Small CFL Grow - Blueberry - Hydro - First Grow

Hey Jack,

I see you said you have 8 6500 cfl's. How many are you going to run while they are seedlings? Also you'll find very fast just as you already have that those cfl's pipe out a lot of heat in a small area! I use them as well but when using them you can sure bet you'll have some added unwanted heat! What I do on my set up which is individual 5 gallon buckets. I place each bucket into its own plastic dish pan. Then each day ill place 4 or 5 bottles of frozen water around the bucket which rest inside the wash pan. I keep it in the wash pan as when the frozen water starts to melt, you'll have water from that everywhere. When I take out the unfrozen water bottles I just dry them off and then dry the inside of the dish pan. Then I just throw the bottles back in the freezer for another go around. Its a pain in the butt having to do all the frozen bottles of water but its by far the cheapest thing you can do! Also, don't place frozen bottles of water inside your container either!! If you do that, more often than not your roots will stick to the bottles and then of course when you're taking them out of the container you'll be taking out a lot of your roots with them. They will stick all over the plastic bottles when they are cold as well when they warm! Also never place ice inside your container either! As you already know the ice will throw off your ph real fast. Plus if you're not making the water and balancing it all out before you freeze it, then of course you'll have issues with that water as well.

I'll also let you know that while your seedlings are small. Get you some more bubbler stones ordered, ASAP! I know it might look like four of those will be enough for your set up. But, there's NO WAY four be enough. The root system with DWC gets huge and what happens is your stones will be right under a huge section of those roots. Once they start getting big you'll find out real fast you've got to have more stones inside your container! Otherwise root rot is right around the corner. Before I finally realized I needed more stones in my buckets it was almost too late, YES ROOT ROT was creeping towards my girls! I now have three 4" stones in each bucket. You might want to also buy some more air pumps when you order more stones as well. I have each bucket on its own air pump along with the 3 stones in each bucket. If you only use the four stones you have. When you open you container up in around 4 or 5 weeks, you wont even be able to tell that you have stones in there working as they will all be getting covered by the roots!

And what you're going to find out real fast is with that heat from your lights its all going to affect the water temps! So the more stones you have inside that container the better you'll be off. The more stones means more oxygen and thats what will help you avoid the dreaded root rot which comes on very fast in DWC. The root rot comes on even faster when you have too much heat inside your box. If you can, place your air pump on the outside of your box. The only reason for that is to have one less item inside your grow box putting out heat. Most of the time when those are running they have an operating temp close to 100 degrees! Mine usually run around 96 or so. But its best to have them outside your box if you can! Also make sure you place your air pump higher than your container you're growing in. Otherwise you'll need to put a loop in your air line to make sure it doesn't back flow water to the inside of your pump. They sell these little devices you can put on your air line but putting a loop in your line does the same thing and thats free to do, LOL.

Jack, be sure to ask questions when you have them. I'm subbing to this as well and I'll be checking it a couple times a day to see if you need help with anything! Good luck with all of this stuff and just ask if you need help, take care.
 
Thanks Heirloom and Jimmy V. That is a lot of great information. I really appreciate it. How could I do co2 in the box? Wouldn't the fan have to be off? I'm running only 4 lights one for each lady while they are seedlings. I got a fan today so I'm hoping to switch to all 8 lights soon I have 4 side lights as well. They might not get used this grow. Depends on the temps. . I will be getting another 10 gallon tub placing a couple frozen two liters in it then sit my box on top. If the temps get to high. The air pump feels pretty cool to the touch. I tossed the pool ph out after the first bit I used. I have used a little vinegar the last 2 days. I got some ph up and down today. so hopefully my ph trouble are over. Thank you guys again so very much for all the great info. Here are a couple of the girls a couple days ago. I think they look happy .
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back two are doing great. The front 2 are doing pretty good, I'm having a good time, reading, learning and doing. I've got sone tap water dechlorinating . I'll add a bit tomorrow. My rapid rooters are pretty dry. Is this OK if the are some roots coming out of the sides touching wet grow stones ?
 
Jack pot Brad

Hey man I'm glad you could use some of the info a i passed along to you! About that CO2 stuff. Your temps will need to be 85 to get any benefit from the CO2. And you'll want your fans turned off for the entire time your CO2 system is running and for at least 2 to 3 hours after its done running its cycle for the day. Most the time I do a 3 hour CO2 cycle a day on them. Just make sure you don't have any air ducting moving the air around in your box, or like scrubbing or filtering the air. All of that of course will take the CO2 right back out of the room and all your effort will be blown! Just make sure if you start using CO2, to wait for at least 2 to 3 hours for you or anyone else to open the grow box. And thats the same for your fans and the ducting. Doing CO2 usually sounds good to most people. But, let me tell you its a lot of extra effort as well as work. You'll have to set up your system which isn't the easiest thing to do btw. You'll have to have the expensive hardware that goes along with the tank and the refills as well. Plus make sure you cover up that big tank moving it in and out of your house. The only people with those tanks are people with home brew systems and growers, lol.

You can find some good reads in the forum on setting up your CO2 and all of that stuff. You'll just need to spend some good amount of time reading and figuring out what level and flow rate you'll be doing in the box. You know they make a Areal simple set up now! Its cheap as well! Its like $139.00 and its a bucket of CO2 which last for 3 months for a room up to a 10x10. So for your box it should last longer, haha. These buckets once it all runs out you can buy the refills for like $99 bucks and then you'll get another 3 months or maybe more in your case! The price around here to fill the 20 pound tanks is $25 bucks. Those 20 pound tanks don't last too long either. So for ease of having to haul tanks around as well as being a little stealthy, I'd go for the CO2 bucket. Well take care and let us know how its going!
 
Oh about the roots coming out and touching the wet grow stones, totally fine and no problems with that at all. I usually feed mine daily with water on the cube, like grodan. I don't over water them but you sure don't ever want them to start going dry or in most cases its already too late to correct the dry issue. Once I see several roots coming out, then into the buckets they go. Also even though they have grown up some and you place them inside your container. You're going to want to water them a little each day, water only NO NUTES!! Well take care and keep,us posted!
 
Thanks Jimmy V and Heirloom. I'll probably skip the co2 for a while. Sounds kinda involved and I'm a pot head. I like to keep it as simple as possible. I'm hoping they aren't quite as dry as they look on the top. I'm going to water them when the lights come back in a couple hours. I've been playing led Zeppelin for the girls a couple hours a day. I am pretty sure they like it. I know I do. Zeppelin and a little symphonic stuff. I need cultured blueberry babies great advice you guys! Aloha!
 
Jack pot Brad,

Your plants are looking pretty good! I hate to hear that you lost one but we all know thats going to happen from time to time! Keep playing the music to your little ones I'm sure they like it. Just don't sing along with the music though as you might stunt the rest of their growth, LOL!! Nah just having some fun with you, heck you might be a good singer for all I know haha. Anyhow, keep us posted and let us know if you need any help, take care!
 
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these are the 2 remaining girls. Another one was having problems with moisture, too much/not enough. These last 2 are looking great. I'm kinda excited because there was only room for 2 in my box anyway. The 4 were going to have to be small. These can stretch a little. I switched to fox farms hydro instead of maxigrow. I also switched 2 cfl 6500s for CFL 2700s. So I only have 4 lights running as of right now 2 And 2. I also started using a small amount of h2o2 to help prevent high temp root problems. This is day 28.
 
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these girls are amazing! I'm proud. This is day 28. Praying everything keeps going this well. Fox farms +a couple caps of h2o2 seems to be the ticket. plus proper
ph ing. I'm stoked about the journal . Do these roots look right? A few seem to be really branched out. Thanks for reading . I appreciate all the help I've gotten so far .
 
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roots galore! They are super healthy. No brown spots . This is the setup . I am running 7 lights total 23w 6, 2700k and 1, 6500k just for good measure. 161 total watts approx 11,000 lumens. The temp is around 85. I was previously only running 4 lights. I just turned the fan up and tilted the hood to allow for better air flow. Also is there a way too edit photos and rotate them?
 
Awe nuts looks like I have a damn boy. So I'm going for seed this first round. I pollinated the girl and tossed the male. She is looking pretty good though. I hope they come close enough to smoke by Dec 20. I'm moving back to outlaw land f-ING Mississippi. I have to sell the box probably. I hate leaving Hawaii. Family. Oh if it wasn't for family .....
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