Hello everyone first grow here and very anxious to get started. Have done a lot of research and work for the start of this so lets begin! 4x4ft 100% mylar tent Crystal Feminized seeds from Nirvana FFOF soil in 5gal buckets 3.5x3.5ft screen Fox Farm Nutes 400 watt MH/ HPS with switchable ballast So the seed arrived today and are in the germination process. I used the paper towel method, works well, is fast, and i've done it before. hopefully those will be ready in a day or two for the soil. Anyway here's a few pics of the setup I got going on, feel free to comment or give me ideas. Making the screen. Made a homemade fan exhaust for the top of the tent. looks shitty but actually works pretty well venting out the heat. Put the screen in there so you could get an idea of size. (will have 4 buckets, only used to show the screen). Set of Nutes and pH up and down, will be using my friends pH meter throughout. Plan on updating frequently with pics and potential questions, glglgl
Hello GC! Ok, so it's been a few days since things started and they have really started out nice. I've looked over my design and realized that the way I had the fan connected had too many bends in it and was losing power. So I just moved it to the other side on the tent near the vent holes so it goes straight out, much better now. Besides that everything is going great. Here's a set of pics of the past few days events. All five of the seeds opened up nicely when I put them in the rock wool. Took only two and a half days to get to this point once in the rock wool. The first one transplanted in the first soil pots. #2 #3 #4 The white buckets sit ontop of the eventual 5 gallon buckets and on a drip tray for easy watering/ drainage. The drainage cut so it just runs out into a catch bucket. I watered them today with pH balanced water a good amount in their new soil before the lights came on. lights on and you can also see the tubing which is for air all powered by one of theses.. #5 The runt under the lights
Also, late last night I picked up a nice digital thermometer from lowes which has humidity and temperature readings on it. Put it in the tent this morning and was showing readings of 72-73 when the lights were off and 78-79 when the lights were on.
Day 15 Ok, so it's been a few days since the last update and boy have things changed! I decided to lose the how should I say...shitty fan setup i had and installed a whole new DIY air-cooled reflector that I made (and must admit, impressed myself a bit lol) using a new fan and some other supplies. You will see in the pictures that it may not look the most professional but my lights have been on for just over two hours and my temp in the tent is 74 and the tent now sucks in and has some good negative pressure. I opened up the vent hole at the bottom of the tent and you can feel air wooshing in. Those dewalt/lasko fans really push some air, im impressed. So, on to the pics Fan with a modification attached. covered the 7"x3" opening and opens up to a 6" round. Wish they had one go to 4" but had to get 6" and then cut the tubing to allow smooth air flow. Here is the reflector with the new glass with the ducting attached to it but not connected or sealed yet. Half is attached now to the fan which you can see hanging up there in the corner. up close shot of the right side. this is the inflow side. Both sides all connected now View with the glass, light bulb not in yet. cheer! -DD
yes it is just normal 2" PVC. I got it from home depot and cut it to length right there at a little cutting station they had set up. Its really cheap too.
i love how much money youve saved on this grow lol. that blower is nice but what are you gonna do for smell?
Honestly ive thought about it and one of my buddies who used to grow has one i plan on using and maybe installing some sort of inline booster fan at that point. idk. not totally sure at this point. Im hoping that the tent will also help out a bit in containing the smell and only have to deal with the exhaust air. maybe another DIY??? Edit:and by " buddies who used to grow has one" I mean a carbon scrubber. and was willing to sell for real cheap since his grow kinda failed. might pick that up
Looks like we have about the same setup. I'll be watching this. Quick question, what do you plan on doing about drainage when you transplant the plants into their bigger pots?
Nice little set up there my friend! Im just finishing up a grow, used an XXL tent in my attic. Check out my thread below. Im along for the ride, can't wait to see that screen covered. Stepdude420
Day 22: first, remember that the day count for this is grow is from seed cracking, not from the sprout showing. dont think I ever explained that yet. Ok so things are going great! starting to fill in a bit as you will see... not much else going on, watered a couple times and had pH runoff of about 6.0 and i watered with 6.5 but the soil is still new and fresh and has to wash out a bit so I think it's fine for now You can see in some of the pics that I have the white pots sitting in a plastic drip tray. I have five of these which will be under their own respective 5 gallon pot. I have some bricks that will be used to prop up the buckets so that the water runs off, and collects into another bucket which I can then empty out in the drain. You can see some pics in my first post I think of the drainage cuts in the trays. They are water heater drip trays from home depot. and to the pics.... -DD
Update: I watered them yesterday and got the runoff at a pH about 6.25. They sure seem to be enjoying themselves under the lights! I wasn't very happy with the pictures I was getting under the lights so I took a few while the lights were off right before they came back on... Temps: Lights on - high 80 Lights off - 70 question also, I play on topping them and have read up on some of the forums on topping and fimming and so forth but im just not quite sure when the correct time to do it is. Right now the girls are at their 3-4 going on 4-5th leaf set. I figured I could wait a little longer... Thoughts??? anyway onto the pics... peace -DD
shes looking good! that metal halide is a must, i need to get one after my cfl grow. excited to see how big they get
looking good so far, love your set up. Im looking forward to ditching the cfls in my grow for some real light like yours
what are you doing during veg? top/fim/lst ????? and how often. im doing the same basic setup and im wondering what your doing to help yeild wise.
ok so for right now they are on 18/6 and im thinking about topping it once and then letting it grow nice up to my screen and flipping to 12/12. The thing is I'm not sure when I should top them.
Day 33 Hello GC! its been some time now since the last update so here it is! Watered yesterday with pH balanced water that has sat out for at least 48 hours. The pH of the runoff is about 6. which is lower than i would like it so within the next few days I hope to transplant and flush with RO pH water using the digital pH meter to get everything on track. Also within the same time frame will be topping them to allow more side growth. Got a lot of pics to share cheers! -DD