Get a Harvest Every 2 Weeks

Schmoo, the reason there's no long shot of my op is that I'd need a 180 degree fisheye lens to do it. It's really small in there... it's 7' tall x 8' x 9', barely enough room to turn around when standing between the 1200mm (about 4') trays.

Yes, there's a 1000 HPS over each pair of trays, of course, right between the pairs. The Adjust-a-Wings batwing reflectors spread the light over the rectangular space very nicely, thanks. By shortening or lengthening the stainless wires on either side of the reflectors, you can change the spread of the light coverage. You can also adjust the distance of the lamp tube to the reflector by way of a slipper mount to more finely adjust focus. In concert with the SoG style of growing, where branches on the lower 1/3 of the mainstem are removed, more than adequate light gets to all parts of all plants.

One of the drawbacks to using a single light over 2 trays is that the plants in the middle can get a bit too much heat and light. I use the 'Super Spreaders' to block a little light to the very nearest plants. The 'spreaders' bounce some of this light back up to the batwing, although I'm sure this path is fairly inefficient. I think these devices are better called 'super shades' than 'super spreaders.'

The reason I selected a pair of 1000s instead of individual lights for each tray is efficiency. A pair of 400 HPS use only about 150 watts less than the power draw of a single 1000. The mucho higher luminous intensity of the 1000 vs a 400 makes far denser buds, further down the stem, to boot.

Because my plants live in pots, they can be moved around as needed to even out growth. Shorter plants can be moved closer to the light while taller ones can live around the edges.

The actual physical layout is very similar to the pictorial representation in post #1 of this thread, which shows the 4 flowering trays, 1 mother plant tray & clone box.

It occurs to me that the small room size probably helps with light distribution efficiency.

There's a tiny path between the pairs of tables, guessing about 8" wide, allowing barely enough room to stand between them. The other sides of the trays are right up against the walls, which are coated in white panda film. The proximity of the trays across the walkway is close enough that there's some meaningful sharing of light across the path. The nearness of the white walls to the plants reflects light back to the plants which would otherwise be wasted.

yeah Al, my manicuring time wont be nearly as long as yours is, I'm only doing six at a time so it wont be all bad, but really looking forward to every two weeks, thanks for all your advise, none of it was wasted and I am doing it in bubblers with no troubles, same size buckets made doing the changes all to easy, as easy as changing the lids, you rock!!!!

akidynoken, that all sounds great! Thanks much for the compliment.

I'm interested to see how your bubblers do with yield. It'll surely be better than my flood/rockwool system. I've been thinking about converting to NFT to eliminate my rockwool. Results from bubblers will be similar.

I have to tell ya, there's some days I just don't wanna be a weed baron... usually about the third straight day of manicuring, when my left eye keeps looking at my right.

I always wonder if the jokers sparking up my buds have clue #1 as to how much work went in to each one of those little nuggies...

I am having trouble with what may be a stupid question. Once you put your clones into the rockwool you let them sit for a couple weeks. Once the clones are ready to be moved I see you put them into pots. Tell me more about your pots. How do you go about potting them and what's in the pot? Are there holes in the pots?

I know I hav been talking to you about the bubbleponics SOG but I see that you are using a flood system. What's the difference between the two and how would I go about setting up the flood system? The more detail the better. Thanks!

The pots are plain ol' K-mart pots, 8" dia x 8" tall, about $1 each, probably cheaper by half in a reject/dollar shop. These are common, cheap pots normally used with soil. There are drain holes in the bottoms of the pots, not large enough to let rockwool fall out but plenty big enough to let water in when the tray is flooding. Expensive, fully perforated 'net pots' are not only not required but not desirable in this application. The cheapo pots will block light to the roots where the netpots may not.

Floods are the simplest of recirculating hydro systems. Nutrient solution is pumped from a reservoir upward into the tray. An overflow tube cut to a particular length along with a second hose set the flood depth. When the flood cycle is complete, the timer shuts off the pump and water drains by gravity backward through the pump and into the reservoir. The length and frequency of the flood period depends on the media you are using.

I am using loose rockwool, aka 'floc' or 'granulated.' It is made from basalt rock, heated to about 1500C and spun out like cotton candy. It has a consistency similar to dense fibreglass insulation (rockwool makes very good insulation, BTW), with lots of air spaces. An 8" pot of rockwool will hold close to 2 litres of water, enough to supply a plant for up to about 48 hours if a pump fails. Flooding 1x/day during lights on for 5 mins is sufficient.

Pots could also be filled with expanded clay pellets, with the rockwool cube used for cloning nested in the pellets and hand watered from the top for a week or so until roots grow down into the pellets. Pellet based flood systems require more frequent and longer flood cycles, on the order of 3-4x/day for 8-15 mins as required by plant size.

The pellet method probably gets more dissolved oxygen to the roots, but the pellets are often difficult to handle (drop a handful and you will chase them around the room for a while), are relatively expensive and while re-usable, are a pain to clean totally free of old root material.

I use rockwool because it's lightweight, cheap, safe to landfill being made out of common rock and close to sterile if dry and well packaged from the mfr. It can't be re-used, but that's a good thing. No chance of soilborne diseases being transmitted from crop to crop.

Bubbleponics aka Deep Water Culture or DWC grows plants with roots submerged in a nute solution which has a continuous air bubble supply from an aquarium type air pump or by an air bleed into a water pump. There is no better way of getting O2 to the roots than medialess methods like DWC or Nutrient Film Technology (NFT). Aeroponics is just bubbleponics with a lower water level and a lot of spraying or misting action in the rootzone. More O2 means better root development and overall plant performance.

The downside to DWC is that a nute solutions must be closely monitored and a pump failure unnoticed for a few hours (time dependent on a number of factors) can do major plant damage.

SoG relies on a large number of small plants. While it certainly can be done, most DWC systems don't use an individual bucket for each plant. Plants are not as mobile within the grow room as they are in plain ol' pots. Being able to pick up a plant and turn it around is essential for spraying and easy pruning as well as to put plants in appropriate parts of the lighted space to even out growth. Mind you, soon as I mention that, someone will come up with a photo of a DWC SoG op.

Go here for an overview of different systems, including animated images.

Thats an awesome set-up.Sorry if this is a stupid question,but how old are your clones from when you cut them till you put them in your first tray.Thanks in advance for any reply.

Al B. Fuct said:

.... Mind you, soon as I mention that, someone will come up with a photo of a DWC SoG op.

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lol believe or not i was thinking about that! .... the more i read and research it the more interested and motivated i am to try a dwc. ebb and flow and soil are good for now i suppose.

isabella2002 said:

Thats an awesome set-up.Sorry if this is a stupid question,but how old are your clones from when you cut them till you put them in your first tray.Thanks in advance for any reply.

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Not a stupid question at all.

My clones take about 7 days to set root. The root systems will be developed enough (numerous roots, not just a single taproot) in another 2-3 days that they can be planted out in the flowering area. In a SoG op, clones are not given any veg time other than that they spend under fluoros in the clonebox. Soon as they have good roots, they get flowered- or used as replacement mothers.

However, since plants come out of the flowering area to be harvested only every 15 days, the clones need to idle in the clonebox for another few days until there's space available in the flowering area.

sk3tch3 said:

lol believe or not i was thinking about that! .... the more i read and research it the more interested and motivated i am to try a dwc. ebb and flow and soil are good for now i suppose.

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Ebb & flow in soil sounds seriously messy. How do you keep the soil grit from trashing your water pump motor shafts?

haha sorry, soil for the mothers... that would be messy. my buddy ussed light warrior for a medium? but he uses a drip system not ebb and flow

sk3tch3 said:

my buddy ussed light warrior for a medium?

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What's 'light warrior?'

How often do you change your nutrient in your four main tanks.

isabella2002 said:

How often do you change your nutrient in your four main tanks.

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Every 15 days.

A recent change to 125L tanks has reduced the need to top with water to 1x week. The tank volume is now pretty closely matched to the water and nute consumption of the plants; ppm stays fairly steady as water is used up through the week.

If the tanks are fully topped with plain water at the end of the week, the apparent nutrient strength will drop according to what the plants have eaten. I aim for 1300-1500 when mixing. Tank 2 (wk 2-4) is the hungriest. It will drop to 700-800 ppm if all the water volume is replaced at the end of the week. That's a bit lower than I would like, so I don't always fill that tank all the way to the top. I refill it while watching a nute meter. It will still be on 1300-1500 until more water is added. I stop adding water when it hits about 1100ppm.

Al B. Fuct said:

abs, if you can find someone to drop a few shipping containers in your back yard, I'd bet the sodding sod is part of the package deal.

When I think about it, a bigmuthafuckin bulldozer would probably be the tool of choice for excavating for your new shipping container grow-cavern.

I recall seeing some joker build an underground grow op in some brilliant thread on Overgrow before it went *poof*. Did it properly, too- no shipping containers- he excavated and did reinforced concrete walls with steel beams for a roof at ground level. Wicked cool.

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Do you think you could find more info on this and create a link to it? I wouldn't be able to do it myself, I don't have the backyard for it. I do think it would be cool to see if there are pics!

FlipAPenny, I'll look around, but since Overgrow is quite dead, I'm not feeling hopeful.

...but I DID find this, which is nothing short of astounding.

That was the coolest thing I have ever seen in my life! There was a lot of thought that went into that operation, including having a childrens room. My only regret is that I will never be able to meet these guys as they will be in prison until my grandbabies babies are retired, and I sure as hell don't plan on doing anything that will land me in prison for any period of time.

Thanks for the post.

Hi Al B. Fuct.Please tell me if this is right.So every 2 weeks you harvest no4 tray.Move all plants within flower room to next coresponding tray,leaving no1 empty.Then put potted clones into tray1.Then cut new clones.Thanks for any advice.

isabella2002 said:

Hi Al B. Fuct.Please tell me if this is right.So every 2 weeks you harvest no4 tray.Move all plants within flower room to next coresponding tray,leaving no1 empty.Then put potted clones into tray1.Then cut new clones.Thanks for any advice.

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Yep, that's it!

What sort of setup do you have for your mothers,ie watering,etc. What p.h do you maintain,flowering and clones. Do you use humidome,clone wax,etc,for cloning.Only ever cloned in jiffy pots with wax.
Thanks,really appreciate advice.