Jury Rigged 400W HPS - Soil

[Touchmejesus]

Heyo, so up until now I've been a cfl grower and i've gotten 2 lame harvests that have lasted me about 2 weeks for 12 weeks of electricity. In the fridge I learned some basic stuff like low level LST, fimming and sheiit, now I want to expand into the big boy leagues with cloning, big harvests and the distinguished scrog. Only problem being I am a pretty poor guy, so a lot of my stuff is improvised - but to be honest it makes it more fun. So the first thing is my fake wall, it creates the border of my grow room with the alcove - I made it from old wood I had tucked away and coated it with diamond mylar and started to light tight it but its not 100% required in veg so i'll finish that l8r. Its got a door. I have some ducting that runs to the fridge which is now a cool air hub, it draws the cool air from the window discretely and is the air supply for the 5" cooltube which has a 6" extractor fan cooling it. I have a big boi 10" rvk that i got real cheap which has 2 cardboard box mufflers that I made with eggbox foam coating the inside. Currently the rvk is just a passive extractor, so i'm open to any suggestions with that.

What strain is it? 1 is rocklock, the other is either bubble cheese or northern light
Is it in Veg and they are seedlings
Indoor
coco with perlite
400w hps cooltube
about 27c 8inches from bulb

Any Pests ? Not yet, expecting some gnats
How often are you watering? once a week
Sensei grow nutes

any questions go ahead, i am probs gonna do some really stupid shit so that should be fun. Aiming for a result like munki's ebb and flow 400w grow cuz that was the shit.

cheers

 

[CO Finest]

Nice looking to me.

 

[SweetLeef]

Off to a great start Touch!

I'm along for the ride. I love you DIY style

 

[Touchmejesus]

A picture of the plants, Rock-lock on the left the ?Unknown? on the right. looking pretty weedy to me, but their development has been rather turbulent tho...

I am planning on expanding my set-up with some biobizz all-mix (20% sphagnum peat moss, 35% garden peat, 10% high quality worm manure, 30% perlite and 5% Pre-Mix) some air potz, an oscillating fan, an air cooled hood. and a cab with 4 2ft t5s for simultaneous veg - they only equate to 6600 lumen but over 2 months should be fine, right? Then my master plan is to always have 1 big plant in flower and just supplement that with some little clones. I'll make the Rocklock a mother I think. As for the 10 inch rvk i am at a loss, i think ill raise it up from the ground so its closer to the vent hole cuz it doesn't seem to be fulfilling its potential.

 

[Antics]

I'm into the DIY all the way. I love the ingenuity people use to overcome problems and obstacles.

Subscribed!

 

[Touchmejesus]

I've decided that i'm going to go for a t5 light like this: Hydroponics T5 HO Propagation Grow Light 2x55W 6400K Blue CFL Tube Reflector Kit.

At this point I am so excited but I've got to wait until next month now, planning on mounting it in a hollowed shelf. What kind of growth with loads of training could I expect over the two month flower period?

 

[Touchmejesus]

It's been a week and the room is holding up real good, the plants are also good. Well judge for yourselves because I am a little disappointed:
1. The leaves look quite pale - I've read this could be from too much light. It is at 48000 lux at the canopy
2. The seedling is a slow as fuck grower, it's on the first set of leaves just sprouting the second.
3. Their appears to be some unknown plant growing in the same pot as the seedling - what the fuck coco!

Here are the room stats -
Lights on: Temp 26-31c, humidity 25-34%, 18 hours.
Lights off: Temp 16-24c, humidity 40-60%, 6 hours.

My Veg box is in progress and will probably be done by next week, I'll save the deats on that for next week for some fun, but I'm planning to move the plants over to that to save on electricity. I now realise the ultimate need for proper soil having a little dick hop-along plant, so i'll try and sort out some BioBizz All-mix and Airpotz soon. Cheers

 

[Touchmejesus]

The cab is done, I used a recessed office luminaire for 2 55w PLL lights at 4500 lumens each. It has a 4" extractor fan and I plan on getting an oscillating fan for circulation - the intake is at the bottom.

Unfortunately the leaves are yellow as fuck, was it too much light, shitty coco, bad nutrients? I can probably order all-mix and some root pouches (basically smart pots) for next week. And I'm wondering if I should get biobizz grow, bloom and top-max as well for continuity.
Please help me.

Cheers

 

[Antics]

Are you feeding nutrients now? I personally think it's a LITTLE early for nutes, but other more experienced growers might disagree with me.

How far is the light from your plants?

 

[Touchmejesus]

It's about 5 inches I reckon but its at 25000 lux at the canopy. Yeah I'm giving them 1ml/Litre of sensi grow.

 

[Touchmejesus]

I'm going to germinate a new seed and put that in a jiffy thing. With a propagator lid.

 

[Qanzilla]

I'm no pro but it looks like it might be too hot, try raising the lights up a little. That plant has almost no space between nodes, and raising the light will let it stretch a little bit, as well as lower the temps. It will help so much to get a fan in there moving air directly over them. My sprouts love 75 degrees F, and you are at 87f. Too hot if you ask me!

As far as nutes, if raising the light doesn't work after a few days, I'd try a 1/4 strength nitrogen nute, which usually turns my yellowing leaves green again. Good luck!

 

[Touchmejesus]

Cheers bro. Will do. I think I've gotten caught up with having loads of light.

 

[Qanzilla]

I should also mention that you should have no problem regulating heat with that many inline fans... your problem is most likely your venting. Make sure it's short with no bends in it if possible. I have a 1k watt HPS in a 3x3' tent, and i can keep it below 70 all day if I want, with 2 inline fans. Both are 220 CFM. it took me several tries to set it up perfectly, but when I got it, it made a huge difference!

 

[Touchmejesus]

yeah the heat is not much of an issue in the big room - if all of the fans are on it stays around 25c but I don't want the electricity cost of that so I run it 15mins on 15mins off. I think the main issue is air stagnation as its only hot under the light and the introduction of the small pc fan pulled the heat down loads, so I reckon a proper oscillating fan will sort it out.

 

[Touchmejesus]

Do you think I need Biobizz nutes for Biobizz all-mix? I don't like Sensi grow too much its always a bit overkill when I use it.

 

[Touchmejesus]

They have perked up a bit today.
If I move them down from the lights - increasing the distance from the bulb:
Would the nodes get longer between leaf sets?
How could I still make it quite bushy?

 

[Qanzilla]

You'll have to experiment a little, if you move the lights a few inches, the space between nodes should increase. If it increases too much, move the lights down. They are still young so you'll end up moving the lights quite a bit anyways, just remember to make changes gradually, anything more than a few inches should be done over the course of a day or more.

 

[Touchmejesus]

It's crazy Rock-lock seem to have regained loads of green and shot up about a cm. I'm planning to move it down tomorrow. I'll get some pictures too.

 

[Touchmejesus]

Rocklock is looking weak obvs. The seedling is clearly a runt. From my experiences I now concur that coco without sufficient preparation (e.g nutrient lacing and proper understanding) is super cereally hard to get right. From what i've read the bases of soil allow for less prep - especially with all mix. So fuck coco - I'm moving on.

Germinated and planted a Cluster Bomb in some John Innes soil temporarily until the all mix gets here, you will also notice all of the sunflowers which love the lights.

I attempted to fimm rocklock and I fucking missed; cutting of a fan leaf.