Once you get that cement mixer.....do you do rentals? :D
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Once you get that cement mixer.....do you do rentals? :D
No I love my Reverse....and all the other toys etc I got talked into. All I need is one or two times when we aren't home for a power outage to occur and there goes my timer....and light schedule. We're way in hicksville so stuff like that happens alot. I mean...I have dial-up at 26k......surprised we get the internet at all.
The first year I grew I ended up with 15 female plants....some outside and some hydro...and came up with four hermies. Only the two haze plants had the window problem....god only knows what i did to the others. Last two grows I used reverse....10 females....0 hermies. And while I never PLAN to stress my plants......believe me all my stress to them is done with the specific intent of IMPROVING them....not killing them if you'll buy that one....it just seems to keep happening anyway so I need all the help I can get. :D
Nah, 'Hound. You can use when needed free of charge. I could just see it now. Her catch me with a brand new cement mixer (plastic drum) out in the garage drilling holes in it. She'd have me committed for sure.
Those boxes over the windows wrok great by the way. What I did was put 3 dow pins in the piece of 2x4 I screwed to studs above the window. Then when you build box drill holes to line up with pins in the piece of plywood that will be the top of your box. You can sit box right on there and the dow pins hold 'er right in place. You need a piece of 2x4 along each side of winder and one across bottom also. But with them dow pins you can lift off when ya want/if needed with no hassle. And you get zero light leaks. Screw 1x1's to the plywood to the side where you will need to attach other pieces to minus the 1 1/2-3/4 (depends on the 2x4) inches for the 2x4 frame so its flush with wall. I should snap some foto's of this stuff. Easy as hell to make, but really hard to explain.
Easiest way to do is drill plywood first where dow pins will fit in top piece, then hold 2x4 against and mark holes on it. Then drill yer 2x4, stick cut pieces of dow pins in holes with a little wood glue, and voila. Doesnt matter if one is 1/2 inch or so longer. I am a perfectionist, so I installed mine. Then I measured each one to 3/4 inch length and sawed them off so all were perfectly even. No need for all that tho. That beats the hell outa tryin to measure to center of each pin, not lining up, frustration, heavy drinking, throwing tools, etc etc etc. And best part is if anyone were to look from outside all you see is the closed mini blind. No idea there is anything behind it.
b0nger
Heavy drinking, throwing tools. Oh yeah, THAT one sounds familiar. I'll be giggling about that the rest of the day now :S2: ....wanted to rep you for that one but already did....:(
ok well I have it so dark in there now I can't see anything to walk around...haha atleast without falling hopefully that will improve...it does seem like Zola is turning quicker than Eve...
I think I read that smaller plants finish quicker so I guess that would mean they turn quicker too...lemme know if that makes sense ;-)
Zola is starting to look like she's got little tufts of hairs/leaves so if I remember right and from the pics she's goin the right way but Eve is doin the same thing just looks like it's slower...Eve is like 30 inches tall where Zola is only 18
That cement mixer sounds like fun...I'm definately planning on fixing up some plumbing and all that I'll get pictures of my setup once it's put together a little better everything is jumbled right now...
That sucks about the power WH and generators are too expensive to be practical...hopefully you don't have that often
I'm off to find a way to plant the new babies I'll check back later ;-)
Actually we do have a 6500 watt gas gen....but if you aren't there to start it up.... It is hooked into the existing power supply so you can flip a switch and it will power things up BUT the plants are last in line for it.....behind the well, the heat, (or a/c as the case may be) the fridge, the fishtanks etc..... It kind of does happen alot around here....drunks hitting power poles, branches falling on power lines, fires.....For the plants it's really just a timing issue.....if power goes off for an hour during the day the plants will still get light but the timer will pick up where it left off....an hour late. If the pump is off for an hour or so I won't worry....any more than that and I'll use the gen for it.
ASD, according to my buddy (Union Electrician), those home generators really should not be used for powering H.I.D. lights anyways. He went into some long winded explanation about steady current or current spikes, or something. It was one of the conversations after 12-15 beers and a few d00bs. So the Cliff Note version is I dont think wise to use them.
I have a whole house propane that has some kinda switch/relay thing between generator and panel box that regulates current, or prevents surges or spikes, or whatever that makes it fine to use for my lights he said. But those portable ones must not be the ticket. I too, live in BFE. I've been 3-4 days years ago w/o power. Hence the whole house generator.
Not having to listen to the old lady bitch for 3-4 days is worth every damn dime I have in that generator. I mean everything in life has its price. Just some more expensive than others....LOL:D :D
b0nger
Do you have to flip the generator on? I think I've seen generators that switch on automatically to avoid any power shutdown to appliances and all that...not really sure how that setup works and all I've never had to deal with a generator other than just doin work on a job site but those were just gas powered on wheels that you could cart around with ya...
rofl I hear ya on the generator...I've only used them to do repair work aka tools and lighting to do carpentry....I've never used em for hid lights and I guess I could see the spikes bein a problem...I'd want to make sure like you said it was a smooth power transmition to avoid damage to the bulb and ballast....my girl is fine with stuff as long as she doesn't have to deal with it...so I just try to make everything as hands off as possible...the last thing I need is her complaining about when she was blinded when she walked into a room or the water wasn't working...god forbid a circuit breaker trip...rofl
I'm just psyched that the girls are looking like they're turning...I'm hopin to have some to burn eventually cause I've been sober for too long now I basically decided to grow once I realized there was nothing around here worth it...nothing worse than taking 15 bong hits and having a headache with barely a buzz to show for it
ASD, mine kicks on weekly to test itself, and then its automatic when power goes off. Its literally a few seconds. The wiring from it comes underground in conduit and then into this box that has I dont know what the hell its called, then into panel box. If I had to guess I would imagine a transformer of some sort or something. I guess whatever triggers it to kick on is in that box also. It has a timer you set for it to do its test. Can pick time of day you want to run.
If it were to not work, I would not be messing with it. I'd call my buddy. That much power is out of my league. Way out. I dont need in that box peeking around.......LOL
RUns quiet as hell, can barely hear it when you are outside and its running. If I am not mistaking I think mine is 20 KW. I know I can run everything we want to with no problems. Fridge, heat/ac, tv's, computers, freezer, etc. Buddy told me what size to get, and he does this stuff for a living so I took his advice when I bought it.
I have a Honda portable that I sometimes throw in truck if helping someone with outside project. Nice as shit to have so you can run tools w/o dragging extension cords for 3 miles to get some juice. Love a cordless drill, but the rest of the cordless line you can have.
b0nger
20k should power your nextdoor neighbors house too.... We've been thinking about getting a propane gen that flips on automatically....something along 10k but the cost..... The one we have now is a pull cord and it's really there to keep the animals in water, us from freezing or overheating and able to cook and see etc. Weve gone several days w/out power as well. There's enough extra power to do all three fishtanks, run the pump and 150 watt light for the plants so.....
I blelieve X-C told me he's got that setup.....propane hooked up directly and turns on automatically....might ask him for that info. ;)
yeah 20kwh is huge if yer not using that for heating the house/water...we have oil heat steam boiler...and gas stove/waterheater so we use 1.5-2 kw per hour max
I planted 2 of the seedlings earlier and just checked to find they are turning green already...5 more have cracked just waitin till they're big enough
The clone looks about the same just gotta get it in a system
I've been looking but can't seem to find a formula of how much the food the plants want based on ppm change in the res...is this formula based or not so much? it looks like the res with 15 gallons lost a bit over a gallon and went from 1300 to 1250...taken as a linear curve that would mean 15x50 as 750ppm that's like 2000ppm nutes which sounds so high that can't be right...but I upp'd it to 1450 as a comprimise the visions of completely burning them was too much :D
I also got two 5" air stones and a 10-30 gallon air pump to put in with the next res change...debating on how close to put the stones to the water pump...I could probably get them right under it if necessary gimme yer .02
I'll have pics in a day or 2 still not much new to see
1450 is DEFINITELY pushing past my limit....especially at this stage of the grow but that's just the way I am. Come to think of it it's really 1350 which is about where I sit in the last 3-4 weeks.....starting at about 10 with about 200 being suppliments but I don't know what formula you are using. As for linear curves and such.....HA HA HA HA. You may as well ask Mother Goose.
As for the air stones....I don't really know what your setup looks like but you want the stones as close to the roots as possible.
Maybe Bonger understands that whole linear curve thing. When my plants ppms drop I just put it back to where I started at....:jointsmile:
My plants seemed to love the drop in ph so I dropped the to 5.2 to check if I can notice a difference there...after the day of having my ph at 5.4 was when I noticed the drop in ppm so I'm figuring that they were sucking up more nutes...I'm keeping a close eye checking the ph every couple hours and bringing my phone down for soft lighting to check the leaves...so far everything looks fine...I guess it could be several things causing the drop but since I start out I guess I'm only really at 1300 nutes and I figure a few more experiments on these starter girls won't be the end of the world ;)
the formula is how I calculate what ph to make the new solution I'm adding to end up with the ph I want...1 gallons at 5ph and 1 gallon at 6 would result in a ph of 5.5 and you can weight them accordingly like if you have 2 gallons at 5 and 1 at 6 you would do 2x5 + 1x6 and then divide 16/3 which gives 5.33333 so the ph of the solution I'm gonna add is the variable and I solve for that...don't know if it works the same so I'm just gonna do safe trials for now...if I ever find out anything useful I'll be sure to let ya know hehe
The air stones were for a fish tank...I figured I'd just pump the O2 into the water and let the water pump that's always on spray the roots...Do ya know what's better putting air lines in through the hydroton to the root chamber or just pumping O2 into the res solution? I could do either...if I was gonna pump the air in to the root chamber I'd just take back the air stones just go with the tubing...I got the two 5" stones cause I figured I could put them real close to the pump intake and hopefully get a more even mix of O2 and water...Unfortunately yet again I'm clueless on the experience end :(
Ok well I got 3 close-ups....the first 2 are Zola's top main bud sites (the camera made that visible it's still pretty small to the eye) and the last one is the clone of Eve the middle is all new growth and even though the leaves drop a bit when it's not in the humidity dome I'm gonna plant it tomorrow...Lemme know what ya think:smokin:
ASD......hmmmmm on your pH calculation. A pH of 4 is 10 times more acidic than a pH of 5 for example.......Are you testing this water ? I am womdering if you mix one gallon of pH6, and one gallon of pH5, then you should be in the lows 5's.......... not 5.5, correct? Because in theory the water with a pH of 5 wouold have 10 times more acid than water with a pH of 6????????? Or the water with 6 pH would contain 10 times more alkilinity, huh ? Hell, I need some coffee before I debate this one. I shall return to this later.
What a way for you to start my day off....LOL:thumbsup:
b0nger
All right ASD....more yelling:
Ok, it has to be just me but......WHY ARE WE MAKING THIS SO HARD???? Put the ppm at 1200, put the ph at 5.4 AND STOP MAKIING THIS A SCIENCE EXPERIMENT! Honestly what do you think is going to happen? Your yield will double or ?? They're PLANTS! These things you are pinpointing as so critical are all on the lesser scale and in doing so I see you losing sight of the basics. You're going in there and lighting up the room in the night to LOOK AT THEM! STOP THIS!!! Your plants were getting by on 300ppm.....now you've thrown them into 1400 IN ABOUT FOUR WEEKS. Your ph...which was QUITE HAPPY at 5.8 suddenly has to be something else. You've changed your ph around here and there so now even IT ISN'T STABLE! ASD you are very lucky I don't know where you are I would be over there pronto to pop you one!!!!!
Now STOP THE INSANITY and grow some plants!!!!:thumbsup:
I looked at documentation for generator last night, its 17.5 kw. Yes, I have electric hot water heater, plus I heat with gas forced air, cool with central air. No idea what my usage per hour is, or do I give a shit. Two mouse clicks and the bill is paid on the 14th of every month. Could not be simpler. Only thing I know is for 12 hours each day I use at least 1800 watts per hour:D :D
Dear gawd, could you imagine me puttin that cash in a generator and then it not quite be "big enough" for the old lady to get a hot shower. Shit, I'd sooner have enough extra power to run a small city than listen to her bitch about that.
Seems I remember I told my buddy that I wanted to BE SURE I could run whatever we wanted to run in the event of a power outage. And I can honestly say, we can.
1450 and they are liking it is awesome. You gonna have buds as big as the unit on a show pony. Keep them gurls crankin. Just keep a careful eye out for burn on 'em. Can always idle 'em back a tad if needed. Nothing like going balls to the wall extreme growing. I LOVE IT!!!!
ASD......'Hound and I discussed this in great detail. But I HOPE you are keeping very detailed notes of the grow. Man, next grow you will be in the drivers seat if you are. You are getting these chicks dialed in and you will know next crop EXACTLY what to do, and when.
I am still pondering that damn pH theory of yours, ASD. 2 cups of coffee and I still cant come to a resolve in this pea brain of mine...........dammit!!
Keep 'em green, guys.
b0nger
Bonger don't encourage him or you may be next on my list....(and I'll be bagging that nice generator of yours as well) :D
In my effort to keep the lights black while playing in the room last night I musta tripped the surge protector and the pump wasn't on till this morning...Eve (big one) is kinda bent over but the leaves still feel fine and all that so hopefully it will recover...I can't believe I did that somehow but it's what I woke up to
bonger you are right about the 10x acidity of the water every full point below 7...so 4 is 1000 times more acidic...the ppm thing has me wondering still I'll check back if I can find anything interesting there...
WH you were right as usual...playing around with stuff and trying to test too many things at once got me in trouble...hopefully the lack of water stress won't hurt them that bad
I'm gonna keep my nutes and PH like you said cause everytime I stop listening to you things get worse haha *hugs you*
This marks the end of testing for now ;-) atleast till I have a seperate batch that I can mess with...this way it's not the end of the world if an issue comes up
on the bright side the buds are startin to look pretty :hippy:
All right I have calmed down.....:) Well ASD you haven't really been there until you've done two things.....dropped the light on your plants and/or snapped the main stem in half or broke off your best cola tripping over something so you are still ahead of the game. ;) Once you've done those 2 you can then proudly call yourself an experienced grower.
I know you and Bonger are going to sit there in the corner and discuss linear curves and ph calculations etc....I can see it's like a NEED or something for you guys so I'll just gloss over that stuff and let you two work it out. But when I see you losing sight of the basics you are going to hear some stomping from MY corner...:wtf:
One of my goals here is to get you through this grow with the basics. Bonger made an EXCELLENT point about keeping records.....LOVE to say I thought of it but well.....we won't go there but obviously he knows the score and I don't but I WOULD steal his info-and generator-in a red-hot second......but trying everything under the sun here on your first grow is nutty. If you want to talk science then use this grow as a baseline....somewhere you know you can come back to when you try new things that don't quite go the way you want them to.
Bonger, your two or three or ten cents here please. I feel there are only a few things that will greatly increase your yield, given the same generalities. Lighting, C02 etc... I don't for one second believe that if your ph is 5.4 vs 5.6 or 5.2 your plants give much of a crap. I don't think you can pour enough nutes into your plants without burning that are going to make THAT much difference. Pppm at 1200 vs 1500 is not going to make your end result THAT much better. Now, if you have a 250w light and go to a 1kw....THAT is going to have a huge effect. But the stuff you are concentrating on and going crazy over I don't really see helping you or your plants at significantly at all.
Zola is starting to look good. You have nice growth on the little clone but that's all I can say about clones.....I know ZERO about them. :) :jointsmile:
Well, I am with ya on the point of diminishing returns by trying to max/tweak everything til ya drive yerself nuts. I pH to 5.8, and thats it. I dont care if its week 3, week 5, wahtever. I mean if I miss out on 4 grams a plant, I am still going to sleep the same. I was going to install C02, but decided not to. I run at about 1200 ppm during peak, and I do not push further. I know my plants, and I get excellent results, another 200 ppm is going to 1) burn plants and piss me off 2) maybe give me an extra 4-6 grams a plant.....BFD
And, I am with ya on lighting. I love lights/watts per sq ft. My aero's take up 32 sq ft. Hanging above them is 3 600 watt daisy chained Cool Breeze's/digital ballast and Grolux bulbs. Still praying for the day Hortilux gets added to the compatibility list. ANd I get some real heavy fat buds. Again, I miss out on a few grams.......BFD
ANOTHER thing I am very much a firm believer in is adequate/efficent ventilation, Most you see here got a boner to get a grow going and dont have the foggiest idea about fresh air. My belief is before they ever worry about buying seeds, MH, HPS, Pots, soil, nutes, timers, etc etc etc is to worry about proper ventilation.
To be honest I am not sure I have EVER seen a new grower ask how to set up ventilation in the Basic's or Indoor Section, hell even in here for that matter. "My seeds sprouted, now what"........
I've tried to help a few with ventilation and installing properly, but they are more concerned on feeding their 3 day old plant 9 different nutes. So, I learned to keep my mouth shut about it and just keep on keepin on.
More fresh air in than stale skunky (wonderful smell) air you remove. Thats it, gets no simpler. And DO NOT create negative air pressure (suction)......thats a no-no fer sure. ANd once you get that fresh air in there, keep it moving around. I use wall mounted 16" oscillating fans. I built these neat hanger things that allow me to raise fans as plant grows to keep them blowing between plant canopy and my lights.
I have a 10" Vortex bringing in air thru a housing I built that holds 2 Hepa FIlters, then I have an 8" Vortex suckin air thru carbon filter and exhausting into attic. My plants grow so green and lush that at times they look artificial.
When I tell you this, you are going to think I am nuts, but I am lucky to smoke a d00b a week, if that. I grow the shit to give away and to kill my time. All my friends are stoners from back in our day, and I keep everyone supplied very well. Hell I got two cases of quart jars, and there aint tomato's in em sittin in the basement cured. And when I say friends, I am talking about mid to late 40's folks. Folks who know how to keep yap shut and enjoy what they get for free types.
This is a hobby for me, and thats all it is. I would NEVER sell one gram to ANYONE. I dont need to sell it either. Gave my two boys my business 2 years ago, and I hung it up at 45. I still work/consult on as needed basis. Always loved my veggie garden and gardening in general, so I started reading up on this and it sparked an interst, so here I am.
I am probably one of the few you will ever see on this board that grew for the first time in hydro. I have never grown a plant in soil. Keep mothers in Coco.
I came here and a few other sites plus googled til the wee hours of the morning for about 6-7 months before I cracked a seed. I said to self "self if others can grow in hydro, you most certainly can grow in hydro, too"............LOL
After this crop I am going to stop til fall I think. Longer days, outside garden, lawn care, BBQ's, etc commin up. And I certainly will not run out:D :D I have a 24'x36' pavilion I built in my yard (11 acres) that we party and BBQ in. Thats the home of my Southern Yankee 6' smoker. Love to meet up with some of you guys some day and throw a big ole BBQ for all of us. I got about 2 or so weeks to harvest, so I believe this is it for now.
And 'Hound, I'll share my notes with ya, but if you take generator, you gotta take old lady, too. See, its a package deal type thing............LMAO I kid about her bitchin an all, but she is a sweetheart. She thinks I'm nuts and do goofy things, but after 23 years shes used to it.
BTW, dont worry, I'll be in daily to see whats up and offer any help that I can. I am not running off and joining the circus, just going to be doing other things with my time for now. WIll keep my mothers going and then next fall I can root clones and be right back in the action.
Well, gorgeous day here, think I am going to get Harley out and take a ride to my favorite watering hole and have a few cold ones.
Keep em green guys,
b0nger
First of all....I want to be in on the freebies. :D I'm much more of the "set it and forget it" type with ph too. And Bonger I completely agree that you MAY get an extra few grams with all the tweaking but is that really worth the whole crop? I personally always think it is until I've doe something crazy and have to go back and do damage control. Then the next cool thing or idea comes along and I'm off.....
I actually went to hydro because I failed MISERABLY in soil.....won't go there but suffice to say to say out of 80 plants I had about 20 live.....and about 6 females that made it to harvest. I went to hydro in great fear because I had heard it was harder....and it's a weed....and I couldn't even get a weed to grow in soil....but I was very desperate. Below I included a pic of my very first grow (the one where I actually followed directions.....my next grows were all "improvements" thank you ) and was absolutely BLOWN AWAY by the results. Have been hooked ever since.
There are some things I have done simply because my hydro guy told me to do them a certain way and I think my hydro guy walks on water. Ventilation was NOT one of them and I had to go around in several circles before finally taking his advice on that but I completely agree. I have several windows to the room so my plants do get fresh air constantly and with the oscillating fan they grow great stems as well. (Strangely....I did quite a few circles over the RO water thing as well....go figure :) )
Anyway, ASD update on your plants when you have a chance and let us know how Eve is doing after......well, you know. :D
First of all....I want to be in on the freebies. :D I'm much more of the "set it and forget it" type with ph too. And Bonger I completely agree that you MAY get an extra few grams with all the tweaking but is that really worth the whole crop? I personally always think it is until I've done something crazy and have to go back and do damage control. Then the next cool thing or idea comes along and I'm off.....
I actually went to hydro because I failed MISERABLY in soil.....won't go there but suffice to say to say out of 80 plants I had about 20 live.....and about 6 females that made it to harvest. I went to hydro in great fear because I had heard it was harder....and it's a weed....and I couldn't even get a weed to grow in soil....but I was very desperate. Below I included a pic of my very first grow (the one where I actually followed directions.....my next grows were all "improvements" thank you ) and was absolutely BLOWN AWAY by the results. Have been hooked ever since.
There are some things I have done simply because my hydro guy told me to do them a certain way and I think my hydro guy walks on water. Ventilation was NOT one of them and I had to go around in several circles before finally taking his advice on that but I completely agree. I have several windows to the room so my plants do get fresh air constantly and with the oscillating fan they grow great stems as well. (Strangely....I did quite a few circles over the RO water thing as well....go figure :) )
Anyway, ASD update on your plants when you have a chance and let us know how Eve is doing after......well, you know. :D
Ventilation rules........END OF MY STORY about that.
Ever get east of the Missippi, gimme a shout, you might even be there now, hell I dont know. I am in the Mid Atlantic area of the good ole U.S. of A. Love to burn one, toss back a few cold ones, and char some flesh on the smoker.
Well, I dicked with tap water, but mine was only 80 ppm (2 grains) hard I think was the number. Then I thought, I am going to get R.O. system and install when I put laundry sink in grow room. To be honest, I see no difference outside of the fact that I gotta add Cal-Mag back to it.
We sound like two lazy phucks. Dial em in, set and forget, and keep it simple. Afterall this stuff is a weed. Its damn near impossible to kill in all honesty. I mean you gotta work at it to kill it. I simply follow my previous grows to the letter and have no worries. Leaf tips aint fryin, shit aint droopin over like its on its last leg, etc.
As i said before, 4-6-10 grams difference per grow means about as much to me as the price of snake oil in Saudi Arabia. I drop in room most nghts around 6:30 or so, everything is lookin good and outside of a weekly rez change, its that simple. Sometimes I even go two weeks on a rez change. I know they preach weekly change and all that, but I am not really sold on that either.
I hang out and watch TV, surf net in the room sometimes til 11 or so, make sure all my equipment is still on cycle and thats about it.
This pH up a little, pH down a little, add another 100 ppm, blah blah blah.........It aint me. Again, how much do you actually gain? Maybe if this was a cash crop deal with me I might worry about it. Even then, I doubt I would.
My overall philosophy is as follows; Keep it simple. Give your plants hells of fresh air, keep a stable pH, and dont fry/shock the livin piss outta them with 100-200ppm extra nutes. I am convinced they remain much healthier, have zero shock factor to overcome, and all in all produce a better finished product. ANyone who wants to call me on this, feel free. But dont be offended when I say what you offer is bullshit........
My wheel is perfectly round, I am not about to try to reinvent it.
Keep em green,
b0nger
ASD......I am still pondering the pH thing. I'll get back with you on that one. I have some theories, but I am not sure whats correct at the moment. I need to do some more research before I put in my two cents.
yer both right...After upping the nutes so much I don't really see much difference...I certainly don't notice the plants growing faster but the color green looks a bit better...I think just seeing what the chart says on ph would make the calculation easier but at this point all I really have to do is drop in a touch here and there so even that isn't the big deal...I was just wondering how the plants sucked out an extra 750ppm from the rest of res after only drinking a gallon...probably has something to do with osmotic pressure but when I find something accurate I'll pass it along
Since I only have a 400w hps for flower...I can't imagine I'm gonna get all that much yield...I'm skeptical about 2 z's cured at this point I'd really like to get more but I'm sure experience will increase that in time...
I'm still putting the room together and was planning on forced out venting with a passive intake but if you are sure that's bad I'll make sure to avoid it...I'll hold off on hooking up the vents till I hear some tips...the room is 12x12x(7ish high) I'm gonna split half for the flower and the other half will be seedling/veg I planned to just force vent out the flower room and passively intake through the veg side...for right now the basement is open with 2 fans blowing air around...I have several ideas on circulation and once I'm done getting the walls finished I'll start with the questions hehe...part of the problem is definately temp...it's cold as hell here most of the year so intaking cold air from outside leaves the room below 50 even with the light on :wtf: a bigger light will cure that issue right up I'm sure atleast during the day but the evening will still be a bit of a prob
Eve and Zola definately were pissed off about being dehydrated...most of the leaves lifted themselves back up already but (the top set of each cola were still droopy at light off) I'll check tomorow morning...
I realize so many mistakes from when I first started but improvements are steady...I'm looking into building the rest of the hydro systems...I have enough plumbing experience that the pvc shouldn't be too tough...knowing how to rate the pump pressure at each nozzle might be a bit of a pain but if I keep it symetrical?sp? it should be fine...I'm debating on how involved I want the setup to be...but I know the store bought systems are way to expensive and they all look like the root chambers are on the small side...
My camera does appear to be shot...it started working again for a while but it might just be time to toss...it's sad cause it's got kickass optics guess the last resort is calling HP
I'm almost half way through flower but I'm thinking maybe I should hold off on the koolbloom because the bud is just starting to form...hopefully the plants aren't going to just finish with like 10 baby bud sites instead of growing some more...Does stressing a plant significantly cause it to finish early? I'm hopeful it can't be that bad cause there's nothing really to finish yet ;-)
I'm off to bed for now but as always thanks for keeping me grounded...and I'll try my best not to snap any main colas or electricute myself in a res I'd just cry at this point if I ruined one completely...
Interesting point I learned from my "hydro Jesus" about lighting. He feels very strongly that lighting (talking HID here) is pretty much determined by room spacing and not the plants themselves. IOW...a 250w will cover 2 x 2 feet and produce approximately X amount of usable lumens in said space. The amount of plants in that space is not as iimportant as the amount of space per light. Example: 1 plant under a thousand watt light will (correctly grown and harvested) produce roughly the SAME AMOUNT of bud as 5 plants in the same space. The five plants will probably produce 2 oz apiece instead of all 10 on the same plant. Does how I am putting this make sense?
What i am really trying to say I think is don't sneer at your 400w light....if you are using it to cover a 4 x 4 or so space then it is all you need and the most light recommended for the amount of growing area you have. Plants can only uptake so much anyway. But your plans for a 6 x 6 flowering section....you'll need more lighting to get the best effect.
BTW I said this in a thread in the grow lounge but FYI I just bought a new book called Marijuana Botany and it is REALLY good....no hydro information but great (and easy to understand....even for me) info on the plant itself, how it grows, flowers etc....may want to look into it.
Bonger I had HORRIBLE ph problems with my well water. The ph would rise no matter what.....I don't care WHAT you did to it. The most stubborn water I have ever seen. RO solved the problem for me 100% ;)
Just checked on them again and Zola is running away with it as far as bud production...Eve (3ft tall) has probably 3-4 times the plant mass of Zola (2ft tall) but Zola has much more bud showing at this point...is it normal for smaller plants to produce the bud quicker and finish early(at the current rate it looks like the difference might be drastic...Or is it more based on the genetics of each plant as far as how much/fast bud will be produced regardless of size? The light is further away from Zola too so I'm not really sure why it's goin so fast
Besides the heat burn that Eve got from the light when I was moving them around both are back to normal...the leaves have all picked up and Eve's top cola leaves seem to point straight up at the light
I'll update with a couple pics tonight although the camera isn't as good as my hp hopefully it'll be clear enough to see some difference
I agree with what yer sayin on the lighting stuff hound...I'd say the best would be to get the same light meter reading all over the room but unless you have sunlight I doubt all the effort spent on doing so would be justified by the return...I definately want to get 4 of the same clone growing in each corner (if nothing else they should grow about the same rate) of the aero tank if I use that same one for the next flower...I'd have to assume more smaller plants would eek out one larger plant just because more bud sites right at the light but I don't think the difference would be significant...
The main problem I have at this point is that Eve is so much taller...I have the light angled at almost a 45 toward the mylar covered corner in hopes to keep as much light directed through both plants as possible but I guess it's not that big a deal cause they seem to be growing fine without much stretch
The roots are getting pretty crowded in there already so I'm hoping that doesn't ruin things toward the end (my system can't really be drilled out cause the chambers are seperate...I definately wanna give plenty of room for the roots to hang when I make my own system
Yeah the root thing is what pretty much stumped me last time.... I see some fair differences in growing in even amongst the plants in my waterfarms and could not tell you why that is ....ventilation as Bonger says? Yes, different types of plants grow differently and at different rates as well so without photo it's hard to say.....also which plants were closest to your light leaks? That may have something to do with it as well.
When i went to the hydro store the other day my guru told me that the way the "pros" do it for maximum lighting is measure the lumens or footcandles plus the temperature of the leaf surface. Anything over 80 degrees on the leaf surface itself will slow photosynthesis WAY down due to the heat produced and the stomata (sp?) will close. X-Crispi and I have been playing with this idea....you can buy little hand held temp gun for about $25... which my guru sold me by the way. I had actually gone there to talk to him about a cool tube so that I could get my light closer and he ended up selling me this instead.....about $100 cheaper but he swore to me this was a better way to do it and its $100 he lost on that so I believe him. Interestingly I found that I had guessed pretty well where my light should be (temps on leaf surface..76-78) so it might be something you want to think about. And seriously, for not having to guess where to put the light alone it was worth it to me.
Mornin guys.......
Wasnt in yesterday/last night at all. Had to get yard back in shape yesterday, get all the sticks n shit picked up that ice and wind removed this winter. Took cover off A/C and got it all the leaves and shit out from around it, etc. Gave the lawn some ferts. Fueled up and fired off the rototiller, wont be long til its time to get some onions and lettuce in the ground. Just a day doing your basic spring yard cleanup stuff. Nice to get the hell outta the house for a change.
'Hound, I figger you kept ASD in check for the day and didnt let him go to 2700 ppm for whatever reason he thought he should.....LOL:D
ASD.....about what I said about ventilation.......its a fact, jack......take it to the bank or mortgage the house on it. Seriously, with a sealed room setup you want more intake than exhaust. If you know any tinbenders that work exclusively with HVAC systems, ask them. The last thing you could possibly want is to create a suction. Think about it, when you are exhausting air from room, its doing its damdest to suck air from someplace.
I will argue this point til I wear the letters off my keyboard with anyone. Anything they say that differs from what I stated above is pure and total bullshit. I consulted with 3 different guys who only do HVAC work. All told me exact same thing.
You might be able to get away with a vent/darkroom louver type setup, but I would not think its ideal. Mine is simple, when my fans are kicked on by the thermostat the 10" brings in a nice flow of Hepa filtered from outside and the 8" is drawing the stale stuff through carbon filter and exhausting to the attic. My buddy said that for the little bit of static pressure that the carbon filter would produce that using 10 in, 8 out was perfecto. And my duct run is only 42 inches I think to attic, so the static pressure there is nil.
I have a Y with a 8" to 6" on one side of Y in the duct going to attic and thats also where my hot air from lights goes to. All my insulated flex duct hangs by chains fastened to J hooks screwed in the ceiling that have been slid thru 1" black rubber radiator type hose. That keeps the duct from kinking and I can easily move my lights up and down and adjust height of duct accordingly by taking up or down a few links. I use insulated duct to dampen noise only.
Yeah, I got a few bux in fans most would have a hard time warranting the cash for, but if I am going to pay 100 bucks for pack of seeds, spending 6-700 bucks on the proper setup for ventilation only made sense to me. I did have the fortune of being able to get a tinbender I know very well to fab me some custom duct work for some finished product, so that saved me as well.
Posted someplace on this site (and looking for it makes no sense because it is not even close to being correct) someone said you want to have your exhaust 1.5 times the size of your intake. That could not be further from the truth. All you need to do is look how a forced air furnace works. Its the exact same principle, same with mega HVAC systems.
I also have an always closed electric duct damper on exhaust that leads to attic. I spliced it into same wire that powers 8" exhaust fan. So when thermo kicks fans on, the damper gets power also and opens and allows the exhaust to flow freely. Once the fans shut down, it springs back closed. Thats before the Y and on the filter side. This would make adding C02 a breeze, which I originally intended to do, but I scratched that idea for good. Since not commercial here, I have no need to worry about increasing the yield. Keeping C02 tanks filled would be a major pain in my ass, and I really do not care for the idea of a propane "fired" C02 burner running.
One other tidbit, if you use sealed hoods/Cool Breeze/Cool Tube type lights NEVER put fan on same circut as light. Reason being if light trips breaker, you want fan to keep cooling light after it shuts down. Therefore fans on lights get own timer and seperate circut. My light fans come on about 10 minutes before lights on and run about 45 minutes after lights out. None of this was designed by a M.I.T. Engineering Grad, its all nothin more than good ole common sense.
Well, thats my thoughts on ventilation and a few tips to make a nice and neat job. Some may do differently, and I could care less. I know mine works, works efficently, and I see the results in my plants. So, there will not be any changes made here. It makes it nice when you know people who do this stuff for a living and can get the how-to's directly from them and save yourself a shitload of trial and error and "wondering" if its installed correctly.
Keep em growin,:rasta:
b0nger
Mastercool 52224-A Infrared Thermometer with Laser Order# MAS52224-A www.TheToolWarehouse.Net
One of the best investments I ever made for the grow room.
b0nger
Why Bonger you DEVIL! You already had one! You sly thing you! And by the way, if you got all that done at your house in one day I have a list for you to tackle at my house.....:D
Wow it's interesting to me....perhaps because I'm not growing in a cabinet or something....that you would have an exhaust fan without some sort of intake. Like you said....the air has to come from somewhere. That seems like a basic to me. And if there is no good fresh air coming in what the heck is the exhaust pulling out? :wtf:
Hey Bonger what do you know about measuring footcandles/lumens?
Well, I am not for hire:pimp: LOL
And what I know about figuring lumens/foot candles is as follows.
My aero setups take up 32 sq. ft. (4'x8') area
I have 3-600 watt lights above them @ 92,000 lumens each = 276,000 total lumens
276,000/32=8625/lumens per sq ft.
Or 56.25/watts per sq. ft.
Based on all I have read on this subject I have hells plenty of light. Thats it in a nutshell about what I know. Oh, and I know the the further you move away the more it diminishes with distance, exponentially.
Plants happy, I'm happy, and I have no need to know how to figger footcandles or how they fit in the big picture......LOL
Ya, gotta bring it in from someplace. I am guessing most do not grow in an air tight room. In my original design C02 was in the plan, so I am airtight. As I said, nix on the C02, so its a must I bring air in so that I may exhaust it out. If I didnt and the fan was running WFO exhausting air out, I might not be able to get the damn door open (suction)........LMAO
My room is actually part of an unused bedroom sealed off, so its really a room within a room setup, if ya get my drift. I have one window in the room that is not covered, doesnt need to be, and that way I can crack window, mix cool outside air with heated house air, or I can shut off register and use straight outside air, or I can draw cool'd AC air, or heated, humidity added air (older forced air furnaces make air thats drier than a popcorn fart) directly from room. Now when it was 9 fuggin degrees for the high of the day here, there was no cracks in the window to let that shit in, but this time of year I like letting this fresh spring air in and feeding that to the room. Then at night I shut and it just gets air from room. or leave open depending on the outside temp. It really allows me to keep temps in check very easily.
Gott run,
b0nger
Well as for the vents I have a 6" vortex running through a carbon scrubber and was planning on exhausting that with passive intakes but I can see your point that it would try to create a vacuum...I'll have to figure out how to get that setup...I'm not sure if the room is completely air tight but it's going to be close enough by the time I'm finished...for now like I said I'm just scrubbing the air and blowing it around with some fans as the door isn't even on yet
Eve keeps getting taller by the day but still seems to be at the same bud rate as before...Zola doesn't seem to be getting much taller but I can tell that the top of the plant is looking mostly buddish at this point which is nice to see...
Unfortunately with the broken camera I can't get any good pics of the setup...stupid auto focus...I'm gonna miss my 8x optical but ehh what can ya do, I'll just have to pick one up eventually just another thing to add to the ever growing list
I know that not all the light is staying bounced around at the plants cause it's not wrapped all the way floor-ceiling with mylar but it seems like most is where it should be...I'm pretty much sold on the idea of going to a several bucket system...probably something very similar to the waterfarm only homemade...if I'm gonna have the buckets drain back to the res I have to lift them above the res line which will eat away at available height so I'm still kickin things around
Even with the setup as unfinished as it is the plants seem to be quite healthy...obviously excluding the heat stress when I had the light on Eve...
Right now the nutes are all maxibloom and the bcuzz stimulator it says wait till half way for the bloom boost so lemme know what ya think on that...
until tomorrow :thumbsup:
I'm an idiot...my girl needed the dehumidifier and I just now put it back in the room so it's back in there...the lowest setting I can put is 35% which it's on now or I can just leave it on constantly but don't know if that's bad for the plants...
The first pic is Eve and the Second is Zola...neither are the top cola but I took a bunch of pictures and these were the best 2...I can make out hairs but I remember what they look like for real so gimme yer thoughts :D
ASD...if dehumidifier does not have a way to set it to maintain a specific RH level, you could do this. You can go to Wally World and for about 20 bucks you can get a repeat cycle cement pond (swimmin pool) timer. Maybe run it for 30 minutes on, 30 off and check level. If too humid, increase, too dry derease cycle time, etc.
Also, once you get your ventilation issue squared away it will lower RH. Plants sweat (transpire) I think it is the technical name, so they create humidity. Plus my aeroponic systems add to RH as well. Since I bring fresh air in, and exhaust that stale shit out of grow room completely I have zero RH problems. Mine stays a stable 35-45%. I have read 60% is perfect, but I dont want to chance fungi, so I stay a little lower. And again, if I miss out on a few grams, BFD.
b0nger
I have never named my plants, does that help?...........LMAO:rasta: :rasta:
Keep em green,
b0nger
It's hard to tell from your photos......I may be seeing a bit of overnute there but I'm not positive......what's your ppms at? I'm having a hard time telling if that is just the way the leaves are or......the tips seem curled down.....are the edges of the leaves curled downward at all? I looked at an original pic you posted.....nice fat indica leaves at the begining and now they look thin and long.....do you know what kind of strains they are? Or possibly a photo of whole plant?
That's I think I'll keep mine low for now...k I have mine set to 35% I can raise it if necessary I haven't had any growth issues either but if 35% is super low I can raise it to 45 or 50 depending...45 might be a much more natural humdity level for our basement too...it just seems to stay around there most of the time if it's really dry it it might go down to 40 and when it's pouring out & soggy it'll rise to 60...I remember several people saying veg is higher and flower you want it lower but don't have any practical experience...I might just set it for 45 cause the humidifier seems to run less that way but I'm still checking on that
Just named em for ease of reference...1 and 2 seemed cold ;-)
ppms are at 1300 and ph is hovering almost perfect at 5.4
Here's a few more pics....a body shot...some mixed bud shots and the clone and seedling...
just from the photos.....hard to tell w/out seeing plants....the healthier seems right on the edge of over.....curled down tips but leaves pretty much look ok. On the smaller one......I do not like that canoe shape on some of them......long skinny tips.....edges seem to be curling. I'll have to look it up....have a book..... be back....perhaps it is from the setup being turned off???
Lemme know what the book says...it's possible those leaves are the ones that got the most dry when the pump was off they did get kinda hard and stiff just a thought but I figure I'm probably high on nutes as well...
so the first sign of over nute is some downward pointing leaf tips and moderate curving and then spotting or yellowing at the ends?
the bud at the top of Zola is about the size of a nickel now for some reference most of the rest are around a dime or smaller