Natural Progression - It is time for UC

[lava]

Day 3 of flower

That was fast, 20 days from start to plant. Of course, i have been planning and researching this system for 3 months.

Planting was easy. Took some clones then just picked up the net pot and moved the whole thing to the flower room.

Introduction to 4 ladies that will drive me nuts for the next 9 weeks.

I found one small error of design. The 8" duct for the floor fan is not wide enough to get past the bottom light to blow the hot air away from the top light.


Station 1
Super Lemon Haze 4 (my 4th seed)
She is my tallest at 43". Lanky for sure, but lovely.

Station 2
Plushberry
She is short, but healthy. Only 19" tall, but has the longest roots of them all.

Station 3
Super Lemon Haze 3
She is my best bush. 32" tall and tons of branches.

Station 4
Strawberry Diesel
She is also tall and lanky like the SLH4. She is 37" and was my fastest grower in veg.

For reference
tomato cages are 33" tall from the net pots
ppm: 650 (1.3ec)
pH: 5.75
epi water temp: 68-69

 

[benzo]

Nice clean setup bro. I'm definately here for the ride to harvey. I've been following these UC setups for awhile now and am very impressed with the results. Will be building my own setup in the new year so should be fun. Also why did u put an 8inch duct to blow the air up at the lights as opposed to having a honeywell fan there instead?

 

[ttystikk]

Nice clean setup bro. I'm definately here for the ride to harvey. I've been following these UC setups for awhile now and am very impressed with the results. Will be building my own setup in the new year so should be fun. Also why did u put an 8inch duct to blow the air up at the lights as opposed to having a honeywell fan there instead?

Good eyes-

Also, I only see 2 bulbs in the room, how are the backsides of all these plants getting lit?

Also, from hard experience, I recommend you get your epi/DWC temps below 65. Seems to be a magic number for keeping nasties in check. Also, 3-5ml/gal of 29% H2O2 is a good idea for similar reasons. Don't need to do it every day, but certainly once or twice a week.

 

[lava]

\alright benzo and ttystikk, i definitely left some major details out so far, so here we go.

The 8" fan setup will be changing soon, it was a great idea, but ineffective. I am only lighting the center of the uc because of space and energy constraints. I will not be turning the plants. I will let the plants moved their own branches and i will chop the outside perimeter.
My res temps (68-69) are that high because i am used beneficial bacteria tea. The benes thrive at temps above 67. Slime can thrive well below 67. It is a technique that saved my grow in aero and i we not turn it down now that i am in uc. It brought me back from terrible root rot.
Here is the tea thread i follow: http://www.invalid.com/dwc-bubbleponics/361430-dwc-root-slime-cure-aka.html

My nutrients are a custom botanicare pbp feed schedule, so i cannot use h2o2 with the organics

 

[Original Grower]

nice, i love salad grows, cant wait to see em full throttle, og

 

[ttystikk]

nice, i love salad grows, cant wait to see em full throttle, og

Ok so I guess I'm the slow guy... what's a 'salad grow'?

 

[lava]

Day 7 of flower

Week 1 is in the books, 8 to go. Growth has been good, not great. I have been dealing with some ph drop, which i believe i fixed, so week 2 might be explosive.

The strawberry diesel (holy smoke seeds) was the fastest grower in veg and has continued to lead growth in flower. She has grown in height about 10" in 1 week were the others averaged 4". Of course, with the vertical lights, I have had more lateral growth in the garden.

Station 1
Super Lemon Haze 4

Station 2
Plushberry

Station 3
Super Lemon Haze 3

Station 4
Strawberry Diesel

 

[ttystikk]

Lookin' good! I admire the effort you've put into this thus far- making drastic changes is never a easy, either in terms of the physical effort, the thought process and problem solving- or, for that matter the worry factor hoping it comes together!

 

[ttystikk]

The fact that all your light is coming from the middle of the room has been bugging me for the last few days, trying to come up with a way to help you maximize your return on this setup. I may have hit on something, I'll see if I can explain it;

Okay, so your light is coming from two bright vertical bare sources, placed dead center in the middle of your grow. The advantage is that the plants will get a lot of high quality light facing the center of the room, from bottom to top! The disadvantage is that your plants are like Mercury orbiting the sun; all the light on one side, all the time. The dark side will be just that.

So, I was thinking that perhaps you could take the SCROG idea and roll it up and turn it vertical, just like a giant pop can. The usual approach to SCROG is where the net or fencing surface to be used as a training guide is horizontal and you train your plants to it so they spread out, and fill the space and thereby gain the efficiency of utilizing all the space and are trained to be flat so the light distance can be optimized.

Why not turn that idea sideways, build a SCROG screen for each plant that's VERTICAL and facing the bulbs? You could even curve the surface a bit so the edges are the same distance from the bulbs as the center is. This way, when you train the buds into the screen, you end up with a wall of buds all facing the light. At this point who cares if the backside gets any light?!

In the case of your setup, each of these curved rectangles could be as much as 5 feet tall, and 3 or even 4 feet wide, depending on how much clearance you need to get into the middle. You could even go so far as to build an entire solid wall about 340 degrees around, with one gap only big enough to squeeze through.

This wouldn't affect ventilation or air movement or coolling of the room in any significant way, so far as I can tell. Yes, the inside of the 'green can' would be a bit warmer, but you've already got a vertical fan blowing that air up to the Ice Box anyway. The air will rise in the middle, get cooled on top, fall down the outside perimeter of the room, and be drawn back in at the bottom between the buckets to repeat the cycle.

It's just a thought, but it may hold the key to really getting the most out of the lighting setup you have in place.

 

[lava]

ttystikk

thanks for the input. I have considered doing this since I already have a ton of scrog experience. Plus the setup would be really easy. I just wonder how much I would gain for all the scrogging. Honestly, I do not like to scrog, but i will if i can get more production.

 

[lava]

Day 8 of flower

alright ttystikk and all, check this out

I scrogged in the tomato cages. I only broke a few branches on the strawberry. Lucky I have plenty of bending experience. I also put a LED above the squat plushberry to giver her some extra juice. Here are the results:


Station 1
Super Lemon Haze 4

Station 2
Plushberry

Station 3
Super Lemon Haze 3

Station 4
Strawberry Diesel

 

[ttystikk]

Yeah, I think that a good SCROG technique would definitely help you get more out of the setup. Like I described before, a vertical piece of something like fencing would be ideal, and would give oyur plants something to be trained to.

The reason I think this would help is that the plants would be trained to be at the optimum distance from the light source, and they'd be spread out effetively. Left to their own devices, plants tend to grow more or less randomly. A SCROG helps to organize things, and when that's done well, big harvest yields follow...

 

[lava]

so i was able to move branches around that were in the cage, but i have no idea what to do with the top. Should i super crop them? Buy cage height extension?

 

[ttystikk]

so i was able to move branches around that were in the cage, but i have no idea what to do with the top. Should i super crop them? Buy cage height extension?

The trouble with the cage as I see it through your camera lens (nevermind sitting hundreds of miles away!) is that it encourages a SCROG that goes in all directions, where the light is only coming from one side.

If you got a large piece of wire fence or some such, 4 or 5 feet tall by maybe 4 feet wide, wired it to the light side of the cage and then trained your plants to THAT in a vertical SCROG, I think that would be ideal. You could easily think of this as a cage extension.

Your plants would end up looking very lopsided; all their branches and buds on one side, the side facing the bulbs- but that's exactly what I think will maximize their use of your vertical bare bulb lighting with the setup you have. It won't hurt the plants any to be lopsided, you'll just want to make sure they're well supported.

 

[lava]

Some cooling and light changes

I hung both ice boxes to get ore heat exchange.

I bought a vornado 733 fan for underneath the lights. Work a lot better at dispersing the bulb heat

 

[ttystikk]

Looking good in there! I think you'll like how the Ice Boxes work up high. They'll do a great job of circulating the air around, as well. Did you mention your CO2 source? If you did, I musta forgot...

 

[lava]

i am using a hydro innovations hydrogen pro for CO2. I am using tap to drain to waste with an ice cap. The air come out at room temp.
co2 ppm cycles from 900-1100

 

[ttystikk]

i am using a hydro innovations hydrogen pro for CO2. I am using tap to drain to waste with an ice cap. The air come out at room temp.
co2 ppm cycles from 900-1100

Nice unit. I stuck with tanks since I had the gear. I got a unit like yours with the package deal I got with my chiller and Ice Box units. Since I'm in the city and don't have propane service, it made more sense to me to trade it to a buddy up in the mtns who IS on propane service. He gave me a couple 90W UFO LEDs for it.

 

[benzo]

Hey lava things seem to fine atm. I agree with ttystikk in that u should ditch the cages and go with a vert scrog. Can't remember where I seen it but there's a diagram showing an 8x8 room and when it was done with a vert scrog u gained 135% more surface area. Guys are achieving 1gpw and I've seen some hitting 1.3-4gpw. Up to u of course but thats what I'm doing in the new year. It's a deadly combo UC with a vert scrog. Peace

 

[ttystikk]

So how are things going? I'm dyin' for an update here!