Hey there. I wanted to share my grow with you. -Fusion Hut 6x6x7 tent -Fusion Bright 1000W digital ballast, vented Metal Halide (currently at 50%), HPS will be in bloom -Fusion Breath 6" fan with carbon filter Organic: ProMix soil-less mix, added perlite Sheep manure (1-1-1) Bone meal (2-13-0) Compost Dolomite lime BioThrive Grow / Bloom for feeding B-52 Vitamin B supplement 1 gln fiber pots, will be in 15 gln fiber pots for bloom Accessories: Speed control for 6" Fusion Breath "Grow" Weather Station for remote info (temp,humidity) CO2 - TNB Enhancer Cannisters and refills Alfred's PH-1 Meter HM Digital TDS/EC pen 2 x LED light bars for sprouting, and early veg Current stage: Light: 20Hrs On / 4Hrs Off ~2.5 weeks since germination. 1 gln fibre pots 2" - 3.5" tall Nice and stocky, nice healthy green, tight internodes One plant is 4 days behind, I had to germ a new one. I think I touched the tap root and finger oils probably stunted it. Said screw it and started a new replacement. Average temp at standing height in the room is 24-25°C when spare room sealed up. About 22-23°C when spare room door open. I have the tent in a larger spare room, and it just cycles between the two, and even if I seal up the spare room, I have yet to see it break 26°C near the ceiling. Humidity consistent between 45-60% so far. 75% immediately after watering, drops quickly to average. Dehumidifier on standby. CO2 will be injected in the next couple weeks once they are topped/LST'd (not sure yet, may try both) Working on a webcam setup so people can check in if they want, but I can't find a secure option that is also easy to work with. Currently using YawCam, but I don't like it's security. It's tied into my homescreen of my phone so I can just tap a button and my TV switches to my ChromeCast, and voila..... there's the room! Working on a WAN option so I can share it, so if anyone can recommend a secure webcam/IP Cam software, that'd awesome!!
Thanks! Absolutely. In about a week or two more likely, I'll put them in 15 gln fibre pots. I'm going to probably LST 2 of them, and top 2 of them to see which I like better. A couple weeks beyond that maybe and I'll trip them. We'll see how well they take to the transplant I guess.
The LED light bars I used for early veg, sprouting. Feit Electric 19W (X2) veg model with blue and red. Inter-connectable power for ease of set up. Purchased at Canadian Tire, about $55 CDN each.
Nice setup but I wouldn't be too quick to pipe CO2 in too soon. Do you have a temp/rh controller on your exhaust fan or does it run all the time? A speed controller is nice to have as well. Then your fan only kicks in when the heat or humidity gets too high. A heater with a baseboard thermostat is nice to have to keep the temps from dropping too low at night if your grow is in a cold space like mine is. My grow room is in the basement and it can get down to almost freezing down there in mid-winter. Humidity is always too damn low as well and added moisture goes out when the fan kicks in too. As long as you are exhausting air regularly your plants will get plenty of CO2 from the fresh air coming in. The best time to run CO2 is when you flip to flower and for the 3 weeks or so that they stretch as they are going thru a massive grow spurt and can benefit greatly by adding CO2 with extra feed and light along with temps up to 32C/90F. I run all older magnetic ballasts but If I got a digital I'd want one that can be set to run 250, 400 and 600W along with the 1000W setting. Then you use the bulb that matches the setting for proper light output. Your MH seems to be green-shifted a bit running it at 50% judging by the colour in your photos. Plants look good so far so maybe it's not a big deal. I see above you plan to go to 15gal pots but unless you're planning to veg for a long time and grow big bushes 5gal would be plenty. I use 4gal, #5 nursery pots for my larger plants and that seems too much sometimes. I've never transplanted from fiber pots but I'm pretty sure like with plastic pots you want them to be pretty dry to hold the rootball together when doing it. Here's some study material for you if you want it. I found a great spot to download FREE POT BOOKS. I downloaded a grow bible first and got lots more. Books look great and complete like the real ones I have here. No web site but just a page of links. Just right click on what you want and then "Save Link As" to download so they don't open first as some are 50+ megs. They got lots. Enjoy.
Thanks for the tips! Yeah I thought about the CO2 after, and seeing I only have 2 - 2 week cycles worth, I'll wait a bit. I have it on a speed dial just dialed down all the way, running steady. Maintaining temps 19°C lights off right now, 50% humidity. 25°C max with light on and ballast dialed to 50% power. Gonna probably be about a month before I even trigger by the time transplants take and I get them spread out by topping. I may have grabbed too big of pots, I may bring her down for the next round after I see how this works out. I think it may be the photos with the green tinge. Definitely doesn't look that green in person. Oh and thanks for those books, that's awesome! What a list! Thank you!
I got my camera to stop with the green tinge so here are some update photos. I topped the 3 larger plants last night. Will maybe top the smaller plant tomorrow night, but I don't think it will come out as bushy as the others. The 3 topped ones are doing well already. They look they will be nice, tight, bushy little globes in a couple weeks.
20/21 days since popping out of the soil 18 hr on / 6 hr off Med strength BioThrive veg feed w/ B-1, mild H2O2 Stocks are near 1/4" thick already, short and bushy. They almost seem stunted, but it's just real tight nodes I guess. Some heat/humidity issues once ballast fully cranked up. Working on it, fans on order.
So I have new equipment coming. I ordered two 188 CFM 6" inline/booster type fans from Amazon. One will be used to draw air thru my vented bulb, and one to pull air from the outer room when/if the temp gets high. The 6" Fusion Breath will be the constant draw on the tent, cycling air in/out of larger room. I also ordered some QB's. HLG 100's 3000K HLG 100 As I have such a large tent (6x6x7) I am going to push the 4 plants closer to the 'back' wall, away from the centre, so I use about 4-5' x 6' for growing, leaving a 1-2' x 6' area for workspace at the door. I'm going to pivot my 1000W vented light 90° so I am looking at both reflectors and the front of the tube walking in, and I'll add the QB's to the sides of the HID to get the edges and corners. Plants coming along nicely after transplant into the 15 gln fibre pots. Starting to spread outwards after topping. Tallest is only about 8", but some of the shoots have 5 or 6 internodes on them. Tight little plants. Gonna get some kind of caging/frame/tie sticks and string for tying them out once the shoots get a little longer. Totally misjudged my vegging time, probably gonna go another 2.5-3 weeks spreading them out. We'll see, but that's my guess now.
Your plants are looking great. You are going to lose some root during transplant using fabric pots. They will bounce back fast though. I use airpot until final fabric pots now. Live and learn. I have the QB-135 in my 2'x2' it's a great little light.
Thanks TimJ Just got an email saying the HLG lights were part way here, looking forward to their arrival! Yeah, I am pleased with these pots. I found them a bit tricky to get the plants out at first, but if you just pinch the fibre and can start working it, and work your fingers down the sides to get the roots that have fused to seperate, it comes off not bad. Kind of amazing how just a few roots can grip that fibre so well though lol. Sent from my LG-H933 using Tapatalk
I used to roll them down on their self towards the bottom. I use airpots in the 1 liter as well as 1 and 3 gallon sizes for potting up. The roots explode in them. They do take some extra care during watering though. Fabric produces the same root mass in my opinion,easier to water. But, easier to transplant from airpots. Do you use safety pins as anchor points on your fabric bags to LST from?
I haven't begun LST'ing yet. But that sounds like a smart idea. I'm actually impressed how tough these fibre pots are. I can move them around by the handles, soaking wet without even hinting like they are going to tear. That's actually a real smart idea. I was thinking mesh cages, like some people use with tomato plants. But safety pins is......brilliant lol. And you can just move them where you need them....damn lol That's what I am gonna do, thanks for the suggestion!!
The fabric pots are tough for sure. I wash and reuse them over and over. I container grow all my vegetables outdoors in them to, up to 15 gallon size. I've used 4 different brands and they are all similar in fabric thickness. Another tip for training in general is using solid core wire in Number 12 or 14 gauge as found in standard household wiring. Bend into a deeeeep U shape and use to pin down branches for mainline training or for low stress training. 4-6" u shapes work fine for me.
Nice. I will give that a go. Thanks! I have trained plants before, but with pots and string. It worked alright, but a constant pain making sure the stalks aren't getting pinched or broken, finding the right spot on the pot to get the angle I wanted etc. Safety pins and fibre pots is like, "hmmm, yeah I don't like it there...that's better" Before: "hmmm, I don't like it there.....where's my drill?" lol Thank you sir! They are just starting to take off now too, finally.
Got an IP cam set up so I can monitor things. I actually just used my old cell phone that I dropped and destroyed the screen. It still works with packing tape on the screen, and has a good camera. Far better pictures than the Logitech webcam I have running in there right now, and doesn't need a laptop running it. I'm using IP WebCam app from Android PlayStore. I am linking it with Tasker so I can set up schedules when the camera comes on, manually turn it on from other devices, etc. The HGL 100's I have coming will sit on the left and right on the tube/reflector. Should light things up nicely without adding a whole lot more heat. Got my 2 6" inline fans from Amazon. I ended up having to use the Fusion Breath 6" fan I bought originally to pull thru the vented bulb tube. These just don't have the strength with all the corners in the ducting. The Fusion Breath handles it perfectly though, even speed throttled down. You can see in the one picture how hot the Fusion Breath is getting from the 1000W. It pulls air in from outside, past the bulb and right back outside again. . I ended up using the 2 Amazon fans in other spots. The one pulls full bore thru the carbon filter bringing air into the tent, and the other is on a thermo+speed dial pulling in air/pushing hot air from the outer bedroom. It's 2 degrees C outside, I've speed-dialed down on all the fans except the tent's carbon filter outtake which just runs full strength, and even with the bedroom all sealed up, I am now maintaining 23 degrees C at the plants. The digital ballast gets pretty hot and has a noisy fan on it. You can see how hot the bugger gets, bottom hot spot on the last FLIR picture, laptop on the upper shelf. I am definitely switching to LED's for summer from now on though. If I had to do all this, I can imagine this upstairs bedroom come June. The plants seem to be loving this soil mix I put them in. I gave them a 1/4 strength shot of grow juice when I translpanted, otherwise, just PH'd water (6.2) Going to start tying them down tomorrow, just too much to deal with with all the rerouting of ducting and wiring today. This plant below seems to be the All-Star. I've just been pushing the larger fan leaves down a little each day until the other shoots start passing them, that's why they all have a somewhat droopy look. Works surprisingly well, not having tied anything yet.
30 days since the sprouts breaking the soil's surface. Still vegging and tying down. One plant broke a couple good shoots trying to train it (last picture) so I ended up topping the remaining main shoots. The other plants are bending a little easier.
Thanks man! Yeah I hear ya! They're coming along nicely now, though. Picked up Azomite and Gaia Glacial Rock Dust and gave them some sprinkles of both and some tea. They just freaking loved it. Have been kicking ass since. Haven't fed them in over 2 weeks, just water, and the tips have a very slight burn. I think I have the near perfect blend of compost and manure going on. I have Kelp and Alfalfa meal coming. I'll give them a splash and make some foliar spray and then I am tripping them in a few days.