Looking for feedback on my closet setup.

Renfro said:

Yeah I got really into building my grow, about to build another commercial one. Planned it all out on paper, had an unfinished, clean, 1300 sq ft basement to work with. Now I have a pretty wicked setup, two 10kW flowering rooms on a flip and a veg room, light locks between rooms, 125 amp subpanel for the grow, AC, CO2, RO. Fuck man, sometimes I look at all the work I did and I blow my own mind.

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That’s really impressive. I know a guy here in town that has a huge setup like that. Buds everything under multiple 1000w HPS lights and runs air conditioning and CO2 in his grow rooms. I would love to rent a commercial space and build it into a huge, energy efficient grow, but I don’t have the capital or the licensing to do that — yet. One day I’ll have a reasonably large, entirely solar powered grow. I only began growing this year but I think I have most of the kinks worked out at this point. Right now I’m limited to growing at home and I just need to make the most out of my space and keep the electric bill affordable. I can afford to run brighter lights in the winter, but during the summer with the AC running it gets expensive quick.

Hey man I started in a closet too, back in 1989 with a 400 watt HPS and some bag seed. I had one outdoor grow under my belt. All great things have humble beginnings.

Yeah I started with bagseed too and it sucked, but I ruled out using HID lighting because I wanted to save money. A friend gave me this 600w ballast and reflector which I decided were too expensive to run so it just sat in storage for a long time. I’m glad I decided to retrofit that reflector and use it. Those “full spectrum” LED grow lights available online just don’t cut it. I want big, fat, dense buds and I know what I have to do to achieve them without HID lights — I need to pack as many lumens into that closet as humanly possible.

After the bagseed disappointment I ordered a bunch of strains from nirvana and their stuff seems decent. I got blue mystic, aurora, white widow, candy kush, and tangie from them and once I finish selecting phenos from all of those I think I’ll drive back up to Denver and hit up the big seedbank there. There are some more “boutique” strains that I really want to try.

TerrapinBlazin said:

I ordered a bunch of strains from nirvana

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I ordered from them back in 2003. Dunno whats happened to them since. I got like 5 strains and the freebie Skunk #1. Everything was worthless except the Shiva. That was the best plant I ever grew. Ran that for 7 years, never could build a tolerance. Finished in 60 days, fat logs epic yields, one hitter quitter landrace indica from the Pakistan India border. I would kill to get the real deal Shiva again.

I don’t know if it’s the same strain, but back in like 2003-04 when I was still in high school my friend got these shiva clones. They were awesome. We grew them under an industrial 400w HPS in a closet under the stairs. The bud wasn’t that dense but it sure was stoney. Had this really distinct garlic smell. The blue mystic is the only nirvana strain I’ve brought to completion so far but it’s fire. Very low odor and super frosty. If I’d had better lighting in the closet back then they would have been awesome. I’m interested to see what the rest of their strains I’m growing are like. I went with them because they ship fast and you can stack discounts. Like if you get a strain on sale and pay with cryptocurrency it’s only about 5 bucks per feminized seed. Every strain seems really good so far. Fast growing, reasonably stable, and no hermies even though I had some bad light leak issues in the closet when those were flowering.

I’m working close to my house and I came home for lunch to find the corn bulb waiting on my porch. I threw it in the reflector right away and I was very impressed. It looks cooler than I thought 4000k would look but I think it’s perfect since the other lights are a little warm.

This pic made me think I had an area of uneven coverage, but that dark stripe is just anthocyanin rich aurora and white widow phenos growing side by side. I’m interested to see if any of those colorful compounds make it into the buds.

Everything is coming along nicely in here. I’m putting off flipping them for a while longer. I just ordered some 5 gallon grow bags for them because I have to water them daily in the 1 gallon bags. I know the lighting still isn’t comparable to HPS but for 188 watts of LED I think it’s pretty decent. I won’t know for sure until harvest and I’m thinking that’s at least 3 months off. I don’t think I’ll flip them for at least another 3 weeks. This is my first time with pure indicas and I don’t know if it’s the strains or what, but they’re taking forever to mature. These plants sprouted in early June and they still haven’t completely switched over to alternate branching. The blue mystics were preflowering and alternate branching at like 6 weeks after sprouting. I’d say a good half of the stalks still have opposite branching.