400w Auto Grow...

Green Cross said:

Who knows, but It will be interesting to see if the buds are more colorful on the purple stemmed plants. A lot of things can cause color, too much nutes, cool temps, but I figure if you plant 5 seeds and treet them all the same, any major differences must be genetic. Actually the 2 indica bagseed I started with came out of the shell with some purple on them, so I'm kind of hoping one of them is male so I can possibly do a little cross breeding, and make a little seed.

Trainwreck is some good smoke. I have some K-train (kush + trainwreck) seed standing by, but I figure I'll wear out the blue moonshine grow first. My bro has stage 4 stomach cancer so I hope I can help him out with some devastating smoke whenever he needs it.

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Green Cross said:

Great thread guys,

I'm liking GKN's organic soil grow under 400w. I have the same thing going and just switched to 12/12 on the 4th.

On bulbs: Look into CMH bulbs (they burn in a HPS ballast) and the plants love the spectrum. They're $60 and no need to switch ballasts. the spectrum has enough red that I'm planning to run them throughout flower.

I just joined the RIU community today, so be gentle. Here's a couple pics of my setup.

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Green Cross said:

Here's that CMH bulb I was talking about. This is one of the main reasons I went with 400w HPS ballasts. http://www.growlightexpress.com/pdf/cmh.pdf

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Green Cross said:

Thanks for the kind words

I really like your idea of loading up the soil with organics, and letting the plants eat it up into flowering. I'm thinking manure, worm casings, bone meal, green sand, perlite, soilless mix, and probably a 1/2 cup of lime per cubic foot to even out the PH.

Here's my lineup: I have 4 bagseed plants I started 3 months ago and LSTed the crap out-of while getting my grow dialed in. 3 out of the 4 have already shown female sex. 2 are indica, 2 seem to be a sativa/indica or skunk mix. The one is really stinky can't wait to see what she puts out.

6 are DJ Shorts Blue Moonshine. I have on purple pheno - the rest are pretty much identicle. Oh and I had 2 seedlings come out of one seed, and that's why there's 6! Twins!

The other 2 were freebies gigabud and quick silver (auto-flowering but no showyet) All feminized. I plan to clone gigabud and moonshine for the next grow, before they get to far into flower.

I can't wait to get back in there with the camera, so I can get some better pics, but they're sleeping.

Don't mean to hijack your thread here, but damn I'm excited

Here's moonshine purple pheno, unknown indica LST, gigabud, quicksilver, and unknown skunk hybrid, in that order.

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simpsonsampson420 said:

very nice setup you have going... ive been interested in autoflowers as a filler in my garden.. but have been fenced as to whether or not i am going to use them or not... its nice i have some i can drill with questions about them on... LOL

so you are happy with them?? hows the potency of them?? they seem to like a lot of root space too.. i wouldnt have thought they would need 3 to 5 gallon buckets... but im sure its like any MJ.. the more the roots can grow the better the plant will yield.. what kind of yields are you pulling per plant anyways??

was a soil grower for the first couple years i grew.. i absolutely love organics.. had to switch to hydro tho.. multiple reasons.. but mostly a convienence thing.. cant beat the taste of good organics... that mix you made sounds like a sweet mix tho... lots of perlite... lots of high quality soil... pretty much a low maintainence soil blend.. very nice...

gonna pull a seat up and enjoy the ride...

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GrowKindNugs said:

thanks dude....and i'm glad to have ya aboard...fire away and i'll do my best to answer em all...I'm VERY happy with auto's, i've only grown one strain, diesel ryder, so it's all i can speak on, and let me just say, the potency isn't lacking at all...i've done blind taste tests to experienced smokers and nobody could tell the difference....their easy to grow, the growth rate is just a sight to behold and i can't tell ya much i love em...in fact, the DR is becoming one of my fav strains to grow due to the speed, easy growing and phenomenal buds!! alot of folks use small pots with auto's and their yields suffer, you're right, like all marijuana, the bigger the pot, the bigger the yield in most cases...used 3 gal grow bags my first go round and had some that finished right at 2 ozs per plant, while a few were under a oz and the rest were 1 oz...there is one thing i don't like, auto's are a pretty unstable bunch, so you never know if you're gonna get that freak that grows almost as big as regular plants or that mini who's barely worth havin in the garden...another awesome thing bout auto's, mine are showing sex already at 18 or so days old, so there's no wasted resources on males...yet another increible thing is the easy ability to have a perpetual garden...for cats like me who can't have 2 giant rooms, i can just run the light on 18/6 and always be starting new seeds...you just gotta do a seed run and i hear that one fully pollinated female can produce over 400 seeds!!! i agree bout not being able to beat organics with taste, it's just something special...this is my first time using this mix and so far i'm a big fan and the plants are just loving it...i saw the list of what all is in there, just a ton of goodies! take a look: Ingredients in the soils are: Composted Forest Humus x2, Sphagnum peat moss x3, Earthworm castings x3, PacificNorthwest seagoin fish ,crab meal, shrimp meal, vermicultural compost (bedding material and livestock manure) x2 , Sandy loam x2, perilite x2, fossilized bat guano x2, granite dustx3, Norwegian Kelp meal x2, dolomite lime and oyster shell for Ph x3 and Humic acid from leonardite and Mycorrhizal innoculents...well, stay tuned and feel free to ask away! and sorry for the giant paragraphs, i'm bad bout doin that, haha...


gkn

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simpsonsampson420 said:

well you have definatly sparked an interest in autoflowers for me.. more so than i originally had.. i am getting a dinafem roadrunner auto seed (got it as a freebie with an order) here soon.. i was gonna give it to someone.. might just keep it for myself after all..

so you say you got over 2 ounces on a plant?? thats amazing.. blew the stero type i had in my mind out of the water.. i thought they could/would only yield up to an ounce.. and i thought that was a lot... per plant at least.. but i guess with all the crossing and shit they are doing im sure they have figured out how to get more out of them...

that mix sounds sick... chaulked full of good things.... very nice

no worry about the paragraph... not a big deal

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simpsonsampson420 said:

i was sort of thinking the same thing.. except this.. well i will try to explain it.. hopefully it makes sense...

i have 12 sites hooked up to my hydro system right now... which means i have a ton of open floor space... so i was thinking this.. i will veg those 12 sites out for 1 month.. those will be my "commercial" plants.. those 12 will consistantly get vegged somewhere between a month or 2 then thrown into flowering (im expanding my setup after this grow to include a 4000w flowering room)... i was going to fill in the extra floor space i have with autoflowers, that would end up growing underneath the 12 larger girls i would be vegging.. all i would need to do is hook the sites with the autoflowers up to the reservoir that will be in my flower room when they start to flower.. make sense?? almost like a mini sog under my main veg grow.. and also in the flower room i am going to run a bunch of straight to 12/12 clones under the 12 larger flowering girls i will have.. if it all works ill have a standard 1 to 2 month veg then to flower grow with 12 plants, another 10 or so autoflowers in a mini sog style grow in my veg room and another unknown amount of straight to 12/12 clones in a mini sog style setup in the flower room... could be crazy...

anyways.. you definatly got the right idea bro.. sounds like itll be a badass perpetual grow once its up and going the way you are wanting...

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GrowKindNugs said:

ohhh man that would be dope!!!! literally, hahahah....i'm quite jealous, i wish i had the space and cash to get more lights, im just a bit scared...you're quite ballsy, but more power to ya...i wish you were my friend in town, it'd be awesome, you could pump it out and i'd move it like theres no 2morrow....
I'm off to bed, goodnight all...


gkn

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Heads Up said:

Welcome to RIU green cross, nice plants. I plan on getting a 400w that can burn either lamp. To my understanding the standard bulbs you get with a complete setup throw off 32,000 for metal halide or thereabouts and hps fifty two? I'm not sure about full spectrum bulbs.

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simpsonsampson420 said:

well i havent decided for sure if i am going to do that or not.. lol i want to keep numbers low.. but i also want lots of buds... i want to have so much bud i can roll around in it on my bed.. and feed it to my dogs as snacks (they love eating buds)... but as precaution should something ever happen **knock on wood** i like knowing lower numbers sound better.. just havent decided how big my balls are yet... your more than welcome to move in next door bro.. neighbors just moved and its empty.. LOL

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Green Cross said:

Hey HeadsUp thanks for the welcome. I was a little busy yesterday, and missed it. You're getting surprisingly decent results under those T5's. Makes me want to switch out the CFL's in my veg cab lol

The CMH bulbs I'm using are 34,000 lum. - designed to fire in a magnetic HPS fixture only. The spectrum is comparable to the best MH bulb I know of - eye blue, but at half the price...

Lumens that really matter are the lumens in the spectrum that plants can use, all else is wasted heat/energy.

Here is a spectrograph showing the Philips 4k CMH vs normal HPS

I'll also put up the eye blue for comparison

So not only does the CMH have as much blue and UV as the best MH Veg bulb available, but it has more usable red spectrum (for flowering) than a higher lumen 400w HPS bulb.

From CMH results I've seen there is apparently more healthy vegetative growth during the flowering stage, so more leaves to trim at harvest time. I suppose this could be avoided by switching to pure HPS during weeks 3 - 6, and I may try that next run, just for comparison, but I like hash, so none of the trim will go to waste anyhow.

DIY 400W HPS ballast kit $54.95
Old ammo box or metal toolbox (ballast housing) $20
400W CMH full spectrum bulb $65

The rewarding feeling you get from growing your own dank nugs - priceless!

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GrowKindNugs said:

hahaha, that sounds like a plan my brotha, i'll move in next week, lol....i actually just extended my lease till march, so i'm set for a while...i'll just make a visit sometime, haha....what part of the country are you in?

gkn

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GrowKindNugs said:

Well, i just spent the last hour finishing my ghetto male chamber! i used some old storage containers, put a fan in there and added a big cfl bulb...i think it'll be enough for my prized diesel ryder male, at least long enough to use his pollen...when my selected female is ready i'm gonna throw her in with him for a few days, then shake down the female, spray her down and return her to the grow room....the male will be killed after that...the last pic is just a shot of the garden...enjoy

gkn

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