When am I using too many watts?

[Al B. Fuct]

Makes good sense! Gone are the days when you could reasonably safely send clones around in the post... seeds are about the only practical way to share anymore- and good onya for being so community minded.

Yes, you're quite right... a grow op does chain you down to some degree, but there's a lot of things that can be automated.

Watering clones isn't one of those where I've managed any automation yet. Unfortunately, due to the continuous output nature of my op, I can't think of a whole week that's gone by where I have not had cuttings in the clonebox.

However, my mums and flowering areas can go for about 6-7 days without being touched on their own reservoirs. I have recently added a system that recovers water from my dehumidifier and puts it in the tanks automatically, timed to top the tanks in between the times that they are flooding my trays to avoid overflow. This extends the unattended operation to about 12-13 days at a stretch.... provided the dehumidifier continues to trap water at the usual rate of 10L per day... and nothing silly like an air bubble in a pump stops a tray from being flooded. Real buzzkill, that. Frequent checking of the op is the only 100% sure thing.

If you haven't planned your watering system yet, flood types are the most reliable. They're mechanically simpler than most other systems and simply can't clog like systems that pump nutes through small spray or drip apertures. Much less maintenance.

[PharmaCan]

Well, they make misters for misting people outdoors. The technology exsts, you just need to adapt it. I bet if you set something up in a medium sized aquarium tank you could have a little rain forest for your clones.

You know they gotta have the kind of stuff you would need for terrarium geeks.

Otherwise, damn, sounds like you got the other stuff fine tuned. But if you're taking pure H2O from the air and putting that into your reservoir, how do you keep the ppm's up in your reservoir? Or do you just let them lag for sake of a holiday?

[Al B. Fuct]

Well, they make misters for misting people outdoors. The technology exsts, you just need to adapt it. I bet if you set something up in a medium sized aquarium tank you could have a little rain forest for your clones.

I actually don't keep my clones in a terribly humid environment. If I did an automation for watering the clones, I think I'd do something that more closely mimics what I do by hand, which is essentially putting in 25-30ml per 40mm cube per 24 hours. Doing this accurately will require a bit of MacGuyvering... flooding the cubes like a miniature flood drain has crossed my mind but that prevents use of an electric heat mat. Running a little tube to each of 30 cuttings doesn't sound appealing either, even if I could get 25ml evenly out of each of them. I'll smoke a cone and it'll come to me.

Otherwise, damn, sounds like you got the other stuff fine tuned.

It once was more closely dialed in, but a recent rebuild in a new location (moving a grow op is a real serious nightmare you really don't want to have too often...) has changed some of the conditions... and I have yet to get it as well tweaked up as it was before the move. New location required a much longer run of exhaust duct which necessitated a centrif blower, which meant the intake had to be upgraded, etc etc etc etc.

But if you're taking pure H2O from the air and putting that into your reservoir, how do you keep the ppm's up in your reservoir? Or do you just let them lag for sake of a holiday?

I don't use the 'holiday' system unless I absolutely know I'm going to need it. No one can tend my op but me; a recent hospital stay for some minor horseshit would have been a lot more trouble without it.

You're quite right, adding essentially distilled water from the dehumidifier to top the tanks fully will drop the ppm. A fresh tank is about 1400-1500ppm. A topped tank at the end of 2 weeks can be as low as 800-900ppm owing to what the plants have eaten. Each 820mm^2 flood tray, holding 23 plants each, has a 125L tank. If I DON'T top the tanks with water, the ppm will stay bang-on 1400-1500 to the minimum level (deep enough to keep pump submerged while tray is flooded). Depending upon the temps of the air I can draw in the op, 125L will run each tray for about 9-10 days (at absolute max before pumps are uncovered).

In the last incarnation of the op, the tanks were only 100L. The water use was faster than the nutrient use with the smaller tanks, causing ppms to bump up during the course of a week. Unless the tanks were topped up with plain water to bring them down, they'd jump up to 1600 by the end of about 7-8 days. Just 25L greater tank volume made the water % consumption match the nutrient % consumption.

I couldn't have calculated this ideal tank volume if I'd tried- but even a blind dog finds a bone now and again, eh?

[TheGreenFog]

Spot on. Well said. BTW, thanks for the compliment,

However, even 26K lumens of CFL is still low intensity light. Suffice it to say that a CFL lumen is not quite equal to an HPS lumen; kinda apples and applesauce.

Yea, that's kinda where I was going with that when I said the whole penetration part, but thanks for putting 2 & 2 together for me.

If you think you need a huge CFL, what you probably need is a small HPS!

This is EXACTLY what I was thinking! And even with a CFL grow, you are going to have to figure out a way to ventilate, so why not just get an HPS and ventilate that?


I went and saw some of your stuff over at GC and your set up looks very nice. I like the SOG & it's definitely nice to have a harvest every couple weeks. Welcome over here, man. We need more people who know their stuff...and actually post it.

If you haven't planned your watering system yet, flood types are the most reliable. They're mechanically simpler than most other systems and simply can't clog like systems that pump nutes through small spray or drip apertures. Much less maintenance.

I completely agree. If you haven't seen my logs, the flowering room is flood & drain, veg/mother is drip, and clones are hand watered. The problem with the drip (using the apertures) has been clogging due to using organics. Removal of the drip apertures helped, but it still clogs up and that is a disaster waiting to happen if the grow is left alone for a couple days at a time.

Watering clones isn't one of those where I've managed any automation yet.

I was recently thinking about this same thing and came up with an idea pretty much like what Pharma was saying...

Well, they make misters for misting people outdoors. The technology exsts, you just need to adapt it. I bet if you set something up in a medium sized aquarium tank you could have a little rain forest for your clones.

I was thinking about just setting up a small res and pump with a little mister hitting the top of the cloning dome (for a small # of clones) an then raining down on them. But hell if Al B. didn't just remind me about watering the individual rockwool cubes. That would require flooding or dripping like he said...shoot...well, on goes the saga. I'm going to smoke a nice Hashplant/Northern Lights joint I have ready and rolled and ponder it s'more.



So, do we call this thread officially hijacked now??? lol


The Fog :rastasmoke:

[PharmaCan]

So, do we call this thread officially hijacked now??? lol

The Fog :rastasmoke:

Heheheh - Yeah, I think so. imp:

I'm not sure what kind of system I'm going to use. Right now I'm using coco, which has it's ups and downs. But I'm limited by law as to the number of plants - so I'm thinking I'd be better off with fewer, bigger plants. I have 9' ceilings, so I've got plenty of height. The growroom will be approx. 12' x 10'. I just need to decide on the most efficient use of the space. I'm figuring on 2/3 of the room being for plants that are in their final 30 days of flower and 1/3 for plants in their first 30 days.

[Al B. Fuct]

Thread fully burgled.

even with a CFL grow, you are going to have to figure out a way to ventilate, so why not just get an HPS and ventilate that?

Yep. You do have to wonder where the break-point is where an HPS is too small to be practical (and I have my doubts about the 60 & 75W HPS units) or a CFL too large to justify its existence compared to a near-sized HPS or MH. I think that point is somewhere around 100W for CFLs. I've seen 300W single unit CFLs and just wondered "why?" (edit: I say the same thing when I see a BMW X5 or a Porsche Cayenne, too... )

I went and saw some of your stuff over at GC and your set up looks very nice. I like the SOG & it's definitely nice to have a harvest every couple weeks. Welcome over here, man. We need more people who know their stuff...and actually post it.

Thanks much. I'm an Overgrow refugee, still looking for a place to settle. Been flopping around several dope forums lately, and I'll tell ya, if assholes had wings, some of these (unnamed) joints would be international airports.

I've been trying post the cloning & SoG bits I have on GC over here on cannabis.com; I've uploaded the images, but I can't work out how to embed images inline with text on this forum. IMG tags appear to be disabled. The IMG button is missing from the WYSIWYG text editor. Those two essays make much more sense with the images embedded in the text instead of appearing at the end of the post in a clump.

a disaster waiting to happen if the grow is left alone for a couple days at a time.

eek, poor you!

I am always torn on a performance v. reliability issue when I think about my op which runs 8" x 8" pots of loose rockwool floc. Each pot of rockwool will soak up about 2L of water, enough to get through 2 lights-on cycles without a pump run (i.e. water pump failure). I know there's no possible way as much O2 gets to roots in rockwool than in other systems like drip, NFT, DWC, aero, etc etc.

However, the other, higher performance systems are often highly prone to disaster unless babysat. DWC can kill plants if there's a simple power outage lasting more than a few hours, due to lack of air pumped in the nute buckets. If I built a DWC, it'd have an uninterruptible power supply for a PC as part of the plan!

[Al B. Fuct]

I'm not sure what kind of system I'm going to use. Right now I'm using coco, which has it's ups and downs. But I'm limited by law as to the number of plants - so I'm thinking I'd be better off with fewer, bigger plants. I have 9' ceilings, so I've got plenty of height. The growroom will be approx. 12' x 10'. I just need to decide on the most efficient use of the space. I'm figuring on 2/3 of the room being for plants that are in their final 30 days of flower and 1/3 for plants in their first 30 days.

man... the plant count thing is both blessing and bummer. If it's anything reasonable (wot is it, 6 in veg, 6 in flower in Cowlifornia? pretty reasonable) you can keep yourself and probably a good bit of your neighbourhood stoned if you plan well.

Even powerful HID lighting can only penetrate foliage so deeply, so tall plants are not the friend of the indoor grower, even if you have the blessing of 9ft vertical to work with. You won't find any HID lighting (short of that found on your local football stadium, perhaps ) that will give you solid buds 9 ft below- at least not without cooking the tops.

Maxing the yield for just 6 in flower under artificial lighting begs for flattish, wide plants, meaning mainstem pruning early in the piece, or even a SCRoG op. SCRoG can be a lottttta work and time is spent on vegging plants which you will later flower. Takes away space one might normally use for flowering. Nothing is more light efficient than SCRoG due to training the plants to a screen- but light efficiency is not your top concern if you have kilowatts of MH & HPS hanging around, is it?

[Al B. Fuct]

In terms of the watering system, if you have comparatively few plants, more sophisticated watering systems become practical.

I have a fondness for aeroponics, where an airstone or bubble curtain and air pump are used to create the nutrient mist. Bubbles breaking the water surface send up a very fine spray. This is a much more reliable proposition than forcing nutrient through small sprayer apertures. Roots hang well above the water level. If they get long, one might work out a way to support them on some sort of plastic netting to keep them out of the water but still be exposed to the nute mist in a mist chamber of some sort (big rubbish bin? plastic storage container?). In case of power or pump failure, plants can be handwatered for as much as a day or two before the lack of air pumped in becomes a problem. The humidity will remain high enough in the chamber to support plants if lights are also off.

[PharmaCan]

When you take 2' off the top of the room for lights and vents and 1.5' off the bottom for pots, suddenly that 9' is down to 5.5' - so that's the max height of any plant. I can actually have 12 plants in veg and 12 in flower cuz I'm growing for my sis too and there's a provision for that in the law. So I'll have 12 plants and just need to decide what will be the most efficient to way to farm them.

I started my plants in a 2'x2'x4' growbox with a whole bunch of the small cfl's. When I added a 125W cfl, they really loved it. The 125W was reasonable enough - $40 - and the plants liked it, but you get any bigger than 125W and they start wanting over $100 for the bulbs and that's just not cost effective compared to HID's.

Need to do research...

[greentard]

I would like to thank Stinky Attic for the most direct answer to a question I have ever seen, she has great teaching skills. Skills often overlooked by society. I would like to thank the people who took this thread in other directions as it answered other questions I was going to have in the future in regards to when to use Flouros and when to use HID. I am still trying to make up my mind on what to use on a mother plant. In the near future I am going to be cloning for the first time in my life. I was wondering what the best Lighting system to use on a mother plant. Small HID over head and Flouros on the sides to encourage Lower Branches? This will be a learning experience and I had better breed me some seeds for when I screw up (which is inevitable).