Wanna Ask The Old Farts A Question?

[lbezphil2005]

Personally I can't believe that no one has told you to just scrap that fire hazard. I know your insurance salesman would shit Tiffany cuff links if he or she were to see that contraption mounted on your wall. Please use some common sense think about it exposed ballast mounted on wall where at any moment one wrong touch and zap! spark possibly fire shorting out your houses breaker box. frying a transistor although with just a 250 watt light I hardly doubt it would do all that but still thats obviously not safe one bit. It's not worth saving a hundred bucks to rick burning down your home or worse killing or maiming yourself or any of your family members or house mates!
Go out and buy a new light but this time, but one thats a separate ballast from the hood like a 400watt or more. I suggest a 1000 watt at least one if not 3 like I run. All in aluminum fin vented boxes to cool them. Totally enclosed not open and jimmy rigged like what your trying to throw together. Please don't tell me you got more than one plant under that small light. It take 50 watts of light to properly light a Sq foot of a grow room. So if your grow room is 10' X 6' like mine is thats 600 Sq Ft. Multiply that by 50 you come out with 3000. So i need to hang 3000 watts of whatever lighting configuration I choose as long as there is 3k watts of light hanging above that garden.
So for your little 250 watt to be in an efficient setting it would need to be placed in 0.5 Sq Ft room. No where can you properly run this light. It is 100% worthless and definitely not worth your safety or anyone else around yous safety.

You know, he has a great point! That open ballast is definitely dangerous. If there is no way you can enclose this thing (you can pick up a nice electrical box with a lid, drill holes for ventilation, etc. fairly cheap) I would suggest you do just that, junk it and start from scratch, or use for supplemental lighting (after making it a little safer)

 

[lbezphil2005]

wrong thread

 

[GoozMan]

Thanks for the tip guys, I will find an electrical box for it before mounting. Do you think it would require it's own fan?

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Goozman, if you approximate the ballast cavity of the hood you probably don't need a fan. Too small an enclosure could raise temps and shorten component life. That said, a fan won't hurt. It wouldn't benefit grow temps if the ballast is outside the grow area.

How many times have you seen peeps say bare bulbs are a hazard? I bet not many. Bulbs get much hotter than the coil or ballast wiring.

Might be a good idea to reference proper gauge for extended bulb wire. It's not a good idea to mimic ballast wire size because it's short-run. Too small a gauge and the extended wire can possibly melt the insulation, maybe worse.

It's also good to use a 3 conductor cable such as a heavy-duty extension cord. For safety, connect the ground wire to the ballast frame, metal box, etc. Connect the bulb end of the ground wire to a metal object such as a reflector or metal mounting bracket.

Keep your eyes open for possible problems. Once you're comfortable with the setup, you can sleep better.

 

[McDanger]

Harvest flush? If so, I'd go plain water.

If you're not rockin' a Mg hog, you can likely go wire-to-wire w/o Mg supps (even with RO.) But pH has to be dialed-in because Mg is trace. Not as much room for pH imperfection as NPK. If pH isn't correct, adding CalMag may do nothing but build up.

IMO, excess N and Mg contribute to poor taste when smoking. In my experience, Mg defs in flower typically occur in early flower. This is why I stop Mg supps after 21 days for 8 to 10 week flowering strains.

Runoff is at pH6.5 and only 45ppm so it seems the soil has most of the nutrients gone from it now.
Thanks Disco, Yes it is the harvest flush. I have been going organic with the nutes and now flushing to get the plant to use up it own nutrients for better taste in the final product. pH is about 6.8 of the RO water. Fan leaves are starting to yellow now. I just hope I started early enough to use up the chlorophyll before the trichs get to amber, they are mostly clear now with a few cloudy.

 

[DizzyGround]

Thanks for the tips hempkat.

Yeah Advanced hydroponics of holland - micro is 45-0-9
grow is 25-6-42
and bloom 0-22-23

It's not possbile to make 1-3-2 with these.

I was even told to use liquid silicate that is generally potassium and will even raise the K levels. So maybe cut that out?

And I still have to keep using cannazyme as i found some slime when flushing yesterday.. I put only 100ml bloom, nothing else and ec is now bout 0.5. For 100 litre of water. Oh and 100ml cannazym from the normal 250ml.

I also want to keep the cannazym as it helped me with the roots alot in the past, and nitrogen toxicity stunts the roots right?
So maybe cannazym will kick some power to the roots to recover.

Ph keeps dropping but that was a good thing? Does that mean that plants are drinkin water now?

Dutch formula (feeding schedule on bottle) for flowering is per 100 litre : 300ml bloom 100ml micro

I have to cut the micro to very very low with this strain.

I think that in less than 24h the blossoms got some vigor but the leaves havent changed allmost at all. It's vertical system so the lowest leaves might be closest to bulb and they are getting even a little yellow slowly. The oldest leaves.

I think they look better already.

Thank you guys for the effort

So what next, will the plant start eating nutes next and ec will start lowering at that point and ph to raise? Or what should I be looking for now?

 

[HempKat]

Thanks for the tips hempkat.

Yeah Advanced hydroponics of holland - micro is 45-0-9
grow is 25-6-42
and bloom 0-22-23

It's not possbile to make 1-3-2 with these.

I was even told to use liquid silicate that is generally potassium and will even raise the K levels. So maybe cut that out?

And I still have to keep using cannazyme as i found some slime when flushing yesterday.. I put only 100ml bloom, nothing else and ec is now bout 0.5. For 100 litre of water. Oh and 100ml cannazym from the normal 250ml.

I also want to keep the cannazym as it helped me with the roots alot in the past, and nitrogen toxicity stunts the roots right?
So maybe cannazym will kick some power to the roots to recover.

Ph keeps dropping but that was a good thing? Does that mean that plants are drinkin water now?

Dutch formula (feeding schedule on bottle) for flowering is per 100 litre : 300ml bloom 100ml micro

I have to cut the micro to very very low with this strain.

I think that in less than 24h the blossoms got some vigor but the leaves havent changed allmost at all. It's vertical system so the lowest leaves might be closest to bulb and they are getting even a little yellow slowly. The oldest leaves.

I think they look better already.

Thank you guys for the effort

So what next, will the plant start eating nutes next and ec will start lowering at that point and ph to raise? Or what should I be looking for now?

Most of your questions I don't know how to answer as you sound like you're running hydro which I'm unfamiliar with. Hopefully someone else here will be able to help?

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

I think what Billy was trying to express is that for safety it's best not to try to cut corners on DIY lights or anything electrical. Too many times people have caused fires trying to save a few bucks and then that history tarnishes the community as now those against us can point to such unsafe practices.

I would normally give the same advice as Billy if the person didn't have the equipment yet. Since it appeared he had the equipment already it seemed better to just agree with the directions in the link you provided.

As for the rest of it, well I think Billy was just a bit off in his math. That happens to stoners alot.

Happens to me all the time. I still love ya, Billy.

Runoff is at pH6.5 and only 45ppm so it seems the soil has most of the nutrients gone from it now.
Thanks Disco, Yes it is the harvest flush. I have been going organic with the nutes and now flushing to get the plant to use up it own nutrients for better taste in the final product. pH is about 6.8 of the RO water. Fan leaves are starting to yellow now. I just hope I started early enough to use up the chlorophyll before the trichs get to amber, they are mostly clear now with a few cloudy.

If you're in soil less, 6.5 runoff is pretty darn good. Sorry but TDS and EC meters won't measure organic nutes as accurately as they measure salts. Some of your nutrients remain as organic compounds, not yet eaten by the bacteria in your mix. 45ppm is probably a reading of available, non-compound nutes. We've got some long time organic members that say flushing organics isn't necessary because these compounds won't flush like salts. But we've got some who flush and like the results.

 

[lbezphil2005]

Thanks for playing D discobiscuit. In fact the shed is just under 3 sq. ft. And there will be 2 of these bad boys lighting up the place I'm going vertical in a tall skinny shed and I think these lights will be perfect. And thanks again phil2005

No problem, bro. I am just an old electrician who probably stepped on a couple of toes here, but if you are careful about what you do, take your time and DON'T be sloppy you will be just fine. It's the ones that get in a hurry that end up giving us a bad name. And, just for the record, I've seen brand new equipment catch on fire when not properly installed. the last two words I guess are very key here.

 

[HempKat]

No problem, bro. I am just an old electrician who probably stepped on a couple of toes here, but if you are careful about what you do, take your time and DON'T be sloppy you will be just fine. It's the ones that get in a hurry that end up giving us a bad name. And, just for the record, I've seen brand new equipment catch on fire when not properly installed. the last two words I guess are very key here.

For what it's worth, to the best of my knowledge you didn't step on any toes here.

 

[Emph]

This might be a stupid question...

But would a 150watt metal halide bulb require some sort of ballast? I'm still learning about ideal lighting, and found one with a normal light socket type. Could I just plug that into a regular light bulb socket and be using a 150watt metal halide? Haha

 

[HempKat]

This might be a stupid question...

But would a 150watt metal halide bulb require some sort of ballast? I'm still learning about ideal lighting, and found one with a normal light socket type. Could I just plug that into a regular light bulb socket and be using a 150watt metal halide? Haha

No, the socket may seem the same but a HID (high intesity discharge) bulb will always require an appropriate ballast.

 

[tennesseetoker]

whatsup hempkat just thought id drop by to say whatsup good to see your still doing your thing keep it up.

 

[GreenMAX]

Back to growing after a loooong time...
So my question is do I have water seedlings after transplanting to bigger pots?
Earth mix was moist,so I wana wait and water them tomorow with EWC tea started today to...

 

[Xerhoss]

Great thread, HK. Just reading through.

Thanks for all you do...

 

[lbezphil2005]

For what it's worth, to the best of my knowledge you didn't step on any toes here.

Thanks, hempkat. I love this place

 

[HempKat]

whatsup hempkat just thought id drop by to say whatsup good to see your still doing your thing keep it up.

 

[HempKat]

Back to growing after a loooong time...
So my question is do I have water seedlings after transplanting to bigger pots?
Earth mix was moist,so I wana wait and water them tomorow with EWC tea started today to...

If the soil was moist you should be able to wait with no problem. As for the tea, if these seedlings are very young (less then 3 weeks) you may want to hold off on the tea. I generally don't see any signs of seedlings needing food until around the 3rd week of their life.

 

[DizzyGround]

Thanks DiscoBiscuit for the help, plants are getting better now.
So its day 3 with water and little bit bloom and plants are getting stinky, buds forming and leaves recovering. It looks like the leaves will need alot time in few plants. No big difference in the tops but the recover is moving from the bottom of the plant to the top, just like you said the nitrogen is moving. The black color from the leaves is slowly disappearing and they are getting pointy. Very pointy actually

First day a few leaves dropped off, the lowest ones. And some yellow appeared also. Now the situation seems like the yellow has gone off and they maybe using nitrogen from the upper storage.

Also vertical growth has decreased but as i said, the blooms are growing every day.

Ec has gone up from 280ppm to 300ppm (500 scale so its 0.6EC)
PH is _DIVING_ in one day I might have to adjust ph twice back to 5.8 as it goes very fast to 5.0.

Today the water intake has been very good and looks like the roots are drinking again.

So what to do next? Just sit and wait till they start eating the bloom nutes? The plants look like they might need a week of zero nitrogen.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Ec has gone up from 280ppm to 300ppm (500 scale so its 0.6EC) PH is _DIVING_ in one day I might have to adjust ph twice back to 5.8 as it goes very fast to 5.0.

I've read lots of TDS vs EC posts from Freezerboy. I've since learned that TDS vs EC is a comparison but not easily translated. I've got a .5 TDS and have compared readings to ingredient labels.

For example, Floranova Bloom label says 1 teaspoon per gallon of RO is ~1 EC/500ppm. Obviously, this ppm depends on the respective TDS meter scale.

I've calibrated my meter and measure a teaspoon of FNB in ~15ppm tap. My reading was 600ppm.

I can understand why Freezerboy spends his time pointing out the differences.

Glad to hear things are looking better.