Growing In A DR60?

[Indica Monkey]

Hello there guys, nice to see there are a few other DR60 growers in here and I'm not the only one trying to get some bud out of this tiny space. As for height limitations, SCROG is to be my weapon of choice. I have been reading the thread which somebody has recovered from OverGrow which has surfaced recently, I'm starting to think about a scrog with sloping sides to help out with the low intensity of my lamp rather than a flat scrog. The low temps in the cellar are really helping out at the moment too, it's been really hot around here lately. Every day whilst I sit at work sweating buckets I am am thinking about my babies and hoping the weather doesn't make it too hot inside the tent, but it hasn't even come close so far. I think the cellar is a great place to grow for many reasons, you just need to put some effort into the inital setup of the room before you can start adding lamps and fans etc.

It's now 16 days since germination and the plants seem to be growing OK, I am a little worried for a few of them though. I potted them upto the six inch pots on Thursday evening as they all had roots growing out of the holes in the bottom of their three inch pots. I did have roots showing a few days earlier than this but never got a chance to repot them as Mrs Monkey had visitors on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evening. Upon repotting them I noticed that the compost in one of the pots was still wet whilst the others were all dry, so I'm guessing I've been overwatering this one. If you zoom in on the photograph here you can clearly see one of the containers is still damp whilst the others are all dry, this plant didn't have the same amount of root mass as the others. When I water later today or this evening I will leave this one as it is, there's no point making matters worse by throwing more water at it.

When I repotted the plants I moved them from under the fluoro tube as there would no longer be space under it to fit all the pots so they are sitting directly under the 150w HPS now, all the plants are between six or seven inch from the lamp and they seem to be handling the heat and lumen increase alright (I think).

Now something else I have noticed on two of the plants is little rust spots, again if you zoom in on the plants you will be able to inspect this yourself. I'm not really sure what's causing this, they are only being fed on plain tap water. They are sat in Westlands WestPlus Advanced which I think they are ready for so it shouldn't be a nutrient problem. I did splash a little water on the leaves when I watered them, I did remove most of this water before placing the lamp back over them, could this leftover water be the cause of the problem? I'm thinking that it may also be caused by the large PC fan that is blowing under the lamp to keep it from burning my babies, any opinions on this? I would really like to get to the bottom of the problem before it gets out of hand.

Here's the photograph...

Don't be shy guys, show us what you're doing with your DR60's - photo's help out so much more than words alone!!

[hudson]

Hey Monkey,

Scrog's a good method for maximizing yield in a small area, i considered it but decided against it as I was growing from seed and figured i was gonna have a hard time getting the males out when they sex and getting them out for watering/pruning would be a pain. I don't know if you've got that planned out but thought i'd mention it. A possible solution might be to do have individual scrogs for each plant rather than one big one?

I think i know the Overgrow thread you're talking about, it was a really interesting read with some great stuff on small scrogs. I really like the idea of the vertical scrog, but i've not seen many diaries to steal ideas from, maybe after a couple more grows :wink:

Good to hear your temps are nice and cool, i'd love to have a cellar, i did a grow in my garage a while back and remember i didn't even have a fan to exhaust the heat and it stayed pretty cool It's been a bit hot here too but temps ain't got higher than 86F so i'm safe for now

You're babies are looking really good monkey and well done catching the overwatering early on, thats something that i've been fighting and lost to recently (luckily only one plant, still yielded some decent bud and my other two girls are looking good)

As for the little brown spots, they don't look like anything serious, I'd get some ph test strips and check your tap water and runoff just to eliminate them as a problem, but i think it's probably caused by the bit of water you got on the leaves, your light does seem a little close tho, (i only let my cooltube 250w hps get to 4-5" away when the plants are much older) and the bottom right plant in your pic looks like it's showing early signs of heat stress (curled leaf edges) so you might want to move it a bit further away.

Here's a couple pics of how my drs60 is looking, there's 2 white widows on the left that are 8 weeks into flowering and will be getting chopped soon, on the right, the one at the back is a widow clone in a bubbler thats been flowering a week (it's dominating the tent, good job i can make some space for it soon) and the small one infront of it is also a widow clone thats been in there 2-3 weeks, i only gave it a week to veg.

Edited July 6, 2008 by hudson

[Indica Monkey]

Wow hudson, it sure looks like you're in for a treat over the next week or so how long until the 2 mature ones are finished? I'm guessing from looking at that one in the bubbler that it's going to take over the whole tent in week or so, I hope you've got a plan for keeping the height down, that one looks like it will hit the roof of the tent in no time at all.

Thanks for the leaf edge curling tip, I've since raised the reflector by an inch or two. Hopefully this will be the end of the curling, we'll see?! I have a liquid PH kit from a hydro shop but I thought PH wasn't relevant to soil grows? I shall test that when i next water just to see what I'm reading and make it sure it is in check.

As for the scrog, I was planning to attach a chicken wire screen to each of the pots with garden canes when the time comes to pot them up to the 11ltr pots. When it comes time for putting them into the 11ltr pots I shall have to kill one of the plants as there is only room for four of the 11ltr pots in the tent, that will be a sad day

Looking at your buds has brought me to the conclusion that it's time to smoke a fatty!!

Keep up the good work, it's nice to see what's possible inside one of these tent's. Be sure to post pics and give us an idea of what the dried weight is when the time comes.

[hudson]

Hey Monkey,

Yeah a lot of people say you don't need to check ph for soil grows and most people probably don't need to but personally i think it's worth checking every now and then to eliminate it as a possible problem. Ph is different around the country so it's worth checking yours is within normal range, i've only ever used bio bizz all mix and ph is usually good with that, but if i ever changed soil i'd want to check the runoff ph from it just to make sure there wasn't something in there that would affect ph, some additives can affect ph too. I think it's worth a fiver for peace of mind.

Your plans for the scrog sound good, yeah i know what you mean about the 11l pots, think i've got the same, it's a tight squeeze with 4 of them in a dr60 As far as cutting a plant when you pot up into the 11l's why don't you have a go at making some cannabutter with it? It's really easy and it's better than just binning the plant.

I think you could be right about the widow in the bubbler and i've no idea what i'm gonna to do to control height I've got it raised at the moment so it's maybe not as tall as you think from the pic. I'm thinking about doing a scrog over it or maybe a little bit of LST, i'll just wing it and see how it goes I think one of the mature ones will be cut in the next couple of days, the other looks like it needs around a week, just waiting to see some amber trichs. Can't wait to find out my yield, i'm sure i'm gonna be happy with it and i'm looking forward to bettering it already

[RedLightProwler]

.. not the first time Greens done that.. I ordered a DR80 a while back and they sent me a DR100 either by mistake or cause the other was out of stock..

They are good tents.. but may need some work round the zips to prevent light likes...

Also one weak point seems to be the plastic corners.. I managed to break one, putting it down.. Greens were good as gold though and replaced it for me free of charge.. good luck with the tent:)

I managed to break 3 whilst putting up cus i didnt give myself enough room to work, thanks to you i now have replacement (couldnt find the corners anywhere)

[Indica Monkey]

Glad to hear you got your tent sorted RedLightProwler, what have you got going in there then?

Here's a pic I took on Thursday, not the greatest quality since they came from my phone. I'm going to have to leave my camera down in the room with the tent I think, I can never be arsed to go back upstairs and dig the thing out once I've got my head in there and realise I need to take a couple of pics so the phone comes out.

Edited July 19, 2008 by Indica Monkey

[niceneasy]

Nice thread. I'm looking to buy virtually the same kit from Greens in a couple of months.

A couple of questions though if that's allright.

I see your cf in the drobe, but not your fan. I assume the fan is now outside, but could it be put inside with any issues?

You also advise that you thought the acoustic ducting would not fit the DR60. Have you now confirmed that, or will it go through the outlets?

I was going to put the 250w without a cooltube. Do you think that would be ok in there, or would it be pushing it?

Cheers for any replies. I really need to make sure I buy the right kit this time, an expensive hobby.

[ben]

You might be better off using 6.5l pots in a dr60, im using them in a dr80 and the plants are more than big enough. You could actually fit 9 of them in a dr60 or a more comfortable 4 to 6.

e2a: Does anyone know where to get spare frame for the dr60? I broke abit and now its a little lopsided..

Edited July 22, 2008 by ben

[hudson]

You might be better off using 6.5l pots in a dr60, im using them in a dr80 and the plants are more than big enough. You could actually fit 9 of them in a dr60 or a more comfortable 4 to 6.

Yeah good point ben, the nine 6.5l pots make full use of the space in a dr60, i used 11l last grow in the drs60 but thought i could get away with 6.5l if i was to keep the plants a little smaller and not do LST. Guess it depends on the style you wanna grow. 6l would be great for doing 9 plants in a sog with clones in a dr60. But i'd say 11l would be better for scrog and LST. JMO

[ben]

You might be better off using 6.5l pots in a dr60, im using them in a dr80 and the plants are more than big enough. You could actually fit 9 of them in a dr60 or a more comfortable 4 to 6.

Yeah good point ben, the nine 6.5l pots make full use of the space in a dr60, i used 11l last grow in the drs60 but thought i could get away with 6.5l if i was to keep the plants a little smaller and not do LST. Guess it depends on the style you wanna grow. 6l would be great for doing 9 plants in a sog with clones in a dr60. But i'd say 11l would be better for scrog and LST. JMO

Yeah good point also, i'm thinking of making a new mum and clone room with more width, then whacking a 250w hps in and doing a 2 or 4 plant scrog in the dr60.

Edited July 22, 2008 by ben

[Indica Monkey]

Hello there niceneasy, what size fan and filter are you going for? My setup uses a 125mm RVK and matching budget carbon filter, I could probably fit the fan inside the tent if I wanted but I would be loosing valuable headroom and also airflow with all the tight bends that would be needed in the ducting. I'm pretty certain that I wouldn't be able to fit acoustic ducting through the vent holes in the tent, you could probably squeeze 100mm acoustic ducting through there if you were going to go for a 100mm fan. I'm not sure if it would be worth it though as the fan blades would have to spin faster on a 100mm fan than they do on a 125mm fan to keep the temps at the same level, this all depends on you having a speed controller rig anyway. I built a temperature controlled fan speed doodab with some help from OT1's plans which I found in one of the growroom equipment forums here, this helps a great deal with the noise my ventilation makes. I would suggest setting one of those up if funds will allow as it helps keep your plants in a stable environment and keeps fan noise and airflow to a minimum.

Cooling a 250w lamp in my situation without a cooltube would be no problem at all as my tent is situated in the cellar with an open window which used to be a coal shoot back in the dark ages, going with the 125mm fan makes all the difference too - things would probably be very different if I had 100mm fan.

If you have any other questions just ask and I'll see if I can help, my experience is very limited though

Good luck with the project anyway, keep us updated on your progress bud

Thanks for the info ben, Now I've got the 11ltr pots in the tent I can see they restrict airflow from the passive intakes a bit. I should imagine the 6.6ltr pots would make venting the tent a little easier if temps ever got out of control. I'm just about ready to install scrog screens onto the pots which means they will probably need a few weeks more veg before I set the light to 12/12, I should imagine after all that time in veg they're going to need a nice large pot as thy're seed plants and so naturally have a larger root mass.

Is it your corner piece that is broken? I have read a few threads where people have just e-mailed/phoned Greens and explained there corner piece has broken and had them replaced free of charge, assuming you ordered from Greens that is.

I'll try and get some more pictures up tomorrow if I get around to installing the screens, we'll see B)

[Indica Monkey]

Better late than never.

[Indica Monkey]

The screens went on today.

[Indica Monkey]

I can't believe how much they've grown in just nine days.

[Indica Monkey]

Now the screens are in you can see there's no danger of running out of space in there. I'm hoping it will only be a week or two until it's time to put the lamp onto 12/12, that's the bit I'm really looking forward to. As things are the only problem I can see arising with my equipment will be the two foot tube heater not been up to the job of keeping the tent at a healthy temperature during the lights off period, I will be running the lamp through the night to try and help with this. If that's the only problem I run into with this grow I will be really suprised, but time will tell I suppose.