Saturday, January 11, 2025

Glookie (V2) - Delps8 Does NASC/Barney's Farm Glookies In DWC Again

Mars confirmed that the SP3000R should have a dimmer on it so maybe I got an early production model or something? I can return the light to Amazon but don't want to get another one and have it not have a dimmer. :-(

I just responded to their email and straight up asked if they could loan me an extra R light. No harm in asking, right?

I'd love to have the extra R light but I look at it this way — I can get a really good crop with the R model + the SP3000 I bought in 2020 but it's not worth spending additional $300± to get a bigger yield.

On the other hand, if it was a loaner…. :)

Time's moving along. We're in a hot spell here with temps in the low 90's. I'm 12 miles from the ocean so the highs are normally 80-82. This the highest it's been all year and but it's weather, not climate. We get Santa Anna winds that blow in desert temps from our good friends in Arizona. It's 92 outside and 85 in the garage so optimal temps for germination.

I'm planning on dropping seeds over the weekend. I've got "Original Glue" from Nirvana as well as "Back to the Future" and Gorilla Glue from NASC. The OG from Nirvana was one of the first strains I grew but I really enjoyed the movie "Back to the Future" so I'm leaning in that direction.
 
I have seen some lights where the dimmer is just a screw head and you hafta use like an eyeglass repair screwdriver to do it. I dunno. Hope you get it figured out buddy!! 😎✌️
Thanks!

I got a reply back from Mars and they confirmed that it should have a dimmer dial. I'm hoping that I might have gotten an earlier version from Amazon and the current version has the dimmer. I'll know in the next day to two.
 
Thanks!

I got a reply back from Mars and they confirmed that it should have a dimmer dial. I'm hoping that I might have gotten an earlier version from Amazon and the current version has the dimmer. I'll know in the next day to two.
Hopefully you get a new light or they'll give you the loan 😁 Happy Thursday!! 😎✌️
 
Hopefully you get a new light or they'll give you the loan 😁 Happy Thursday!! 😎✌️
Thank you amigo.

They're going to send me a dimmer. As long as it's an easy swap out I'm OK with that.

There was no response to my request for a loaner light.
 
Got an email from Mars. They offered to send me a dimmer that I can plug into the dimmer on the light.

My reply:

"Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately, I've decided that I won't be using the SP3000R so I won't need the dimmer for the light. The SP3000R is a very powerful light, there's no question about that, but I need a light that spreads the light out over a larger area.

Regards, "

I put the SP3000R and my SP3000 in the tent and tried to get a good PPFD map but no joy. The R puts out a lot of light but it is highly concentrated in one strip, centered under the light.

The setup below shows the R at 26" and the 3k at 14". I marked up the plastic sheet that I'm going to use for a new res top and took PPFD readings at the X's.
1725670072027.jpeg



This is about the best combination of hang height and dimmer setting I could come up with. The lights, combined, are drawing 300 watts and the average PPFD is 910 with 1065 running down the center of the tent.

With R at only 30%, I'm not getting the "pure" red spectrum that I wanted because the 70W% coming from the 3k has a fair amount of blue in it (which is one reason why one reason why it's less electrically efficient).

1725670191344.png


202 Mars SP3000 Spectrum
1725670419835.png


What I would see is the front part of the tent getting a lot of red photons and the back part getting light from the "white" SP3k. That won't harm the plant but my objective is to have a high red % so that's a swing and a miss there.

The PPFD map from my Growcraft is below and it's not as even as I'd like it.



But, if I put a piece of bond paper around the center portion of each light bar, I get this:

1725670999831.png


OK, putting a sheet of paper around a light bar sounds strange but it's completely safe and it works.

It turns out that the 4 year old design in the Growcraft is still a pretty good design. The Vipar lights were a contende. I wasn't thrilled with the spectrum but the manufacturer gelded it and decimated, relatively speaking, the PPFD. The Mars SP3000R puts out huge amount of light but the vast majority of the light is in a strip 1' wide by 3' long. That's OK for supplemental lighting in high bays or in a greenhouse but too concentrated for optimal growing in a tent.

All in all, I've got a much better insight into the grow light market for small tents and heck of a lot more respect for the lights that I've already got.
 
Yes sir! Thats good stuff. As in any hydroponic system its all about the DO "dissolved oxygen" The more do in the system the more efficient the uptake of nutrients is and that is just one reason why e/c / ppm / tds are not created equal when it comes to people growing in hydroponics. So needless to say, you will start to witness a more efficient uptake the level of that is depicted by the stones and the size of the bubbles. again, micro is best as with mine if you look in the diy it's not only adding bubbles but what you may not be able to see is that when it reaches the surface it causes tiny droplets of what to spring up and fall back down, that is breaking the water tension with nothing in the bucket it actually creates a small mist.




yes jumping back into to I was committed to efficiency to say the least.

ha I'm still figuring stuff out .. the day we stop learning is the day we truly die. One example and I will post tomorrow about it in my thread and I'm going to thank you now here as well as in my thread .

About what you say? Posting the term/abbreviation DLI. I never looked at it but it kept hitting me in the face here in your thread and with the potential bleaching I have I looked into and I will say this much right now ..the tops showing bleaching where umm reaching their maximum absorption/growth rate after 6 hrs. of the 12 hr light cycle even with co2 enrichment. lol

So Thank you @Delps8 for being you and posting the details that you do !


Ha the disco lights ..well first they where not all created equal and well the ones that i purchased showed great potential in veg but when it came to flower there was something off. One word Hibernation. I'm going to pm you a link that deals with me and the lights that I use today and that company and the term hibernation. If anyone reading this would like to see it please pm me.



yes I wanted to collect data in regards to the DO content in relation to plant and root growth but a meter for that was like 6-700 at the time so I went off of my gut instinct. I actually looked at some today and I found one very reasonable that should do the trick actually under 100.00 that i plan on purchasing before the end of this grow or right after and i can show you different DO concentrations in my system with my current set up verses air stones. I have actually been curious of it myself since the modification. Who knows I may be able to downsize on the pump Hehe.



gotcha

sounds like its time for some 2x4's insulation , plywood and caulking lol .


so today I found my sweet spot and its 470 remember my start point was almost 700. at 470 its taking up an equal amount of solution to water I'm excited ! Now in flower the ph. naturally drops with the uptake of P and in veg it naturally swings upward. Which leads me to your next question. I do have a float valve and top off tank and that is why its key to know the feed range you need . So now that I know that the sweet spot is 470 I can fill my tank with a solution of 470 and have the ph. greater than what's in the res and whala no ph up needed as the solution that replaces the used solution balances the res for me and i wont mess with it until it his 5.5 when it hits that I will simply open my drain valve and turn my waste pump on and pull out about 5 gallons and replace it with what I have in the top off tank and that should do me until its res change time.
Does the use of air stones in the nutrients reservoir cause an increase in the PH levels?
I have read conflicting opinions on the subject. I have read that no matter how many bubbles your air pump insects the PH levels will remain consistent. Then other sources mentioned the surface area of the bubbles create an exchange of CO2 from the air surrounding the reservoir.
Can you please give me your opinion? To me, injection of dissolve oxygen, along with the circulation the use of air stones creates can only be a good thing. My PH levels are now remaining consistent and I worry that using air stones again will create a constant need to lower the nutrients PH levels again.
 
Does the use of air stones in the nutrients reservoir cause an increase in the PH levels?
This is one of the many tenets of cannabis lore that I completely disregard.

I did the expirement in school (elementary school here in the US), I think, and lungs full of air at 40,000ppm of CO2 causes a change in pH when exhaled into a small vessel of water. That's a far cry from piping 420ppm air through a reservoir using an 6 watt air pump yet the shibboleth soldiers on.

Someone with a decent level of knowledge of chemistry can do the math but I don't have a decent level of knowledge of chemistry (I could look it up, of course) so I ran my air pump in a res full of RO and, two weeks later, pH was unchanged.
 
This is one of the many tenets of cannabis lore that I completely disregard.

I did the expirement in school (elementary school here in the US), I think, and lungs full of air at 40,000ppm of CO2 causes a change in pH when exhaled into a small vessel of water. That's a far cry from piping 420ppm air through a reservoir using an 6 watt air pump yet the shibboleth soldiers on.

Someone with a decent level of knowledge of chemistry can do the math but I don't have a decent level of knowledge of chemistry (I could look it up, of course) so I ran my air pump in a res full of RO and, two weeks later, pH was unchanged.
I am using a High Pressure Aeroponics system. My air pump is for a 40-60 gallon fish tank and my reservoir is 3.5 gallons, for reference. I was doing a test with a gallon of distilled water first. But I'll take you experience as confirmation of no need to worry. Thanks for the swift reply. Merry Christmas.
 
Back
Top Bottom