Finally Finished My Tent! Input Appreciated!

[Bashar Assad]

Alright so I've been reading online teks, forums, stickies, guides and even the medical Marijuana bible from front to back. After over 3 months of reading and asking questions I've completed my little hydroponic set up and tent as well as a germination/seedling area. So any input or advice is welcomed, here it is......

Germination/seedling closet

-2'x3'x6' mylar walled closet
-12"x18"x20"Tupperware humidifier
-analogue hygro/therm
-12" oscillating fan
-60w 450nm blue/6.5k white led on pulley

Grow room equipment

Tent
-2'x4'x6' mylar lined tent w/four 4" ports

Hydroponics
-Two 5 gallon buckets w/6" net baskets with 8" plant pots glued around them
-6" drip rings fed by a 70gph pump connected to a 30 min incrimant timer
-hydroton clay pellets

Lighting
-300w 6-band/ir/uv/12k lux LED
-150w 670nm red/450nm blue led

Venting and cooling
-5000btu a/c ducted to tent used as intake air
-4" inline exhaust fan w/controller leading to carbon filter
-12" oscillating fan
-2x4" clip on fans
-Two 25L capacity water chillers

Oxygen
-8lpm dual outlet air pump leading to two 2"x4" air stones

Meters
-pH meter with screw adjustment
-pH meter w/temp correction and 3 point dip and set calibration
-TDS meter w/temp correction
-watt/amp usage meter

Chemicals
-AN grow/bloom/micro
-fungicide
-pesticide
-pH 4 7 10 calibration solutions
-1000ppm calibration solution
-hygrozine root protector

That's pretty much what my set up consists of and I'm pretty happy with it. Right now with everything running I hit an average tent temp of 76*F with the lights on and an ambient temp of 80*F outside the tent. At lights off it goes down to about 65*F in the tent. Water reservoir temp is usually between 60-65*F. I have a negative tent pressure and I checked all the electrical and made sure to spread the heavy power using items between two circuits.

I have two test run 7 dwarfs auto fem seeds in the humidifier right now and they are just poking out of the rock woll after 3 days! This is so much fun to do! Tbh this activity has gotten me out of a horrible depression.

Anyways input and such is welcome thanks!

 

[Bulldog11]

Nobody cares Bashar Assad. Was the name Adolf Hitler already taken?

 

[Bashar Assad]

I don't think my political beliefs and such have anything to do with this thread. I'm simply asking if what I have will work out for me, not who can get offended by something as simple as a name. Jeez.

 

[Bulldog11]

"as simple as a name" Come on, let's not be naive. Ron, Dan, Jose, Mark. Those are just names.

 

[Bashar Assad]

Okay I see your point and it's vadility. Tbh this account I made a while ago and I was really into learning about Syria at that time. I think I chose the name cuz I was watching a BBC or CBS thing and a corespondate was badgering bashar about barrel bombs and basher said something I found really funny about how his country has cooking pots but they don't make bombs with them. And this went back and forth between them for 10 minutes. It was just really funny to see a countries leader patronize a foreign news agent like he did.

But this thread is about my tent! Not my name.

 

[lollipopman]

Looks like you got everything covered,

I don't care what your screen name is. You can call your self fo fo kitty fuck. Just be prepared for the back lash of using that name..

 

[Bashar Assad]

Thanks for the on topic reply! Okay good now I just gotta make sure I can do the hard part... grow heh

 

[tobh]

Looks like your on track to a successful grow. One question, you list pesticide and fungicide. What chemicals are you using for these purposes? Be mindful what you put on/in your plants, you'll be ingesting these things at some point either via combustion or another method. Some chemicals don't just go away and are highly toxic.

On the topic of your name, don't let it bother you. Had a friend who's nickname was Hitler in high school. Dude caught so much flack, but no one understood why he had that name. Was a HUGE WWII buff, knew enough to write an encyclopaedia about it. As far as people were concerned, he was a racist and deserved to get jumped often. Needless to say, I handled quite a bit of dirt for the kid because he was the most solid cat I've ever met. A name means little if the person behind it is good.

One Love,
tobh

 

[Bashar Assad]

I've been having a horrible day and your comment about my name actually made me smile and feel better, thanks! It actually means a lot heh. Yea it's just a name, like I read a lot of stuff in Syria and the alawites and I met a girl who is part Syrian and is pro assad and when I made the account it was something I was really into. I in no way using it as a way to fuel any fires or be a troll. Literally it was him saying he had a lack of cooking pot bombs that made me want to use the name.

But now that's going off topic heh.

I don't have the fungicide or pesticide handy but it is like a soap of some sort solution. It's not like some inorganic DDT death chemical. It doesn't have a poison warning and is safe for pets to be around I'm more using them as a preventative measure by spraying down the apartment floors/walls and often touched surfaces (door knobs etc) to kill any bug eggs or resting molds/fungus.

 

[Bashar Assad]

Alright so I've been up for a while already and I decided to tinker with my germination room. I've tried a few seeda already to figure out how to germinate and start seedlings and I've never been able to get the 60w led dialed into where the plants won't stretch or dry up to fast. So I've decided to switch up the lights in there. Seeing as my first real attempt seeds just pop'd, I figured I don't have the time to fiddle with the led nor do I want to stress my Lil plantys.

So the germination area is the same but I was thinking of switching the led to this:

-2x florescent 24" full spectrum tubes with reflector 900 lumens each
-4x 42w cfl's 6500k cool white

Basically I was going to suspend the reflector 8" above the cubes. I'd have the cubes dead center of the tubes. Then on either side of the humidity dome (it's lid is off by this point) I'd plug 2 of the cfl's into sockets on a PowerBar anchored down to the floor. They'd be about 4" away from the cubes.

I think this will be a lot easier to deal with than playing with my led and will cut out the stretching and heat issue.

I was going to go to the hardware store today to pick up this stuff, anNY suggestions are more than welcone!

 

[tobh]

Alright, so you're on track right there for a seedling area. My suggestion is keep those bad boys within 2" of the plants though. So long you have a fan blowing across the lights your heat issues will be non-existent and you will not see any severe stretch.

 

[Bashar Assad]

Alrighty I'll try to get the bulbs as close as I can to two inches. I'm just about to go shopping and pick up all this stuff!

Now I have one more small problem. One of my seedlings managed to heave itself up from the rw cube and now is on its side :/ I'm not sure how to deal with this as I don't want to prod it and break its tap root or something. I was thinking of putting a prop of some sort into the cube and leaning the sprout on it to point it upwards. Then use a weak light a little to high above it so it stretches for the light readjusts itself up instead of sideways. I'll put up a pic.

 

[Bashar Assad]

So I ended up buying these from Wal mart and rona.....

Three 40w 4100k, 150w equivalent, 2600 lumen cool white cfl's

Three 4' power cords with light sockets at the end

I hung the cfls 6" directly above the seedlings with a 12" oscillating fan blowing on them horizontally and a 4" fan diagonally blowing down on the cfl's and swaying the seedlings. To propd up the seedling with a piece of plant tie, looped in a u shape that's in between the cube and cube holder.

The humidifier is at 81*F and 40% RH with the lights on and ambient air temp is 78*F. This seem like a good set up?

(The tubes get here on Wednesday and I'll be hanging them up above the plants then)

 

[tobh]

Bump that humidity up to around 60%, 40% is a bit low. Otherwise sounds good.

 

[Bashar Assad]

Just added a water dish into the container and the humidity is now around 45 - 50% RH. Any other ways I can bump up the humidity? Should I mist the walls of the container periodically? I'm home a lot so it wouldn't be a problem doing it every now and then.

 

[tobh]

There's multiple methods though none I've tried have worked aside from buying a relatively cheap ultrasonic humidifier for children at walmart. Since then, I've had no humidity issues. I'm also in a very arid environment (high desert) where humidity ranges from 18% on hot days to 30% on cooler days.

You can try a tray with a few inches of perlite and a bit of water in it (I use this method when growing mushrooms using a particular tek), there's also the option of a dish of water with a towel just barely hanging into it. It'll wick the water up and slowly allow it to evaporate though depending on climate it has little effect, maybe a couple percentage points. Another option is misting the walls but that will only help for a few minutes at a time. 45 - 50% is better than 40% for sure. I tend to run around 50% on most days, some days I turn up the humidifier to get it up to 60%. It all depends on temperature as well. Lower temp = less humidification. Higher temp = more humidification. Humidity goes up as temp goes down and vis a vis.

Research VPD, Seamaiden has an excellent thread about it linked in her signature. Highly recommend gaining an understanding of it as it is vital to proper transpiration and plant growth. Once you have proper VPD, your plants health will be more significant and they'll grow a bit better.

 

[Bashar Assad]

I just got up a few hours ago (no idea why I slept for 16 hours last night but I'll make sure to be productive tonight lol) and I checked my seedlings. The lights have been on since 6am and the temp on the digital therm wad 87*F and the humidity on the digital hygro wad 50% RH.

Now these stats aren't what I want them to be so I made the following changes. First I lifted the 12" oscillating fan so it'll blow more on the bulbs and into where the seedlings are because it's not as obstructed by the seedling container. Next I added a ice pack to the water dish in the container to help lower temp. After one hour the humidity was still 50% and the temp had gone down to 85*F. I decided to run the ac into the room and put it on max and opened the tent so the cold air would vent out. After 30 min the temp is now 82*F and the RH is 50%.

I just remembered I have a humidifier that I used to use when I grew mushrooms so I think I'll clean it up and run it in my seedling closet. Perfect!

 

[Bashar Assad]

I thought I'd post a few pics of my tent!:)

 

[Bashar Assad]

Here's the seedling room! I decided to turn on the ac and buy a decent humidifier from shoppers and the temp is 78*F and the RH is 56%. I'm going to move the humidifier in closer to the seedling.

 

[tobh]

Now that's what I'm talking about! 78*F and 56% is much better! Problem solving, you are. Now try and maintain that for the next few months and you'll get across the finish line in beautiful fashion so long your other variables don't fry things.