Few Questions: 1. All these plants seem to love the SCROG except the Critical Jack in the far back left corner. It just has so much foliage there is absolutley no light penetration, and it doesn't strech so I can't weave it through the SCROG to open up the middle like all the other plants. So what I was thinking of doing was just cutting a part of the scrog screen out that is around the Critical Jack and put her in her own little mini SCROG thing I bought yesterday. I was gonna take her out the tent and try to put her in it. I'll wait for some feedback first. Here is the pic where you can see the tops are alot lighter in color than the bottom: 2. Here is the mini-SCROG thing I bought at K-Mart last night. I thought it would work great for her. I think I still might have to trim her up a bit again, and I hate to do that in week 3 flower, but bud sites are more important than leaves, correct? Plus these are 8-10 week flower timers. And Finally! My plants are showing me the pre-flower stage: 3. I have a 1000 Watt dimable ballast and bulb setup. Everywhere I read a 1000W is recommended for a 5x5 area. I don't know which is better, since I've heard so many mixed opinions. Should I keep the light lower (75%, which is basically 600W, correct?). I'm right around 17"-18" from the light on 75% which stays steady at 81F. Or should I raise the light to say 24"-28" and run the ballast on the full 1000 watts, which raises the temps to around 85F-86F. The RH is staying around 40% And a few sexy bud shots from the Cheese getting picked two weeks from now (Trichs are about 30% clear, 68% cloudy, and 2% amber, if that.:
Hehe. A very close guesstimate. Plus I check all the buds, not just the top cola. Any wise words for my questions?
They are lighter green on top because it's new growth. If you have 1000 watts, use 1000 watts. if you wanted to use 600, you should buy a 600. I'd find a way to lower your temps and use your full power. Good luck trying to get your mini- scrog thing in your bucket.
1000w HID is barely adequate for 25 sq/ft of flowering garden. 600w HID is inadequate. That said, you have a trade off to make and only you can decide which to do. High temps will increase garden stress and can be a cause for airy buddage. Low light can cause stretch and airy buddage. Like lsb, I'd try full wattage and better airflow. Barring that you get to try both as it sits and find which works best in your garden. Btw- You start flushing the Cheese? Sounds kinda gross.....:eusa_eh:
Ah, I was thinking that about the new growth. 86F-87F scares me temp wise, I'm at my limit on air flow. I use a 440CFM fan with an inline duct booster fan too about half way through the duct work that supposedly runs at 240 CFM, and I also have the heat to that room completely cut off, it's in the low 40's here in Pittsburgh. Even with the ambient temp of the room being 68F it still gets 86F in the tent with the 1K on 100%. Okay well I'm only using 16 sq/ft, which a 600W is recommended for. If I run my 1K 28" from the top of the canopy I get 8750 lumens per square foot but it runs at like 86-87 degrees, and 67 watts per square foot. If I run the 1K at 75% and keep the light about 18" above the canopy I get 5,750 lumens per square foot and 41 watts per square foot, but keeps the temps at 81F. I really don't know what to do... Is 86F to hot even if I can keep my water in the buckets lower than 71F? I'd really love to use this as a full 1K, those temps just get me nervious. I can see it's more benificial lumen wise to use the 1K at 28". Decisions, decisions....
Chaz, you still have those 6" to 4" reducers in your ventilation system? Your a car guy, think about this as if it were an intake & exhaust system & your trying to optimize the flow rate. How well would a 3 1/2" exhaust perform with a few 2" reducers down stream of the header? Get me? 86 is too hot but lots of folks run with temps like that & produce some top notch bud. It's far from optimal tho & the folks who get good results while running those temps have everying else dialed right the fuck in.
Just gotta figure out what's keeping your temps up and you can run that 1k . I run my 1k at 1040 all the time and my temps stay at 74-78 period , with ambient temps at 65-68. Cut every inch of un needed duct , try and re route things , take all the bends out u can. Make sure you have enough vents open in so the fan isn't stressing out . And worse comes to worse just get a 8" 747 cfm rs8 ho can fan, or a 6" Ho max fan (630 cfm) or something like that.
If things never go above 86F I'd start hot and reduce if things look rough. Watch your watering, the plants will suck it down hard. Find any kinks, sharp bends or minor restrictions in your exhaust that can be straightened out or fixed. Since you're running so borderline any extra cfm could make the difference.
Here's 600 watts in air cooled hood 6" & 74 deg. above the canopy. With the lightt 6" above the canopy my 600 watts are out performing your 1000 watts. You're wasting wattage because you don't have a proper exhaust system installed. BTW: they're (5) 3 gallon smart pots under the light.
Okay, well it sounds to keep the tent cool I need to get a bigger fan. I'll post up a vid of how the ventilation is setup and you guys can see there really is nothing else I can do duct wise. Seems my only option is upping the fan. My next post I'll show all the ducting and how it flows.
I was just about to pill the perlite higher in the party cups and I noticed that 2 out of the 5 cups perlite on the top is turning yellow? I know that can't be good. I rinsed the perlite with tap water, then flushed the cup with pure RO before ever even putting the plant in the cup. Probably remove the yellow and move on?
I'll just remove the tainted perlite and move on. Got the hempy buckets bult! I'll post some pics later.
Here is the vent link. I removed a good 3 1/2 foot off one of the duct lines, still didn't make much of a difference. If I keep my lights at like 8"-9" the light doesn't hit the entire canopy and the temps get to like 90F. I tried just exhausting into the room and leaving the window open, with 38F temps outside, and it failed hard, LOL. I came back in the room like an hour later and ambient temps were like 81F in the room. HAHA. Anyway, hooked the lines back up just like they were. Guess I just need a bigger fan, and that means I need a bigger filter, I don't have $400+ for anything nice ATM. Fixed the reflector btw, you'll see in the video. Video: [YOUTUBE]/MB4C27eLQ9o[/YOUTUBE]
Didn't even need to get through the whole thing. You'll never cool 1000w's with four inch restrictions. How big is the fan outlet?
Bro, that's why you need to go through the whole video. The 1K is all 6" in the 4x4. The only thing that is 4" is the duct work inside the 3x3 tent. The temps in the 3x3 never get above 79 running my 400W on high. The top outlet on the 4x4 tent is a 10" hole. I run 6" duct work through it and tie the tie's up around it.
All the hempy buckets are made. I followed Mr. GJ's tutorial and everything came out great. I used five 5 gallon buckets bought from lowes, and use aluminum screen to cover the 1" hole. 2 out of the 5 buckets are filled up to the top of the screen with hydroton. I want to do a side by side with the same strain and see if makes any difference having the entire bucket filled with perlite VS filling the res with hydroton. I ended up drilling a shit ton of holes into an 18 gallon tote to rinse the entire bag of perlite, it actually worked out very well. Figure I'll get all the buckets done now and filled to give the perlite some time to dry. Ghetto Strainer: All buckets done: 2 filled with hydroton: Edit: Someone probably told me already but I'm very high, how long to keep the seedlings in the party cups before moving them into the 5 gallon buckets? And do I just cut the bottom of the cup off and plant it in or dump the party cup and plant directly into the perlite. Everything was germinated in rapid rooters.
You can leave them in the cups for a week or two to get some goods roots. When moving them from the cups to the buckets be real carefull with the roots. You want to dump out the loose perlite and catch the root ball with your free hand, try not to let them hang and try not to shake the perlite out of the root ball. Bury them as deep as you can. This will get the roots closer to the res and you can bury all the way up to the first set of leaves. Peace....
