first grow journal: 818 headband, pineapple express, GDP, C99

this is my first grow journal, but not the first grow that i have done. with about a year of experience i thought it would be a good idea to see what other people have to say about my technique. also i would like to hopefully provide some valuable insight to the new grower who is researching a possible first grow. i also hope that this turns out to be a fun to watch and interesting grow.

the grow light that i will be using is an illumitex 520 watt neosol ds, the plants are growing in coco coir ith a top feed drip system. the gorilla grow tent that i am growing in is the gorilla grow shorty as i am vertically challenged with this growing environment as it is an attic with only 6.5 foot ceilings. lastly i would like to mention that the tent and/or the room that the cannabis will be growing in is temperature controlled by a 10,000 BTU Sharp air conditioner - my last grow was the last to be struck by obnoxiously high heat from no AC and hot as hell HPS lights.

my grow set up is a work in progress as i have torn down the grow space that i first started with, which is actually a major relief as it was inefficient. i have put a lot of thought into how this new set up will go and it is falling into place quite nicely. the next task i am going to figure out with this new grow tent is how to incorporate a 20 lb CO2 tank and a titan saturn 3 environment controller.

below are some pictures of everything that i have talked about thus far.


Brand new tent

Just LST'D

Neosol 520 watt led above


5 containers to the right are C99 and the 3 containers all the way to left are GDP - these are all reg seeds.

Front and left are pineapple express, back right is 818 head band

10,000 BTU sharp AC - no more heat problems i guess

This is a pretty old piece of equipment, saturn 3 environment controller, none-the-less it does still have accuracy and precision with its readings.

A new LST knot im trying out on the main stem of the head band. I was pretty proud of it after just making it up.

Babies ☺☺☺☺☺☺☺

 

Great to see somebody likes it i will be checking and posting quite regularly.

 

The next task i have at hand is fabricating a way to pull the excess heat off of the LED and exhaust it outside of the tent. I will be growing with co2 supplementation as soon as i am able to complete this endeavor. By only sucking off the excess heat of the light and not any air out of the tent co2 use will be a breeze - pun intended.

One of the ideas which popped into my head was to tape, or adhere with rtv silicon, a material called reflectix over the top of the led and hold it on the side of the closest and furthest rung. Also there is open space between each rung of the led which i will also have to block with reflectix somehow - the space i refer to can be witnessed in the second photo of post one of this thread-. This will create a type of jacket over the top of the led which i will cut 2 holes in for ducting.

The closest heatsink we are seeing here is what i refence as 'the far rung' as it is furthest into the tent.

The heatsink closest here is what i reference as 'the close rung' as it closest to the front/door of the tent.

One can also see there are two vent holes adjacent to one-another in the last pic on this post. I will utilize a four inch type of flexible ducting through the metaphorical 'jacket'. The inlet exhaust will be passive and the outlet exhaust will have a 4 inch inline booster fan sucking air out of the so called led light jacket. While the once hot air will be replaced by the passive inlet. The 4 inch booster fan will then deposit hot air close to the ac for efficient cooling.

I will be posting more about this project as the week proceeds.

 

I was laying on my attic floor for about three hours with the tent doors open starring into the tent contemplating how im going to run some amount of active cooling, lol. Suddenly it hit me that making a way of skimming the heat off the light was the best option. I was going to try and vent the ac directly into the tent. However, as i am going to be moving veg up in the attic i need the ac to keep the whole attic at a good ambient temp. Therefore i would need to bring the hot air to the ac, not the ac to the hot air.

P.s. thank you for following along rocky lol, there will be some exclusive bud porn in not too long

As soon as i have some time this weekend or the following week i shoukd have the light jacket completed. Taking calculus and physics at my university is eating up a lot of time

Here are some pics that i took this morning as an unofficial update


The little ones are getting bigger and bigger everyday ~10 days from seed

Here is a gdp seedling, they are starting on their second set of leaves at almost two weeks

Just lstd the last plant in flower, it is a pineapple express

A c99 seedling starting on 2nd set of leaves.

Progress photo of veg in the soon to be flower tent.

 

maybe in the future after i get my degree in engineering and i am working for tesla, i will then get a minor in horticulture.

when are you going to do another journal rocky? you said after in 2015 the next grow you do will be around christmas. i dont see any grows going on, whats with that?

 

While the wait for the precious bud porn is underway i thought i would include some pics that some might find interesting

Here are some gummies that i picked up from a friend. I have never eaten a legit edible before, so this should be interesting. After eating one i will post an experience report.

Here is a bud off of a head band harvest that happend around june

Same headband bud

Macro without flash. My phone was too low on battery to flash. I will include some flash macros of this bud and pineapple express soon. However, one can still see the thick covering of trichomes populating this beautiful flowers surface.