Denial is back with a K2/WhiteWidow/Redhair grow Log

Hey people,
Some of you might remember me as Denial! I'm back on the forums again, sorry I was away for some time had some personal problems.

You may remember last time I grown red hair skunk to some success, the problem at the end was ph and i ended up with under 2oz from 4 plants, was pretty gutted :)

This time patience will be required, I've got some experience too. Instead this time I've started off with


1 x 125W 2200K CFL
1 x 125W 7400K CFL

It's been exactly a month since I started this grow, from seed. Seemed like a good time to share my CFL grow.

I've recently added 1 x 24 W 4000K Energy saving light - just for kicks :)

I'm aware that plants aren't specifically interested in the red CFL at veg but I think it can have a positive impact in any case! Don't worry, no stretching :) And so there shouldn't! The 2 White Widow plants are under an inch from the bulbs!!!

I'm seriously considering getting 100 x 20Watt for 2 1000Watt CFL
(50 x 20W) growspace/growroom.

I can source these bulbs from the UK for about $500 which seems reasonable! And they are at 4000k, I think 1000watt of these bulbs should be enough for start to finish? What does everyone else think?


Wonder how hot it could get, hehhe


peace,
Denial

WhiteWidow 1month and day or 2 hehe.


Peace,
denial

They look a bit small for a month... should be much bushier and maybe about a foot tall by now... You have enough light, but they are in the wrong place. You should have them above the plants also, and if they are more than 2-3 in. from the plant, they aren't doing much. CFL's and flouro need to be within that distance to work properly.

I don't about the idea of those bulbs either... yea $500 is a pretty decent price, but you will need ventilation($$$), and a lot of sockets ($$$), and a lot of cords (hazardous). 400 or 600w hps w/ proper ventilation will cost probably as much, but much less hassle.

trying to cram low watts CFLs defeats the purpose. Much better lumen per watt with t-5 HO lamps (tubes). Efficient, if you cover the tube area with growth.

little update for ya guys... after i took the pics i repositioned the lights so theres one on the left and one on the right, effectively sandwitching the 2 pots between. I think this way I'll get maximum reflectivity and locality without having to hang the reflectors till flowering!

I have also noticed some slight yellowing, these plants are only small it has been 6 weeks in this biobizz soil.. I guess I need to start adding bloom ferts and start flowering :( I only have bloom ferts! :-)

Hmm... at least I think thats the problem.. any ideas anyone?


Peace,
denial

They just look as if there is a problem. Very droopy, how is ventilation? What are your temps? I would put your lights above them, give them something to grow toward. Keep the smaller ones on the sides.

What is your water schedule, or how much they drinking and how much you watering them?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lit Up

They just look as if there is a problem. Very droopy, how is ventilation? What are your temps? I would put your lights above them, give them something to grow toward. Keep the smaller ones on the sides.

What is your water schedule, or how much they drinking and how much you watering them?

---

Yeah dude, I agree.. I'm watering them every 3 or 4 days, I always check the roots get a dry cycle kinda wise to that sort of thing.

Unfortunately I had some bad luck with the weather, so much so I had to switch from 17/7 to 24/0 because it was getting so cold. I don't think they liked it at all, I'm guessing it's either that or nutes!

Yeah, I'm gonna reaffix the lamps in a sensible place; as I mentioned I did move them so they are parallel sandwitching the plants, maybe they'll be happier with more light/heat.


We'll find out shortly I guess :-)


Thanks for the advice homes!

Peace,
Denial

Just started to flower these two plants, may take clones and setup sep veg room , at least when i get out the HPS, after i buy my cooltube :)

decided to forget bout buying shitloads of CFL's, the comments here were sane about just cooling a HPS proper, thanks for saving me some time :) Still, a future project there!!!

Wish me luck, i switched to flower at these plants @ 1 foot for a reason... no veg ferts and at 6 weeks now so want to us biobloom :)

wohoo its so great to be back!!

Peace,
denial

u ph test your nutes/water?? they should be a lil bigger by now but it might be the ph level...gl man

thanks for the advice guys...

so i've decided to go back to HPS but this time im gonna use a cool tube

Budget Cool Shade reflector only (IEC connection)
Bio Bizz All-Mix 20 Litre
Lti Extractor Fans 5" RVK125 A1 250m3/hour.
Nitric Acid 1 Litre (PH DOWN for hard water areas)
125mm (5") Aluminium Ducting

This is gonna cost me roughly $200. woo but it should go a long way in making my rig that bit better.

It'll then be a perpetual grow like:

Flowering Room: 12/12
1 Cool tubed 400W HPS Growlux
1 x 125W Red 7.2k cfl
0.2625kwh/day
7.875kwh/month
189.0kwhrs/month
189 x 10p(offpeak) = £18.90/month OR ~$30.00 OR ~Euro 20.02

Vegging room: 24/0
1 x 125W White 2.2k CFL
1 x 24W Mid-Ranges 4000K CFL
0.149kwhrs/day
102.28kwhrs/month
189 x 13p(peak) = £13.29 OR ~$22.00 OR ~Euro 14.07


674 Watt Lights
+ 60 watts RVK125 cool shade extractor
+ 60 watts RVK100A carbon filter cab extractor



Total Watts: 794 watts

Approx cost month: 12.35kw/h == 34.09 Euro/month



So basically it will cost me nothing to run this perpetual grow. *looks happy with himself *tsk tsk tsk!


Let me know what you guys think and if I have missed anything. I attatch a picture of the current setup.. looking forward to making the veg room and getting the hps fitted with a cooltube :D Wish me luck!!! and advice if you got any :rastasmoke:


Peace,
Denial

It turns out I'm having some major PH problems and I'm sitting at PH 7.0 or something :( damn hard water. thats what that nitric acid solution is for :-)


hope it is ok to use it with my biobizz bloom!!!


Woohoo! Shop tomorrow, fun fun..


Peace,
Denial

just got back from the shop... man im tired... installed some of the gear in the grow room, looking good so far :thumbsup:

400 Watt Grolux cooltube is running cool, pulling air in at 330m3/minute or something... very nice PK fan i'm using with 2 settings :) funky... and veryyy handy if i go stealth..

I also made a purchase of some PH Down solution for my soil fertiliser mix. The guy in the shop was insistant that it's not "good practice" to use phosphoric acid 81% solution for a soil ph adjustment. I dig that advice but I think he was being a bit para.. I am talking about 1ml per litre max, more like 1 per 2 litre... 1:2000 so 81% of 1ml in 2000 = factor 81%/2000 = 0.0405% phosphoric acid... hummm that seems acceptable if I'm getting a PH just under 6 or 7... Anyways thats my thoughts...

I used some CAT5E network cable to create a modest 'ghetto' rail for my HPS. It's okay I was very dilligent at making it as safe as possible, more photo's showing its safety features soon :) :thumbsup:

I've watered my poor plants, it's been almost 2 months and they only look a few weeks old, farking CFL weren't powerful enough/wasnt hanging them/had a bad setup! Fixed!!! Only problem i encountered was that the 5M of ducting wasn't enough, so I had to setup a temporary 'ghetto' air exchange point too. Which is actually an old LCD TFT box, works a dream, some pressure loss and some recirc but honestly 25% max... not bad for a ghetto exchange :))

Anyways, anyone got any advice re my PH? I know the reason my plants are getting lockout is because I have hard water and it is messing with the PH of my soil now the buffers gone. This happened last time. I'm using allmix. Soil PH is 7.0 so, I've applied a 1:1700 solution of phosphoric acid to see if it balances the soil PH, oh god I hopeso!! don't want dead plants since that'd be a first for me...


PLEASE! any advice rocks.. cause I'm not sure what to do now :D :< :D


Peace,
Denial

ok so I thought I'd post a pic of my ghetto air exchange that i gotta use, cause my 5 metre ducting too fscking short :(

Also a picture of my "hydroponic" PH adjuster solution, meh BS will work with soil, watch it work! *hopes* anyone with experience who wants to pitch in, god i'd appreciated it rasta.. :rastasmoke:



Ahh well homes, all in a days work.. back to dayjob

Peace,
denial

I guess its time to setup the veg cab!! hmm, or shall I do that tomorrow :D Decisions decisions!

bump , anyone wanna comment on my plants? They look sick don't they :(

Not to worry phosphoric acid HPS PK super dualspeed air cooltube to the rescue!1!!


Peace,
Denial

hey all,
It's getting late and I'm sitting here like a stoner worrying over adding 1ml /2ml phosphoric acid to my 2litre water bottles. Am I going crazy?

Can anyone advise me on this ph stuff? I know the soils sitting at 7.0.. please don't say "get a meter" i'm poor, I have some basic PH testing kit, I know its at 7.0 I just want to know "ITS OK" to do this without a hydro setup heh.. I never realised it was a "biggie" till the guy at the grow shop was freaking out about the idea ehehe.. especially when i almost bought the nitric acid for flowering lmao.. in the case of nitrogen overload in flowering being bad, i stood totally corrected in such matters, still I think its a bit fly by night to writeoff using acid as a PH corrector... unless I can get build ups of that.. but surely not phosphorous should be a result of using it??

Oh I can be such an idiot when it comes to growing sometimes, possibly all of the time hehe.


Peace,
denial

I like the new setup... you should have no problems keeping the temps in range and more than enough light sooooo... I think something's wrong below ground... Also what size pots are those? Have you checked to see if you are root-bound? Does the biobizz have all the necessary nutrients? Sorry I'm not too good at troubleshooting...

Hope they perk up for ya...:jointsmile:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bigtopsfinn

I like the new setup... you should have no problems keeping the temps in range and more than enough light sooooo... I think something's wrong below ground... Also what size pots are those? Have you checked to see if you are root-bound? Does the biobizz have all the necessary nutrients? Sorry I'm not too good at troubleshooting...

Hope they perk up for ya...:jointsmile:

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hey bigtops, glad you like the setup dude :thumbsup:

it cost enough, gee... shame I got ducting accross the room lol because at the moment its too short hehe.

I'm not sure but I think these are 4 or 5 litre pots they are pretty big. I added some more soil to raise the soil level, and added that phosphoric acid water solution to them. They look happier now but maybe thats just the HPS doing its magic.. meh I guess we'll see in time.

now what have i to do next? hehe

Peace,
Denial

I decided to put these back into veg so i can take 10 or so cuttings to get 6 females in the end, including the 2 (hopefully) mothers.. oh i so hope i don't get hermies :((

Here's some pics, the HPS has made the plants happier, as has the phosphoric acid 2ml : 2litre solution.


I know they are a bit on the small side, thats my fault re nutes and PH. fixed now I hope!! More to come shortly!

Let me know if you agree or have any other ideas as to what could be wrong with the plants. As far as I can tell they aren't rootbound, not yet :)

I also decided to see what would happen running the HPS 24/0, since the CFL's were... so far so good. I noticed in the day things get a bit on the warm side, so decided to blow the air out the vent instead of suck it into the cooltube, working better, I think.. not sure though, anyone got any idea whats best?? this is my first cooltube you see :)

Peace,
Denial

does anyone know whats best? our summers rarely exceed 24C and I intend to run the HPS at night.. do you think it would be better to suck air from outside in instead of try and extract the heat. I have found that latent heat seems to warm its surroundings when extracting air... just a thought.

If anyone has some advice or experience in such matters I'd very much appreciate someone chiming in ther :)

Thanks guys. another good log, so far.. ish ;]

Peace,
Denial

Quote:

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Originally Posted by denialisback

does anyone know whats best? our summers rarely exceed 24C and I intend to run the HPS at night.. do you think it would be better to suck air from outside in instead of try and extract the heat. I have found that latent heat seems to warm its surroundings when extracting air... just a thought.

If anyone has some advice or experience in such matters I'd very much appreciate someone chiming in ther :)

Thanks guys. another good log, so far.. ish ;]

Peace,
Denial

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Extract hot air and bring in some fresh air!!!! DO both! if you can!

With my setup, I bring fresh air in. It's easier for me. without fan it's like 88-90f in there. With it it's more like 83f. Never try to push hot air out! I'll try that on monday! (Cuz on week-ends I leave the closet door open so they enjoy fresh clean air every second of their 12 hour shift!!)

:thumbsup:

I worked out my ghetto air exchanger was shit. So I made another one with 100% success this time. I cut all the holes tight so i have to force things in a bit.. but its snug and secure :) and most importantly safe..

I attatch a picture with some patent text (ahem.. lol).. so basically I spent all my money on the cooltube and new 125mm PK 330m3/hour /230m3/hr interchanger and failed to buy enough ducting, as a result I had to use the ducting from an air con in combination with the 125mm ducting i had connected to the PK and the cool tube. As it worked out the box the cooltube was in was perfect for this, obviously :) And so I present to you the amazing ghetto blower 2000..


Peace :D
Denial

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MonkeyBone

Extract hot air and bring in some fresh air!!!! DO both! if you can!

With my setup, I bring fresh air in. It's easier for me. without fan it's like 88-90f in there. With it it's more like 83f. Never try to push hot air out! I'll try that on monday! (Cuz on week-ends I leave the closet door open so they enjoy fresh clean air every second of their 12 hour shift!!)

:thumbsup:

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oh hey you must have been posting as I was.. hah! I've actually kept it as extracting hot air out for one reason.. its running at night and its not quite summer yet, so I'm gonna keep it removing the heat until it gets a bit warmer. As it turned out I've tried both now and I'm pretty sure bringing air in was cooler, but then again not so sure... it's pretty cold now!

In the summer I think I'm gonna have to install a second filter of some kind to catch bugs and pests (dont wanna bring that shit in :( ), so i can suck cold air in.. in the summer it'll be crazy just trying to keep temps down..

hmm sure hope my thinking is right there. Unfortunately I only have one vent so unless I work out a way to valve it (I could work out a system I'm sure) - to go off the one AC feed vent I have :)


Ohhh man, this is so fun..


Peace,
Denial

Hey Denial :jointsmile:

Worked better for me to pull all the air... so much so that I took my fan and mounted it outside of my growbox! Dropped the temps from 30-31C to 27-28C. I keep the outside room around 24-25, and just a passive intake.

What's with the ghetto-blower? What's in there? What does it do? Did I miss something?

Okay not sure but would it be safe to say have one fan that sucks air out hooked on a cool tube right. An have another one that pushes fresh air in your box/ cool tube advise plz.? I guess not sure but wondering if that would be okay. I still don't know a lot about the vent. but am looking for a feed back on this now? So tell me what you guys think?:jointsmile:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bigtopsfinn

Hey Denial :jointsmile:

Worked better for me to pull all the air... so much so that I took my fan and mounted it outside of my growbox! Dropped the temps from 30-31C to 27-28C. I keep the outside room around 24-25, and just a passive intake.

What's with the ghetto-blower? What's in there? What does it do? Did I miss something?

---

haha i didnt have ducting that matched.. I had to improvise and use a cardboard box as a , well not reducer, but transducer i guess if I'm gonna be technical about it.. :P

hmm so you think instake is best? I think you might be right dude, i noticed it was warmer straight away when i reversed the fan.. :) I got the fan in the growarea too, works awesome..

Thanks for your comments dude :thumbsup:

Peace,
Denial

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KillerBudG

Okay not sure but would it be safe to say have one fan that sucks air out hooked on a cool tube right. An have another one that pushes fresh air in your box/ cool tube advise plz.? I guess not sure but wondering if that would be okay. I still don't know a lot about the vent. but am looking for a feed back on this now? So tell me what you guys think?:jointsmile:

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if you're asking if its possible to have a circuit, as in
VENT IN -> cooltube -> VENT OUT, sure absolutely... you might actually be able to drive it via one Prima Klima 330 m3/hr . since it displaces the 330.. it'll a) bring cool air accross your tube b) take that cool air after its heated up in the tube back outside.. pretty awesome really because it'd reduce ambients all around.


Here is the fan i use and the specs.. 125mm version

In-line Extractor / Intake Fans-Brackets - New* Prima Klima Dual-Speed In-line Fan - Hydroponic, indoor gardening and organic growing equipment and Hydroponic gardening supplier. Somerset Hydroponics, Order hydroponic supplies online.

Peace,
denial

Alright I am just sketching up a few different ideas for my grow area befor i start it. Wanna have everything how I want it an make sure not to halfass it. Make sure everything works out for the good. And hey who says that having a couple different ideas are bad. Might come up with a brilliant grow area from putting all together lol who know might be tha dank now got me seeing stuff.:jointsmile: Well nice lil party tonight gonna head out fellas take it easy.

peace

~One~:rastasmoke:

So maybe other people want to try doing a circuit system for your cooltube. It's pretty simple to do, and I love technical stuff.. so sorry if my diagram is a bit anal :D but it is descriptive.


hope it helps someone, i had to work this shout out for myself recently hehe.

Peace,
Denial

That's an interesting setup you have with the cooltube intake coming from outside. Do you have another intake/exhaust for the growroom, or is it a sealed room?

I'm asking because the plants will need either fresh air or CO2 (if you go with the sealed room), and because I have an idea for you. See if this makes sense: Keep everything like it is, but put a Y-duct splitter just before your fan. Then, you can attach a carbon filter to the open slot. That way, you can run fresh air through the cooltube AND suck out hot/stinky air from the growspace through the carbon filter. That way you solve a couple problems, and no smell. My fan is only 220 cfm and takes care of both my carbon filter exhaust and cooltube.

I see you ran out of money already :(... but I was thinking the carbon filter would be the next thing on your shopping list, seems like you solved the ducting problem:jointsmile:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bigtopsfinn

That's an interesting setup you have with the cooltube intake coming from outside. Do you have another intake/exhaust for the growroom, or is it a sealed room?

I'm asking because the plants will need either fresh air or CO2 (if you go with the sealed room), and because I have an idea for you. See if this makes sense: Keep everything like it is, but put a Y-duct splitter just before your fan. Then, you can attach a carbon filter to the open slot. That way, you can run fresh air through the cooltube AND suck out hot/stinky air from the growspace through the carbon filter. That way you solve a couple problems, and no smell. My fan is only 220 cfm and takes care of both my carbon filter exhaust and cooltube.

I see you ran out of money already :(... but I was thinking the carbon filter would be the next thing on your shopping list, seems like you solved the ducting problem:jointsmile:

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yo bigtops, yeah i have another rvk100a running with a carbon filter in the room to circulate air plus a rotating fan but i really like your idea about the y splitter heh it makes sense :) I'll give it a go, gotta find one first though heehehe.. thanks man that really helps :D :jointsmile:


I will let you know how i get on :)

Peace,
Denial

Aahhhhh you got it right already...:thumbsup:

Those Y connectors might be a little pricey (25â?¬ I saw at one place), but my suggestion might save you some $$$ on electricity if you only run one of the fans for everything. Less noise, less things to break, go wrong, etc. Just my :twocents:

Good luck! :jointsmile:

when you are talking about the watts on the CFLs are you talking about the watt equivalent or the actual CFL wattage? Like I have CFLs that are 25 watts but have some watt equivalent which is much higher.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BigLeagueJew

when you are talking about the watts on the CFLs are you talking about the watt equivalent or the actual CFL wattage? Like I have CFLs that are 25 watts but have some watt equivalent which is much higher.

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hey dude, thanks for stopping by, to answer your question CFL (or compact fluorescents) use a different type of gas which emits a greater number of photons (light) than normal regular bulbs at lower tempearatures resulting in higher efficiency (per watt).

CFL bulbs are very bright and efficient as a result of the lower temperature (the more heat a bulb produces the more electricity is 'wasted' doing that). This means the Compact fluorcent lights are not only cooler but they actually produce the same ammount as light as say a 100W.

So a 23W CFL is equivalent to a 100W in terms of the amount of light emitted. Make sense? :)

I'm also currently using a HPS grolux, there is no "equivalency" in 400Watt HID's. A HID is a high intensity discharge lamp, and thats that. There is no "alternative" or more efficient way to run that 400 watt bulb (they get very very hot indeed). High pressure sodium gets hot when you introduce a current to it.

To summarise equivalencies in bulbs are only in the low temperature CFL's.

Doh shit i should've just said that in the first place., doh.

:rastasmoke:
Peace,
Denial

Hello denial,

I've come by as you asked but can't quite pinpoint what you have been doing; what's working and what is not. Any chance you could post an explanatory update to bring me up to date? Do your plants still look this droopy as they did in the photos?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Weedhound

Hello denial,

I've come by as you asked but can't quite pinpoint what you have been doing; what's working and what is not. Any chance you could post an explanatory update to bring me up to date? Do your plants still look this droopy as they did in the photos?

---

Hi Weedhound. I'm so sorry. I'm quite a mess at the moment. I have no supply and my hyperactive thoughts have a tendancy to over power my more usual stoned and strangely more rational linguistic ability.

I first started off with 2 x 125W CFL's one 2200k(daylight white/blue end) and the other 7200k (red spectrum end).

The plants growth was slow but proceeded predictably. But after the 6th week the biobizz allmix soil I had potted the seeds in ran out of both nutrients and buffer. So I began to add biobizz bloom ferts at 2ml per litre (recommended 2-3ml /litre). Unfortunately this made the PH go up to about 7.0. As a result I decided i need to buy some hydrohobby PH Down phosphoric acid 81% mixture for flowering in future. It's for hydroponics apparently, but I know this is nonsense, there is no reason it wont work OK in a soil medium, as far as I can tell.. I've tested my water and it is classified as VERY HARD water, also PH is neutral, about 7.0.

I decided to go out to the local hydro store and buy a cool shade to replace to the two CFL's so I can go back to my original 400Watt grolux + 7200k cfl for flowering, and have the 1x125W in a veg room (will be setting up veg room soon).

The latest pics you see are of the plants you can see the growth is still quite stuned. I'm sure this is because of severe undernuting. I just hope I can control the PH OK.

To control the PH I have devised the following method:

1 x 2 litre of bottle is always full of PH 6.0 phosphoric acid 80% 1:1000 water.
1 x 2 litre of bottle is always full of PH 7.0 + BIOBIZZ @ 1:500 ratio

What I plan (and have started to do) is add half a watering of the biobizz nutes, wait a day, and if the soil PH reaches 7.0 I will add some of the treated water for nutrient fllush and PH reduction (for osmosis fixing).

I'm sorta a technical guy if you didn't notice already. I'm so sorry for being an unclear sod :rastasmoke: i swear to god its because i'm not stoned and going round the bend on hyperactivity ;]

Anyways, thanks so much for stopping by weedhound ..

I'ma gonna take some more pics after I had some of the phosphoric acid solution. They do appear to be a bit happier
A) with the phosphoric ph adjustment
B) the HPS

only time will tell I guess! what do you think? hhehe


Peace,
Denial

Holy shit I must keep reminding myself that it is a very very bad thing to turn on a HPS again within only minutes of it being turned off. Fool on me.. I thought I'd blown the bulb or the ballast.


I sat, waited... turned it back on, lit up straight away, instantly actually. ;)

Thank god for that guys.. I'm so so poor it is just unfair it's making me speak unclearly haha! chaos or what :(


Peace,
denial

Some pictures of my slightly happier plants probably because it's now getting much more lumens, the lamp is hanging from the ceiling rather than a vertically mounted CFL.. and of course I'm on top of the nute underfeed and PH issue with my hard water area :)

Thanks guys... hopefully the diagnosis is OK and I'll have something awesome to show you at the end. I hopeso because it's my medication if i fail the crop i fail the afford medication game :D

teehee.

Peace guys,
Denial

what size pots are they in?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Weedhound

what size pots are they in?

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4 or 5 litres i think weedhound. Not sure I'll double check where i got them :)



*goes to look*

I checked for roots / rootbound seems OK. I think the growth is just stunted because I've not been attentive enough to their PH needs. Apparently allmix/biobizz bloom + hard water go together like an elephant and a mouse. :<


Peace,
Denial