Hey GC I've been doing some experimenting with growing for some time now but now I have everything for the most part finished, and some of my girls are now in their first few days of flowering. Genetics Picked up some Big Buddha Cheese fem's from the Doctor a few months back before he stopped shipping to US. Germed 2 fems and they are growing nicely, flowering one now, and vegging the nicer looking one longer to obtain clones. The cheese genetics has impressed me so far with extreme vigor and huge indica fan leaves, the plant that I am vegging longer already has trichrome development on the fan leaves and the inner parts of the new growth are frosty, and it's still under 20/4. My large, previous clone providing plant, along with my current clones, is some nice purple bag seed, so hopefully it turns out well. It grows tall and vigorous from what I've observed so far. Mediums I use a custom mix that I have been modifying and calibrating for some time, and it has been working for me fairly well. I mix a premade organic soil (gardeners gold) with garden lime, pearlite, vermiculite, and epsoma organic plant food mixed in the soil which contains over 15 organic ingredients. I have been using the all purpose 5-3-3 for veg and the bloom mix 3-6-5 for my flower mix, which I am testing for the first time now. I used worm castings added to my last veg mix and it seemed to work well as another additive also. The amount of organic nutrients in the medium is able to sustain bountiful plant growth for close to 2 months on strictly water, with very very little chemical nutrients added sparingly. I am still testing different mixes and ratios as I go. Watering I let the medium get fairly dry before waterings. I add 3 or 4 drops of pH down to each gallon of tap water (pH 6.4-6.8), and from time to time I give low strength miraclegro chemical nutes, either all purpose or bloom booster, which I picked up cheap a while back. I plan to start using a better brand nutrient soon for better supplemental feeding, possibly foxfarm. Vegetative I use a 4', 6 bulb (agromax 6500k) HO T5 fixture that sits 4' high for my veg space. The veg area sits open in my room and the light stays on 20 hours per day. Flowering I recently got my flowering chamber up and running, contained in a brand name Homebox L (it's excellent). For ventilation I opted to use a 6" duct fan for intake, and an 8" for the top exhaust. I set it up as you can observe in the pictures along with a second 6" duct fan to aid in exhaust and to cool my 400 watt HPS housed in a 6" cooltube. I am running the 400 watt HPS on a magnetic ballast that I rebuilt myself using all new components, so everything is working fresh and smooth. Only the 6" fan routed through the cooltube remains on during the evening 12 hour dark cycle (250 cfm routed exhaust) which is plenty of ventilation with the lamp off, and it drastically reduces ambient noise so that I can sleep comfortably. (entire set up is in my bedroom) On to the pictures! Veg area (taken about 2-3 weeks ago) Homebox L intake cooltube and exhaust hps lamp and cooling fan cooltube exhaust meeting main exhaust (500 cfm 8" duct fan) outside view of intake powerstrip and ballast (all clean and rebuilt lol) 4 plants in flowering, purp bag seed (big one), 2 clones from it, and a BBC clones cheese HPS, end of day 3 12/12 My big lady has developed this problem within the last week or so, it started before I repotted it into the flowering mix about 6 days ago, and it has worsened slowly each day. Looks like P or K def. from what I can tell, maybe mixed with a slight over water from soaking the soil after the repot? I'm hoping it resolves itself now that the plant is into the new mix with fresh nutes, any ideas? That's all the pics for now since I just took them about 2 hours ago. Any and all comments, suggestions, compliments are certainly welcome!
/\ It's not heat stress by the way. I forgot to mention my room temperature is always between 75 and 77 degrees, and 1000 cfm's of combined ventilation power keeps the temperature inside the Homebox at only 2-3 degrees MAX higher than what it is in the room.
hey wootas i like your set up. I am about to order a homebox l myself and use a 600w digital ballast cooltubed also. I had a few questions if you can help answer please. You said you had a 8in duct fan for the exhaust but the homebox inlet is only 6in? can you stretch that around the fan? Also do you think a single 6in 250cfm duct fan would be enough to exhaust and cool and cooltube?
Ya I remember back before I recieved it I was under the idea that I was going to be using 4 inch intake and 6 inch exhaust. The 6 inch fits perfectly in the intake, and the 8 inch fits perfectly in the top as it turns out, so I stuck with using the bigger hardware. I think if I were planning on using 6 inch for exhaust I'd still set it up the same way, and I'd opt to use 2 of them for the exhaust phase like I have, simply replacing the 8 with another 6 incher. As far as effectiveness, I think you'd be ok as far as temps go with the 6" exhaust, but the way I see it is the more air exchange the better
hmmm now i am thinking about just using 1 8in 500cfm for the exhaust and cool my cooltube and have that push the air through my scrubber. Do you run both the 250 and 500 at the same time when the light is on? and just keep the 250 on when lights are off? I have no expierence with duct fans so are they loud? You have both the 250 and the 500 both on the exhaust right?
That's correct sir When the lamp is on, all of my fans run, and when it's off, only the 250 is running like you said. It cuts down on the noise from the tent by about 50%. I sleep literally less than 5 feet away from the thing lol. More of the noise is generated from the actual air moving through the ducting and out of the tent, not the actual fan motors themselves. All in all it's not really that loud for what I'm used to, and I think most people would agree that with only one fan on overnight it is certainly reasonable for sleeping, and even during the day with everything on, it's not too bad at all.
hey wootas where did you get your duct fans from? i am a little worried that the duct fans wont keep the 600w cool but i think i am just being paranoid since i have no expierence with duct fants and that everyone keeps saying to get a vortex fan but that is expensive lol. Also are you using a carbon scrubber with your set up? Need to make sure that those duct fans would be sufficient with a carbon scrubber also.
The duct fans are cheap at lowes or home depot. 25 - 30 bucks a piece. I don't know as if a 6 incher would be enough to push through a filter but I know for a fact the 8 inch moves more air than alot of blower fans for 4 times the money. The only advantage of a blower fan is that it can move a large cfm through a smaller vent. A 4" duct fan only moves 80 cfm while a 4" blower might move 200 - 250. I have no experience with blower fans, but if you are concerned at all about noise like we discussed yesterday, I'd guess the blowers are louder.
Those leaves look nute burned to me. The problem I was having a week or 2 back looked exactly the same and it turned out to be nute burn and heat stress.
Update Day 5 Flowering + Current Veg The problem the large plant was having seems to be clearing itself up a bit, I hope it continues to get better and grow out of it. I am still vegging the better looking of the 2 cheese plants that I have so that I can aquire plenty of tasty clones and keep a BBC mother. In the pictures you will see that there are already a decent amount of trichromes forming on the leaves and new growth, quite frosty I'd say. Keep in mind this plant has never seen less than 20 hours light per day. Veg area, 2 young clones from the large plant in flowering, and my other big buddha cheese vegging bbc another, looking tasty ladies flowering, end of day 5 Any comments, questions are welcome!
Lookin better, the problem seems to have definately slowed, the new growth is looking really good. Today is day 7 and they're looking pretty good, starting to get some bud formation now, I'll get some pics up later tonight or tomorrow when the lights kick on.
Update Day 7 Flowering After 7 days the budsites are starting to get more defined and the plants have all noticably stretched. So far so good..
growing some barneys blue cheese now smells good. Tried bb cheeese in dam last month at baba and was best stuff ive smoked in a long time good stuff