My 1st Grow: Hydro, Tent, Sweet Tooth Auto

[SandyRatchet]

Hi guys.
Well here goes with my 1st journal and 1st grow.
My setup is a 1.2m x 1.2m x 2m tent
Rhino pro filter and fan.
600w HPS lamp with digital ballast.
125w blue light CFL.
4 x 17 litre bubbler buckets.
4 way air bubbler.
Added after starting 2 x 120w tube heaters and an upright fan that was lying around.
Put all my electrics on a wooden board to try and keep it tidy.

Started from seeds 'sweet tooth auto fem'
Stuck them in some rockwool cubes and put in the airing cupboard. Took about 7 days for them to start poking out. Gave them a few more days then into the tent under the 125w CFL only. Top watering to keep them moist.
Soon discovered my garage was an ice box with temp dropping as low as 5c so had to get the heating tubes in.
Started the HPS light at about 2 weeks old on 250w setting. I think I was a little eager as splashed a few leaves while watering and burnt 2 leaves. Poor babies.

There just over 3 weeks old now (from seed).
Ph all good and steady at 6.1
TDS is about 500 I think. Tap water was 200.
I have 2 different TDS meters off ebay. The one claims 450ppm the other 550ppm. Quite a variation lol so I'll guess at the middle of the 2.

Bumped the HPS up to 400w a few days ago and then new problems appeared. I need heating for when lights are off. But extra cooling for when the lights are on. So grabbed an old fan from a cupboard and put that in the tent. At this rate there will be no room for the plants in there lol.
I didn't want to leave the extra fan on 24/7 so tried it on a timer 15min on/off. Not ideal so looked for other solutions. Now being that I bought 4 little digital temperature gauges and broke 2 of them by treading on the displays in the dark I started looking for plugs with thermostat control. I found a funky device on amazon this morning that measured the temperature, had quite a long probe, and also had two power outputs that auto switch for cooling or heating depending on the temperature. Cool toy. So I ordered it same day delivery and it's great. Now I've set it to put my heaters on if under 22c and start the fan off at 26c. I like automation

Here's the 1st batch of photos today while I'm happy.

Still unsure on how high above the plants the lights are meant to be as seen differing views. But keeping a bit high for now a don't want to burn them again.
Running lights on 21/3 just to be different. Again some people say auto plants like 24hr lighting others say different. So for veg I'm going 21/3 then down to 18/6 perhaps on flowering.. We'll see how it goes and what conflicting information I can find to further confuse myself.

I've gone hydro as without going into detail I managed hands on a farm growing a few 1000 veggies (not weed haha) at a time with large hydro (NFT) setup. so am quite happy dealing with TDS and PH. The big difference is tent, light, heating and cooling that I never had to deal with before

Here's some pics of the setup tonight

Almost forgot the root pictures and a few closer shots of the girls. You can see the 2 spots where I splashed them while top feeding then boiled them under the light lol

The last pic there are 2 in one pot. I bought 5 seeds and 1 of them had stem damage while sprouting and I thought it would die. It recovered and I just don't want to kill one of them!! So being a bad boy I put 2 in one pot which no doubt will make further problems for me as they grow. Maybe being autos they won't get to big so might not be an issue.


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[SandyRatchet]

Had some issues with temperatures again late last night. Noticed it had crept back up to 28.7c even with the fan blowing air around the tent.
Started moving things around inside as I'm still unsure of if I'm measuring in the right place.
1st thing I did was move the outlet pipe of the filter fan. I had it hanging low and outputting floor level. Decided if it had to push air downwards to escape it might not be optimal. Draped it across the top of the tent now blowing onto the cold garage door. Can't vent it outside. Temp lowered by 0.1c or was that just a coincidence lol.
Moved the freestanding fan position from the left hand corner of the tent to middle back in front of a air intake flap. This got me down another 1c to 27.6c. Feeling a bit happier but still want to do more.
Dropped a spare temp gauge sensor in one of the water tanks as started wondering about water temperature now. Wow 27c.. Surprised it's that warm. It's been 7 days since water change so will put fresh later I think. Clean water less chance of any rot issues as well.
My digital ballast is inside the tent strapped on a pole. Feels quite warm. Not sure just that will make much difference but going to put it outside the tent anyway now. Squeezed round the back of the tent and rewired. Wires not long enough to get it floor level to fix on my neat and tidy wiring board. So put a board on the outside of the roof of the tent and got it on there.
Holy dogs doop!! Now I've paid more attention to the ballast I notice it was on 600w already. I thought I was running on 400w. This explains the heat jump also. Can't remember turning the power up. But now the ballast is outside the tent the readings on my gauges are 25.6c with lights on. Fans blowing. And still on 600w.. So mission success.
Sweet tooth which is what I'm growing says cool / moderate on leafy so feel happy with myself now.
Will keep an eye on Temps later when lights go off. I wonder if I will need to put the fan off to stop it getting to cold with no lights or if it will help blow the heated air around.


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[SandyRatchet]

Water change done. Fresh water temp from the tap or as the Americans call it faucet is 10c. Should I of warmed it perhaps or will they like cool water.
Seemed a shame to throw week old nutes away so poured them over the daffodils in the garden lol.
This weekly water change I'm guessing is to help prevent root problems like rot?
I recall before I ran an NFT table of veggies with 80 per table (not weed!) and only changed the reservoir water every 4 weeks and all was well even in high Temps. Although a dead or sick plant was only a loss of £1 so bit of a difference and an incentive to be more nice to these plants

Bit bothered about the pot I have the 2 plants in. Root growth on them very slow and only just poking out the sides of there pot. Will have to keep up the top watering on these a bit longer I think in case they dry out. Or does that slow down there need to reach down for water. I wonder.


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[SandyRatchet]

Hey all.
A few questions and some updated pictures.
1/ age of plant- I've seen different ppl referring to age from when seed 1st gets wet. Others from when there's a tap root and others from when the 1st leaves appear. Is there a general idea of this as it makes a difference of about 10 says lol.
Mine had there seeds put in wet around 3rd Feb. So 26/27 days from seed. But took 5 days to germinate. Then another 3 days to pop out with a leaf.
2/ how do u tell when flowering time starts on a auto. My puctures today attached but unsure when to change from. Veg nutes to flower nutes.

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[SandyRatchet]

All looking good still at 6.5 weeks now from seed. There turning into giants.
Added an extra light. 300w led. I was going to put another 600w HPS but it would of created heat complications I think.

A friend told me I had to put nets and spread them put but not done that as I decided it would complicate the weekly water change to much.
Have a few questions on led lights though.
I read that they do not output enough red light? Is that correct and how do I compensate.


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[SandyRatchet]

Look closely at the photos above. A member on another forum spotted spider Web and sent me into a panic thinking I had spider mites!! I thought the end was nigh .
Being DWC hydro I have to move, empty, wash out and refil there buckets each week.
Where I put it was next to the wall and covered in normal spider webs (not mites). So the web in my photo had come off the wall lol.
Didn't realise this until after panicking and spending a small fortune on an assortment of bug killing paraphernalia lol.
At least I'm equipped now if I do get mites!!


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[Islandgrow]

The plants look great. Next time just try a little lst by tying them down sideways when about 4 nodes high. But those are beautiful plants. You will get a nice yield from them.

"carpe diem"

 

[SandyRatchet]

Approx 9 weeks now from seed.
Converted the DWC tanks to RDWC with lots of pipes. 1st tank fills a bit high but seems OK. Drilled a few air holes to slow the flow of water as water pumps are a bit to quick even with 2 pipes on each bucket (22mm pipe).
Quite a bit of burn on leaves caused by condensation when lights go off and come back on but nothing major. Changing to rdwc certainly makes keeping ph/EC levels normal easier and means I don't need to pull these monsters put each week to change the water.
Also changed 2 airstones to big star shaped AIT tech things. Lots more bubbles than before.
Not sure how long left to go but I'd guess at least 2 weeks.

Any cobwebs you can see are from brushing against a brick wall when moving around outside tent with real spider Web on not spider mites.

 

[Amadeus Forzin]

Hope all is well in your world.

How did this grow turn out?

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