SHH! Don't tell my landlord I'm growing in my closet! (400 watt Apollo HPS in closet)

FrozenChozen

Well-Known Member
First off I'd like to say, I'm a long time lurker but have just started posting and am starting my own journal (seems like the perfect time). I have 2 solid grows behind me already, both in the same closet but have added light through out. I love DIY and will do what I can as cheap as possible (if reasonable). Both previous grows I used 5 REALLY old Future Harvest Development 68 watt 6400k cfls, a broke down led panel, and a couple extra Feit Electric 45 watt 2600k cfls. Soil was Organic Miracle Grow, strain is a family hand me down that has been in Alaska for 30+ years that I got from a close friend, I call it Talkeetna Old Man (Tom for short). First crop was 24/0 from germination to flower then 12/12 for flower with no lights/ lumens added for flower, after 17 weeks I cropped a pitiful 60g from 4 females (out of 10 beans that made it to sexing). Second crop I started 16 beans with better hopes and some more cfls! Also had ordered lots of 3 watt LEDs (for building my own panel, which I did) and rigged them in an array that ran from a 94 watt laptop charger, btw it works GREAT (for the $45 that I put in to it!) I kept 10 females but due to space and lighting concerns 2 weeks into flower I dropped 4 and kept 6 (2 of each phenotype that I saw). 6 weeks, late topping, and a bad cal-mag deficiency later, I cropped down about 125g... So onto the feature of my journal! I have recently gutted out a 3.8 (roughly 27"x28" with 4- 42 watt 6500k 1- 68 watt 2600k and 1- 55 watt 2600k cfl) cubic foot mini fridge and am using it for my germination/starting room. Inside I fit about 16 red party cups; so that's my magic number! February 2nd I dropped 18 beans into a wet paper towel, slid that into a Ziploc, and placed the package in a warm spot, 3 days later and a 100% germination rate I dumped the 2 smaller sprouts. Sprouts went into a jiffy green house for a couple days while I put finishing touches on the mini fridge. February 9th they were ready for party cups, which I unknowingly filled with "jiffy mix" (BAD IDEA!! It has NO N-P-K!), There they sat until I noticed about 2 weeks later, they were all root-bound, I found some same diameter 32oz. plastic tumblers at WalMart and painted them black; filled the bottoms with decent organic miracle grow soil and let them recover. March 1st I received 3 gal. planter bags in the mail and went to work repotting AGAIN! I managed to fit 12 into my closet and the remaining 4 went into 8 inch plastic pots and back into the mini fridge. Yesterday I received my 400 watt Apollo hps/mh with cool tube. I built it up and situated everything to a perfect fit! Over night temps at 50% power was 82, and I haven't bothered to check humidity as I know its too low... I'm only running a 190 cfm booster fan sucking air through the cool tube and exhausting into the attic space, I don't really have intake as the closet is closed nearly 24/7 and I haven't managed to put another 6" hole in my "coat" closet.... Questions or comments greatly appreciated, I'm tired of typing so on to some pics! (from last grow, btw that's a pic of one of my nugs from last harvest as my avatar)
 

FrozenChozen

Well-Known Member
this is a show case of the three TOM phenotypes. my favorite is the bottom left purple... almost a fruity flavor after cure:joint: damn, sucks that its almost all gone already.... What does everyone think?
 

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FrozenChozen

Well-Known Member
comments? suggestions? temp is 82 solid, running ballast @ 75%, gonna have to work on that temp as I want to go to 100% when I flower... btw Racer, that was all grown with cheap ass home depot Miracle Grow African violet food (purple bottle 7-7-7) in veg, and Cactus blend (Green bottle npk idk off the top of my head) in flower
 

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FrozenChozen

Well-Known Member
overnight temps @79, maybe there's still some hope of running the ballast @ 100%... they're loving the hps! As its a dual ballast though, should I switch to the MH before I get too invested in using the hps? I heard that MH runs much hotter and I'm not sure if I can deal with a heat issue (monetarily). I also don't want to raise the hood too soon, I have it less than 12" from the tops and have great coverage and my 5-68 watt 6500k cfls cover everything else that's in sub-par areas. Any advice would be helpful!
 

racerboy71

bud bootlegger
the nice thing about flowering is that you only run lights on for 12 hours.. i also like to run all of my lights on when it's dark outside and the outside temps are at their lowest to help with temps too..
umm, you have any kind of ventilation going on?
 

FrozenChozen

Well-Known Member
just what's passive through the door cracks, and a small 4" hole near the bottom of the closet. also I added in a 240 cfm booster pushing air through the cool tube and a 190 cfm booster venting into the attic space, pics don't really show above where the light is hanging though
 

FrozenChozen

Well-Known Member
wife told me today that I'm leaving on vacation on may 23.... guess I'll have to switch light cycle about the 16th of this month.... damn only 5 weeks of veg. sucks, was hoping to get at least six or seven in veg...
 

racerboy71

bud bootlegger
Leaving state for 2 weeks... Don't have anyone that I trust enough to take care of shit while I'm gone though
you could look into getting some water pumps from a pet store frozen, and some timers, and set up an auto water thingy ma jig.. it'd not be too hard, nor too costly, but i'd advise you to try it out and get all the bugs worked out, and the timers set right, before you go away so you don't come back to a flooded house, lol.
you'd just need some times and pumps and something large enough to hold enough water for two weeks like i said, i think that's the route i'd look into tbh..

or, you could pm me your addy, and i'll come over and water them, no problem.. :D:D
 

FrozenChozen

Well-Known Member
looking good. wish I would've started a mother last crop so I wasn't continually at a loss for the males I am going to be yanking in a couple weeks. Pretty sure too that I already see some plant nuts forming:cry:...
 

FrozenChozen

Well-Known Member
Damn over 300 peoples checkin it out but no one can leave any comments? Hope I'm doing well then... figured out if I can get 50% females (6 of 12) and get roughly 40g a plant I can crop a 1/2 lb.... Am I being unrealistic? From my understanding, once dialed in, I should be able to get about 1g/1watt right? And from my calculations, I'm only really wanting about half of my potential (only vegging for 5-6 weeks). Besides even if I only get 1/4 lb I'll break more than even. @ $0.14 per kwh with a 400 watt hps (actually 3.6 amps @ 120v = 432 watts)... 24hrs for 6 weeks = ~$75 plus flower @ 12hr for 8 weeks = ~$50 plus roughly $100 in supplies = $225).... Let me know what you think
 
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