is in 'day' mode.

The main blower out of the bloom room only operates during 'day'. There is an oscillating fan that operates constantly. Temperature swings do nto appear to be a problem, so I am not concerned with dewfall.

Also in the bloom room is a supplemental 24" T5 fixture that I can plug into the dedicated HPS circuit when I have to kill the big HIDs- in times of extreme high temps, and when I've applied Gravity.

The flower area is 6x6x6 and contains 2- 2x4 flood tables on independent 25gal reservoirs. One table is run at EC1.6, and the other at EC1.2. Plants are individually potted in hydroton in 6" square deep style pots, which may be moved from one tray to the other depending upon life stage of the plant. This allows multiple strains to be run concurrently, with young, finishing, or fert-burned plants moved into the weak nute side and fattening, ripening plants on the side with the stronger solution.

Bloom Blasters are given in the 'strong' side via the res, and other supplements are given only as a foliar.
Carbs are given on both sides.

Nutes are:
Canna Aqua a+b
Canna Boost
Grotek Bloom Plus

Supplements are:
Sweet
Gravity
SnowStorm/PurpleMaxx

Source water is tap at EC ~0.2. It is city water, and comes in at correct hardness. No CalMag is added, but the pH is monitored and kept at 5.9-6.1.

Both HIDs run on the same dedicated 20a breaker, on a mechanical time clock rated to 40a, but each on its own #12 extension cord rated to 20a.

There is a fire extinguisher at each entrance to the space.

The mothers are in the lung room under 400w MH 'hortilux blue'. There are several small oscillating fans in there.

Temps stay pretty stable; cooling is both active (with a/c) and passive (blowing air across a large expanse of masonry that stays very cool and has quite a bit of thermal mass to dampen swings).

Managed correctly, this grow suite is capable of about 2 pounds a month. I don't really push it for yield at the moment though. I'm feeling it out still.

Here's a couple views of the technical end of the space.
Note in the plant pic you can see the characteristic pattern of damage from an atmospheric CO2 deficit, which prompted me to turn to tanked CO2 enrichment to fix it. The plants (mothers of 28 different strains and crosses) are recovering nicely.

[Shovelhandle]

Looks like a busy, busy grow log coming up!

Go Sox!

[stinkyattic]

wink wink nudge nudge... any similarities are strictly coincidental of course...

[SunnyD]

Riiiiiiiiight gotcha....:wtf:

Anyways, Stinky, did you get that question about the EC levels last time?

[stinkyattic]

Oh yeah- some of us are lucky and have tap water that runs at about the correct hardness and mineral content for cannabis- then of course you add your base fertilizer to bring it up to the proper EC for that stage in the plant's life. I would not start out with anything over about 200-250 ppm in a hydro system; if your tap water is that hard, try cutting it with RO or distilled so that you end up with a source water at or below 200, before adding base nutes. Or run strictly RO with calmag up to 200-300 ppm.

[SunnyD]

That's pretty tight thanks,

I feel like I'm pulling away from this thread with this question but what is the connection between, say, an EC reading of .2 and 200 - 250 ppms?...

What I'm getting at is does the read of ".2" electrical conductivity MEAN that you can dissolve 200 - 250 parts per million?

you can totally delete these posts if you want later

[Puffzter]

Give more space!
I have to be satisfied with 2 square meters for flower and clones.

This one I will follow for sure, its exactly something like this I would set up if I had the space. Maybe some day I will have.

[foxysox]

EC is just a straight measure of the ability of electric current to travel a specific distance through an aqueous solution.
The relationship between EC and ppm is a measure of the ppm of a common chemical, NaCl or table salt, that gives that conductivity. There is a conversion factor that I can't recall. lol.
Rhizome? Bueller? Anyone?

The footprint of the bloom area is 6x6, or 36sqft. I think it is a really easy size room to work in.
2000w of HPS from a pair of ks at about 140,000 lumens each (when new), ehhh let's see that is almost 8,000 lumens per square foot.
Yeah. Works for me.

[Weedhound]

Hey FS LOVE the new log! Subscribed.