Sup grasscity, finally decided to do a micro grow after about a year of researching on and off. My tent is pretty much set up, I'm just waiting on my light to get here. Just wanted to post some pics to see what you guys think and to help others. Closet that I'm using: Platform to put my tent on: Measuring where to cut so I can route ducting: Just the right height so I can have my fan outside the tent for more room: Running the ducting: Top rear vent is for exhaust and the bottom left is for an intake. Tent dimensions are 30"x18"x36": Testing the fan, looks like the negative pressure is good. I have a speed controller on the fan and it's only about half way: The 3 gallon containers that I plan on using for the final transplant. I have them sitting in a baking pan for runoff, I'm going to use a turkey baster to get it out of there since I'm running a scrog: Test fitting the scrog. It sits about 11" from the top of the pots, do you guys think I should lower it 2-4"? I'm still kind of debating if I should just run one plant and veg it until the screen fills: Goodies waiting to be used: That's all I have for now, just waiting on my light like I said. I'm going to be using a 2ft 12 bulb T5 fixture. Gonna run 8 of the 6500k bulbs and 4 2700k bulbs for veg and the opposite for flower. I'm gonna keep this updated as I progress. Let me know what you guys think!
Guessing the tubs are for drainage. Nice set up man. I grow in a closet, but no tent. Got strains in mind? Or bag seed? My current grow journal http://forum.grasscity.com/indoor-grow-journals/1345378-2nd-grow-auto-gdp.html
Since my tent is only 3' I didn't want to waste head space with a pot that's 10"-11". So I was planning on using those tubs which are only 6" but hold the same volume as a 3 gallon pot. From my research, using a more shallow pot helps keep the plant short. But after actually having both of those tubs in there with the screen makes me want to grow just one plant in a 4-5 gallon tub. I'm open to suggestions. I actually ordered my seeds about 6 months ago, just wanted to make sure I could get those first before buying the whole setup. I bought enough to keep me busy for awhile, any suggestions on what I should plant for my first grow? All are feminized: -Chocoloco -Island Sweet Skunk -710 Cheese -Cheesus -Big Bud -Pineapple Express -BC Kush -LSD -Blue Cheese -Tangerine Dream -Critical Kush -Kalashnikova
Blue cheese for sure! And I've smoked LSD, it's some potent ass shit. My current grow journal http://forum.grasscity.com/indoor-grow-journals/1345378-2nd-grow-auto-gdp.html
Subbed in grow the 710 cheese and lsd Check out my Grow Diary http://forum.grasscity.com/index.php?/topic/1353460-ThePuffinator's-Perpetual-Grow-LED/CFL
Light fixture just came in, set it up and just doing a test to see what my temps are like. Can't wait to start. I think I'm going to run the 4 middle lights until the seedling grows it's first couple sets of leaves, shits bright yo.
Looks great man. Ya no need to run all of them for seedlings, I grew mine under a coup cfls for like 4 weeks. My current grow journal http://forum.grasscity.com/indoor-grow-journals/1345378-2nd-grow-auto-gdp.html
Well guys I haven't even started yet and it looks like I'm already running into trouble... The temps and humidity aren't looking so good. With only four bulbs on it was about 86 degrees in the tent... Turned on another 4 and the temps went to 90 and with all of them on it jumped to 98 with only about 20% humidity. I moved the exhaust from the left side to on top of the tent above the fixture to kinda get a cross breeze from the intake, and I also opened up one of the flaps in the tent. I'm using a regular thermometer and an infrared thermometer to measure the temps. Weird thing is that from all my research I keep on seeing, " Do the hand test to see if it's too hot for the plant, if it's too hot for the back of your hand then it's too hot for the plant..." I was able to keep my hand an inch away comfortably when I had all 12 bulbs on... I even rested my hand on top of the fixture where the ballast is and that was actually cooler than underneath the bulbs. Does anyone have any advice on what I should do?
Damn man. Keeping the flap open during daytime will help, I do it with my closet and the fresh air makes all the difference. You can try adding another fan and point it up towards the lights to push away the heat. My current grow journal http://forum.grasscity.com/indoor-grow-journals/1345378-2nd-grow-auto-gdp.html
Yep. I'm trying to grow with cfl's in a very hot and dry region, and heat management is a nightmare. Fresh air is vital, air temps outside your tent make a difference. I have the flaps open during the night when it's cooler, and sometimes I just have to turn the lights off during the day if it I can't keep it all cool. Your set-up in a tight space; is that closet insulated? And fan placement is important too. I have 3 AC 6" blowing directly onto the lights and plant tops to blow the radiant heat off. I was confused by the hand test at first, too... I also have another fan on the floor, blowing onta an iced water bottle then onto the pots/lower plant. Helps a little with humidity too (when I need to bump that I pour water into the tent pan). Hope this helps a little! Your setup looks solid, I think you're going to have heaps of fun.
Yeah I have a PC fan on top of the fixture to try and push some of the heat from the ballast into the exhaust vent. I also added a bigger fan that I had and put that infront of the intake, with the smaller fan pointing at the bulbs. I really don't want to have that big fan in there just to save room, but whatever it takes I guess... Yeah it's insulated, when I was measuring the temps I had the door closed, but I have it open now to see if it's going to make a difference... The closet temp is 75 degrees. What the temps in your cab?
I try to always keep it under 80. I have my temp and humidity sensors at plant base level. Mine are 4, 3 and 2 weeks, so I thought the temps would be okay a little above 80, but there's been a bit of a heatwave here the past week and they suffered. It's really hot atm; I have the lights off and it's 77 inside the tent still. I hate having to turn it them off, but yeah...
seems like ur on the right track with your heat management,a few basic thinngs id have a think ab0ut in ur situation : 1) obvioulsy the exhaust fan has to be at the top to suck out the most heat, 2) where is that heat going? back into the clsoet? if so u gotta get it out of there 3)eventually you will run all ur lights so lets focus on getting temps within range withh all bulbs on so we dont have to do this agian when we have plants in there 4) how hot is the air in the house? increasing humidity can be done easily and cheaply in such a small smace and also humidity is relative to temperature so dont worry about that for now just focus on temps and then we can see what the humidity is doing
Yeah, in that last pic I posted the ducting on top of the tent is the exhaust. The ducting on the floor with the tape on it is where it blows out underneath the door, there's about a 1"-1.5" gap underneath the door. Right now the temp inside the house is set at 72, the temp inside the closet with the door closed was around 73-75. In the summertime though I keep the place at 75 so I'm expecting the closet to get even hotter... I was thinking about making one of these things and placing it on top of the tent with ducting routed into the tent, but it seems like it would be a pain in the ass after awhile, changing out the water everyday, etc... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3YvF4eVQO0 Seems crazy but it just might work... I really want to keep the tent closed at all times and get the temps dialed in. I don't want my place smelling like dank during flower.
Well GC I was about to give up, actually packed everything up and put it away for couple days. After thinking about it I couldn't just quit that easy... I tried that swamp cooler set up, didn't work at all in the tent, so I said fuck it, I'm just going to use the closet. I installed an exhaust vent into the attic with the fan up there. Started germinating the seed a couple days ago, she popped yesterday so I went ahead and planted her. I'm using a 50/50 mix of FFOF and FFHF with an additional 30% perlite mixed in. I'm just using 4 out of the 12 bulbs right now, and the temps are around 77-79F with about 40-49% humidity. I did a test yesterday with all the bulbs on and the room sat around 86-88F with about 30-35% humidity. Hopefully it shouldn't be too much of an issue because I have some good airflow in there, but only time will tell.
Sup GC, here's an update at about 2 weeks from seed. So I fell like I'm being impatient, how does the growth look like to you guys? Yesterday I turned on all 12 bulbs on my T5 fixture and I don't think the plant liked it too much. When I checked on her today the leaves were curling up. From a quick search on the forums I found that it could either be that the temps were too high or the lights were too close. So I turned off 4 bulbs and I'll see how she reacts. With 12 bulbs on the temps were around 84-86, with 8 on the temps are around 78. The bulbs are 24w each so I'm at 192w (16,000 lumens) total right now, do you guys think I should just leave it like that until I switch to flower then turn all the bulbs on? Thanks for any help.
Growth looks good but ya too much heat with all twelve lights. Really at this stage they don't need nearly as much light. I kept my girls under two 23w cfls for the first 3 weeks and they did great. My grow journal http://forum.grasscity.com/indoor-medical-marijuana-growing/1353929-mopheads-purple-closet-adventures.html