Animal's House : A Programmable LED + CMH Soils Grow w/ Greenpoint Strains

[Animal Chin]

Howdy Farmers!
Welcome to my first diary on the Farm!
I run a personal mono crop style grow op in a 10'x10' spare bedroom with a 4' x 10' footprint dedicated to growing the garden on one side and the other side is a grow tent built into a drying tent space.
Been working in this room for many years, tweaked it and rebuilt it several times over as new tech and ideas comes along.
At this point in the game it's fairly tricked out with a fair share of fancy tech mixed with simplicity.
I built this room to be very user friendly but also perform at a very high level to get both quality and quantity from each crop. The room has also been built out to handle stretching plants easily and also grow a speedy garden using regular seeds as I dont mess with feminized or autoflower seeds very often if at all.

The goal is to get a seed to harvest haul in roughly 90-110 days. I dont really have goals for yield because if grown well and efficiently, a good yield usually happens without it being a main focus of concern.
Between each crop the room is cleaned and ozone purified for bug prevention and equipment is checked and repaired, replaced, or adjusted for the next grow.

Lights are 2 California Lightworks Solar System LEDs w/ spectrum controller, several Illumitex LED rails, and a 315 watt CMH. The CLWs and CMH are on a lightrail 4.20 mover and the LED rails are side perimeter lights that raise and lower via remote controlled winches.

Air & climate is all thermostat controlled with AC, 4" inline air intake, several air mover fans, a ceiling fan, dual 6" inline exhaust fans, and an ozone generator on the outgoing exhaust.

Soils are Roots Greenfields for starting seeds then upcan into Fox Farm Happy Frog Soil. I start seeds using toilet paper layers standing vertical in a dvd case then plant them into 1 gallon airpots when they have taps. After about 30 days of life they go into 7 gallon plastic pots and set to flower.

Nutes are a local brand of Liquid Fish and Seaweed fertilizer, Trinity by Aurora, and Great White. I also make up a top dressing with soils reclaimed from the culled males mixed with Uprising Bloom from Aurora.

Water source is city supplied tap water filtered thru a dechlorinator then a Hydrologic RO system with a 1:1 restrictor. It's held in a 50 gallon barrel with aeration. No pH adjustments

Seeds are from Greenpoint...Strains are Eagle Scout, Tomahawk, Tombstone, Madi Largo, and Bodega Bubblegum.
I dropped 20 seeds, got 18 plants of which 11 are females. Males have been culled and killed.

I started the seeds during the 1st week of June, taking pics along the way up to today, the first week of 12/12 light cycle


7-10 days old

2 weeks old, beginning to snip, prune, & direct growth

3 weeks old

4 weeks old, day before males are culled

Current pics as of last night, early this morning. Males are out and 11 ladies remain. I'll rearrange them one more time, get some more space between them then try to get either a net in there or run some hemp string and kinda make a sort of trellis so they dont fall over later

Thanks for stopping in and feel free to post any questions, comments, and concerns!
Peace, Love, and Happy Ganja Farming!

 

[Animal Chin]

Some fresh pics & status update :cool:

Mixed up the top dressing and added it to each plants and watered it in with Great White added to the water. They're kinda jumping right now and seem to be happy.
Did the final rearranging and got some decent spacing with plenty of airflow thru all layers of the canopy. Lights are at max power and I have maybe 3' of headroom to play with.
Next hurdle is getting some support screen in then after that hopefully it's just a matter of keeping them watered until it's time to chop!

What the plants see every day

Shot of the CLW controller. 3 channels of color, all maxed out. Programs can also be given a name and the controller also doubles as a timer

 

[Animal Chin]

Another week...another update ☢

Getting harder to get in to take decent pics. Using an ipad, close quarters, funky lights etc.
Running out of headroom fast and hoping this stretch is close to ending and the stacking starts. Main stalks are firming up and getting harder to bend over if needed so I think it's close to being over.
Few tops wanna jump up and eat some light. Looks kinda like a prayer session was happening when I shot these. It's the day after a 1/4 dose feeding of liquid fish & seaweed.
Been very hesitant to feed much.
So far between 11 plants and the start of flowering I've used about 1lb of dry nutes mixed with soil for top dressing, a total of 2 shot glasses full of liquid fish & seaweed, and about 3oz of Great White has been applied.
As far as water goes I'm using about 35 gallons per week and watering every other day.

 

[Burned Haze]

Awesome work , great setup and very clean with passion obviously presented in your pictures.

subscribed , I’m game :)

 

[macamus33]

What size airports are you growing these in? Going to start a stardawg hybrid run in my two tents. Planning to start 3 Greenpoint strains 1) Texas butter, Banana OG KushXstardawg ,2) Bison Breath, Motorbreath#15 Xstardawg, 3) Dubstep, Stardawg Corey Haim cutXA-dub. Also going to run a Dankonomics strain "Purple Starfighter" , Purple Stardawg#3Xstarfighter. Trying to guage the size airports to use. I have 1 gal., 2 gal., 4 gal., and 8 gal. airports to use. I usually run between 9-12 females in my tents in 2 gal. airports. Can run 6-8 females in 4 gal. airpots.

 

[Animal Chin]

Awesome work , great setup and very clean with passion obviously presented in your pictures.

subscribed , I’m game :)

Many thanks for the kind words and happy to have ya here for the show Burned Haze!
Definitely a lot of passion goes into this project.....These days I think I love growing more than smoking what I grow! :cool:

What size airports are you growing these in? Going to start a stardawg hybrid run in my two tents. Planning to start 3 Greenpoint strains 1) Texas butter, Banana OG KushXstardawg ,2) Bison Breath, Motorbreath#15 Xstardawg, 3) Dubstep, Stardawg Corey Haim cutXA-dub. Also going to run a Dankonomics strain "Purple Starfighter" , Purple Stardawg#3Xstarfighter. Trying to guage the size airports to use. I have 1 gal., 2 gal., 4 gal., and 8 gal. airports to use. I usually run between 9-12 females in my tents in 2 gal. airports. Can run 6-8 females in 4 gal. airpots.

High macamus33!
I use airpots solely for propagation and veg so I'm using the small one gallon size or the ones with orange bottoms to start seedlings and veg my plants up until about 30 days old in that size airpots. After that I upcan plants into solid wall, 7 gallon plastic pots.

The main reason I use airpots is to eliminate root coiling, compacting, and binding 100%.
The roots branching out and becoming more fiberous results in a plant that will uptake water and food much faster than normal, resulting in a faster growing plant that's hard to overfeed or overwater.
However once the plant is growing rapidly and if still left in an airpot, it will dry out very fast and be hard to maintain on a daily basis. Putting that branched out rootball in a container that holds water better and with a large volume of soil loaded with food will keep the roots well fed and insulated from drought.

In this video, the 44 second thru 1:10 and 2:22 thru 2:50 segments show visual graphics of pretty much exactly how and why I use airpots

And you'll love that Texas Butter man......Here's a TxB from my last grow

 

[macamus33]

Thank you , and loving your grow. I use the air pots for same reason also but use from veg all the way thru flower. I do probably use a little more water than regular pots. I can lift my airpots and know exactly if they need water or not. Been growing in airpots for about ten years now. Bought a demo set I saw at the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam 2010. Love them, although they are expensive now. I hated when I grew my plants in buckets, the root circling. Oh well, I am rambling, just burned a bowl of "Chernobyl ". Yummy. Love your grow setup. I have the orange, yellow, green, and blue bottom airpots, 1,2,4,8 gallon corresponding volumes. My strains I am running finish at about 4 ft tall with supercropping at times/can go to 5 ft in my tents. I do not post pictures of mine, live in a very strict state and do not want to end up in jail. Wish I could. Have five ladies finishing now. 2 - "Black Cheese", 2- "Blueberry Headband", 1 -Chernobyl. Got 2 to 4 week til chop.

 

[Animal Chin]

A fresh handful of pics for your enjoyment!


Eagle Scout (Stardawg x GSC)

Group photos

I really like this shot....The CMH moved into just the right spot as I took the pic and reminds me of heaven's light blessing the cola or something. Kinda spiritual looking

Stacking colas or building skyscrapers? Hard to tell

Conditions. 2 dogs, 2 cats, and a wife seem to make for some good co2 generators:cool:

 

[TerriR]

OH BABY!

 

[Animal Chin]

Have'nt posted in a spell but I've been taking pics...Completed this grow and am very happy with the quality and yields. Hope y'all like the pics!

trim party

filled up the drying tent

scissor hash

after drying and before going to cure, ran a few potency tests using the Purpl Pro mobile test lab

Thanks for checking out my grow log and sorry for lack of updates and details...life and work ya know...but if anybody has any questions feel free.
I dont really do much...just keep them watered and try to support heavy colas when they lean and let technology handle the rest. I dont get into using all sorts of nutes and stuff like that...just good soil and water while providing good environment and high quality light and these are the results I typically get each grow.

Now it's time to clean up, fix some things, add some new things, and get the room ready for another grow starting in December.
Peace, luv, and Happy Ganja Growing on the Farm!!!

 

[jaguarlax]

Hope to see some more updates.. I am going to integrate some of my marine controllers and lights into my next room, which should step things up a bit. I am a big fan of automation... What kind of material are you using for your walls?

 

[Cattapilla]

Beautiful flower and lovely grow tent art!

 

[Grapefruitroop]

Its always heart warming to see very well executed projects !! Aaaaand very cool looking growroom art!!!!
Keep up the good WorKS!

 

[Animal Chin]

Hope to see some more updates.. I am going to integrate some of my marine controllers and lights into my next room, which should step things up a bit. I am a big fan of automation... What kind of material are you using for your walls?

Thanks Man! My latest grow is already nearing harvest so I'll get some pics up later today.
Automation helps me a lot in the room when I'm just too busy or tired to deal with some things it's nice to know it's taken care of
The panels on the wall is the same stuff we find in HID lighting reflectors, hammered and polished aluminum sheets.
They're 4'x2' panels and were originally available thru Sunlight Supply but have been discontinued for probably over 5 years now. I think they were originally sold for what I'm using them for and people wanting to make their own reflector hoods like batwings.
It was one of those right place at the right time things where I was in a hydroshop that was going out of business and the owner had all kinds of old stuff on clearance sale. I bought the only two cases of the stuff and got a total of 4'x16' to cover my walls with enough left over to maybe make a solar oven or something.
My grow space kinda looks like a walk in freezer and reflects light great but best of all it's very ez to clean and does'nt wear out like mylar.

Beautiful flower and lovely grow tent art!

Many thanks Buddy! Last time I rebuilt my room I wanted to make it more enjoyable to be inside so I got a little funky with lots of black paint and art. Now I spend just as much time tripping out in there as I do gardening

Its always heart warming to see very well executed projects !! Aaaaand very cool looking growroom art!!!!
Keep up the good WorKS!

Many many thanks man! Like the saying goes, failing to plan is like having a plan to fail ☯
So much planning goes into this grow that when it comes time to do the actual grow it's a simple 100 day walk in the park from start to finish ✌

 

[jaguarlax]

Thanks Man! My latest grow is already nearing harvest so I'll get some pics up later today.
Automation helps me a lot in the room when I'm just too busy or tired to deal with some things it's nice to know it's taken care of
The panels on the wall is the same stuff we find in HID lighting reflectors, hammered and polished aluminum sheets.
They're 4'x2' panels and were originally available thru Sunlight Supply but have been discontinued for probably over 5 years now. I think they were originally sold for what I'm using them for and people wanting to make their own reflector hoods like batwings.
It was one of those right place at the right time things where I was in a hydroshop that was going out of business and the owner had all kinds of old stuff on clearance sale. I bought the only two cases of the stuff and got a total of 4'x16' to cover my walls with enough left over to maybe make a solar oven or something.
My grow space kinda looks like a walk in freezer and reflects light great but best of all it's very ez to clean and does'nt wear out like mylar.

Hmm.. all the beautiful bells and whistles you have going on and the walls caught my eye the most lmao.. awesome setup.. looking forward to more pics

 

[Animal Chin]

Some current pics to share while doing this isolation thing...
Last crop I hit really well on yield, maybe 30% more weed than I expected so I thought for this grow I'd run some strains I knew going in would be light in flower sizes and yields but results would be very potent.
There's no worries of running out of weed anytime in 2020 so if yields came up super light doing this grow it would'nt really matter much.

These are also strains or seeds from my own creation crossing other breeders work of some favorite strains so it's a really good chance to see what my own seeds could do in a grow and give me a chance to inbreed the two strains again for more future seeds in my supply.

Being able to supply my own seeds is kinda like the last step I feel to take in being 100% self reliant in producing outstanding weed for myself though I admit sometimes I do get the urge to buy new strains and see if I'm missing out on anything new.

One event that kinda messed up 3 of my plants was a tree falling on the power drop to my home about 4 weeks into flower. That cut power off and on so thru the day they kinda got a gas light routine with lights going off and on several times.
The next day I cut all light for 24 hours hoping they did'nt get flipped back to veg and while they did not I think there was enough confusion in light schedule to string out a few colas into ugly foxtail like deals.
Other than that things have gone smooth.

Method of the grow is pretty much the same...good mix of quality lights, organic, and a reluctance to use fertilizers.
When I upcanned these plants they went from 1 gallon to 7 gallon containers and they got a handful of dry fertilizer mixed into the Happy Frog soil. From there I've just kept them watered.
Every two weeks I've been adding Great White to my waterings.
No ferts or bloom booster stuff at all pretty much doing a *Just Add Water* grow.
I water every other day with RO and no pH adjustments.
Flowers are getting very greasy and heavy so everyday I'm needing to get another yoyo to hold up some leaning tops.

first is a short video I made a week or so ago. It shows the travel distance of my light array and how it works pretty much like a train of light that goes back and forth

some veg shots from last month

lighting

the male I chose to pollinate two of my ladies

full vag shot

and some pics of the flowers. I'm thinking about having a 4/20 harvest for most if not all the crop

This girl was pollinated and has seeds ready to fall out