cannatari's 600W Watercooled DWC Med Cab

swelchjohn said:

There's no tool I can't use and nothing I couldn't build (practically). So from what you tell me it doesn't sound like there is much to worry about. How much did you spend on this thing from top to bottom?

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Cheers to that! Total build cost was about $2200.

cannatari said:

Cheers to that! Total build cost was about $2200.

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Dig your response. You skimped on nothing given that tally. I try to shop as close to wholesale as possible, shopping around at various electrical supply store-fronts and hvac suppliers contractor supply etc etc.For example, total cost of a 400watt MH set up(socket, ballast kit, cords, lamp) I put together recently for a friend came out to less than $170. Did you buy your materials at retail or shop around for things?

Oh yeah, obviously there aren't many suppliers with wholesale liquid cooled light set-ups, so leave that off the last question.

cannatari said:

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:

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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!

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I just noticed this. My old man builds radiation vaults and they put up big celestial murals on the ceilings lit up by LEDs so the patients have something nice to look at while getting treatment. Next time he's storing the art at his house for a job I'm totally gonna go use it as a backdrop for bud shots.

Awesome! Sounds like a great setting for bud porn.
I ordered most of my stuff online with the exception of the bulb and ballast. I wanted to be able to be face to face with someone in case I had problems so I purchased those locally. I ended up with a Global Greenhouse ballast that is warrantied for 4 years. If anything goes wrong with it all I have to do is bring it back to the retailer and he gives me a new one and sends my old one back, no questions asked. That is definitely worth a few extra bucks for me. I can't recommend an online shop because the one I used did not provide me with very good service.

cannatari said:

Awesome! Sounds like a great setting for bud porn.
I ordered most of my stuff online with the exception of the bulb and ballast. I wanted to be able to be face to face with someone in case I had problems so I purchased those locally. I ended up with a Global Greenhouse ballast that is warrantied for 4 years. If anything goes wrong with it all I have to do is bring it back to the retailer and he gives me a new one and sends my old one back, no questions asked. That is definitely worth a few extra bucks for me. I can't recommend an online shop because the one I used did not provide me with very good service.

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Yup, for sure worth the extra cash. I don't do my horticultural shopping online anyway so thats cool. I have been burned a few times, now just stick to walking in somewhere and buying what I need..Only problem is, if i go water-cooled any time in the near future I'll more than likely have to order online, unless I can get my local hydro store to order parts for me.

One thing I should mention, if you location suits it is to buy an EZ pool and set it up in the backyard to use as your cooling reservoir. Those things are several thousand gallons and don't cost much more than a 40 gallon Brute trash can. That would work awesome to keep the light cool.

cannatari said:

One thing I should mention, if you location suits it is to buy an EZ pool and set it up in the backyard to use as your cooling reservoir. Those things are several thousand gallons and don't cost much more than a 40 gallon Brute trash can. That would work awesome to keep the light cool.

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I haven't looked into liquid cooled lighting much and would like some info from personal experience. How terrible would you say your loss of light intensity is? Realistically how much of a temperature decrease do you have? Last, do you use standard bulbs?

swelchjohn said:

I haven't looked into liquid cooled lighting much and would like some info from personal experience. How terrible would you say your loss of light intensity is? Realistically how much of a temperature decrease do you have? Last, do you use standard bulbs?

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Loss of intensity is not noticeable as my cab is nearly over-lit.
The unit turns the BTU's produced by a 600 watt bulb down to about the heat from a 40 watt incandescent, the glass is about 100*F.
92,000 lumen generic bulb said to be designed for electronic ballasts.
I MUST keep my room at 70*F to keep the cab at 80*F, if it gets up to 77*F in the room, cab temp will be like 94*F.

cannatari said:

Loss of intensity is not noticeable as my cab is nearly over-lit.
The unit turns the BTU's produced by a 600 watt bulb down to about the heat from a 40 watt incandescent, the glass is about 100*F.
92,000 lumen generic bulb said to be designed for electronic ballasts.
I MUST keep my room at 70*F to keep the cab at 80*F, if it gets up to 77*F in the room, cab temp will be like 94*F.

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That's a fuckin-A huge temperature difference. I bet you almost have too much light in that cab, quite a small space for a 600 to be occupying. I hope you live in in NorCal for your plants' sake, this damn so-cal weather would kill your girls over the summer.

swelchjohn said:

That's a fuckin-A huge temperature difference. I bet you almost have too much light in that cab, quite a small space for a 600 to be occupying. I hope you live in in NorCal for your plants' sake, this damn so-cal weather would kill your girls over the summer.

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It's very quiet I might add.
100 watts per square foot is the way I like it. Not the best for the light but the best for my space.
NorCal.

I would imagine it's pretty silent, I couldn't see those water lines making nearly the same amount of noise you would have with fans and such. And amen to all that light bro. Born and raised NORCAL right here. East Bay Area.

Quick updates:

I took 36 clones from big mama Kahuna and friends. Day 1 of Round 3!

I switched my pre-flowers to 12/12. 4 LSD's, 1 Strawberry Cough, and 1 Kahuna. Day 1 of flowering for Round 2!

My Plan: Round 1 is 2 weeks from finishing. 2 weeks is my maximum time before cuttings need to be transplanted. By isolating the cuttings I switched my veg room to flowering. I not only get a 2 week jump on my harvest date but I also solved a calender problem where the plants spent too much time vegging. To get this to work you need separate areas for veg, bloom and clone. By cutting 2 weeks off of an 8 week crop you can get 2 extra harvests a year! I'm sure I'm not the first to try this so let me know if it's a fail. Again, the timing is determined by identifying when flowering plants are 2 weeks from harvest. I hit week 8 in 2 days with my current crop so another 11 days should be a nice window.

Also new is an "All-in-One" fertilizer I formulated with Dyna-Gro, molasses and Fat Mike's Phosphorous Myth Tissue Analysis Charts. The formula will be used for veg and bloom with a tap water add-back technique. I will be making reservoir changes every 2 weeks. I'm not going to post the recipe until I see it work and can then be recommended.

I've been real busy for the last week. Harvesting round 1, flowering round 2 and cloning round 3. I did alot of work in on the cab to get it ready for round 2. I've been working on a new hydro design and I decided to grow SCROG on this round and spent a few nights and the better part of Saturday putting it all together. Also new is an MS Excel spreadsheet I put together that contains my formulas, feeding schedules and maintenance records. It's all piggy-backed on top of the nutrient calculator from anglefire.com.
So check the pics out.
Here is the cab with the new modifications:

So basically the way the new RDWC system works is that I have 3 DWC buckets, each holds 2 gallons, 2 plants in 4" cups and has it's own feed line and air line (stoneless). Underneath those are 2, 8 gallon reservoirs, one filled with nutrient solution, the other with plain water, right and left respectively. The nute res has a manifold that feeds each of the hydros and the overflow is returned back into it. The hydros also have an elbow on the inside that points down and allows me to siphon out the solution in each one for res changes. It's a fine balance that needs to be maintaned to keep them from siphoning out on their own. If that happens, it would empty the hydro, get air in the line and fill back up. The problem would fix itself and refill before any damage occurs. The other res is an add-back res that times on for 15 minutes, once a day. With adjustments I hope to be able to maintain a steady ppm and pH with the add-back res. Water levels going up and down in the DWC buckets, having to lift the lids for maintenance and the problems with adding nutrients directly on the roots are all now things of the past. My plan is to refill the add-back res with nutrient solution on every other refill and to go a full flowering phase without changes. This will depend greatly on my feeding formula. I have not seen a setup like this before. It's most similar to the planter systems with a controller reservoir. The difference being that my hydros ARE the controller themselves as opposed to the entire system having to be on a level plane. BTW, the pic with the lone cola is from my harvest. I set it in there to get an idea of my finish height. The shelving is a Frito-Lay display I found. I still can't get over how perfectly it fits inside my cab. My goal is to grow 10-12 flowering tops per square foot. I figure I have to pack that sucker as full as possible before I can discern how many is too much. I'm not expecting to tango with the gram per watt mark because of my square footage of 6 feet x 600 watts, but I do expect to achieve a high gram per square foot mark. Currently I have 2 units of Barney's LSD and 1 unit with a Kahuna and a Strawberry Cough.

Edit: BTW, these are the plants that were new cuttings on March, 28. 6 week old plants today.

I decided to crack seeds of some bag-seed Blueberry I got from from a now deceased friend about 6 years ago. RIP Sparky. Only once have I ever smoked Blueberry that made my mouth explode with blueberry flavor. These seeds are that stuff. Hopefully the seeds are still viable and not from a herm. If I get a male out of this, I'm making seeds. As I recall, this bud was poorly cultivated and had an emerald green color about it, poor bag appeal stuff but still had a very intense blueberry flavor. I didn't think much of it but found a new appreciation for it through subcool's recent Blueberry grow. Currently the seeds are pre-soaking and I will start them in a cup of Super-Soil later today. Check it:

These are Strawberry Cough from about 2 weeks before I chopped. I can't believe the decent stills I'm getting with my camcorder. I used an LED flashlight in a dark room to get the shots.

Well I'm a few of weeks into using my latest formula and everything is looking great so I figure it's safe to post the recipe. It's a 2:2:1 ratio of Dyna-Gro Pro-TeKt, Foliage-Pro and Mag-Pro. The final N-P-K-Ca-Mg-S at 1300ppm is 269-120-239-81-55-31. I have to credit fatman for providing me with a target profile, thanks fatman. I targeted his recommended 3-1-3 ratio and my old formula was like 1-4-2 which worked fine so I hope to either have better results and/or less res changes on this round.
Edit: The molasses SUCKED! and was taken out of the formula. I think the silicon in the Pro-TeKt binds with large molecules and makes my res ugly and stinky. I'm sticking with Dyna-Gro only this time, no supplements.

Some shots of Strawberry Cough just after the wet-leaf trim:

Damn nice looking ladies, and one of the sweetest grow cabinets I've ever seen.

LoadedDiablo said:

Damn nice looking ladies, and one of the sweetest grow cabinets I've ever seen.

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Thanks alot "L" Diablo.