My new setup and Permafrost grow

well guys, I busted ass and have finally gotten myself a better setup and a new apartment... I now can devote two full rooms to growing. I've got 4 DWC buckets and a few soil plants right now, and the room I just finished has two separate 4 site RDWCs (so I can alternate harvests every month). In order to save on electricity in my tiny bachelor pad I'm getting one 1000w and a mover... the thousand probably in the next two weeks, the mover a little bit after that. cut me some slack... i'm just a poor college student trying to maintain...

now for pics... the first 2 are of the DWCs and the last two are of the veg room. I'm currently vegging under a 400 MH and a 400 HPS... that may change. sorry they're only cellphone quality, I still need to borrow a camera. too much to do not enough time to do it.

the four in DWC are Permafrost, the 3 soils are Free for all (I know nothing about this one), Daddy's girl (early flowering outdoor sativa), and Pineapple (which i've had... good for sea of green, not so good for making shrubs the way I want to). I get off probation in a week, and once I do I'm going to take clones. I found an interesting little clause in my MMJ recommendation that says I may have "as many plants as needed to maintain my 60 day supply (24 ounces)". meaning I should probably be able to pass off 16 and a couple mothers. almost set to flower!

 

Very nice! Looks like it should be an interesting grow. Congrats on the new setup and good luck on a great harvest. Ill be following along! Peace

 

Update- I cut a lot of clones and did some drastic pruning at the same time today... I know I'm not supposed to do that, but I'm not going to have the flowering lights I want for another few weeks so I think it's okay to stunt them a little bit in favor of getting them going in the shape I want. By the time I'm done flowering they should be gigantic, so there's no point in keeping the dainty undergrowth around to plug up air circulation.


for reference, the DWC buckets are 18" long, 12" wide, and about 7" deep.


here are the results:


Full room (moved the 1 week older perms under the T5s to let the smaller ones catch up to their size)





the two younger ones under the 400w MH only - Need to replace the HPS bulb





The two older ones








Back to Front: Free for All, Daddy's Girl (not liking the indoors so much), Pineapple





Left to Right: Pineapple, Daddy's Girl, Free for All (I had to break the pineapple when I first got it in order to fit it under my light)

 

You got water chillers? Those are usually a necessity for a DWC or RDWC.

 

no sir... I've got a bitchin AC unit to keep my flowering room cool, and I have very small pumps (180 gph) to reduce the amount of heat inside the res. if heat does become an issue, the pumps I got have the option to be run inline, so I can just buy a few small parts and move the pumps outside the res. Since the RDWCs are risen 10" off the ground, I can also circulate cold air from the AC under the boxes to drop the temp a couple degrees.


in other words I'm trying to be an exception

 

Well I've seen people do it without chillers, just only a few. I would suggest you insulate those buckets to keep the heat from the water, Because those black buckets just absorb heat. Also, you are more than likely going to have to keep the ambient temps 67-70*F to keep water temps in check if you barely insulate or don't insulate the buckets and res and that will slow down growth rates a little. One other thing you may look into is one of the homemade chillers, I've seen a few good DIY write ups IC mag. That way you don't have to spend and arm and a leg or have to swap out frozen bottles all damn day long.

 

thanks for the heads up... I'll look into adding these next grow. I've just run out of upgrade money for about... 10 weeks


new update: the 2 larger perms are over 2' in diameter and are approximately 15" tall. the smaller ones (not pictured) are about 24"x18" and are about 12" high. I'm vegging them under the 400w MH to try and equalize the heights before I switch into flowering in a week. there's also not much room... the 2 big plants are using my entire 4' 4 bulb T5HO reflector.


The pineapple didn't get watered on time last week and totally roasted. The other two soils are recieving VERY light nutrients... I'm planning on keeping DG until next spring when it's going outside, and the FFA is going to stick around quite a while as well until I decide what to do with it.


And... I've taken clones to start the next round. PICS!


The two larger perms








Daddy's Girl





Free-For-All





I have a question... If I want to cover 3-4 square feet per plant by the time I'm finished flowering under a 1000w light, are these vegged large enough or should I keep going? Permafrost has an average amount of stretch... about half the height again.

 

height


Hell if you have the ceiling height I would keep going. The bigger the plants the more bud!!!


teamster6

 

the 1000w just came in the mail today (to an address in a different state); I'm going to grab it and install it tomorrow. I'll take pictures when I switch them over to the RDWCs under the 1000w HPS, but the plants have outgrown my veg lighting. I'm not using the 400w hps because the bulb is really old, and the plants are waaay too big for 1x 4 bulb 4' T5 and a 400w MH... two of the plants are receiving only half lighting.


They exploded in the last week, probably gained about 6" in girth and height... the smaller ones got taller, the bigger ones wider. the heights of the plants are now equalized

 

well, I transferred the plants over into the flowering room. I spent all night sealing the leaks on the RDWC system and finally got it working almost perfectly! it seems to leak about a quart a day right now it looks like... not bad at all. it's functional and it'll be leakless by the end of the week. I also got the 1000w set up and the intake and AC units working, but no outtake yet. again, i'll set that up this week. The girls are going to get a few days recovering under the thousand, but if they stretch too much they're going to get too tall for my light fixture.


pics!

 

Day One Flowering


they're ready to go... first night for them tonight! 3 different angles: for the middle one I tried to take it with the biggest plant in the middle. there are 4 plants in that setup, one in each corner, and they totally cover the 4x4 square the RDWC is set up on.

 

wow this has been a busy week.


I noticed I've got Downy Mildew in most of my plants... I dropped a fungicide bomb in my growroom yesterday after moving the veg side in there. I'm hoping it'll fix it, I'm also adding a little Hydrogen Peroxide to the resevoir.


My friend ordered and popped several seeds, and they're about the size where clones can be taken (maybe another week for the smaller ones). The strains I'm going to experiment with are Twista108, Top 44, White Gold, Skywalker, Euphoria, and a couple strains of elite bagseed I gave him that I've saved for about a year. I've already got two clones of the skywalker. That means that, while i'm testing strains, I'm not going to be able to maintain my plant limit if I get the other DWC going... bummer. Instead I'm going to have to only have 4 plants in DWC and the rest of them are going to go into hempy for my series of test runs... I don't wanna try and run a DWC with 4 different strains in it... I'll never figure out what's doing what with the nutrients.


i only took a couple pictures of the flowering side, since the veg side is looking pretty pathetic after that bomb.

 

Good luck........now fill me in what is permafrost grow?


Im an old dude......

 

oh I was referring to the strain. Permafrost is the strain i've run the last couple times... pretty sure its Northern Lights crossed with White Widow.

 

ohhh lol, well i will re-read your thread , good luck manassit:

 

the girls are about a week-week and a half into flowering. bad times... I wasn't keeping my rooms warm enough at night, which stressed the lower growth of the plants in flowering in addition to causing a case of downy mildew. I moved my veg room into the flowering chamber and dropped a fungicide bomb (and managed to breathe a ton of it in probably), which nearly toasted my clones and did destroy my moms. it also didn't completely get rid of the mildew, so I sprayed it with some 3 in 1 rose spray which has taken care of the last little patches. I also had a bunch of lower growth since the last time i pruned up the lower branches, so i clipped off a few lower branches from each of the 3 biggest plants. the treatments weren't too harsh on the full size plants, but i'm basically starting over with clones. a few might make it, but they're rediculously stressed... not sure if I want to risk them being hermies.


coincidentally, a friend of mine is giving me a bunch of clones of different, amazing strains. unfortunately, no Permafrost next round through... but I'll have some other tasty treats.


Pics of the flowering room! remember, the DWC is fixed to a 4'x4' square and the plants are growing over the edges... I have to rotate them every few days.


my vape and how I keep the girls in line





the smallest plant in the back





a couple shots of all 4 from different angles








a side shot of a bud site-show how far along they are

 

*Whew!


Nice show!





:thumbsup:


:new_popcornsmiley:


:fly:

 

stuff's coming along, but I got bad news. I Phed the water too low in the beginning and put too much nutes in when I got this thing running, and as a result the Ph has been chronically low. I've added water close to the "addback rule" (once you've refilled the res an equivalent to it's total capacity, drain and refill the system), so I think I should be okay. however, the plants have all lost some larger low fan leaves (curled up along the edges, then the stems became very fragile and the leaves fell off at the slightest touch), but they should be able to handle this.


I gave away my two best clones to another medical patient this weekend, leaving me with the six runtiest ones and one from a different batch. i'm hoping the one will pull through, because I'm going to trash the runts and pick up more.

 

Update: 2 weeks since last pictures taken.


the Ph and temperatures have been stabilized... I'm running a space heater in there 24/7 right now until I get more timers for the fans. I believe this is about 3.5 weeks into flowering. all of the sites are looking pretty small, but gosh there are lots of them.


the first three are different angles of all four... sorry still no good camera. i'll get one for the later shots at least. the fourth is a sideshot of an outer bud site.














The final picture is a pic of my caregiver's crop... I'm letting my brother grow 4 plants for me in case of another crop failure and to give him some experience. He's using CO2, a 1000w light, and soil. this is white widow after six weeks veg, four weeks flower.