New Loft Grow Room - Input Appreciated

Great thread. I too am looking at using a loft. Could you used drip irrigation & maybe link it to soil moisture monitors ? You can get quite cheap domestic watering systems that work automatically.

The floor was getting a little grotty and I could see some small dead leaves at the bottom at the back of the tent so I decided to do a clean out today.

Took out a couple of plants, managed to remove all the small dead crap which I couldn't reach before. Also wiped down the floors with a bleach/water solution. I absolutely wreak of weed at the moment! Because the air is double carbon filtered I couldn't appreciate the smell before, but when you're right in there fiddling with the plants...

Also noticed the Pineapple Express is more developed than I'd realised! Seems to be steaming ahead really really quickly!

Went to get my camera to take a few proper shots... Here's the tent (PEx4 at the back and BBx2 infront):



And here's a shot of a Pineapple Express bud today (day 26 since flip):



Not even 4 weeks and it's getting frosty Also found some rusty spots on a few lower leaves so I'll add a little more calmag (was only feeding 0.1ml per L on top of 210ppm tap water).

TheBlowInn said:

Great thread. I too am looking at using a loft. Could you used drip irrigation & maybe link it to soil moisture monitors ? You can get quite cheap domestic watering systems that work automatically.

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I have absolutely no idea mate. This is my first grow and I've been through building an insulated grow room, germinating seeds in paper towels and then rockwool, RDWC in hydroton, cloning in an aerocloner and then rockwool, keeping mothers in coco autopots, treating root rot multiple times, building water cooled LEDs and finally transplanting into hempy buckets. I haven't touched drippers, moisture monitors or soil. The thought of even reading about another way of growing before I'm finished with this grow doesn't exactly fill me with enthusiasm!

I would love your set up but I would be concerned that it can't be dismantled in a hurry if you get unwanted visitors or need access to the loft wiring etc

This is an amazing thread! I thought I'd done a good job on my loft. Wouldn't even dream of posting a pic of it on here, would be somewhat embarrased You've inspired me though. Appreciate you taking the time to write up such a detailed thread when you're, very obviously, a man with his hands full! Great work!

very nice, glad the buckets are working well for you.

Corbzilla said:

This is an amazing thread! I thought I'd done a good job on my loft. Wouldn't even dream of posting a pic of it on here, would be somewhat embarrased You've inspired me though. Appreciate you taking the time to write up such a detailed thread when you're, very obviously, a man with his hands full! Great work!

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Sharing is caring Loads of things I could have done better IMO but as long as I've done my research and given it a good shot I'm happy. Nobody should be embarrassed when it comes to sharing their grow. How else are we all going to learn from each other?

Roger A. Shrubber said:

very nice, glad the buckets are working well for you.

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Thanks Yup the buckets are behaving themselves nicely but I'm already starting to want some automation! No idea how some peeps water their plants 6 times a day

i'm small enough to not worry about it, but everyone i've talked to highly recommends the drip rings for coco and perlite, to avoid the erosion pit that comes from one emitter running hard enough to water a good sized plant

Viper Cookies still stretching

The one at the back left is still growing 2-3 inches a day! It's stretched above the lights since yesterday. I've tied it down (quite a challenge to get in there!) but damn they're big!


Also found a bug in my mum room. Saw the same thing a few weeks back sitting on a leaf but couldn't get a snap. As far as I can tell plants look very healthy in coco/perlite autopots, can I safely ignore the bugger?

i'm not sure what that is, but i doubt it'll bother your plants. it might bite you and give you the lergie, though

Roger A. Shrubber said:

i'm not sure what that is, but i doubt it'll bother your plants. it might bite you and give you the lergie, though

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it looks like a mozzie/ kill the blood sucking vampire

Am paranoid wondering if it's an adult fungus gnat, Have placed a yellow insect trap around the mums to see if anything gets stuck

Here's a bit of a 30 day flower update... I've started adding PK 13/14 at 0.5ml/L this week with total PPM around 600-650. I'm going to continue for 14 days total (9 days left) and then drop it.

Here's the Viper Cookies (back 4) and Purple Afghan Kush (front 4):



Viper cookies have grown into monsters. They're each drinking 4L of nutes per day and the plant at the back Left has several tops which grew above the lights despite being topped and supercropped. I've had to tie it back in a few places.

I've also spotted a bit of an oddity. One of the Viper Cookies appears to grow bud from it's fan leaves in a couple of places:



Purple Afghan Kush looking good too:



There's a tiny bit of tip burn as I think I fed at 750ppm a couple of times while I was getting the nutrient ratios dialled in but it's not too bad.

Also did a bit of a tidy and have setup my drying tent in the loft in anticipation of what's to come

Hey Lofty,

You have done an amazing job, it's hard to believe it's your first grow.

Should be proud of all your work mate.

You will be rewarded very soon by the look of it.



Indefinately
"Let there be Green in 2016"

Mums looking good. They're bursting with tops to clone but it's going to be at least another 2 weeks until I'll be ready to do chop them off. I did some supercropping yesterday just to get the tops out from under the lights...



Plants in veg also coming along. This is 4 weeks after transplant. The hempies have been very easy; they have about 4.5L of water capacity until I get runoff but the plants only drink around 500ml per day max in veg (much less when they're very small)... so I can get away with watering once a week no probs!



They're only under 420W of light spread through a 8x4 area to keep growth slow and temps low (gonna be another 4 weeks at least until I can start to flower them). I've just rotated the larger plants out of the picture and put the smaller ones directly under the lights to try and even them up a little. The Purple Afghan Kush in particular is very slow in veg compared to everything else.

Hey Lofty,

Give us a run down of your medium and feed ( EC ) for you hempies.

Where abouts did you drill the hole for the bucket? How did you cover the hole? Flyscreen or mesh?

What's your feedback on Hempies in general buddy?

Nice work as usual mate!

Indefinately
" Let there be Green in 2016 "

Indefinately said:

Hey Lofty,

Give us a run down of your medium and feed ( EC ) for you hempies.

Where abouts did you drill the hole for the bucket? How did you cover the hole? Flyscreen or mesh?

What's your feedback on Hempies in general buddy?

Nice work as usual mate!

Indefinately
" Let there be Green in 2016 "

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Thanks

I've kept it as close as possible to Hempy's original formula. You can find his original post on MrNice forums in a thread called "The Hempy Bucket". He says he's been perfecting it for around 25 years so why try and reinvent the wheel?

So I'm using 20L (5 gallon) buckets. The hole is 1/2" in diameter. Somewhere I read a post from him which advised he kept the internal res to be 20% of the total volume of the bucket so I actually got an empty bucket and put in 5L of water. Then I measured the depth of the water (2 inches). Finally I drilled holes so that the bottom of the hole was 2 inches from the bottom of the bucket (so the centre of the hole is around 2 1/4 inches from the bottom). This takes the guesswork out of placing your holes You don't need to cover your holes, the perlite doesn't really escape.

My internal res is filled with perlite only until just above the bottom of the drainage hole. The rest of the bucket is filled with perlite/vermiculite in a 3:1 ratio.

Hempy advised pH 6.2. So that's my target. I check runoff from 1 bucket only about once a week just to get an idea of the internal res conditions. I've found pH wanders up to around 6.5 so I drop my nute solution pH to around 5.8-6.0 to balance it.

I'm not a fan of mopping up and disposing of huge volumes of nute solution so I aim for minimal runoff (I have to carry any runoff back down my loft ladder in a bucket to dispose of it). Hempy also said having loads of runoff was a waste. You get an idea of how much each plant drinks daily and can use that to have only 100ml or so of runoff as a target.

Both Hempy and Heath Robinson have stated they've used any Hydro A+B mix with good results (but I've also seen them both mention Canna Aqua A+B specifically) so that's good enough for me. Heath aims for 1.0-1.2 EC in veg and 1.2-1.4 EC in flower. I've found that to be about right. If I go above 1.4 EC and don't replenish the nutes in the res with loads of runoff then it gets more concentrated over time. The highest I've seen the runoff was 2.0 EC when I fed with 1.5 EC strength nutes for a few days so I just went down to 1.1EC for a couple of days. Heath advises running veg nutes for 10-14 days into flower to stop nitrogen deficiency from developing in earlt/mid flower so that's what I've done. Heath has also stated he sometimes adds some PK 13/14 to his grows so I decided to add that too as it's very cheap (actually bought it from Poundland for... £1 for 200ml! That should make 400L of nutes so £1.50 is enough for 1 whole grow and also means I use less Canna Aqua nutes). I decided to go for 0.5ml per L in every feed weeks 4 and 5 keeping my total EC target the same.

So you can see I'm standing on the shoulders of giants here. I haven't really come up with anything on my own. I've just tried to stick with advice from good growers who have shared what they do.

Overall Hempies are very easy and stress free. Particularly in veg they barely need any attention. Once you have the buckets filled with medium and your clones planted... there are no moving parts to fail, you just water and can chill out

loftygoals said:

Thanks

I've kept it as close as possible to Hempy's original formula. You can find his original post on MrNice forums in a thread called "The Hempy Bucket". He says he's been perfecting it for around 25 years so why try and reinvent the wheel?


So you can see I'm standing on the shoulders of giants here. I haven't really come up with anything on my own. I've just tried to stick with advice from good growers who have shared what they do.

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Your a smart man Mr Loft!

If only all "new" growers followed the people that have problem solved and perfected techniques over many years instead of trying to re-invented the wheel.

I have tried the Hempy system.
I may use it for my mothers again.
I flowered them last time in 25 litre buckets with perlite at the bottom and coco for the rest of the bucket. They ended up being trees which were not practical so I won't be flowering hempies again.

I have saved your notes for my Next go at Hempy buckets, cheers for the detail.

Big Rep for all your work and attention to detail bud, your new hobby will consume your life like you can't believe.

Indefinately
" Let there be Green 2016 "

wow... all I can say! how long did it take you to set all of this up in total? looks amazing -

you've given me some great ideas for future projects. atb with this

Feisty1UR said:

wow... all I can say! how long did it take you to set all of this up in total? looks amazing -

you've given me some great ideas for future projects. atb with this

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I started kitting out my loft with flooring just after Christmas 2015. I intended on having a 1000w grow (25% of capability) started after 5 weeks and having my first crop done by the end of April 2016...

Turned out that was too optimistic. It actually took me 4 months to get the loft done and my grow properly started but I got the whole grow room operational in that time.

loftygoals said:

I started kitting out my loft with flooring just after Christmas 2015. I intended on having a 1000w grow (25% of capability) started after 5 weeks and having my first crop done by the end of April 2016...

Turned out that was too optimistic. It actually took me 4 months to get the loft done and my grow properly started but I got the whole grow room operational in that time.

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Damn... that's ALOT of dedication. Either way, the grow looks great so far! how many years have you been growing roughly?

I setup my first grow the start of this year, finished around april time. Currently working on my next grow, upgraded my grow space/grow technique, going for a 4x4 SOG style grow this time around.

Would you consider growing using SOG? / or suggesting it at all?