Micro Adventures with Mr. Sparkle

[Mr. Sparkle]

Bogan: the chopped photo periods have turned around in a week, also have 4 left over seedling from the organic nutrients test being done in the other case.

Ashla: Also now underway for this test

 

[Jellypowered]

The one question I had, how do you deal with salt buildup? You don't appear to drain to waste, and I'm very curious if you ever have to worry about it. This info will be noted when I finish my PC box, as i'm essentially copying almost everything you are doing. Imitation is the best form of flattery right lol.

 

[Soulrebel239]

Just like Jelly said, Mr. Sparkle you have built some amazing micro machines. I vote you as one of the top 3 pc builders alone with Mr. Micro and Aerohead. I'm blue printing my pc rebuild from what I've seen from you 3. The best a it.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Gonna be a double photo post as i way away and was busy, but first photos are just before i left and the next are after 4 days, now i changed my coding slightly in the previous week to a 650 setpoint and looks like i made them run on the drier side but they survived, so ill be changing the code this week to trigger at 620-625 or so.

Bogan i'll be taking some clones of the photo periods shortly and will flip to 12/12 to see what we have, the autos in this case will go along for the ride.

Ashla this case is where they were quite dry when i came home with all the plants on the left being a tad wetter than the one on the right due to a not exactly flat tray that warps up on the right, so because of that i cannot yet say if the yellowing of the seedlings on the right hand side is because of the higher fertilizer concentration or if they dryied out too much but either way it definitely didn't help so im gonna run them out till they are either dead or get past this stage, and the whole purpose of finding what concentration to work with.

So lets call this Day 3

And This Day 7

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

The one question I had, how do you deal with salt buildup? You don't appear to drain to waste, and I'm very curious if you ever have to worry about it. This info will be noted when I finish my PC box, as i'm essentially copying almost everything you are doing. Imitation is the best form of flattery right lol.

You do have to worry about it but only if you over feed so if you dont over feed you dont have too, but in the even i do i just flush the plants and feed with an adjusted concentration, and then thoroughly flush the coco after i've chopped as i reuse the coco.

If i could drain to waste i would well apart from the waste issue, but apart from making a small waste reservoir that would have a small pump in it to pump to a secondary larger holding container, due to the small space requirements of a pc case, but that just add extra parts and outside storage and such which can be avoided with feeding on the lighter side.

Just like Jelly said, Mr. Sparkle you have built some amazing micro machines. I vote you as one of the top 3 pc builders alone with Mr. Micro and Aerohead. I'm blue printing my pc rebuild from what I've seen from you 3. The best a it.

Thanks Soulrebel

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Bogan trimmed down and took clones of the photoperiods, ill flip shortly to 12/12

Ashla is day 10, the plants on the right aren't doing well due to the lack of water mishap so im gonna start a couple new seeds and replace them so i have an accurate test of the fertilizer concentration.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Bogan Now on day 3 or so of flower aka 12/12 as i flipped the box on the weekend, surprising the remnant autos in the old reused and amended coco are doing better than the ones in the other case, but again they didn't run as dry.

Ashla is coming back around, im gonna mix up a quick EWC tea just to counter any lost bacteria from the dry period a week before, also you can notice i replaces the two plants in the #3x's the 4x came around so ill just leave it.

 

[HiKing808]

Hey Mr Sparkle, what are the specs on your exhaust fan? Specifically the static pressure and cfm? Odor is not an issue for me, but I was planing on using carbon filter pads as light traps, and dust/pest filters. What specs should I be looking for? Also wondering about DB levels for real world application. What would be an acceptable level to keep the box in say the bedroom?

Thanks!

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Hey Mr Sparkle, what are the specs on your exhaust fan? Specifically the static pressure and cfm? Odor is not an issue for me, but I was planing on using carbon filter pads as light traps, and dust/pest filters. What specs should I be looking for? Also wondering about DB levels for real world application. What would be an acceptable level to keep the box in say the bedroom?

Thanks!

I believe i'm running the corsair sp 120mm fans, been awhile since i bought them, but whatever specs those are, now saying that am i running them at full no i'm using pwm out of the arduinos to slow them down, id say i'm only running at 70-80% when lights are on down to 40% when lights are off.

Pretty much any decent fan will be able to pull enough air through carbon pads or dust filters, you actually need less than you think, usually its dictated by how many air exchanges you need to cool your space as plant wise 3-5 air exchanges a min is more than enough from what i remember.

As for the the carbon filter pads or dust pad they work but can clog up quickly, ive been using some thicker open cell filter foam which flows more and works pretty good for light traps to cut down the stray light, but nothing beats actual designed light traps which you only really need a 90 degree turn some distance from that turn and some flat black paint to achieve, but when limited on space that's where the filter foam and such come in handy, but don't ask me where to get it as i just had it on hand that i salvaged from else where.

As for db levels if keeping it in a bedroom, even with getting some good silent fans like noctura's your gonna possibly want to reduce the speed of the fans on lights off times and also time it so that happens when your sleeping, a fan is a fan and being a computer fan its no different than having a computer running beside you noise level wise respectively if you take into consideration how silent some fans are now a days, i personally prefer it to be as quite as possible, but like my fans running at 40% you can barely hear them at a couple feet away and i mean barely, and i have a some what acute hearing for mechanical noises but when combined with house hvac and other noises its nothing, but when lights are on you can hear them just like a running desktop computer.

Just get a good flowing silent "labeled" fan and you'll be good, and you can even run a carbon filter with them which can muffle extra noise if in a push configuration

 

[Rageous8899]

What type of cobs are you running? If you do t mind me asking. Got some pics of my diy builds and micros https://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?u=475959

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

What type of cobs are you running? If you do t mind me asking. Got some pics of my diy builds and micros https://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?u=475959

4 Bridgelux v15 in the first case and 4 Bridgelux vero18's in the second all running at 350ma a piece, so under driven and also both are in the 5000k spectrum, as i always seem to have better plants with less stretch under bluer light, vs light on the 2700-3500k side of the spectrum.

As for my bucket build, im using 3 disassembled 8w philips led bulbs mounted to some old gpu heatsinks, which honestly those or the bigger 14w bulbs are the cheapest and best bang for the buck route to go in my current opinion, so long as you don't have a really high kwh electricity cost as they are a little less efficient vs an underdriven cob setup with a good ballast, but so much cheaper and easy to get.

 

[Stonehedge]

Oh man just found your thread to cool! Im enjoying reading along in your micro thread nice job...

Happy gardening my friend.

Stonehedge out!

 

[Rageous8899]

Right on. Ive heard awesome things about the veros. I was honestly pretty skeptical about making the led switch after purchasing a 60p watt hps mh but after the utolity bill came and my girls suffered through the intense heat i decided to give em a try. I wasted money on mars hydro panels and they couldnt produce jack as far as flowers. Glad this site here for the noobs like me. Thanks mane

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Start of day 8 of flower in Bogan, things got out of hand one of the f1 DarkDevils "back left" grew right into one of the cobs and burnt, left a black mark, so almost everything got a chop now these F1's are the taller sativa leaning phenotype that i made seed from, which i used for this test just cause i prefer the shorter one so don't mind killing and chucking plants if needed with them so disposable seed per say, as for the photo periods on the right one turnout to be male so got the chop but the others are doing decent. Here's two pic before and after trimming, they will bounce back in no time.

Ashla and the organic test, as you can see the 0.5 and 1.0 concentration plants on the left are starting to show deficiencies but the 2.0 to 4.0 apart for the replaced 3.0 are doing better, so we will have to see how long they go before starting to run into issues, but ill let the plants run out a bit further before chopping the deficient ones.

 

[thenewstyle]

Hey Mr sparkle the boxes are looking great, excited to see how those dark devils turn out! What kind of temps do you get inside your boxes running cobs?

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Hey Mr sparkle the boxes are looking great, excited to see how those dark devils turn out! What kind of temps do you get inside your boxes running cobs?

Most wont make it to harvest as ill probably chop them before then, might do two in the next couple days as i need the pots for my bucket, and i have to many projects on the go to bring out the sewing machine and make 3 new ones. But yeah well see how they turn out as this is all a test for the organic fertilizer.

As for temps if ambient is say 22degrees C or 72F the cases will be around 24-27C or 75-80F which is pretty good

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Bogan Day 11 of flower, things moving along looking good, nothing much to say

Ashla on the other hand *big middle finger* to some fungus gnats who have taken up home in the case due to its nice wet ideal environment, so im gonna have to let it run dry for awhile to interrupt their breeding cycle to kill them off.
But as far as the organic nutrient test as you can see the 0.5 and 1.0 is showing deficiencies quite a bit now so two were chopped as i needed the pots anyways for my bucket and didn't want to sew up any more just quite yet, so i have a single 1.0 two 2.0 the younger two 3.0 and a single 4.0 left, the 2.0 are looking really healthy but i expect them to fade later on so we will see, also some phosphorus deficiencies popped up on only the older leaves that would of been affected during the dry spell, so im holding off judgement for now.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Bogan day 14 of flower, moving along had to bend over the one DD in the back left, but they are all doing pretty good.

Ashla though is fading and pretty much all the plants, plucked some of the bottom leaves, so im coming to the conclusion that this whole test might be a bust, as the plants in the other case are all running organic as well and what would be equivalent to a 2.0-3.0 concentration but are on some reused stuff where the bacteria content would be a bit stronger but they are all doing fine so that plus the fungus gnats i might just toss it all, and retire this case over the next couple months and bring it back out in fall if i decide to do some multi plant pheno hunting runs, i don't know it might just be time to move on from this case, as the other one consistently runs better and with less issues, even though they seemed to be all worked out now.

 

[Tbonegrower]

I hate fungus gnats...

Bogan is looking really strong. Too bad Ashla is being such a pain. I was looking forward to seeing your test results being a bit more positive. I have seen some mention of EarthJuice BioRighteous elsewhere. Maybe it would help with your biodiversity issues.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

I hate fungus gnats...

Bogan is looking really strong. Too bad Ashla is being such a pain. I was looking forward to seeing your test results being a bit more positive. I have seen some mention of EarthJuice BioRighteous elsewhere. Maybe it would help with your biodiversity issues.

Yeah same here, but anyways from what im seeing its probably gonna be in the 3.0-4.0 is a good place to start, as for the Bio Righteous yeah would work but i cant get the stuff locally and my original goal was to see if i could get a base organic solution together with as few components as possible with them all being easily accessible locally, so i was gonna rely on some EWC teas initially and a bit mixed in to get things going bacteria wise and then reuse the mix with additions to keep it all going which i've done in the past it just needs a run or two to get things good.

That's also one of reasons i suspect why this round didn't go so well as in order to get accurate mix rates, i couldn't reuse older stuff and had to start fresh, so the soil biology isn't as good as Bogan's

So i might just have to wing it in the end and change things as i get a few runs in, oh well.