1000W T5 - 48 Cubic Foot - Organic Soil - New Grower - SCROG - 2015

[T5Noob]

Grow Box Size: 3 foot tall x 8 feet wide x 2 feet deep

Material - 3/4 inch birch plywood covered in mylar, sealed air tight.

Lighting T5 HO- 450 watt bulb on the back wall, 350 w overhead, 250 w on the side. = 1000 total watts.
I think 80k+ lumens. I have the blue 6500 bulbs and the 3500 red bulbs for flowering.

Ventilation:200 CFM fan with Phresh carbon filter outletting through a 4 inch HVAC system straight to the outdoors. 4 inch backflow prevention inlet on the other side with an in line fan sucking air in from basement.

12 Plants, From Seed, 4 each of Blue Pearl, Pineapple Haze, Blueberry kush.

Plan on also using:
PH up, down, organic soil, organic nutes, CO2 source for 6 month term. 3 Gallon pots. Scrog netting, and a hoist so I can keep the plants close to the top lights after topping them once.


1. This is in the basement, the box is air tight minus the built in hvac system that vents outside after carbon filter. Is it possible to eliminate smell or should I still plan on the flowering stinking up my whole basement?

2. Even with the 200 CFM fan and intake fan, my box's temprature starts at 60 degrees lights off, and raises to 90 degrees after two hours of operation. This is with both fans continously on. Am I just using too much power or can I find a creative way to stabilize the temp? The incoming air is 60 degrees, 40% humidity. At 200 CFM I assumed it would be cycling the whole boxes air almost once a minute, so it would be almost chilly. Am I missing something?

3. What should I expect to yield off this type of system? It is 1000 total watts. Is the height max of 30 inches going to kill my gram/watt ratio?

4. Suggestions for improvement?

 

[Light Addict]

Subbed
I'm no techie guy so might not be able to help much with your setup etc.
If your going to use CO2 enrichment then higher temps are actually ok, as the plants can handle it more with added CO2. You may just have to upgrade your extraction fan is all as you have a lot of tubes in there so lots of heat generated. As for smell during flowering, as long as your extraction fan is creating good negative pressure then your filter system will be just fine!

as your scrogging height wont be an issue and certainly wont hinder your end weight! Best of luck!

 

[HunterHunt]

Wow some many T5's!! Im here to watch this!

 

[T5Noob]

I am ready to start but cant keep the temps down. The fan is cycling the air in the box 3.5x per minute but the temps increasing 7 degrees per hour. I yanked the cord on it yesterday at 92 degrees after 3 hours of running and it was still increasing. Anyone who can help me with the ventilation issue or that has experience with a similar setup Id love to hear ideas. This is already the max cfm 4 inch fan. I hate to have to redo everything in 6 inch...or to not use one of the lights.

 

[HunterHunt]

You should be pulling air from a separate room than you are ventilating to that way it never circulates the same hot air. As long as you are doing this then the only other options that i know are install an AC or upgrade to bigger fans... You can try moving your carbon filter to the top of the box since heat rises.. It may drop your temps a few degrees.

On a side note may i ask whats the point in all the T5 fixtures and not just a HPS or LED that would be a lot more efficient especially with the wattage you are drawing? That whole room is covered in lights so i would think heat is always going to give you an issue...

 

[7Dust]

yeah good setup but might be to much heat. CFLs t5s are tuff. i use both on veg stag. but i use LEDs on flowering.
once flowering stage kicks in on t5s and cfls seems to get them alot stress with heat.
one way you will or might see is tips of leaves will burn first and it looks like calc/mag deficiency right off the bat. but it will be from the heat. found out that the hard way. dont make same mistake.

 

[T5Noob]

I was told from hydro shop that the cfls for that space would be less heat than 2 450 hps which was my original thought as to why the t5s. I couldnt find tons of good data on them either though.

You should be pulling air from a separate room than you are ventilating to that way it never circulates the same hot air. As long as you are doing this then the only other options that i know are install an AC or upgrade to bigger fans... You can try moving your carbon filter to the top of the box since heat rises.. It may drop your temps a few degrees.

On a side note may i ask whats the point in all the T5 fixtures and not just a HPS or LED that would be a lot more efficient especially with the wattage you are drawing? That whole room is covered in lights so i would think heat is always going to give you an issue...

 

[HunterHunt]

I was told from hydro shop that the cfls for that space would be less heat than 2 450 hps which was my original thought as to why the t5s. I couldnt find tons of good data on them either though.

You could have did 2-400 watt cool tube HPS's. My 600 watt only raises the temps about 2-4 degrees with my 6 inch fan. If you have not seen them yet the bulb is in a glass tube and it goes in your ventilation and sucks the hot air out. Im sure you would have been ok with the Cooltube HPS. They would have ran cooler than all those exposed bulbs im sure!

But you already have things setup and purchased so i would try and work things out on your setup. I dont know how you have the air coming in but you could always put another intake line if the one you have is not that big. That way the fan can suck more air and lower temps. I dont see a fan in your pictures? Do you have one circulating the hot air?

 

[T5Noob]

So if i run it without the side light and do 2 hours on 15 minutes rest it works great never breaks 80 degrees never below 70.

Anyone have experience with resting their box? It would be 4 rest periods per day. So id be running something like
4
15 off
2
15 off
2
15 off
2
15 off
2
15 off
2
15 off
4 on
4 hours off (night)

(Was going to veg on 20/4)

 

[T5Noob]

So if i run it without the side light and do 2 hours on 15 minutes rest it works great never breaks 80 degrees never below 70.

Anyone have experience with resting their box? It would be 4 rest periods per day. So id be running something like
4
15 off
2
15 off
2
15 off
2
15 off
2
15 off
2
15 off
4 on
4 hours off (night)

(Was going to veg on 20/4)

Would consider doing 14/10 flowering with 4 15 minute rests thrown in. Like it was super tropical except an occasional cloud
During flowering the 3500 red bulbs might not be as hot may be able to run more consistently.

Then using the extra light in a 2nd box for a mother plant
Is this rest concept a bad idea?

The only other thing i can do is change the hvac to all 6 inches but it would require tons of work.

 

[HunterHunt]

I have no experience with rest times as i always do 18/6 for veg and 12/12 for flower. I personally would not do the on off scheduled you have. Maybe someone that has done it can speak up and give you some advice and you can see their growth rates with a scheduled like this.

I hate to recommend anything else because you already have a lot of equipment. Your other options are to possibly get 2 LED lights which should put off less heat or what i would recommend is the 2 400 or 600 watts with cooltubes. The cooltubes come in 6 inch duct but you can simply put a 4inch adapter on them and run with your current duct. 600 watt with ballast and cooltubes and HPS bulb with timers run right at $155. Not only are you going to get a lot better yield than what you would get with your setup but with the 60 degree air circulating it may only raise your box 2-10 degrees with 2 lights! Like i said my 600 raises temps only around 4 degrees with the same temp air circulating.

Personally i would not change out all the HVAC ducting... Its what you think will be easier once you try all your options. Like light addict said if you are running CO2 higher temps are ok. You may want to try a run with the setup you have as with CO2 your plants may be ok!

Good luck!

 

[c526]

that is a ton of t-5,the best way to remove heat is to remove ballasts from units and place them outside of room

It is not the bulbs giving heat.

if ya get adventurous look into aquarium bulbs for them,supercharge the t-5,make them par specific,like led

here is a 6500 and a 5000k bulb combo

 

[7Dust]

im kinda agree on that. its going be rough heat on them. might have to do something or anything you can to make sure its less heat. i keep mine between 65-80 max i use 4-CFLs and 2-T5 too but there walmart brands. L-cheep ohs. and i stay around 75 in winter time but summer is really hard on them , seems like everytime temp hits 81 i have a heat problem show up on the leaves. just becareful and aware of it.

 

[T5Noob]

Put in two 100 cfm intake fans, one on top one on bottom. That plus the 200 cfm outtake with phresh filter and I got the temps down and can control to whatever I want within 65-85 degrees. Now to address the humidity (25% currently) and get sprouts going.

Also purchased seeds from High Grade Seeds online, amazing how fast I got the product. Good price, good looking beans. Literally 5 days, no issues with receiving them from Canada. Highly recommend to anyone struggling to get seeds.

 

[7Dust]

 

[T5Noob]

So, I planted 30 seeds total. Tried paper towel, wash cloth (Both in seed dome thing), soil + normal light and temps, and also rock wool, normal lights and temps.

Germination rate on paper towel was like 55%, wash cloth 25% (Too moist I think), soil 75%, and rock wool a staggering 100%. Every single seed in rock wool produced a sprout.

Some questions on the rock wool. About HALF of the seedlings are growing in the WRONG direction, tap root coming up, and cycleoids (or whatever) going down. They havent sprouted them yet but will soon. Should I flip those over and trim the rock wool so they can come through the former bottom?

Also, photo attached. I have a couple plants that are about 2 weeks old. One of them is going GREAT (Pineapple) and one has growth insanely thick and started to yellow from bottom up. It is about 8 inches tall. Is this a N deficiency? I repotted it today with an organic veg fert added in per instructions, 3 tsb per 1 gallon pot. LOVE to get some help on this plant so she (hopefully she) doesn't die.

 

[7Dust]

seed must been upside down when planted in the rockwool . there is a bump on one end face them down. that is where the root will come out. pointy end is the up.

i wouldnt do anything yet for the yellowing leave on bottom. bottom leave will die some. few will no mater what you do. the diffency might not be that. so wait. let plant grow more before adding anything. Nitrogen diff will be all over the plant. 9 out of 10 when plant has something wrong first is mag/cal. but its hard to tell on lower leave alot of them will die off because the top of the plant is drawing all the energy to it.
best advice wait for little bti more before doing anything.

 

[David Bowman]

Hope all is well in your world.

Is this grow still alive?

We would love to be updated with some pictures and info.

How about posting a 420 Strain Review?

If you need any help with posting photos, please read our Photo Gallery Tutorial.

I am moving this to Abandoned Journals until we get updates.

Sending you lots of love and positive energy.

 

[T5Noob]

Update:
I have 5 plants about 18 inches tall each. Going to put them into flowering next week after I make sure I have viable clones of each of them, properly labeled.

The temps are just getting to be an issue again because I have almost all the bulbs on in the T5s, but its really overpowered. Installed a 2nd 4 inch vent fan in so there is continous 300 CFM in, 240 out. The average temp is 78 or so. They are growing about 1-2 inches every 4 days or so. I only know that because I left four days and they grew into the light. Some have light heat burn but nothing major.

The air pots do seem to work better than the plastics.

5 Plants are labeled in the photo. I have no clue which are male or female but it seems clear that 2 plants are tall and thin, and three are ridiculously bushy. I topped ALL 5 plants with success, and can now see the two cola buds on each starting to come through. One of them I accidentally double topped in one cut, and it forced out an entire new main shoot alltogether (Far left plant).

Some questions:

When I flower these suckers will it still take the 8-10 weeks it says on the strain guides? Or far less since they are small bushy little suckers?

Any way that the tall thin ones are for sure males or may those still be females?

I bought organic bloom booster fertilizer and it says to add 2 TSB per 90 days, when plants go into flowering. Should I just put that on the top and water it in and it will dissipate into the soil? Its dry powder.

When I am clipping clones do I want to mostly clean up the bottom 4-6 inches of plant stalk in doing so since those areas don't produce buds anyways?

Any suggestions appreciated.

 

[HunterHunt]

It will still take the 8-10 weeks no matter how big the plants are. The longer you veg them the bigger the plants will be and the more weight they will produce. But you have to have the light to produce it or it doesnt matter. I have no experience with floro's as ive never used them. But I can tell you a little about how the all other lights work and what you can expect.

If you are using for example 200 watts of draw wattage with your lights the most bud you will ever get in the best scenario would be 200 grams. It doesnt matter if you have 1 plant or 20 plants you will still only get 200 grams of bud. This is how I try and educate people on how important light is and what to expect out of your grow. This is why i Dislike LED's. I use HID setup and its the most efficient and the best lighting source out there. Bottom line... Draw wattage is what matters and the amount of energy you put in is what you will get out.

Personally i like using very few plants 1-2 with a big 600 watt HPS. This gives me monster buds bigger than my arm and they are SUPER easy to trim and the buds are much better. I dislike trimming popcorn buds and usually just throw them in and make butter. Takes to long other wise and the buds are just small and airy.

To answer your question "When I am clipping clones do I want to mostly clean up the bottom 4-6 inches of plant stalk in doing so since those areas don't produce buds anyways?":
That is up to you. I dont defoilate any more and never will again. Most all LED growers do because they dont have enough light to penetrate the canopy. I have did side by side test and know that it does HURT growth. I let my girls naturally shed the fan leaves they dont need. Now trimming the lower colas that will not do anything is ok. If they are super small and not growing under the plant you can trim them after the stretch is when I usually do it. Play around and find out what works for you.