Es-B's Multi Tent Perpetual Journal

Time after time I'm given perpetual style growing a shot, but time after time I've found myself deviating from the original plan. This go'round I've made a few tweaks and procured enough hardware to comfortably run a perpetual style grow. There's some rules I'm putting in place for myself to avoid getting off track. The goal is to get 7 successful harvests in the next 365 days, which averages out to one harvest every 52 days. In this schedule I've allotted the following time periods for each stage of growth per phase.

Seedling / Clone rooting stage : 14 days.
Vegetative stage: 35 days.
Flowering stage: 63 days.

Abiding by these predetermined timelines is crucial. Plants will be cut down at 63 days regardless if they're ready or not (in which they'll be pressed into rosin). They'll also be replaced by something else if and when that scenario comes up. There will be some overlapping phases, meaning when I take clones for the next phase, that's when the next phase begins (even though the previous phase will need to continue for 2 more weeks). I did this to avoid a 7 week veg time, because IMO that's way too long for my growing environment that has limited space.

In order to keep track of everything I went ahead and created a gantt chart. For those who aren't familiar with what that is, it's a chart with colors and dates that often times are used for construction projects. General contractors will put these gantt charts together for their sub-contractors to follow along during the multiple phases of a project. See attached.

I'll update shortly with hardware, growing environment, techniques, genetics, and all that good stuff. Just wanted to get this journal up and running.

My grow tents are located in a corner area of my basement. I use three tents, two dedicated to growing (2x4 and 4x4) and one dedicated to drying (2x4). All three tents are ventilated by their own 4'' AC Infinity fan / controller & phresh filter. Both grow tents are outfitted with botanicare flood / drain tables. The tables are on homemade stands that keep each roughly 18'' off the ground.

Below each table is an HDX yellow and black tote functioning as a reservoir. The 4x4 uses a 38 gallon tote and the 2x4 uses a 27 tote. Each reservoir has an aquarium air pump connected to a stone to keep the water fresh. Each reservoir also has a DIY dripper system powered by a 172gph ecoplus adjustable flower water pump. I'll need to make a separate post for the drip system because it'll take a while to break down the parts and details.

The lighting in my 4x4 currently consists of four QB288 boards and two Gromau5 flower initiator pucks, this cranks out 575 watts when turned all the way up. The pucks turn on for 15 minutes when the main lights turn off, resulting in quicker flowering times by putting the plants to sleep almost immediately.
My 2x4 currently consists of two QB 288 boards with 660's and 730's. I also just completed building a 250 watt DIY light using LM561C's that I plan to use in the 2x4 with the other Quantum Boards. These two units combined can be way overkill for a 2x4 so I'll need to dial down each unit so they add up to 320~ watts, which is kind of my sweet spot for that tent.

I'll be using the same nutrients I've been using for the past two years in Jacks 321. I run the Jacks full strength from the very beginning. The reservoir comes out to an EC between 1.7 and 1.9 at full strength. Also used is .6ML per gallon of Plant Success Orca. Fulvic Acid from custom hydro nutrients at .4ML/gal. Lastly, I add concentrated pond enzymes at 1ML per 10 gallons.

Since converting to drain to waste I hardly see fluctuations in my reservoirs PH. I set the PH to 5.9-6.0 when I top off, and the res remains between 5.8 - 6.1 for weeks at a time. I should also note that I hardly do res changes either, instead I top off the res about once per week. This is kind of unconventional but has been a winning formula. I use a bluelab guardian to monitor my 4x4 res, and an Apera PH-60 pen to monitor the 2x4 res. Down the road I'll be adding a second bluelab guardian as the cost has definitely been worth it.

The big change I'm making for this perpetual grow is reducing the plant count and going with bigger pots. In previous grows I've used #1 pots, which need to be watered at least 2x per day to avoid drying out too much. Before, I would jam 8-10 plants in #1 pots in a tent and call it good. It got a little messy and inefficient. Plant count is now 4 per phase in 3 gallon pots. I'll start with watering them by hand before switching to a 1x per day automated watering with the drippers. During this initial period I'll be watching and adjusting how much water I'm giving the plants vs how quickly the pots dry up. I like to run the drippers just long enough to achieve runoff, so it takes a little tinkering.

Wifi #43 x Aliendog Cherry - just finished up a few weeks ago. Bred by OBS.


Spartan Kush x Dirtly Little Secret bred by Bigworm6969. This is currently drying out and I can't wait to try it.


DIY LED I built last week. It uses 6 strips of LM561C 96 diode strips (two of the four strips have 45, 660, and 730).

Starting this perpetual run with some Sugarcane from Inhouse Genetics and Hyper Fuel from Archive.

Sugarcane is platinum x slurricane, and hyper fuel is rocket fuel x dosidos.

Setting up a drip system was a bit daunting at first. I wasn't quite sure where to start. So I began looking at spot spitters on google, and found www.dripirrigation.com, aka the Drip Store. After some time perusing through their online store, I decided to call them because I was still confused about something.

I can't remember the guys name, but he was very helpful. He helped me put together a list of items over the phone so I could put in my order. Part #'s are listed below so you can use the search feature on their site to navigate directly to each part's page.

T300 - 1/8'' micro tubing, 100'. $7.50
D071 - 12-Outlet PC Drip manifold with 1/2'' FNPT (includes [12] 1gph emitters w/ o-rings). $6.77
S047 - 6'' flow stabilizer stake for 1/8'' microtube. $.16 cents each.
SF005 - 1/8'' barbed Tee $.13 cents each.
D074 - Bug plugs $.49 cents for 18 pack.
R204 - MNPT x 4'' riser (for connecting water pump to manifold) $.25 cents
P365 - Sch 40 PVC male adapter 1/2'' slip x 1/2'' MNPT $.25 cents (For connecting riser and manifold)

I was in and out for under $60 and I have a bulletproof drip stem. Initially I ran this setup in one tent, now both tents are configured the same way. I'm a big fan of coco, but I'm not a big fan of being required in the garden on a daily basis to water the plants. This drip system has provided me with a ton of freedom when it comes to scheduling maintenance in the garden.

Now that I've got just about everything out of the way, viewers can feel free to chime in with comments and questions.

All four seeds germinated over the weekend and are now in coco. They spent 48 hours soaking in RO water followed by 24 hours in a wet paper towel.

I planted each seed in 4'' pots and used Canna coco and a dusting of Mykos. Before adding the seedlings I saturated the coco with Jacks 321 water (full strength as always). This will ensure these seedlings have all the nutrition they need right away in their life. And no, it doesn't burn them.

As of this morning 3 of 4 have peaked through the medium and their lives have begun. The lights needed to be dimmed down to around 125 watts to keep the lux around 7,000 - 8,000. With the lights set at 125w, the temps are 77°-78° and the humidity is 57%-60%.

It's Wednesday, which means the seeds have been in coco for just over three days. So far so good, all four broke ground and are working on their first set of single-blade leaves. Sugarcane is on the left, Hyper Fuel on the right.



The Crescendo RBX1 that's currently flowering in the 4x4 is looking soooo tasty. The pictures don't do it justice, she's a frost factory. Not the biggest colas but not small by any means. What's nice is she stacks perfectly from top to bottom. Very symmetrical shaped buds from up to down. If I had the resources to keep this plant around, I probably would. She's that good.

right on, man! the Crescendo RBX1 looks lovely.

i love a drip feed setup, i couldnt do it without one. looking forward to seeing if you manage 7 crops, that'd be great!

subbed

Just started cracking into this 99 Cherries (Spartan Kush x Dirty Little Secret) and it's delicious. Taste is very fruity with some potent gas on the smell and flavor. Burns white and the joint stays list.

Had two friends try samples and both came back and said it floored them. Both are heavy tokers too, so I was a bit surprised. One friend said this could be in the 30% club. I'm not so sure about that, but I'd give it mid 20% all day. Zoom in.

This is the last Wifi 43 x Aliendog Cherry that I have in the garden. This one is has two key attributes that I'm not exactly fond of. First, it's a super heavy yielder, just massive oversized colas. I find massive colas harder to properly dry, or at least find they take a bit more attention to properly dry. Good thing it's winter time and the ambient RH stays a bit lower, this plant would be tough to dry during the summer.

The second attribute I'm not fond of is the foxtailing. Temps never exceeded 80F, but this one shows some leaf curling and foxtails everywhere. Even the lowest buds on the plant are foxtailing, albeit the buds are rock hard, foxtailing in my opinion can be a chore to trim at times. I'll reserve judgement for later on.

This one is just about ready to come down. She's been going for probably 70+ days and has been getting 400 PPM water for the past two weeks.

/close thread. Shifting over to the pheno hunter forum.