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

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no molasses and doing just fine..... Sugar water near the end for your flush should help and its cheap. Many people do use molasses and many people say it does nothing. I honestly think it's personal pref, me I'm saving that money and buying more nutes. :D
 
molasses does work. its not just used because its sugar. but you should never use sugar for a flush. only plain water.
 
Day 6 Flower - HPS Bulb Added

Finally got the time to get the ballast located and the HPS light switched on.
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Prior to fitting the extra light, it was difficult keeping the tent warm enough. Now I've shut down the radiator in that room and added an intake duct with the leg of a pair of tights over the end to filter out any airborne nasties. The duct was then put next to a window set to vent. Having HPS certainly makes for a better picture. Here are the girls on day six of flower
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Compare this to day one of flower
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The girls are growing daily and there's been lots of tucking going on. The main stem of BB#1 grew so quickly that I can't possibly tuck it under, so I've used garden ties to bend her over and removed the biggest fan leaves from the top.

The HPS is set to 250w now - temps topped 100 degrees earlier. Now they are hovering around 82. A second intake duct may be required at some point soon as I'd really like to run the HPS at 400w.

I'll aim to give a more thrilling update later in the week, the synapses are firing slowly today; I needed to journal the additional light and document the duct changes. Normal service will be resumed shortly.

Thanks as ever for the great advice... I've been promiscuous with dishing out well deserved reps.
 
looks good mate. But try get it up to at least 400w. Use a 6in airforce 2 fan. it will cool that tent and is quiet. you could run a length of duct from tent to somewhere cool and pull that air through.
 
Cultivator said:
looks good mate. But try get it up to at least 400w. Use a 6in airforce 2 fan. it will cool that tent and is quiet. you could run a length of duct from tent to somewhere cool and pull that air through.
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Thanks as ever for the advice. It looks like a piece of real pro kit and beyond my budget for a hobby grow. I should mention that I've not had pot for over five years and this grow is to see if a high CBD strain helps with my constant pain and opiate withdrawal.

I've opted for a halfway solution and ordered a cool tube. I had reservations about this because I recall you had a bad experience with tubes on one of your grows; it cut your light output if I recall correctly.. was that right? I'll babble more on the cool tube in a moment in a journal update. I think I need to translate your excellent advice and remember that you are a pro and I'm a hobby grower on my first ever try :-)

Please do keep on with the words of wisdom as they are much appreciated.
 
The Trials, Tribulations and Torment of Terrible Tent Temperatures

It's not as awful as the title implies but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to indulge in some alliteration :-)

I got home from the coal face today to find the tent sweltering at 89 degrees. This is actually less than I feared, but more than is desirable. You'll recall from yesterday's update that there's now a length of intake ducting propped up against a window that's cracked open an inch. That ducting is cold to the touch and sucking like a pro. Airflow is greatly increased because of the extra ducting.

In anticipation of excessive temps I ordered a cool tube, ducting and another fan today. I understand that light output will take a hit, but this will be more than made up because I'll be able to run the HPS at 400 or 600w rather than the 250w it's currently set to.

The cost of the light, ballast and cooling has now slightly exceeded the cost of a second Mars II 400. This doesn't upset me greatly because I got a yearning to mix LED and HPS, but I really did think I'd get away without cooling with 250w of HPS. Boy was I wrong! I have no idea how you pure HPS users keep temps under control and I have new found respect for people running over 600w of HPS in a tent.

This little hobby has probably cost me around £600 so far. Not insignificant considering I don't even know if the Painkiller XL will give me what I need medically. At worst case I'll have an awesome set up for growing chillies :-) I've definitely had £600 of entertainment so far and don't regret a thing. I've also 'met' an amazing group of friendly, helpful people that have made it all worthwhile.

If you're wondering what that kind of outlay gets you (this is aimed at people wanting to start out. Skip to the end if you're fully set up and experienced)..

A 3' x 3' tent
Mars II 400 LED grow light
1 x 4" fan and ducting
A carbon filter
1 x digital ballast capable of switching between 250, 400, 600 and a 660w boost
Cool tube
600w HPS bulb
1 x 5" fan and ducting to cool the HPS
Enough soil for 1.5 grows
15 seeds
Grow nutes
Bloom nutes
CalMag
Bug Igniter
100 x 5ml syringes for measuring nutes
2l spray bottle
1l spray bottle
Oil filled rad
Digital temp & RH monitor
pH meter
Fabric grow bags - 4 x 1 gallon, 4 x 5 gallon
Saucers to stand the pots in
100l perlite
20l clay pebbles
Garden ties for LST
Bits to make a SCRoG net

Hopefully fellow noobs will find that useful.

Am I hooked? Hell yeah!

Oh, you managed to read this far? Well done you, have a pat on the back.
 
MaxHeadroom said:
This little hobby has probably cost me around £600 so far. Not insignificant considering I don't even know if the Painkiller XL will give me what I need medically. At worst case I'll have an awesome set up for growing chillies :-) I've definitely had £600 of entertainment so far and don't regret a thing. I've also 'met' an amazing group of friendly, helpful people that have made it all worthwhile.
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Great post Max.

I did the same calculation against my entertainment budget. I wasted more than 600 bucks in overdue VHS rental fees back in the day.
 
It's times like these, a week off work to dial in the temps would be great. As it is I've disconnected the HPS and put the LED back in the middle. Sitting at the office constantly wondering if the tent is topping 100 degrees makes this a little less fun. To get rid of the stress I'll just run LED until the cool tube arrives, then I'll put the HPS back on.

Trying to keep it cool, I've had the inlet in more positions than a porn star.. it's been in the front, round the back, on top, underneath and many other ways too. It just gets too damn hot for my liking.

Now it's all about keeping the tent warm enough (LED's run cool) so the inlet is no longer up against the window. Hopefully the other bits will turn up in a couple of days and we can get back to lots of lovely light.

In other news all this tucking and training on the net is generating lots of potential bud sites. I think. I wouldn't know a bud site if it bit me in the arse but another couple of weeks should reveal all. I'm hoping that the shock of taking away lots of light after they had 24 hours to bask in it doesn't upset the girls. At the most they should be without for 4 days.

Oh I babble. More anon.
 
Krypt247 said:
no molasses and doing just fine..... Sugar water near the end for your flush should help and its cheap. Many people do use molasses and many people say it does nothing. I honestly think it's personal pref, me I'm saving that money and buying more nutes. :D
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I've used molasses a couple of times to help the myco grow in the soil, not to flush. It's not for the plants as such, all for the soil in my case. Oh, and I'm a good 8 weeks off the end ;-)
 
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