Max's First Grow - Soil - LED - Painkiller XL

The 3 Week Update. Sort Of


XL#1 is 21 days old - went into soil on 20th December 2015
BB#1 is 17 days old - went into soil on 24th December 2015
XL#3 is 13 days old - went into soil on 28th December 2015

The girls appear to be thriving now, mainly due to the timely intervention by the gurus on 420 Magazine. BB#1 really could do with up potting but I'm waiting for my 1 gallon fabric pots to arrive. I should have them in my sticky mitts tomorrow.

Here is XL#1 looking healthy again. There's a bit of orange on some leaves but I refuse to mollycoddle her any more and stifle the poor girl
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Here she is out of the tent
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And here's a group shot
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You may recall that XL#3 was very much an under developed runt at the time of her emergency potting. She's still a little fragile but piling on the leaves now. I'll give her an equal share of the lights when she looks a little more robust.

I'm thinking of giving them at least 6 weeks in veg (the runt would be at just under 5 weeks by that point). I really should use XL#3 as the point of reference from now on but that'll just confuse me even more than my normal ground state of 'very' on the widely accepted scale of confusedness.

Oh, I've had one of my overthinking moments. It goes a little like this (warning, things may get tangential. You have been warned).

Plants use CO2 and give off oxygen during photosynthesis, but this is reversed during dark periods... speaking of CO2, I'm partial to carbonated water so I've started opening the bottle over the plants whenever I pour a glass. They get extra CO2 and I get a drink. Win-win.

Where was I? Yes, CO2 vs oxygen... so I figured if I shut down the extractor an as-yet-to-be-decided number of minutes before lights off, they will increase the amount of oxygen in the tent ready for their night cycle. Makes perfect sense to me. Or would if not for the funky smell. When I get a fan controller it will go on the minimal required x minutes before lights off.

Here endeth the captain's log stardate sometime in January 2015
 
Day 23 Update - Environment

Having set up the thermometer and RH doohicky it appears that my temp and RH has been way off all this time. The tent is 86 degrees with a very low RH of 34%. It has been hotter. Ouch!


The oil filled rad has been turned down and a damp towel hung in there. I'm going to aim for 75 degrees with a RH of over 50%. Hopefully the towel and turning the heater down will get me where I need to be.
 
MaxHeadroom said:
Day 23 Update - Environment

Having set up the thermometer and RH doohicky it appears that my temp and RH has been way off all this time. The tent is 86 degrees with a very low RH of 34%. It has been hotter. Ouch!


The oil filled rad has been turned down and a damp towel hung in there. I'm going to aim for 75 degrees with a RH of over 50%. Hopefully the towel and turning the heater down will get me where I need to be.
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I'd agree that the RH being 34% is too low for vegging, I'm not convinced 86 degrees is extreme for LEDS. My original research said 75 degrees is optimal, but further investigation would nearly always reveal that that is the recommended temps for under HID. LED is new enough that I'm not sure it has been conclusively proven if 75 remains the recommendation.

We've been shooting for 80 to split the difference. :;):
 
arteekay said:
I'd agree that the RH being 34% is too low for vegging, I'm not convinced 86 degrees is extreme for LEDS. My original research said 75 degrees is optimal, but further investigation would nearly always reveal that that is the recommended temps for under HID. LED is new enough that I'm not sure it has been conclusively proven if 75 remains the recommendation.

We've been shooting for 80 to split the difference. :;):
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Thanks RTK,

The temps are now 78 and I've adjusted the heater to try to keep it around that, maybe a shade higher. RH is up to 45% and slowly rising. It feels much cooler than 78 in the tent to me and if I hadn't checked the thermometer against two other I wouldn't believe it. I'll do some research to see how it measures. If it's using IR it could be skewed by the LED's.

It will take a while to get the heater set as the controls are particularly accurate; there's a huge amount of play between on and off when turning the stat on it.
 
MaxHeadroom said:
Thanks RTK,

The temps are now 78 and I've adjusted the heater to try to keep it around that, maybe a shade higher. RH is up to 45% and slowly rising. It feels much cooler than 78 in the tent to me and if I hadn't checked the thermometer against two other I wouldn't believe it. I'll do some research to see how it measures. If it's using IR it could be skewed by the LED's.

It will take a while to get the heater set as the controls are particularly accurate; there's a huge amount of play between on and off when turning the stat on it.
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Make sure when you are reading the temps it is under the light and at plant canopy height. My grow room is 76F but 81 at plant canopy under the lights which has worked well for me.
 
ShiggityFlip said:
Make sure when you are reading the temps it is under the light and at plant canopy height. My grow room is 76F but 81 at plant canopy under the lights which has worked well for me.
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Thanks Shig, have some reps :-) I'm currently reading 78 degrees with the device propped up against one of the pots. I'll rig it up on a cord to get it at the right position. Best I'm getting with RH so far is 47. I'd like to get this a bit higher but getting concerned at the number of electrical devices in the tent.. I'll add a humidifier if the wet towel and bucket of water don't get me much over 50%. One thing drying it out is my 187m3/h extractor. It can change the air 3 times every 2 minutes when really I want it once every two minutes.

I've just turned the extractor off for a bit but it will smell funky in that room by the morning (it's 11pm in the UK right now). I'm testing my theory of letting some O2 build up for an hour before lights off so the plants can use that in the dark cycle... plus I really want to get the RH up a little now. I'm struggling to pick a good fan controller - AC induction motors are easily damaged by poor controllers. I really want a DC fan so I can control it with the Raspberry Pi, but they are massively underpowered.
 
If you are having trouble with too much air going through a fan and can't afford a speed controller yet there are ghetto solutions.
1. Lengthen the duct.
2. Make 90+ degree bends in the duct.
3. Tape covering some of the duct (post fan only). Getting tape sucked into a fan is baaaad m'kay?
4. Shove a muskrat in it (don't do this one please)
 
Alas I am not allowed to give you more reps immediately, but I will when I can.

More sound advice, thanks Shig. I deliberately left my ducting at 10m to slow it down and have a few twists & turns in it, but I'll see if I can sharpen some of the bends.

We don't have muskrats here in the UK but I'll look for small furry things to introduce to the fan blades :-)

I should just go and get a variac, they come in useful for other electronics projects anyway. Thanks once again for sound advice, t'is much appreciated.

Edit: Humidity is up to 88% with the extractor turned off. I think I'll remove the wet towel for the rest of the night and put it back in in the morning once the extractor goes back on.
 
Day 23 Update - Up Potted BB#1

The blueberry went into a 1 gallon fabric pot today. Pictures to follow another day. I put an inch of clay pebbles in the bottom of the pot to help drainage and sprinkled mycorrhiza into the hole before up potting to encourage strong root growth. Alas I didn't think to add a dash of black strap molasses to the transplant water, but I will do so at the next water.

Hopefully a fabric pot will help deal with my over watering issues.
 
My fan is about the same speed. I got a winflex t100 or w.e. It's got two speed setting 145m3/h and 187m3/h. You could always get a speed controller for it. It would extend the life of your fan as well.
MaxHeadroom said:
One thing drying it out is my 187m3/h extractor. It can change the air 3 times every 2 minutes when really I want it once every two minutes.
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Thanks to all the great advice and comments, the girls are looking good. XL#1 is outgrowing the 1.5 gallon help protein DIY pot and will need to go into the 5 gallon fabric smart pot thing very soon.

Sad thing today; a friend who was declared clear of cancer isn't clear after all. Her next lot of chemo starts on Friday. I can't even tell her I'm growing something that could help. As an intensive care nurse she is subjected to random drug tests. We discussed the CBD oils now available in the UK but they are £460 per 5,000mg of CBD and there's no guarantee it is the genuine article.

Maybe one day I can offer my friends that are suffering some of my crop (should it come to fruition). The fact I can't right now saddens me. If she would have accepted then I'd have offered once I've made some oil and hang the consequences. UK prohibition on a healing plant sucks ass.

And today my pain levels are crazy so I'll not up pot until tomorrow.

Sorry, wibbling. Bit unhappy about things here in the UK.
 
MaxHeadroom said:
Thanks to all the great advice and comments, the girls are looking good. XL#1 is outgrowing the 1.5 gallon help protein DIY pot and will need to go into the 5 gallon fabric smart pot thing very soon.

Sad thing today; a friend who was declared clear of cancer isn't clear after all. Her next lot of chemo starts on Friday. I can't even tell her I'm growing something that could help. As an intensive care nurse she is subjected to random drug tests. We discussed the CBD oils now available in the UK but they are £460 per 5,000mg of CBD and there's no guarantee it is the genuine article.

Maybe one day I can offer my friends that are suffering some of my crop (should it come to fruition). The fact I can't right now saddens me. If she would have accepted then I'd have offered once I've made some oil and hang the consequences. UK prohibition on a healing plant sucks ass.

And today my pain levels are crazy so I'll not up pot until tomorrow.

Sorry, wibbling. Bit unhappy about things here in the UK.
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I am in the process of making up a batch of oil just to put away in the safe... just in case.
I lost a good friend the month before I started growing... it would have been nice to be able to offer it as an alternative to just going home and waiting.

I'm glad to hear the girls are doing well :-) If you are anything like me you will probably up pot to soon just so you can go in and mess with em! I've had a lot of patents over the years but never an abundance of patience :thumb:
 
MaxHeadroom said:
Welcome to my little journalette Fopho. Hopefully other noobs will learn from my trials and tribulations :-)
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I try to learn something new each day. Figure it can't hurt.
 
Day 25 Up Potting

Here is XL#1 just before.. looking happy in her hemp protein 1.5 gallon DIY pot
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And looking a bit battered after going into her new 5 gallon fabric pot
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She's had a nice transplant watering with half a teaspoon of black strap molasses to help feed the liberal sprinkling of mycorrhiza. I expect she will perk up soon once she gets used to her new home... in fact I'm confident all will be well. I'm happy to say I'm letting go of the mother hen syndrome and just letting the girls do their thing without fretting too much. I feel this is a stage all us new growers grow out of. I don't know how long others took to get to this stage but for me it was about 3 weeks since planting in soil.

BB#1 needed a good watering. It seems the fabric pots help lose moisture, which in turn helps prevent me from overwatering and helps increase the RH%. Win-win. I'll reorganise the tent later and adjust the height of the light. The aim is to get all the girls roughly the same level under the light. I'd very much recommend fabric pots, plus I've heard the roots grow far better; instead of curling big roots around the edges, they grow into a fine mesh that gets air pruned when they poke out of the fabric. Roots and light don't mix - something fabric pots take advantage of.

Temps are steady within the range 78 - 82 and RH is 54%, but these do fluctuate if I keep the tent open too long. The room the grow tent is in seems to be a steady 34% RH. I think I'll start drying towels on the radiator in that room to give it a bit of a boost. I'm starting to find calm workarounds to providing a good environment instead of fretting. These forums and grows have been an invaluable source of advice and solutions. In fact, I don't think I'd have got to this stage without 420 Mag. An honourable mention goes to BeaverIslander for saving the day with timely advice on repotting a saturated plant in a DIY container. She's a lot happier now. I think we're out of the danger zone and I feel very optimistic that this grow will reach a happy end point. I've decided that I will offer some to a friend in need (genuine medical need) but not say where I got it from. I'd rather help a friend even if there's a slight risk of discovery.

Thanks for reading so far, you're the only people that can know about my secret mission for home grown meds.
 
fopho said:
I try to learn something new each day. Figure it can't hurt.
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I hope you realise I wasn't calling you a noob ;-) My hope is that other first time growers like me can find my journal instructive. I've learned valuable lessons from my mistakes and will be in a better place for the next grow. I'll go subscribe to your journal now and see if there's more I can learn.
 
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