AKGramma's Perpetual Grow

[AKgramma]

I put a question in the FAQs and got two good answers, so I am going to copy n paste them here.

I WROTE:
Which is the best way to use 2 Mars 300's?

Need some opinions:

Next week my second mars300 Hydro will arrive. My inventory will include 2 Mars 300's and about 2 dozen or more 23 W CFLS in both daylight and soft white. I have 2 active 9 SF grow areas, one for veg and one for flower.

What is the best way to use the mars units?

Do I use them together, supplement with CFLs and use only CFLs in the other tent?

Or do I use one mars unit in each and supplement with CFLs to bring up to the required watts per square foot?

And if I should use them together, which tent will benefit the most?

In any combination, I will have to supplement with CFLs, so that is not an issue. I just want to get the most out of my new Mars units.

SMOKE SARA REPLIED:

Mars 300 coverage is :growth 2'x2' bloom 1.5'x1.5',if you got two tent,you can use Mars unit in each tent with the CFLs.Mars 300 will provide more specific spectrum which plants needed.

TORTURED SOUL REPLIED:

So the two panels could provide adequate illumination in the flowering chamber for a space 1½'x3'. If used along the middle of that space, it would leave a strip that was ¾' (9") along the full length of two sides. That might work well, using your CFLs - perhaps at a ratio of three 2700K to one 6500K - to illuminate those sides. If you then notice that the growth and density of the buds along that 1½'x3' space is significantly more than what you observe on those two sides, you can always move the plants around occasionally if you wish to end up with all of them being approximately the same. That is assuming the plants are all from the same mother, of course... If you have some plants that appear as if they "want" more light than others, you may wish to move the 1½'x3' footprint over to one wall so that you have one side illuminated by the LEDs and the other side illuminated by the CFLs.

You do, of course, have other options. As the flowering footprint was stated to be 1½'x1½', and your space is 3'x3', you could divide the space into four smaller squares (draw a line down the middle and then one across the middle, so to speak) and then center one panel in the middle of each of two diagonally opposite squares. And then fill in the other two squares with CFLs.

Notice that nowhere above did I suggest using one of the LED panels in your vegetative growth area, lol. I would continue to use CFLs there - either all 6500K if you wish to keep the internodal spacing as short as possible, or a mix at a ratio of three of those to one 2700K (the opposite of the ratio I recommended you use to fill in the "extra" space in your flowering room) if you wish to allow a little bit more space between nodes.

I also did not suggest you add more LED panels because I know that you are not able to purchase more at this time. However, perhaps you - and your family - will notice a significant enough difference that they will buy you a couple more for Christmas or your birthday next year .

I REPLIED:

OK, then. Use both LEDs in the flower unit and go back to all CFLs in Veg. Check!

I can do that and achieve the correct watts per SF recommended by growers. It will require my relocating all the ladies, so that I don't have to move so many light cords again.

I have a lighting pattern figured out, that will adequately cover these three, and be ready for a couple more, after I harvest the one who is almost ready. I don't see that one needing more than a week or two, and will probably be ready for full harvest when the second unit comes in.

THANK YOU SMOKE SARA AND TORTURED SOUL!

 

[TorturedSoul]

Epsom salts are a good, cheap substitute for an expensive calcium/magnesium product - as long as you have lots of calcium in your water or have some form of calcium to use along with the Epsom salt (such as bone meal, if one is growing "organically," which is high in calcium and phosphorous and also contains trace elements - but which may also contain lead and mercury).

 

[AKgramma]

Epsom salts are a good, cheap substitute for an expensive calcium/magnesium product - as long as you have lots of calcium in your water or have some form of calcium to use along with the Epsom salt (such as bone meal, if one is growing "organically," which is high in calcium and phosphorous and also contains trace elements - but which may also contain lead and mercury).

I am on a neighborhood well, which is very high in calcium. It leaves white deposits on the fixtures. So calcium is covered. I also have a stockpile of finely crushed eggshells I can mix into the soil. Will that do?

 

[TorturedSoul]

My guess is that if you're seeing calcium deposits, you have a free source of all of the calcium your plants could ever need (and more, lol).

 

[AKgramma]

My guess is that if you're seeing calcium deposits, you have a free source of all of the calcium your plants could ever need (and more, lol).

My thought exactly!

 

[AKgramma]

Here is a picture of a DIY plain-water cloning device.

All you need are:

1 fairly straight sided pot or bowl, dark enough to block light to the roots.
scrap piece of styrofoam 1/2" to 3/4" thickness.

Prep: You do not need to scrape or split the stems, nor dip in rooting hormone. You don't have to trim down the fan leaves unless they are really large. Just remove enough leaves to leave you a stem long enough to go through the styrofoam and be submerged at least 1/2" into the water.

1) Cut the styrofoam to a diameter smaller than the inside of the pot.
3) Poke holes in the styrofoam all the way through, big enough for your clone stems.
3) Fill the bowl about 3/4 full and take it to the plant you are going to clone.

Setting the clone:
1) trim your clones, leaving a stem long enough to go through the styrofoam and submerge at least 1/2 " into the water.
2) Immediately position your cones in the holes and seat them firmly by tugging gently on the stem from underneath.
3) place the bowl with the clones in a window that is always shaded.
4) top off the water till the styrofoam in level with the rim of the bowl.

The only care you need to give them is to top off the water now and then, never letting the stems go dry. Expect roots in approx 2 weeks.

Note that this method allowed me to take the very small branches inside the plant and under the canopy. I didn't even count nodes.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Hi AKgramma, hope your garden is well. How are your plants doing?

I wanted to let you know that I have finally made the journey into the 21st century - I, too, now have an LED panel to grow with! It's an Amare SE350+UVB, and it consumes approximately 350 watts (or possibly a little bit more... I cannot seem to find my Kill A Watt meter) - so I will need a garden space of 3'x3'. You are way ahead of me, so I might ask you for tips at some point in the future.

 

[AKgramma]

Hey TS!!!!!!!!!

My second Mars Hydro 300 arrived today, and I mounted it end to end with the first unit, 6" away, so the footprints meet but not overlap. Since each unit only adequately covers 1.5' x 1.5" I figure I'm getting a 1.5 x 3' footprint, half of what you are getting. Since my shelving unit is 2' x 4', I am adding a number of 23w CFLs to bring the draw wattage up to 40 W/SF.

One Mars 300 used alone was stretching my plants, and I had to add 6 CFLs in addition to the 6 I already had in veg to stop it. BTW, You CAN put the plants closer to the LEDs than recommended. I ended up lifting them to 12" from the LED unit.

I am setting up what is going to be my new flower area. But I don't think I can get by with fewer than 10 supplemental 23W CFLs. Luckily I have a hoard of them, having grown only under CFLs for over a year.

So, the veg area will go back to CFLs only, and the flower area will have the two LEDs and 5 pairs of CFLs, mixed daylight and soft white.

MAJOR TIP! Wear a pair of sunglasses when you visit the LED tent!

Going to move the two younger flowering ladies in there now and take pics. The older one is almost done, so am probably going to start harvesting her shortly. She doesn't even need the closet anymore, except to protect her from my cat, who has acquired a taste for pot!

Here is the finished set-up. Being a small space, I will have some heat issues.

 

[TorturedSoul]

My second Mars Hydro 300 arrived today

Nice.

I mounted it end to end with the first unit, 6" away, so the footprints meet but not overlap.

You might be able to increase that spacing just a little bit, maybe add a couple of your CFLs in the middle (which could help your spectral mix and, depending on which CFLs you use (and/or their ratios), might help lessen the stretching.

Since each unit only adequately covers 1.5' x 1.5" I figure I'm getting a 1.5 x 3' footprint, half of what you are getting. Since my shelving unit is 2' x 4', I am adding a number of 23w CFLs to bring the draw wattage up to 40 W/SF.

You have more lights than I do, lol, and two more square feet. It is very unlikely that I will use any additional lights (at least not unless I end up adding a separate vegetative growth area at some point in the future), so I will probably always have a maximum (the COBs and the little LEDs are controlled by two separate switches, as is the UV-B bulb - which actually has a separate power cable so that the grower has the ability to place it on its own separate timer, which is a good thing and (IMHO) shows the forethought that was put into designing the product - so I do have the ability to run less watts, like towards the beginning when I'll only have small seedlings that wouldn't want more light than, say, an adult equatorial sativa can use, lol) of ~350 watts in there. Prior to the little bit of reading I have done on LED technology this year, that would have worried me immensely, especially since I generally ran 62.5 watts per square foot or more when using HPS. But my research tells me that a (good) panel's wattage is more efficient than traditional forms of lighting. Plus, well... the same model of light was used in Brother Fern's grow, which you can see in posts #112 and #113 in the following thread if you are interested (the link should take you directly to post #112):
Amare Technologies: Questions, Answers & Results
It looks like he may have multiple panels covering a (combined) larger area, so he might be benefiting from the "third light effect" where, if multiple lights are spaced correctly, the points at which their coverage starts to drop off mingles and, therefore, the plants in that space get as much illumination as if they were directly in one of those light's footprints. (If I am explaining that correctly.) But, then again, he might not be either. They aren't exactly side-by-side. In any case, if I can come even in the general neighborhood - town, lol? - of his harvest then I will be quite pleased. I am definitely not expecting perfection, because it has been over a decade since I grew the two main strains that I've got and I read that they have both changed in the 16+ years since I originally got those particular genetics - so it will be the same as if I had never grown either before. I have not grown any Barney's Farm strain before, either.

BTW, You CAN put the plants closer to the LEDs than recommended.

Hmm... I suppose that would depend on several factors, such as the strength/intensity, whether or not one uses the focusing lenses (if applicable), and whether or not the designer / person doing the recommending has experience with growing cannabis (as it is truly a "light-loving" plant, and will do better under higher amounts of light than, for example, leaf lettuce ). My guess is that recommendations can vary somewhat... IOW, they might be a general statement meant to cover all the possible circumstances - or they might be something that the designer has personally found that, if the light is placed any closer, bleaching could occur. Or anywhere in between those two ranges.

I am setting up what is going to be my new flower area.

It is good that you are able to do such a thing. It means that you can tailor your space to your lighting.

MAJOR TIP! Wear a pair of sunglasses when you visit the LED tent!

Lol. I used to do that most of the time with HIDs, especially with metal halide; with LEDs, maybe welding goggles might not be overkill?

Going to move the two younger flowering ladies in there now and take pics. The older one is almost done, so am probably going to start harvesting her shortly. She doesn't even need the closet anymore, except to protect her from my cat, who has acquired a taste for pot!

One of my cats will try to eat just about anything that he gets near. He was severely abused before I gave in and adopted him (they both were pretty malnourished), so I try not to allow situations where he can eat what he shouldn't (or where I might possibly get upset with him).

 

[AKgramma]

TS, I added a pic to my last post. Note that I have CFL's mid height and low down, which worked well before I got the Mars Units. So please scroll up and take a look!

BTW, the trick in taking a pic with the lights on is to turn off the flash.

 

[AKgramma]

I had to move my clones from the kitchen window sill to the window sill in the grow room, because my cat pulled a clone and chewed on it. Ever try to move a bowl full of water and a floating boat of clones from one room to the other? I left a trail of water!

Due to us going through a hot spell (Hot for my area) the temp in the grow room went up to 90 F. I turned off one pair of CFLs in the flower room, and I didn't see any shadows. So I'm probably good. Will check soon, as the day shift has come on duty. (I have the veg and the flower areas turning on in shifts, to keep the heat down. Veg at night, flower during the day)

They are going to need watering again, and most likely a mite treatment. Also adjustment of lights in the Veg, since I moved the LED unit to Flower.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Those doggone cats, can't keep them out of trouble... and there isn't any white meat on 'em . Some folks think our cats run the home - others are still lying to themselves ha ha .

90° is pretty hot. Not killing hot, but progress will have slowed (or stopped) unless they are serious equatorial varieties, I'd think. Turn the fans that blow across their leaves up a notch and their natural ability to uptake water and transpire it out the pores on the bottoms of the leaves ought to allow them to self-cool to an extent.

I still haven't pulled my light out of its box (I did lift the top protective foam piece and look at it though, lol). I was actually able to use a truck for a short time today, however, and was able to retrieve a couple of pieces that will probably become two walls of my grow area this coming Sunday evening if I can find a few more screws by then. If so, I might be able to hang the light Monday. Here's hoping.

 

[AKgramma]

I Partially harvested BBL #4 (from seed) to remove fully ripe buds and small buds that have no chance of getting bigger in the next week. The leaves and stems are VERY STICKY with a mellow scent. It left a lot of trics on my scissors and fingers, which I scraped off into a small container.

The buds I left have some long, strong white pistils, which may indicate they need a bit longer to mature. Please study the last picture and tell me what you think: harvest now or wait a week? Don't ask me to look at the trics, because these old eyes cannot resolve an image through a loupe.

Two beauty shots before partial harvest

Total taken today. Trim and small buds on the right. All of it is as sticky as cotton candy!

A sample bud left on the plant. Do you think I should finish harvesting now, or should I give it one more week? The strain is already 1 week beyond advertised harvest date of 10 weeks.

 

[AKgramma]

Those doggone cats, can't keep them out of trouble... and there isn't any white meat on 'em . Some folks think our cats run the home - others are still lying to themselves ha ha .

90° is pretty hot. Not killing hot, but progress will have slowed (or stopped) unless they are serious equatorial varieties, I'd think. Turn the fans that blow across their leaves up a notch and their natural ability to uptake water and transpire it out the pores on the bottoms of the leaves ought to allow them to self-cool to an extent.

I still haven't pulled my light out of its box (I did lift the top protective foam piece and look at it though, lol). I was actually able to use a truck for a short time today, however, and was able to retrieve a couple of pieces that will probably become two walls of my grow area this coming Sunday evening if I can find a few more screws by then. If so, I might be able to hang the light Monday. Here's hoping.

Save that styrofoam in case you want to try the DIY cloning method. You need something thick enough to hold the clones that floats. The styro packing also makes good boosters to raise your plants or set fans on, when used with duct tape.

You can get damaged plywood and lumber at the sawmill, real cheap. Plants don't care what the plywood looks like, as long as you paint the interior white. Or, ask around. Someone might be remodeling nearby.

 

[AKgramma]

I have put a floor fan in the door of the grow room and secured how far the door is open with a bungie cord. The cat is not going to go near a 21" box fan, so just maybe I'll get some good air flow in and out of the room. BTW, the room is only 9' x 8', just large enough for several shelving units that I use as grow "tents" and to store supplies.

EDIT: room temp dropped to 80 F. So I turned the floor fan outward to pull the hot air into the hallway, instead of towards the window. Will check in an hour for a lower temp.

 

[AKgramma]

NOTE TO SELF: Venting an 80 def F room into an 80 Def F house isn't going to bring down the grow room temp.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Save that styrofoam in case you want to try the DIY cloning method.

I expect that I will need to save it for when I finish with the light and ship it back to the company (AfaIK it is a loan of sorts, not some kind of gift).

I did go out one year and buy a 1" thick piece of some kind of rigid foam that was a circle just a little bit smaller than the diameter of a five-gallon bucket, for exactly that purpose. But that was around the time I stopped screwing around with putting much effort into cuttings and began to stick them into a cup of damp perlite with a small amount of vermiculite (usually), a cup of light soil (occasionally), or throwing them into a glass of water (if I wanted it to take longer for the cuttings to root, if I had a lot of cuttings from giving an overgrown mother a haircut and were just going to keep them around for a couple weeks in case someone else had a use for them, etc.). I don't really worry about it these days, lol. If they seem to be rooting slower than I'd like, I'll mix up some Olivia's Cloning Solution (it was returned to me with the rest of my old nutrients, yay!) to water them with. If it's one of those rare strains that are actually slow enough to root that everyone considers it to be "hard to clone," I can always make a couple of shallow cuts all the way around a stem with a sterile razor blade, connect them with a vertical shallow cut, peel the outer layer of the stem off, wrap something around the wound, and then use a covering wrap to hold that in place - a couple of weeks or so later, there'll be roots growing from that spot (on a healthy branch that is still attached to its mother) and <SNIP> there's a rooted clone. See: air-layering. I think you can produce a rooted cutting on any kind of true plant with that process.

You can get damaged plywood and lumber at the sawmill, real cheap. Plants don't care what the plywood looks like, as long as you paint the interior white. Or, ask around. Someone might be remodeling nearby.

Got to work 11 hours in the past 2 weeks :rolleyes3 . I had a whopping 37¢ today - but since the truck I was allowed to use to get the few materials I had scavenged that were too large to simply drag home from across town has a 600 horsepower (and an even higher torque number) turbo-diesel, lol, I thought it might be nice if I tossed it into the guy's center console. It gets awesome fuel mileage for what it is (low 20s highway), but... Kind of overkill for hauling a few large but light objects from one side of town to the other - he tows a loaded 34' fifth-wheel camper over the mountains and doesn't slow down at all - but it's what was available. I did manage to refrain from locking the front hubs, revving it up, and dumping the clutch in second gear though like he has been known to do at the closest quarter-mile dragstrip for fun. Guess I'm finally starting to mature a little?

I'm hoping work will pick back up soon. Paid on the house early (last month) when I saw that things were going to be slow, but I've got the usual set of bills coming due soon.

I did score a partial roll of that duct wrap stuff that so many people seem to line their grow rooms with these days. But IF what I use for wall material ends up being smooth (or I can build it up smooth with mud) then I'll probably just prime and paint them. IDK, we'll see how it goes Sunday night.

I have put a floor fan in the door of the grow room and secured how far the door is open with a bungie cord.

Been there, done that. Seemed to help a lot.

The cat is not going to go near a 21" box fan

You must be feeding your cats some strong couchlock indicas, lol. I had one that lived, IIRC, around 21 or 22 years, and he occasionally played like a kitten. Seemed to sleep about 20 hours a day - but he'd still have his moments. Did that up until about six months or so before he expired, but he was in a lot of pain and had already had trouble just climbing steps for a while. Think he might have played as much to be doing something with me as out of, err, inherent cattiness, IDK. Some might have killed him before his ticket got punched naturally, I suppose... I figured that I'd consider that if/when he stopped purring. But he was still purring right up until the end, so why shorten his existence? <SHRUGS> If my old man (RiP, PoP) had decided to load up on something that would have allowed him to float off into the next chapter, I wouldn't have had a problem with it - Lord knows he deserved an easy day after a hard life of helping everyone he ever met whether he liked them or not (but I don't think he ever really got one) - but he fought right up until he drew his last breath because he didn't want to leave Mom. Each and every living thing that isn't a brainless plant ought to get to make that decision unless something quicker comes along and eats it, IMHO. Err... Rambling again, huh?

When I was a young teenager, Mom had a vacuum cleaner that was small but sounded like a 747 taxiing for takeoff when it was running. Cat somehow managed to turn it on - a couple of us ran in to see WtF was going on... and that cat was attacking the thing, lol. Guess it got startled (translation: royally POed ).

And, yes, I have had a cat knock a box fan over to get to the window that it was sitting in front of. (And regularly turn on the cold water spigot in the tub because he liked drinking from the stream, and open the refrigerator once in a while, and...)

But they're like family children, aren't they? (Ones that never grow up, though.)

NOTE TO SELF: Venting an 80 def F room into an 80 Def F house isn't going to bring down the grow room temp.

Lol. If the plants are transpiring - "sweating" - and there is a strong fan on them, the evaporative process will actually cool them (slightly) below ambient. An acre of corn generally transpires 3,000 to 4,000 gallons of water each day and one mature oak tree can transpire 40,000 gallons per year. So unless you're growing some kind of rare cold-weather strain (they exist, IIRC), I wouldn't... sweat it. Not as long as they have a large root system and can reach water.

 

[AKgramma]

I just harvested my first BBL Lady. My GOD that was like harvesting cotton candy! So sticky that the sugar leaves stuck to the buds like glue, and sticky all ovr my fingers and scissors, even tho I was holding the STEMS!

Total wet weight of buds and trim = 96.34g or 3.4 oz off one plant! I expect after dying and further trimming to be 1/4 of that or 24 grams.

That is the largest one-plant harvest ever for me. Now I know this is small stuff to growers with better equipment, but it is ENORMOUS to me!

 

[AKgramma]

Next step: up-pot the largest juveniles to 3 gallon bins and put them under flower. One of them is the remaining clone from BBL#1, the lady whose genetics are questionable. All the other BBL clones are from BBL#4, which turned out to be the most vigorous of the lot.

The flower unit with the LEDs is full, so I'm going to clean and reuse the closet under full CFL's. It worked for the lady I just harvested, so should be fine for these other clones.

Still in the juvenile stage are 3 OGK clones who are STILL very small but bushy. I have a number of smaller BBL clones which shall remain in Veg for now. If I'm lucky, I have a healthy clone for the sativa-looking BBL #5. I really like her phenotype. She is in flower, and developing very fast, following her Indica genes.

I SO love Spring and Summer! Even indoors, I get the best out of my plants during this time!

 

[AKgramma]

Yesterday, I realized that my buds were sticking together in the drying bin, so I used clothespins and clipped them to clothes hangers, and hung them up in the now-empty closet. They are supposed to dry in cool dark place. Dark, I can do, but cool is out of the question in the grow room.

This is the first time I've gotten any noticeable odor out of the Bubblelicious. Still a sticky-sweet-candy odor, tho, so no need for the DIY odor bucket.