cannatari's 600W Watercooled DWC Med Cab

Waddup RIU!
This journal is about my DIY 2010 grow cab. This is my 3rd cab build and my first time using water-cooled lighting and a digital ballast. This build took about 2 weeks for me to design after I had decided on the cabinet. It took me 2 months to decide on a cab. The cabinet that I chose is a 3 foot wide x 2 feet deep x 6 foot 6 inch tall steel janitorial closet with black powdercoat. I bought it new online. Main factors in my decision were security and stealth. Currently the cab is designed to also cure and store. Most pre-fab cabinet systems put a veg chamber in with the extra room. My reason for designing it this way was to keep all the stinky under lock and key, and under the same treated exhaust.
The cabinet has been made completely light-tight and has a HEPA filter intake and a carbon filter exhaust. My resivoir for the light is a top-opening freezer with 16 gallons of chlorinated water within a .5mm visqueen lining. The hydros are 2 Stealth Hydro bubbleponic units that I "lost the tubes and kept the bubbles". I had to build a wooden platform for the cab to sit on to support the weight of the 2 8gal hydros. A 4" 154CFM duct booster fan hangs in my attic and pulls air from a hole in the top of the cab and runs 24/7. Temps stay at room temperature within the cab but it ain't summer yet. Total build cost including black-out curtains for the room was about $2600.
Currently, I have 6 plants in the cab. The largest one on the right is a Barney's LSD from seed, the 2 medium sized plants in the middle are grab-bag Soma's from seed and the 3 small plants on the left are Strawberry Cough clones. Growing different sizes this way my first round should reveal my optimum plant size for the cab. So far it's looking like bigger is better, as long as the LSD doesn't out grow the cab or grow whispy buds down low. The girls are fed Dyna Grow as per the manufacturer's feeding chart with the addition of 29% H2O2. Ph does not fluctuate and is maintained at 6.3. Tap water is at a beautiful 40ppm right out of the faucet and I don't let it sit out overnight. I will add bat guano tea towards the end of flowering as an organic flavor enhancer. I run the guano through an old coffee machine and brew a pot. I've never heard of anybody doing this before. It was an experiment in my early days when there wasn't much of a hydro-organic market. Old school growers will tell you "Ain't nuthin better than bat guano" and I agree.
Thanks for stopping by, usual rules apply here and incidentally it was researching this build when I discovered RIU and I want to thank y'all for getting me this far. Best of yields to all!

Looks good cannatari! Is the light still effective that far from the canopy? Granted I have a 400, but I have it maybe 12" for tops of plants. I think I am either over or under watering. I have few leaves that stand straight out. Figuring out a watering schedule is my current problem. Going out of town this weekend, so I have to figure something out soon.

Subscribed to your journal. I think I need to move mine to the grow journal section.

Jman49 said:

Looks good cannatari! Is the light still effective that far from the canopy? Granted I have a 400, but I have it maybe 12" for tops of plants. I think I am either over or under watering. I have few leaves that stand straight out. Figuring out a watering schedule is my current problem. Going out of town this weekend, so I have to figure something out soon.

Subscribed to your journal. I think I need to move mine to the grow journal section.

Click to expand...

Thanks JMan, the plants are just starting to flower so I anticipate that they will reach the bulb before i cut them down.

cannatari said:

Thanks JMan, the plants are just starting to flower so I anticipate that they will reach the bulb before i cut them down.

Click to expand...

Very cool! I can not wait to switch to flowering. Keep us posted!

A few changes I've made this week:

In an attempt to reduce how often I had to water my clones, I added a container full of hydroton and water to my humidity dome and filled the tray with about an inch of water. The clones seem to like it. My last round of clones took a month from cut to transplant....no good. I'm used to it taking about 2 weeks. In this new setup, the RW is moist but not drippy and after a week, I have not had to re-water them at all. When I do need to water them, I only need to fill the hydroton container just under the RW's. Previously I was having to water the bottom of the tray, let the RW's soak-up (too wet), then drain the tray about every 3 days. I'm trying to engineer my entire grow so I can leave it unattended for up to a week, so I'd say the new clone-dome is a step in the right direction.







When I started this new setup I had some kind seeds and a few clones that grew completely out of hand in little time. Now that I have culled my males and slow-growers, I needed to simplify my veg area. I found these great rubbermaid 3gal. bins which I intend to use for 2 preflowers each. Check it:











New in the flowering cab is 2 milk crates on the floor to elevate the hydros. I thought I could cheat the light distance chart because of the tight enclosure and reflective material. I do believe that this cab is cheating the light chart but only by a couple of inches so I had to raise things up. Now the tops of the hydros are 32" from the light so the entire garden is within optimal distance from the light. After a major faliure in my light-cooling res maintainance, my largest LSD did not survive. This left me some room to spread out the remaining Somas and SCs. Check out the 2 and 4 main colas:









Those Somas were started on 3-11, the SC's on 3-03. By matter of default and selective horticultural practices, the Soma with the 2 main colas is first in line to be my new mother plant, a cutting from her anyways. She started as a seedling with purple edges on the first set of leaves, she has survived my poor maintainance, she has shown vigorous growth all the while and clones of her have been the first to root. Like I say: "I let the plant choose me".

Wow look fucking great man!!!!!!! I want to buy or build on of these. What do u think is better to build one or just buy one?

skate4theherb said:

Wow look fucking great man!!!!!!! I want to buy or build on of these. What do u think is better to build one or just buy one?

Click to expand...

I built my own because I thought I could build a better one for the same price as a "cool-cab". If I had a more secure place I would have went with a tent setup. Either way it costs a couple grand to do it right. You in the 916? Happy sk8'n.

Looking real good Canna! I wish my plants looked so healthy!

I had another faliure in the watercooled light today. Apparently the filter inside the water pump lost cohesion and disintegrated. Little black particles accumulated in the intake side of the light and blocked all water flow. Lucky that I caught it in time. My temp in the cab was 100 degrees and the water in the light was actually boiling! I'm getting good at working on this thing so it only took me a little over an hour to clean up the mess and get it working again. I added a stocking to my return line to help catch any remaining particles. Close one!

I'm far enough into flowering that I was able to discriminate and remove the slow growing branches at the bottom of my plants. Here are my 4 main cola topping technique attempt:





They ended up being a 3 main cola and a 2 main cola. Dig how the 3 main cola plant looks like 6 plants in 1 cup! Here are their tops, respectively:





I still don't know the strain of these 2 plants as they are a grab-bag mix from Soma. The plants are far enough along that I can start to compare them to pictures and descriptions on Soma's website. So far I'm guessing that the 3 cola plant is Somanna and the 2 cola plant is Big Kahuna. Compare yourself and tell me what you think:http://www.somaseeds.nl/seeds/bigkahuna.html
The Somanna contains a rare cannabis chinensis, yes, chinese weed! Until I have reason to believe otherwise, I will refer to them as Somanna and Big Kahuna.

As my neverending PH debate continues, I decided to aim for PH 5.5-5.8 instead of 6.3. 3 days after my last disaster that killed my LSD, I noticed the Somas had an amazing recovery and were growing vigorously. When I did my PH adjustment I discovered that the PH was 5.5! Not sure if that was the contributing factor or not, I took the advice of Fatman7574: "PH 5.5-5.8 PERIOD!". He didn't give me a detailed explination as to why, so I'm taking a leap of faith and trusting that his decision is based on his experience. Thanks again Fatman. So in the coming days I hope to share some conclusive results.

Oh yeah, and the Strawberry Cough is looking great! SC is a fast-finishing sativa that I got from clone. These clones looked like crap when I got them but in my determination to see this plant do proper in my garden, I currently have a cutting in my clone tray and will give her a second chance in my next round of flowering. Here she is at 4 weeks:



Thanks for stopping by, best of yields to all!

Looking good Canna!

Bummer about the light. For my pH, I shoot for 5.80-5.85, then let it creep up to 6.0 and then bring her back down with a gal of 5.3-5.5 water (every other day water with nutes). Aside from the over/under watering roller coaster, they seem to like it.

Not sure on the strain, but then again who cares right! You should call it Forrest Gump, because like a box of chocolates, you never know what your going to get!

I added a thermostat that I had in stock to my exhaust fan to lighten it's load a little. It's been running for a month straight and I don't want it to blow up on me this summer. After a few days the memory on my thermometer was min-69 max-84. Works for me!

It's been a few days since I switched to a lower PH. The new growth looks great so far. Here are comparison pictures, 4 days of growth:










This picture is of a clone of a seedling born the first week of February. Both clones of Big Kahuna and Somana just started showing pistils and have always been in veg cycle.

I am thinking about adding a therm to my exhaust as well. Not sure S&P meant them to be run 24/7, although the literature shows uses for gyms and such, and I imagine some of those run all the time.

The plants look great, love the pics of the trics, can't wait until I see some of that at my place!

The pic of the clone is a really cool pic, kinda artistic. I really like photography, and I can wait to take some cool bud pics for prints.

FYI, if your camera has an manual white balance setting, take a white piece of paper, put it under the grow light and set the white balance(point the lens at paper and then push the set button). That way the camera believes the grow light is actually emitting white light and the yellow pics will go away.

I'm super stoked with the results I got with my new clone dome experiment. I took cuttings on Sunday March 28 and 10 days later I have nice, vigorous root growth. Oh yeah, and only watered ONCE!!! These are much better results than I anticipated. My hopes were 14 days and 2 waterings. Check it out:





4 clones are from my LSD that died, the cuttings were looking pretty poor when I took them. It was more of a last ditch effort to save atleast part of her. The other two are a Strawberry Cough and a Big Kahuna. It was back to the Depot to get parts for a few more hydros and back home to transplant. Here are some process pics:





At some point somebody is going to do the math and wonder where the extra Big Kahuna came from. So... When I had the faliure with my light last Sunday, as I was working on it I dropped a screwdriver on the Big Kahuna and it sheared one of the lower branches off. So the BK clone in the pics was taken from the host 3 weeks into flowering. I've never taken a clone from a flowering plant so we'll see what happens.

Also new is my nutrient formula. As I read in this article:httphttps://www.rollitup.org/advanced-marijuana-cultivation/318110-maximum-yield.html:// a 1-1-1 NPK ratio was proven to be most successful through the entire lifecycle of the plant. I've also seen others in the forum using a 2 part, GH formula start to finish as well with good results. So with what I've got to work with in house to imitate this approach is Dyna-Gro Grow 7-9-5 + Dyna-Gro Pro-Tek 0-0-3, resulting in a 7-9-8 with the added benefit of suplemental silicon in the Pro-Tek. The clones were fed 1 tsp/gallon of each and I intend to use this formula start-to-finish with these girls to see what the fuss is all about.

BTW, the clones were kept in 18/6.

So I was feeling creative and took these shots with one of those paintings those guys on the pier do with spray cans. Check it out:



I took these shots with my video camera but I think I'm gonna shag a nice digi to get some nicer shots in the next day or two. Let me know if you dig 'em!

Wow! Great job cannatari. I like the nice clean look of your cab. Very well thought out and your plants are doin great! I hope I can duplicate your success in time.

I have a bubbleponic setup which I will try in the future but first I will do the coco/autopot method a couple of grows. I am going to do some photoperiod plants in the next grow but haven't decided which strain to start with. I have so many things to try and it takes so long to give something a true test.

Your girls are growing at an incredible rate and I suppose that is due in part to the DWC as well as your obvious skills.
Awesome job man! I'll be checking in to watch. +++Rep.

Nice cab, i've been looking into water cooling mine as well, how did you do yours?

PurfectStorm

PurfectStorm said:

Nice cab, i've been looking into water cooling mine as well, how did you do yours?

PurfectStorm

Click to expand...

The fixture is the Fresca Sol model. My supply and return lines are marine hose, I think it's just regular garden hose, just white in color. It was WAY cheaper than the threaded poly hose. The water basically sits in a top-opening freezer (16 gallons) with a 633 GPH Submersible pump. You need to be sure the pump can meet/exceed your elevation requirements, mine is 7 feet. I plan on shit-canning the freezer and switching to a 40 gallon plastic trash can. My electrical consumption would be better served if the freezer element was in the cab itself. Fact is that the water temp has little to do with the cab temp. In my original design I hoped that ice-cold water in the light would keep the cab cool. To my suprise the radient energy of the light cannot be conquered by any means. The water cooling significantly reduces the bulb heat, just not the radient heat if that makes sense. So to conqure the radient heat I propose to scrap the cooling element out of the freezer and add it to the cab. 20 degrees difference in the light cooling water only seems to affect the cab temp by 2 or 3 degrees. It's just not worth spending alot of energy to keep the water cold.

I don't really know how to explain "how I did it" other than putting the parts together and hanging the S.O.B. in there.

I'll be making some changes to the system after my current crop is harvested in about 5 weeks. I'd recommend waiting to see my results before you moved into the water cooling world as there is not much documentation on a setup like mine. I couldn't even find info on what sized water pump was required for the light from the manufacturer! The light also came with no instructions! Seems the watercooled light industry is still in the dark.

EvlMunkee said:

Wow! Great job cannatari. I like the nice clean look of your cab. Very well thought out and your plants are doin great! I hope I can duplicate your success in time.

I have a bubbleponic setup which I will try in the future but first I will do the coco/autopot method a couple of grows. I am going to do some photoperiod plants in the next grow but haven't decided which strain to start with. I have so many things to try and it takes so long to give something a true test.

Your girls are growing at an incredible rate and I suppose that is due in part to the DWC as well as your obvious skills.
Awesome job man! I'll be checking in to watch. +++Rep.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the props and the +rep, EM!

Situation: I want a perpetual garden where I take clones of clones for preflowers every flowering period (no long-term mother plants).

Problem: Timing Uncle Ben's Multi Main Cola Technique. Let's say that it takes 4 weeks from the the time I take clones, they root, and is now the optimum time to execute the UB technique. Now I have to take the cuttings left from topping and root them. Now I'm taking cuttings and rooting clones twice as often as I need to given an 8 week flowering period. I can't just add another 4 weeks in between the time I need the clones because I won't be topping the preflowers at their optimum multi-cola time. And I can't just throw the toppings away because I have to get my next round off of them. And if I do throw them away and get my clones later from the pre-flowers, it's liable to screw with the shape I'm trying to grow the plants or I have to take clones from the crappy lower branches and not the ideal top chutes.

Solution: Take 6 clones for the 5 that I need. The extra clone becomes a temporary mother plant for the next round. This gives me the ability to time when I UB top those 5 (by deciding when to take them as clones), based on the desired length of their vegitative stage (size).The cuttings from the UB topping and the 2 month old mother plant are all dispensable. The temp mother can also be saved/reused with low risk because you always have a back-up on hand. Either way the mother's life cycle is never longer than the flowering plant's. Also, a new strain may be added in at any time. By cloning everything at the same time you don't have to crapshoot when to start a new seedling.

I racked my brain for two nights on this. I hope it's worth something to somebody else. I will be using this approach on my next round. It all starts when my BK has enough sites for the clones I need. Fingers X'ed!

Sub'd. Always thought water cooled lights were cool, but figured they had a higher failure rate. Buds look great tho!