Day 11 - Morning
Overview: Temps\RH were all range yesterday\last night, bit lower RH 45-63, but that made sense yesterday it finally was dry day here and I removed the little booster bucket of water from the room, I'm ok with that though I kind of wanted to see what it was like with it in there and in theory I wanted the very top of the soil to have slightly better chance of drying out quicker (want that first 1/2 inch dry asap to help prevent creepy crawlers). Top soil is still very moist, not as wet as yesterday though.
Nothing particularly of note this morning with the plants, though after looking close I put Miss Cane's cane\crutch back on. Rotated pots about 45deg and unpacked and tried out some of my new toys which arrived last night.
Top shot:
Miss Cane:
Per measuring tape is just under 1.75" (so about +.10 in last 24hr).
Mrs.Widow:
Per measuring tape added is now border just over 2" for top most leaf (or about +.20 in last 24hr).
She is about even with the top of the pot, or will be by end of day.
I don't like that crinkle still, though it's a little less of a 'bubble' today, but I notice the very
very edge of the left tips sort of pointing up... I got a hard time believing wind is still a problem,
then again miss cane isn't showing the same signs. I think I might swap their locations tomorrow
morning for day just see if it's a wind or next to the humidifier thing... also to see if maybe
she gets more growth there like WW or not.
New Toys:
So got a bunch of stuff in yesterday, and one thing still on-order (another simple timer).
AotSon Direct
Upgraded Dual-lamp LED Grow Light Aotson 18W Dimmable 2 Levels Plant Grow Lamp Lights Bulbs with Adjustable Flexible 360 Degree Gooseneck for Indoor Plants Hydroponics Greenhouse Gardening
I got 2 of these desk clamping "18w" led bendable split wand things 12red (two types) 6 blue, the idea was later
in grow at some point I might want or need a little extra coverage at below canopy, ie a little side lighting.
Also wanted something that could probably be just say 6-8" inches from some leaves.
I was hoping they would be stiff enough to stay in place, I figured the clamps would suck. Well the
clamps are actually very tight\good, the bendable want parts however while fairly stiff will not
work entirely as I intended with out some light assistance as hanging from the side 90d they will not
quite maintain their given position, there are angles where they will though. Also power is usb,
that goes into a usb to wall-outlet adapter. This is some cheap chineese stuff and in 5minutes
it was quite warm to the touch... I wouldn't use the ones that come with it inside a grow room.
Also product sheet says don't use for more than 5hr at time without a hour off.... seriously?
Probably relates to the shitty converter they ship with it. reviewers say replacing it with better made
7$ one will not produce the heat the ones that come with it will.
Whatever they were cheap maybe some day I'll use them for clones or in addition for cheap veg room.
It pulled about 9-10 watts from the wall with both wants on high (it's cool you can control the 2 separately both the high and low setting), so about right for '18watt' light, they pulled 5 watts on low. Hand test says for such a small thing the put out
a decent amount of light heat at 12".
Even though I might not use them now, I actually think these things might come in handy some day.
TaoTronics LED Grow Light Bulb - 36 Watts - 3 Bands - 60d spread.
These are supposed to be pretty decent lights. 3-660 7-630, 2-440
The '36watts' is really about 19-20 from the wall. Got 2 of them, other than checking they
function have not really tried them out yet. Part of back-up\side lighting\flower plan.
VINTAGE GROW - 24W Bulb Dual Spectrum for Veg and Flower - 60d spread
So these pull about 13 each from the wall, so "24" rating is the typical '
They're supposed to be
I decided to add these to the tent today to see how much if anything much additional they
add to the heating situation, just gonna run them for couple hours till around sleep time and
then turn them off. Part of 'backup' or 'side\angled lighting\flower' plan.
So here we have my watering can lol (I didn't have one), some rocks for surface of plant eventually\maybe
Some garden training wire (thick), some small paint brushes (if I have to remove spec of something from leafs),
the shelfing piece to help when during watering (and wanting run off) to ease collection. Not pictured is the bag
of dolomite granules. Also my curious cat, he loves watching as I unpack stuff.
He likes the smell of anything like outdoors - the crushed up dolomite.
As you can see I included the pepper grinder I used to crush up some of the dolomite lime.
As you can see on the left side.. that's about 1/2 the size they come in, and pictured there is what
they look like after once through the pepper grinder, on the right side is twice though the grinder.
It's not quite 'powder' but it given the small amounts potentially needed and figuring I go 3 times
thought he grinder (not that more than twice makes much difference) I can get grams worth of
something close to powder, probably not water soluble but for top of soil treat meant it sure beats
pellets or the large sand gradual type that they were originally. Will it work as well a pure powder
I doubt it, but maybe it comes close enough.
Clamps for options for additional lights. Also sort of not highlighted I got some drape-down
socket hangers and splitters. These camps from Woods are strong, BUT NOT strong enough
for the posts of a grow small tent..not without some assistance. However all the ones I could find these
were the ones supposedly with the strongest clamps.
Amazon packing on these was absolutely horrible btw... the sides one 2 were all dented and
bent.. not a big deal for my purposes as they are sort of easy to bend back into place, but the
packing was such all they did was bounce around.
Two options... either use as watering tools... or what I really wanted them for...
Cleaning up run-off water... better than a turkey baster type thing I was using.
My cat checking all this stuff out and wondering if it's a threat or yet another distraction for
daddy's time instead of paying attention to him. Because it's always all about him.
I'm finding 1-1.5" or so sized hose clamps have all sorts of good uses around grow tents.
Sure a wire-tie would work just fine too.. but this mf will have to get moved around a lot.
This little hack solved the clamp drooping with just a few turns... at least for now we'll see
in a few hours.
Installed the two light clamps on opposing diagonal corners in theory shining on edge area
of pots, about 26-28 inches away.
Still on order:
2x 24w Kyson Led Grow Lights Bulb Plant Lamp,48pcs SMD Full Spectrum Plant Light - 120deg
These supposedly pull 16w from wall. 31red, 11blue, 1 UV,1 IR, 2 white, 2 warm-white.
The theory here with some of this crap (Beyond just throwing away money) was to add to my issuance plan.
If my k3-600 goes out, or a couple bulbs die etc.. it's going to take time to either send it off or even in best
case a new one arrive to swap out. I have the VS450, and while that might be just enough to save my grow
I don't think it would be optimal. I want about 125-150 per plant, the k-300 does about that 325 from wall,
minus some wattage used for all it's fans. The 450 pulls 190 so really that's far less than 100 per plant. So I went
about looking for some additional low wattage lights that would maybe help make up the difference, and in theory
could be used later in the veg and flower stages to maybe do some side lighting, or hand at slightly different heights.
I went a little overboard, but then again some people have some of these low wattage lights die in a month or two
so I wanted to sort of plan for that, what can go wrong - will go wrong.
Additionally I figured if I have end up with separate veg\flower rooms or want to start some seedlings off in
a corner somewhere while harvest is near and k-3 is all the way up I figure I now got all kinds of options.
You're probably thinking why not just use the k450 as 'side' lighting, and you'd be sort of right.
However due to how things are mounted and likely would need to be mounted in the tent I'm pretty sure I can't get the angles\positioning the way I would want it, not without a ton of wasted power and heat, not to mention clearance issues
if say I mounted it on it's side.
Activities: mounted lights, trying them out, refilled humidifier, rotated plants, updated monitoring spreadsheet.
Todo: monitor temps around noon, turn off extra lights around 1pm (don't ask why they're not on the timer yet). I might raise the light 1" tonight or tomorrow morning now that Mrs.Widow is at pot height.
Random thing I found yesterday that are expensive (with all the components of a system) but really cool - ice box heat exchanges for exhaust, even better lots of people's experiments with led water\liquid cooling solutions. I was wondering yesterday... why are there no, or not a lot of mass-market liquid cooled led grow lights, I mean we know water is far more efficient at transferring heat. Love the creativity of the DIY versions possible, especially if building your own light, but seems to me there would be some market for smaller scale versions particularly useful in very small and 'hidden' grows, I could picture cool tower computer grows that have the led lights using something like a cpu watercooler and heatsink. eh maybe market it is too small\out of price range for the 'home' market.
