Jon's ViparSpectra KS3000 Grow In A 3x3

[Jon]

How To Run Ambient in Flower
When the Tent is Sealed 12 hrs/day

I promised a demonstration of how I do this, so here it is.

When you have the tent door closed and you’re all sealed up and light proofed for 12 hours a day, with no extraction fan or pipe in play (running ambient), you need to find a way to allow for air exchange when it’s dark, without allowing any light in. Unlike in veg, now you can’t just keep the door open.

Here’s how I accomplish it. It’s pretty self-explanatory, so I’ll just display the setup in order. All it takes is a three foot length of insulted plastic ducting and some duct tape. Took me ten minutes start to finish. Cost is next to nothing.

Easy peasy, right? Does the job very well. Air comes in through the AC unit and exits out this pipe. The insulation on the outside ensures no light penetration and taping the ends ensures no fiberglass blowing around. And voila! Ambient at night!

 

[InTheShed]

Shed you’ll appreciate this as a musician, relative to gear. You know how you sometimes will sit down at an unfamiliar kit that people told you is serious quality and you have no reference point? Then you play it, and you fall WAY in love? This bass is like that. It’s maiden gig, in the mountains last summer right after I got it, was so damn special I can’t even tell you. I felt like I was holding something that exceeded me, but then over the course of the gig became a part of me. If that makes sense.

Sounds amazing! For some reason, any other kit I've had to play wasn't as nice as my mid 1950's Ludwig jazz set.

 

[Jon]

Strawberry Haze
Final Pre Flip Veg Photos

Making final preparations now. Already thinking I waited too long. Lmao.

 

[InTheShed]

I'd say now is perfect...on with the flip!

 

[Jon]

Strawberry Haze
Flower Day 1

Just for the record. Last night I tried it with the AC on low overnight. Got too cold - woke up at 63. I want more like 73. So tonight we will go no AC and just have it on fan so it’s still drawing in air. She’s on a 6:30 to 6:30 schedule. She’s on the permanent (rest of grow) week 4 of flower in the @Prescription Blend feed chart. By tomorrow morning she should realize it’s stretch time and we will likely see some movement. She gets 20 ml of Terpinator with every feed now. Once she has budlets I’ll start working in other additives, ie, Fox Farms Bembe, FF Root Drench, FF Wholly Mackerel, molasses, and extra CalMag. Here we go.

 

[Jon]

Strawberry Haze
Training Through (and in anticipation of) the Stretch

I must be learning something….

So at this point I can look and tell which of these branches is going to go nuclear (achieve dominance, lol). I tied those branches down just a little below screen level. Now they have anchor points and I’ll be able to keep them level with the rest. Who says you can’t use below anchors just cuz you’re using a screen? Lol.

In this picture you can see two tricks to help even the screen. The tie on the right is holding a dominant branch down. The tie on the left is bringing a lesser (but I think long enough to make the screen with some help) branch up.

I want to minimize this anchoring and such. Once the stretch is over it all goes and we’ll clean out the bottom. In a perfect world we will have a nice flat screen of budlets.

To me, this is the most important part of filling the screen and establishing what you end up with. It requires daily maintenance.

The tie on the right gives me this up top, and all the small skewers and thin bamboo stakes (6?) are holding down dominant branches.

 

[Kanno26]

Strawberry Haze
Training Through (and in anticipation of) the Stretch

I must be learning something….

So at this point I can look and tell which of these branches is going to go nuclear (achieve dominance, lol). I tied those branches down just a little below screen level. Now they have anchor points and I’ll be able to keep them level with the rest. Who says you can’t use below anchors just cuz you’re using a screen? Lol.

In this picture you can see two tricks to help even the screen. The tie on the right is holding a dominant branch down. The tie on the left is bringing a lesser (but I think long enough to make the screen with some help) branch up.

I want to minimize this anchoring and such. Once the stretch is over it all goes and we’ll clean out the bottom. In a perfect world we will have a nice flat screen of budlets.

To me, this is the most important part of filling the screen and establishing what you end up with. It requires daily maintenance.

The tie on the right gives me this up top, and all the small skewers and thin bamboo stakes (6?) are holding down dominant branches.

Hi @Jon, your girl looks very pretty .

 

[Jon]

For any environmental hounds who keep score, this is what we are attempting to stick to for flower, with a gradual RH drop.

 

[Jon]

Strawberry Haze
Julia
Flower Day 1
@ViparSpectra KS3000

Her name as of today is Julia.

I really prefer to put the light as high as possible and adjust the plants height to the light. That way I can always run at 100% power.

Before this, the screen was getting hit with about 700 ppfd. I wasn’t going to leave it there for flower. Here’s the new arrangement. This puts us in the 950-1000 ppfd range. And I have plenty of space to play yet. The vertical space plus any lower adjustments gives me a ton of flexibility. And even here the heat is a non-issue. Nice work ViparSpectra.

Looks clean, no?

 

[Jon]

Strawberry Haze
Julia
Flower Day 1
@ViparSpectra KS3000

Her name as of today is Julia.

I really prefer to put the light as high as possible and adjust the plants height to the light. That way I can always run at 100% power.

Before this, the screen was getting hit with about 700 ppfd. I wasn’t going to leave it there for flower. Here’s the new arrangement. This puts us in the 950-1000 ppfd range. And I have plenty of space to play yet. The vertical space plus any lower adjustments gives me a ton of flexibility. And even here the heat is a non-issue. Nice work ViparSpectra.

Looks clean, no?

Here’s two hours later or so. This is what I call manageable. Check out the gauge. Awesome heat management with the driver external.

 

[StoneOtter]

That canopy looks like you took shears to it Jon! Gonna be some even hormones to those buds when they all get giant!

 

[Jon]

Strawberry Haze
Flower Day 2

Here she is today post screen maintenance. I guess I’ll start running the colas that hit outside the screen along the outer frame.

 

[Jon]

Strawberry Haze
Flower Day 2

Here she is today post screen maintenance. I guess I’ll start running the colas that hit outside the screen along the outer frame.

Starting to see that this screen will indeed get fairly close to filled. Doggone vigorous plant with just a ton of nodes and side branches.

 

[Jon]

Almost bedtime of day 2. So far I have the screen quite under control.

 

[Jon]

Strawberry Haze
Flower/Stretch Day 3
Scrog Training Through the Stretch

Ok, so at wake-up I immediately open the tent to see the overnight/wake-up conditions. I see the gauge before I see the plant. It is very cold here at night now, 38 degrees right now. So the garage door is closed and the AC units are off. Even with that the plants are waking up at around 66 degrees. But the RH overnight in the small tent here is getting too high - she woke up at 81%! Can’t have that. So this was the last cold night of this spell and tonight we will bring the AC unit into play to lower the RH. Within a minute of opening the tent door in the morning the RH plunges back down to around 40%, so it’s just overnight that it’s too high. The girl is perspiring!

Then I go immediately to screen maintenance. She’s stretching a lot more than it appears, it’s just the screen and daily maintenance making it seem otherwise. If she wasn’t screened she’d be reaching for the ceiling.

Many branches are either on the outside of the frame or about to be. The middle is filling out sweetly. So far so good.

Display:

1. This is how she looked at lights out last night.

4344ED78-0915-4028-A1DB-5273D8564896.jpeg

• Jon
• Jan 15, 2023

2/3. This is how she looked at wake-up this morning. The stretch is evident. Call this pre-maintenance.

6CD04668-0B5C-4A2B-8CE4-645022F6B6E5.jpeg

• Jon
• Jan 15, 2023

9A4311BF-564E-4F70-AEB0-5EB2BBC72D41.jpeg

• Jon
• Jan 15, 2023

4/5. And here’s post-maintenance. Much better.

2C04969B-420C-4711-9A41-0C29DC9DDA1E.jpeg

• Jon
• Jan 15, 2023

F0D97E07-54AC-44AD-BA24-D069F77DC333.jpeg

• Jon
• Jan 15, 2023

I’ll do the screen again before bed.

The @ViparSpectra KS3000 is doing a stunning job so far. My light issues are nonexistent. Yay! It seems to promote very even growth as my canopy attests.

 

[Jon]

Undercarriage Maintenance

Also upped the fan game. The two round ones are growbuds oscillating fans with two speeds. They’re amazing. Best I ever used. Yep, we got air.

 

[Jon]

Big Changes to the 3x3
Strawberry Haze
Flower Day 3

After a couple nights it’s apparent that the rh is going to be too high once the lights are out without the extraction fan. Can’t have her in the 70s and 80s for 12 hours a day. So I attached an exhaust fan to the exhaust pipe. It’s a 6” AC Infinity fan with the 8-speed external remote with the long cable. Too big for a 3x3, but works amazing well on speed 1. Already the problem is solved.

Also raised her up and redid the fans. I just measured the ppfd. At screen level it’s 875-900, and halfway between the screen and the light it goes up to around 1000-1050. This is where I want to be, so now we will just keep the screen level and flat and let the buds grow up to the light. As you see in the one picture, the screen is about 15” below the light right now.

Wow, what a difference in both effectiveness and visual appeal. Way cleaner. Way more efficient.

Heh.

Here’s the pictures. The first is a rare shot of the plant outside the tent.

 

[Jon]

Strawberry Haze
Flower/Stretch Day 4
Screen Maintenance

Time to start having to tie the outer colas to the frame and send them sideways.

 

[Jon]

I got my temporarily disabled lift chair to work enough to get on top of my scrog and work the screen properly. Here she is from above post maintenance.

 

[Tokin Roll]

I just caught up @Jon very enjoyable read.

I just found out what my spring vacation is. Friday, April 14, I’m playing with my brothers band in Pittsburgh for a benefit event called Punkapalooza, and Saturday, April 15, I’ll be in Coudersport, Pa, playing with the electric version of the band at the Crittenden. Weekend of gigs! Yay!

Let me know when you are around Pittsburgh; maybe we can meet up.

Stay safe, and grow well my friend,
Tok..