New grower questions

[fuzzy socks]

I'm trying to do a small CFL/UFO LED grow with two large Rubbermaid boxes stacked on top of each other. I'm a little over 3 weeks into veg right now, and I'm having some issues.

First is temperature. I got these crappy inline fans from Home Depot and they seem like they're next to useless. Temps inside the box range from 85-95 degrees according to my spot thermometer. That's with a six inch fan drawing in and a 4 inch blowing out. Odor is a concern, too, so I'm thinking about getting a fan/carbon scrubber combo, but after getting burned for $75 bucks on these Home Depot fans, I could really use some recommendations. Preferably something that's not as loud as a jet plane, if that's possible. Currently I'm putting frozen jugs of water in the box to take the edge off of those extreme temperatures, but this is just a temporary solution.

I'm also unsure about nutrients. I got the Happy Frog soil, and the guy at the hydro shop told me that I shouldn't need any nutrients at all with this stuff, but I do notice some leaf tips turning yellow or brown. They usually go back to green, though. Is this normal? Could it have something to do with watering frequency? All of the guides say to water until it comes out the holes in the bottom, but I feel like I'm pouring a good 16-20oz. of water into the 1gal pots to get that to happen. I'm worried about nutrient lock-out. But then I also worry that I'm underwatering, since most guides (and the guy at the hydro shop) say to only water every two days. After 48 hours, though, the leaves are drooping like crazy and the plants look like they're dying. They perk right up a couple hours after I water them, but still, that can't be good for the plants, right?

This stuff is more confusing than I thought! Any advice is welcome. Thanks!

 

[fuzzy socks]

Oh, also, I have some leaves where it's not just the tip that's yellow, but nearly the whole thing is yellow and the only green you can see is in the grooves of the leaves (if that makes sense).

 

[Lee Van Kief]

........

 

[Canada]

OK scratch what your doing cause its not working and come up with a plan.
You need to know the recipe and have all the ingredients before you start .

There is something wrong with your set up if temps are not below 95 with 2 inline fans .

i would 1st have both fans sucking air out of the box creating neg pressure and a passive intake .

theres diy carbon scrubbers you can make for $20

Also nutrients dont even bother with chem get your self some earth worm castings (ewc)

the leaf tips are burning cause your soil is to hot (too hot = too much food in soil for little plant) you need to cut your soil next time . Get some peat moss based soil and add it 1:1 to the happy frog soil . then when leaves start to yellow top dress your soil with EWC this is all you need to do when in veg . Then 7 days before you transfer to flowering add some bat guano and top dress one time and this is all you will need to harvest .
Getyourself a better space and you be a lot better off .

Get yourself a 2.5'x2.5' x 4' box to grow in or a small closet . You will see its alot better to manage your temps . If your bringing is ice blocks to cool the room then your doing something wrong .

As for burning 75 dollars welcome to the club its not cheap fining your way . I ahve spent over 7k on changing mysetups over the year before i found something that works for me .

 

[Canada]

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=40637

you click this link and read every single diy link and you will instantly gain over 10 years of growing experiences .

It takes authors some times over a decade to research and wright a book . Ten years worth the experence in one book you can read in a few days . Think about that and imply it to growing . REad READ Read ... Best of luck

 

[hush]

The fans you got should definitely work, although I do agree that you should only need one of those fans, and you should use it as an active exhaust with a passive intake. Something doesn't add up about your setup, I'm afraid.

1) What is the size of the Rubbermaid boxes you are using?
2) What is the wattage of the CFL/LED lighting you are using?
3) What is the ambient temperature in the room the garden is in?
4) Where exactly do you have your exhaust fan positioned?
5) Are you using any ducting in conjunction with the exhaust (or intake) fan?

There are probably a few more questions that need to be asked in order to better help you. Maybe if you could even take a picture or something that might help also. As far as the yellowing leaves, the way you describe it is that of a N deficiency. Happy Frog barely has any nutrients in it. Enough to maybe last a week or 2 usually, but young plants will use it up pretty quick. You need to start feeding. I'm personally a fan of light chemical nutes, and my favorite for vegetative growth is Dyna-Gro's Grow formula. It's a one-part nutrient that has ALL the nutrients in it. But if you want to, there's nothing wrong with using organics. Just make sure you use readily available ones, like worm castings, and liquid seaweed, as opposed to the ones that take forever to break down like guanos and manures.

As far as quiet fans, you really can't get much quieter than computer fans. They certainly don't work as well as actual inline fans, but they work as well as if not better than the duct booster fans you bought from the Despot. If noise is an issue, don't even bother looking into inline fans, even with a controller. There will always be a loud whoosh sound because of how much air they move.

My advice to you is to look at what other people use that is effective, and proven to work, and try to emulate their setup. Don't reinvent the wheel. Unless, of course, you are okay with burning $75 (or more, way more) from time to time.

 

[fuzzy socks]

Thanks for the replies. Here's a pic:

Those yellowish leaves in the foreground are looking pretty ugly. This pic was taken about 24 hours after watering. I'm not having as much of a problem with just the leaf tips as before - now it seems to affect the entire leaves.

The fans you got should definitely work, although I do agree that you should only need one of those fans, and you should use it as an active exhaust with a passive intake. Something doesn't add up about your setup, I'm afraid.

1) What is the size of the Rubbermaid boxes you are using?

The biggest ones they had at Home Depot - 36"L x 20"W x 18"H. I have the bottom cut out of the top box and the lid cut out of the bottom box and the two sealed together so that I have 36" of growing height.

2) What is the wattage of the CFL/LED lighting you are using?

I'm planning to go much bigger on the CLFs once they flower, but right now it's 100W worth of LEDs, and two 32W CFLs.

3) What is the ambient temperature in the room the garden is in?

75

4) Where exactly do you have your exhaust fan positioned?

Well, I was hoping for something that could pass as innocent with a glance from a maintenance guy or whatever, so I put both holes on the same end of the tubs. Intake on the bottom tub and exhaust on the top. Is that an unworkable idea? I'll try to give the passive thing a try soon. I'm a little short on time - if I'd have known I was going to be scheduled for 20 straight days of work this month, I'd have probably waited to plant!

5) Are you using any ducting in conjunction with the exhaust (or intake) fan?

I bought some for both, but the fans are pushing such a small amount of air that I'm kind of afraid to hook them up.

These are the fans I have:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Suncourt-Inductor-6-in-In-Line-Duct-Fan-DB206/100067594#.Ud_6JkHrwas

I'm a little confused since you're saying I probably have a nutrient deficiency, but Canada says the opposite. Hopefully the pic will help clear that up.

This stuff isn't always easy to learn about since due to the legal status you don't have clear-cut experts like university professors or whatever you can point to, so when you start getting contradictory information, you're not really sure which way to go.

 

[hush]

In my experience, it's hard to accurately assess any nutrient deficiencies or toxicities when the plants are suffering from heat stress... And that's exactly what I see in your picture... Heat stress. There is also some damage from the heat on some of those leaves, so it's definitely too hot for those plants to respire properly.

You need to deal with the heat before it will be easy enough to diagnose any other problems. Just my opinion. I'm quite familiar with heat stress, having dealt with it quite a bit in my 20 years of growing.

I recommend rearranging your airflow so that the air comes in from one side of the tub, at floor level, then exits on the other side, at the top. It's very inefficient, even with good fans, having them right next to each other like you say you have them.

Good luck!

 

[fuzzy socks]

Aw, I was afraid of that. Thanks, though. I removed the large fan on the bottom, put it on top, and then cut a second 6" hole on the other side. So now I have two 6" holes on the bottom of either side for passive intake and the large fan on top for exhaust. That should be okay, right? The holes are wide open for now until I can fashion some sort of light trap, but that doesn't seem like it will be too hard.

I'll give it a couple days and see what the plants look like then. Thanks again!

 

[hush]

That might work, all you can do is monitor and see. If it were me, I would probably only have 1 passive intake, and it would be as far from the active exhaust as possible. There would also be a circulating fan inside, like a computer fan or something. Also, for lightproofing, I would use one of those 8" x 8" darkroom louvers for the intake, and a carbon filter would lightproof the exhaust.

 

[fuzzy socks]

I tried taping up one of the holes, but my temps were a couple degrees higher than with both holes open. Since whatever solution I use for for a light trap is going to restrict air flow to some degree, I think I'll stick with that. I also bought a small metal desk fan for inside the tub, and now the temperatures of the tops of the plants are all showing 81-82 degrees. Much better!

How long do you think it will take for the color to come back into those yellow leaves? It seems like it got about halfway there on the first day, and then it just stopped. Three days later, those leaves are still more yellow than green. Not that I'm impatient, just that if that could point to something else wrong, I'd like to know sooner than later.

I also ordered some Dyna-Grow that should be showing up in the mail today.

 

[Lee Van Kief]

........

 

[hush]

Good choice on the dynagro grow. My advice is to go light with it. It's already very concentrated, and they only recommend like a 1/4 tsp per gallon, but I usually start off with 1/8 tsp per gal, and I use tap water, which is very hard here, has lots of ca and mg already in it. But I can't say I can remember ever burning any plants, ever, when using the standard 1/4 tsp per gal formula. I've even had to go up to 1/2 tsp for certain plants, but it's rare.

Keep in mind, I'm talking about strictly the grow formula, and only for vegetative growth. I've tried using the dynagro bloom formula before, but it always seems to crystallize in the bottle. When you shake it up you can hear the hard crystals bouncing around in there. It's apparently a known issue with their bloom formula, which sucks. They are primarily known in the African violet world, and I guess African violets don't mind it, but cannabis growth with it has been less than exceptional, so I gave up on it. Now, it's strictly GH flora micro and flora bloom for me, for flowering.

And yeah, those leaves will never look better, so you will want to monitor the new growth to see the changes. Also, don't clip off the ugly leaves yet until the plant bounces back and sends out more, new fan leaves.

 

[fuzzy socks]

So things have been going pretty well and I'm almost ready to flower. I have this metal ring that fits around my UFO LED with 8 sockets for CFLs. Today I added one of my 2700K CFLs to the three 6500K CFLs that are currently on there. Then I went and took a nap and when I woke up, all of my CFLs were off. I have no idea what happened. It's still plugged it and I've tried different outlets, but I'm getting nothing. Of all the things to fail... light sockets, really?

So right now all I have lighting the plants is the LEDs and I'm trying to track down something with sockets to fit 6-8 CFLs. I just need something really basic, but I'm really not sure what to search for. So far, all I'm finding is 4-foot-long track lighting fixtures and other stuff like that that's overpriced and too long to fit in my box.

Any ideas what I should be searching for here and where I should be looking?

Other than that, things are going great. The plants really took off after I started feeding them Dyna-Gro and are currently about a foot tall after 6 weeks veg.

 

[Jhhnn]

If your cfl's have standard bases, then multi socket over the mirror bath fixtures should work with a little bit of wiring. Just size the cord according to the current draw of the cfl's, don't exceed the current rating of the fixture.

Might want to tear into your existing fixture first, see if it's just a loose connection or similar.

 

[al70]

this is essential reading, cheers

 

[plato]

Fix that temperature!!!
Osmosis stops at 85degrees, this means your plants cannot absorb water/nutrients.
Go to htgsupply.com for a fan or fan/filter combo, don't be cheap 95 will kill your plants, I did the same thing.
I don't think happy frog is too hot, I mix 4:1 with perlite, tho.
After 6 weeks of veg, they should be much more than a foot, I have to cut my plants in half at 4 weeks, because they are too tall, and at 6 weeks I am pruning again, to keep height under 14".
Thats the osmosis I was referring to, your plants can only absorb water/nutes at night when it cools down, so very little growth

 

[fuzzy socks]

Fix that temperature!!!
Osmosis stops at 85degrees, this means your plants cannot absorb water/nutrients.
Go to htgsupply.com for a fan or fan/filter combo, don't be cheap 95 will kill your plants, I did the same thing.
I don't think happy frog is too hot, I mix 4:1 with perlite, tho.
After 6 weeks of veg, they should be much more than a foot, I have to cut my plants in half at 4 weeks, because they are too tall, and at 6 weeks I am pruning again, to keep height under 14".
Thats the osmosis I was referring to, your plants can only absorb water/nutes at night when it cools down, so very little growth

Thanks. I actually did break down and buy a half-decent 190CFM fan and carbon filter, since I'd found that adding even one extra CFL to my setup with the cheap Home Depot fan pushed the temps back up to 90. I also got a fan controller, and I've found that I can keep temps at 80 at only 40% fan speed with minimal noise from the fan.

I'm not surprised that my plants are below average, since this is my first time, and I screwed up more than once. And my temps were too high for too long. But I'm slowly learning. It's starting to seem like a dumb idea to have done this with expensive seeds from the start.

Also, I'm thinking what I might use is a couple of cluster sockets like this:
http://www.mylampparts.com/Products/Four-Light-Cluster---Keyless__SL19156.aspx

I could picture the damn things in my head, but it took me a little while to work out what the name for them was.