Lootz Returns! Multi-Tent Grow In Soil With LED COBs & LM301H

[lootznbootz]

Nice, the cotys are out and you even have your first true leaves, excellent!

I'm not sure if I can link directly to the page, but if you google search "seedsman alaskan purple" it's the first link.

As I'm still getting my first soil grow going I can't speak directly on the myco in the RR like you did, but I don't see how it wouldn't help to get them charged up for going into their first pots. I went directly into solo-type nursery cups after wet paper towel, taproot down, and put some in the hole. @Melville Hobbes just harvested a plant a few days ago, earlier last week, and he showed the root ball after the chop. He mixed in myco into the soil and had an explosion of roots. Really cool to see.

Yea I only check the tent twice at lights on and just before they go off and to see the difference every time is encouraging.
I've used great white for all my grows and it definitely helps! I've just never done it so early on a seedling like I have as you said I'm sure it should help.

I planned on putting them into solo cups before 1 gal pots then final 3g homes for flower but idk
@Azimuth has really been convincing me without directly trying to give these SIPs a try. I may even put just 1 3Gal SIP together for a comparison.
But I'm seeing I should probably transplant them to their final pots now if I go that route.

 

[Azimuth]

I planned on putting them into solo cups before 1 gal pots then final 3g homes for flower but idk
@Azimuth has really been convincing me without directly trying to give these SIPs a try.

Do it!

Seriously, you'll grow bigger, healthier, happier plants with less effort. If you do, I'd just put it in its final pot since up-potting doesn't help.

I may even put just 1 3Gal SIP together for a comparison.

Ok, but it won't be fair to your other plants. There is a 2-3 week delay or what I call the transition period as the roots morph over to the ones they'll need, but after that you get explosive growth.

 

[Melville Hobbes]

Nice, the cotys are out and you even have your first true leaves, excellent!

I'm not sure if I can link directly to the page, but if you google search "seedsman alaskan purple" it's the first link.

As I'm still getting my first soil grow going I can't speak directly on the myco in the RR like you did, but I don't see how it wouldn't help to get them charged up for going into their first pots. I went directly into solo-type nursery cups after wet paper towel, taproot down, and put some in the hole. @Melville Hobbes just harvested a plant a few days ago, earlier last week, and he showed the root ball after the chop. He mixed in myco into the soil and had an explosion of roots. Really cool to see.

Unless you're thinking of someone else, I transplanted from 1 gallon pots to 3 gallon final pots a few days ago, and one of them had quite the rootball. My soil has mycorrhizal spores mixed in by the manufacturer.
Here's the pic.

Do si dos Grow 23 November 2022 Do si dos #33 roots.jpg

• Melville Hobbes
• Nov 23, 2022
• barney's farm herbies seeds

Do si dos #33
Day 33

 

[lootznbootz]

Unless you're thinking of someone else, I transplanted from 1 gallon pots to 3 gallon final pots a few days ago, and one of them had quite the rootball. My soil has mycorrhizal spores mixed in by the manufacturer.
Here's the pic.

Do si dos Grow 23 November 2022 Do si dos #33 roots.jpg

• Melville Hobbes
• Nov 23, 2022
• barney's farm herbies seeds

Do si dos #33
Day 33

I saw this picture on your journal and jaw dropped those roots are Incredible!

 

[Melville Hobbes]

I saw this picture on your journal and jaw dropped those roots are Incredible!

Thanks!
Mycorrhizae are really good for building the roots.

 

[AspenCultivator]

Unless you're thinking of someone else, I transplanted from 1 gallon pots to 3 gallon final pots a few days ago, and one of them had quite the rootball. My soil has mycorrhizal spores mixed in by the manufacturer.
Here's the pic.

Do si dos Grow 23 November 2022 Do si dos #33 roots.jpg

• Melville Hobbes
• Nov 23, 2022
• barney's farm herbies seeds

Do si dos #33
Day 33

Oops, I was thinking of the harvest @OGpapa had...the beers ran deep that night Haha. That transplant is beautiful though and still provides the point mycorrhizae really is awesome.

 

[lootznbootz]

Where do we begin?
I've been wanting to post this update as I went so that it wasn't such a massive undertaking when I finally did.
But there's just been so much going on I wanted to get to a point where I didn't need to do anything else.

So things look a little different in just a couple of days. The easiest thing to note is that we are 6 of 6 from green point with everything having come up above dirt as of 11/29.
The coffee crisps just opened their cotys today and are pointing to the light.


The most notable change is that after seeing and hearing all the talk I figured why not see for myself the results from a SIP.

I love a good DIY and this one was very fun to do.
I followed a couple of different designs to come up with my application, but the principles are the same none the less.

Space is always a determining factor. For this grow I planned on flowering in 3-gal pots max.

So having a 5-gal sip wasn't really ideal for this sized grow.
This drove me the DIY route as a lot of the inserts i saw for sale were for 5 gal buckets.

Alot of the info I found was some sort of 5-gal. Big thanks to @Azimuth for his thread and post on how to make varying sizes.
I'm sure the info was out there but tested results from a trusted member spelling it out for you.
It doesn't get any better than that!

I went with the 2.5-gal bucket from HD.
Originally, I purchased a 1-quart cup but struggled to wrap my head around an idea that I was so sure of when purchasing everything.

This made the bucket super tall and so I hit the drawing board again.
I found a video of a guy using a net cup as his void container.
and then sitting the bucket on top of turned over net cups to give support.

(Pretty sure I can find some of those in a bin somewhere)


Once we resecured our materials a dry fit of everything showed me that using net cups as support wasn't completely practical at least in my situation.

Another bong, another video, another idea!

Eventually my hands just couldn't stop

***********************************************SIP BUCKET*******************************************

First, I measured and cut the hole in the bottom of what will be our top bucket.
I traced the net cup on the bottom of the bucket, then made a couple of marks indicating 1/4" inside the circle I traced. (Ignore the outermost line)

I didn't have a big enough hole saw with me so I made a few holes with the one I had and the carefully cut the rest of the way with a razorblade.

In the end you just want it snug so less is more.

Next, I measured the height of my net cup and cut that much off of my PVC. I then cut the piece in half lengthwise.

Next, Secure these pieces opposite each other in the bottom of the bottom bucket.
I used a small screw and made sure to predrill the holes, so it doesn't crack the pvc.

Next, with the net cup in place slide our top bucket into the bottom bucket
it should sit securely at the bottom without coming up.

This next part was a little frustrating as I kept stressing about my measurements and not wanting to mess up.
(Using white buckets helps a little bit as your able to use a flashlight to see your markings through the bucket while assembling)

With the top bucket and net cup in place ensure that the net cup is sitting flush and measure 1 inch from the top of the netcup toward the bottom of the bucket.
Mark this height as you can see in the picture above on the bottom bucket.
(Again, white buckets here help)

I used a 7/8 hole saw and made sure that the bottom of my hole lined up with my mark.
If you don't compensate here and put your bit on your mark, you will end up with a 1-1/2" hole and that will be too low for this to hold much water.

Before I started, I measured out 1/2 a gallon and a gallon and marked the lines on my bucket.
As you can see this will hold almost 3/4 of a gallon.

Next, using the 7/8-hole saw cut a hole just to the left or right of your air hole.
I believe in Azimuths write up it explains how placing this where to see when your bucket is full at runoff is helpful.
But I did mine upside down and put it on the left of the hole

So, this is a preference thing more than anything just makes sure you can see the air hole while you fill it up.

This part I incorporated directly from @Azimuth

Cut a small piece of your PVC and place it into your coupling. 

Place this into the hole you just cut with small end down into the bottom and place your PVC pipe into the other end of the coupling.
The coupling blocks any dirt from falling through into your bottom bucket.

CONTINUED....

 

[lootznbootz]

Next, Drill a screw into the PVC to hold it steady.

Now that you have that secured drill extra holes in the bottom for added drainage and air exchange

Then, secure both buckets together to bring everything together.

I used a piece of window screen and cut out a circle just bigger than my bucket

Then slide your net cup into the bottom with the screen being pushed into the hole.
This will stop and dirt from getting into your water as well as help prevent pest from getting in.

This part made a lot of sense to me as the root zone has an added level of exposure. Anything to make the life of a pest harder and less inviting I'm down for!

Then, I added some holes in the netcup that will be in our 1" air zone

Finally, black it out! I used black duct tape and electrical tape and just wrapped the bucket tight.
I tried to get every area I could cleanly apply the tape to get as much light blockage as possible.

In the end, you should end up with something like this...

I did apply more tape to the upper rims, so it is as blacked out as possible.

This is it and I really had a blast doing it. Im very excited to see the results and hopefully this grow gives me reason to make 7 more!

 

[lootznbootz]

I plan to continue this update tomorrow so I can be as thorough as possible.
We'll hold off showing off the girls until then keep the suspense built!

As always thank you for your time and
Thanks for stopping by!

 

[Azimuth]

Great looking project lootz!

A few thoughts for your consideration on the next ones.

First, unless you're going to be using these outside in the rain, your overflow hole doesn't need to be that big. I make mine with a soldering iron, so less than 1/4" for me.

Second, your screw holes are going to be a potential leakage point so maybe putting them up higher into the air gap area or even moving them to between the bucket rims could help avoid a leakage issue. I built a version similar to yours and instead for supports used a food storage container slightly narrower than the bucket bottom to hold up a false floor I cut from a bucket Iid. Instead of the net pot I used a salsa container that happened to have a wide rim and that supported the middle of the false floor.

And your fill tube doesn't have to stick up as much (you could put your eye out with that thing ). On mine, they come to just an inch or so above the rim.

But overall, very similar to your design and it worked quite well.

Looking forward to the grow! And maybe cross post your writeup and pictures over in SIP Club. It's very helpful for others to see the various designs, all of which show great results.

 

[Greenvein]

Next, Drill a screw into the PVC to hold it steady.

Now that you have that secured drill extra holes in the bottom for added drainage and air exchange

Then, secure both buckets together to bring everything together.

I used a piece of window screen and cut out a circle just bigger than my bucket

Then slide your net cup into the bottom with the screen being pushed into the hole.
This will stop and dirt from getting into your water as well as help prevent pest from getting in.

This part made a lot of sense to me as the root zone has an added level of exposure. Anything to make the life of a pest harder and less inviting I'm down for!

Then, I added some holes in the netcup that will be in our 1" air zone

Finally, black it out! I used black duct tape and electrical tape and just wrapped the bucket tight.
I tried to get every area I could cleanly apply the tape to get as much light blockage as possible.

In the end, you should end up with something like this...

I did apply more tape to the upper rims, so it is as blacked out as possible.

This is it and I really had a blast doing it. Im very excited to see the results and hopefully this grow gives me reason to make 7 more!

Looks tidy bud nice work! Pays to be handy with tools! Will you just be running one sip system and compare to other pots? I've seen this system online but never seen a grow completed in one so quite intrigued!

 

[AspenCultivator]

That's a cool way to accomplish the sip bucket, nice job! I'm interested in seeing the progress of this bucket compared to the rest of your grow. Will the nutes be the same for both systems? Same lights?

 

[lootznbootz]

Great looking project lootz!

A few thoughts for your consideration on the next ones.

First, unless you're going to be using these outside in the rain, your overflow hole doesn't need to be that big. I make mine with a soldering iron, so less than 1/4" for me.

Second, your screw holes are going to be a potential leakage point so maybe putting them up higher into the air gap area or even moving them to between the bucket rims could help avoid a leakage issue. I built a version similar to yours and instead for supports used a food storage container slightly narrower than the bucket bottom to hold up a false floor I cut from a bucket Iid. Instead of the net pot I used a salsa container that happened to have a wide rim and that supported the middle of the false floor.

And your fill tube doesn't have to stick up as much (you could put your eye out with that thing ). On mine, they come to just an inch or so above the rim.

But overall, very similar to your design and it worked quite well.

Looking forward to the grow! And maybe cross post your writeup and pictures over in SIP Club. It's very helpful for others to see the various designs, all of which show great results.

Thank You Azi, yea I wasn't sure how big the air hole needed to be.
The air gap actually luckily starts just at the bottom of the top bucket.
So, although the hole is that big the bottom of the hole is almost exactly 1 inch from the top of the net cup.
This keeps the water level when full, perfectly where the net cup allows water to enter.

It all Kinda fits like a glove actually I was nervous about making that big of a hole but when I thought it out and cut it and stuck my finger in to feel around, I realized I couldn't have placed it better for this bucket at least.

I couldn't find anything that would fit into these that I liked for a false floor that's why I went the route I did
I found tons of things that would work for a 5-gal tho go figure.
I'll probably go that route if I upsize or find something to fit in the meantime
I wouldn't mind building another one now to fine tune the design like removing the chimney!
Maybe we keep it on for a while in the spirit of Christmas

Thanks again honestly this was made so much easier by your contributions on the subject and the pointers along the way.

 

[lootznbootz]

Looks tidy bud nice work! Pays to be handy with tools! Will you just be running one sip system and compare to other pots? I've seen this system online but never seen a grow completed in one so quite intrigued!

Thank you! Yes, so this is the only one I planned to do next to my other ladies in 3-gal Plastic Pots.
I wanted to give it a try without changing the normal method just yet.
Create a baseline but give us a different variable to follow along the way.
Stick around and we'll see one complete together

 

[lootznbootz]

That's a cool way to accomplish the sip bucket, nice job! I'm interested in seeing the progress of this bucket compared to the rest of your grow. Will the nutes be the same for both systems? Same lights?

Hey @AspenCultivator thank you! So this one is going to be in the AC tent under the LM301H I plan on doing nothing different except HOW we give her water bottom up as opposed to top down.
I have started looking at feeding from the top and watering from the bottom but i know its important to establish the root system to feed bottom up
@Azimuth any thoughts or can you point me to a read on this?

so overall yes same everything just a different bucket is all

 

[lootznbootz]

Ok So aside from the SIP there's also a lot more to be excited about in my grow room overall.

Our 6in inline combo w/smart controller came in for the COB tent.

This tent aside from a couple oscillating fans is ready to go! The smart controller has been set up and dialed as well.

Regarding this tent, this very well may be the last run with it.
It served me well but after setting it up and running some test I realized there's just so many pins hole light leaks.
I covered them all up with black duct tape from the outside but a new one may be on the way.
I think for the sake of this journal, grow, my time and effort if we do end up replacing it, it won't be until I get 1 more harvest out of it at least.
I just set this up finally and redid all cable management, so I don't want to think of swapping it all out.
But it will inevitably have to happen.


As I mentioned earlier, we are a successful 6 of 6 from Greenpoint

They were moving along and drying out their RR.
I didn't have the light intensity up too much, so they started to stretch just a little bit.
They were ready for a transplant so the timing couldn't be more perfect to fix this.

When deciding what to put in the SIP I chose the oldest PBK (bottom left in the picture above)
It had the most roots out the bottom searching for water, it was the oldest and furthest along I felt it was the best choice to go in.

So when I went to mix up some soil to transplant I opened my bag and had some fruit flys buzzing around.
I grabbed a bottle of SNS 203

I love this stuff its available locally smells amazing and works noticeably quickly as in the little bastards avoid anything this stuff touches.
Being that I needed to do a soil drench with this stuff tho you can use it as a foliar application as well it was good timing I guess that I had to wet the soil after transplanting.

For the ladies going into solo cups I mixed 3 cups of soil with about 3 cups of Vermiculite
as the local shop was out of small bags of perlite
dusted the soil with a decent amount of mycorrhizae and mixed.

I put a little vermiculite in the bottom of the cups for drainage and added my mix
I dusted the holes for the RR with a little more mycorrhizae and planted each RR making sure to bury the leggy stems just a little bit.

I mixed up 1-gal of R/O water with 2 ounces of SNS and watered to a slight run off.
Making sure to water slowly and evenly. It took 1 solo cup of water to water all 3.

For the SIP bucket.

I rinsed the vermiculite and packed it into my net cup

Then I made a soil mix similar to my solo cups.
soil vermiculite and mycorrhizae with a handful or so of clay pellets that I rinsed and tossed in for aeration

I filled up my bucket with soil and filled my reservoir with my SNS water mix.

Then I transplanted my PBK seedling with the same procedure dusting the hole with Myco and burying the seedling just a bit.
I used only 1 pint of SNS water to slowly water from the top and help secure my seedling in the transplant.
I tried to work inside out going very slowly 1 pint stretched a decent amount and I probably could've done less water here.

After reading more I wont be watering from the top anymore. I did get a lid that I will be adding to the bucket to cover the topsoil to avoid it from drying out as much and retain moisture a little bit.

I placed it about 20 inches under the light and cranked it up

I put the solo cups on a makeshift stand front their future homes to be about level with the SIP bucket and set the light to the same height and intensity

We're Growing ladies and gentlemen!

The CC are still in their RR and will be transplanted using the same method later on today when the light comes on
depending on their progress.

As for the other strains we started forever ago I tossed them all.
I opened up all the RR and nothing had even cracked except 1 Fruit SLAP.
It means nothing and the show continues!
NO MORE OLD SEEDS

Temps are fine humidity has been low one of my humidifiers crapped out already so I have to return it and wait to get a refund so I can order the other model that I have.
I should have the replacement in the next couple of weeks.
I am going to put the working one inside the tent and try to raise the humidity as much as I can, but it's a constant battle.

I will be posting more pictures today in a couple of hours it's just been busy as you can see!

As always Thank you for your time &Thanks for stopping by!

 

[AspenCultivator]

Really great setup here Lootz, good to see them in their pots!

In a SIP, does the soil need to retain moisture more than a normal soil wet/dry grow? Vermiculite retains water where perlite will drain it, I don't believe they can be used interchangeably. From all the reading I've done on watering to a wet/dry cycle, if you use vermiculite it'll hold on to water for entirely too long. But like I said if SIP is different, I'll sit down and learn some more .

 

[lootznbootz]

Really great setup here Lootz, good to see them in their pots!

In a SIP, does the soil need to retain moisture more than a normal soil wet/dry grow? Vermiculite retains water where perlite will drain it, I don't believe they can be used interchangeably. From all the reading I've done on watering to a wet/dry cycle, if you use vermiculite it'll hold on to water for entirely too long. But like I said if SIP is different, I'll sit down and learn some more .

Thank you It's been some work to get here I'm just glad it's finally underway.

From my understanding the water is wicked from the net cup and keeps the soil moisture constant for the plant.
The SIP should eliminate the wet/dry cycle.

I think that's why the vermiculite will work because it does hold water so well
it will stay saturated and act as a wick.
Tho it holds water better than perlite it will only hold so much, and the soil will absorb what it cannot hold.

Thats my thinking at least and let's hope my thoughts and the conversation with my local shop don't prove detrimental

 

[AspenCultivator]

Thank you It's been some work to get here I'm just glad it's finally underway.

From my understanding the water is wicked from the net cup and keeps the soil moisture constant for the plant.
The SIP should eliminate the wet/dry cycle.

I think that's why the vermiculite will work because it does hold water so well
it will stay saturated and act as a wick.
Tho it holds water better than perlite it will only hold so much, and the soil will absorb what it cannot hold.

Thats my thinking at least and let's hope my thoughts and the conversation with my local shop don't prove detrimental

That's what I was wondering as well, I just remember @Azimuth mentioning in another thread wick or swick pots aren't the same as sip, so I didn't know if the wicking behavior of the vermiculite would be beneficial or not. I'm definitely interested in how this one goes!

How does your AC tent handle maintaining temp and humidity? Are there special plugs those devices/fans plug in to that get triggered on or off? Or do the devices themselves have that capability? I'm using WiFi plugs to control my exhaust fan and humidifier, so I can turn them on remotely (or in my case via a program) to keep the environment where it needs to be.

 

[lootznbootz]

That's what I was wondering as well, I just remember @Azimuth mentioning in another thread wick or swick pots aren't the same as sip, so I didn't know if the wicking behavior of the vermiculite would be beneficial or not. I'm definitely interested in how this one goes!

How does your AC tent handle maintaining temp and humidity? Are there special plugs those devices/fans plug in to that get triggered on or off? Or do the devices themselves have that capability? I'm using WiFi plugs to control my exhaust fan and humidifier, so I can turn them on remotely (or in my case via a program) to keep the environment where it needs to be.

Yes, I do remember seeing that.
Someone had suggested the AC Infinity Self Watering pots that use the Swick method as opposed to the sip like were doing here.

I saw a video explaining to use vermiculite because of this reason that it will hold onto water much better and will not break down as easily.
The soil will try to find a balance of wet and dry with regard to how much moisture it has vs how much it needs from the res.
It should find this balance naturally and then we maintain the water level in the res to accommodate that.

Again at least this is all my understanding of it from what I've read and how I've seen it applied. So, I think it might work to our benefit actually. We'll see...

As far as my tent and maintaining temps compared to other grows its night and day!
I set the limits and walk away
It's become more of a challenge not to adjust the temp of my house and throw off the balance of the room the tent is in.

I keep the home thermostat on 73F 74F max.

The tent stays 79F and that's with the inline fan limit set to 6 of 10

The fan kicks on more or less as needed but never shuts off lower than 2 of 10

Everything plugs into the smart controller via a usb-c cable. They have adapters for non-AC infinity equipment as well.
I plan on getting one of those for my COB lights so that it can be controlled through the controller and app.

The lights came with their own controllers, but I disconnected those and used the smart controller
The fan that I purchased has a speed controller, but I used their adapter cable for their older models to plug in the smart controller
They sell humidifiers that plug into their smart controller, but they were out of stock so that's the only part of the AC tent that does plug into or isn't controlled by the smart controller

I have their app on my phone and can control everything more in depth and easier with that via Bluetooth.

I tested out running both tents yesterday with max lights and the tents would both go no higher than 80F but the fans went to max (level 6)
I will have to SLIGHTLY crack the window in the grow room to allow air exchange and for the room to cool off a tad bit and now the environment is an after thought