First UC Grow!

Im doing my first uc run as well. Thats a nice looking start. I noticed my r.h. was a large factor early for me and good vibes to ya monsterR.

Looks good Monster! I am also on my first uc grow and im learning new things everyday about this system. The most recent thing is to cover those bucket with an insulator. It has made my lil 1/4 hp ecoplus run way more efficient and now my water temps are within 5 degrees of what the digital read on the chiller says. Also I'm using 1ml/gal zone and h2o2 every 4 days to combat pathogens.
Goodluck on the new show!

Sweet setup MonsterRobot! Looking forward to watching the show... :movie

Looks good monster. ur only in veg rt now right? i too am on my first uc run but run my zone @ 1.5 per gal. Its worth it to me to ensure that roots are healthy. I noticed my roots starting to wrap around my airstone tubes and getting a lil gunky around it until i bumped up my zone and h202. R u just running outside air through those cooltubes or what? Looks good man. Good luck.

Grow!

Hogan- I hear that the RH is a big problem for most people that run the UC so that is def something I am going to keep in check...

GF- I was going to wrap my buckets as soon as i get a chance... When I first set up the system and ran the room dry (there was water in the UC) with no chiller the water temps spiked a lot... the chiller brought the temps down, but I figured that if the temp went up that fast then wrapping the buckets would at least help me save some money on electricity...

GG- I basically built a room in my basement and sealed the room off... so the air that runs through the tubes is the air from the basement of my house... there isn't really anywhere to pull fresh air from outside... on the plus side, I haven't had to run the heater in my basement at all...

And I am only in veg right now... Just put the girls in last night... I expect them to blow up pretty soon if all goes well... Depending on the growth and if I can avoid errors I plan on flipping in a few weeks... Still have to build the trellis system for the room too... Probably going to do some sort of scrog since I have had great results with that method before...

Here is one of my old rooms when I was growing commercially... nice even canopy due to the scrog...

looking sweet, I need an xxl13 for next round for shore, good choice, Ill be around the farm watching

From one monster to another, looking awesome. :)

Welcome to the club,

If you are using Co2 you should be running temps at 85 with lights on.
If you humidity is not above 50+% (60 to 70% ideal) no use using Co2 as the benifit will be marginal.

I would flip my plants after max 2 weeks veg in the UC. You veg them 2 to 3 weeks and you will never get in the door during flower.

You need to up your humidity! The stomata on the plants that drive growth and eat Co2 are only 1/2 open at 45% RH. Get the RH up to 60 to 70% and you will be running flat out.

I would run my res temp lower if you can I run at 62 as that is the sweet spot, you have higher dissolved oxygen which is real good for your plants and it makes it very hard for pathogens to grow in the cold. There is some science to this style of growing and when you get it dialed in you will be amazed at your results.

I use Zone at full strength when I start up the system and run for at least 24 hr to let it balance out than add my plants. Once the plants are in I put 1/2 the recommended in the epicenter every week. As a rule of thumb if there is no foam in the epicenter I add Zone. (zone foams)

looks pretty awesome.

So did you make those hoods out of leftover hoods n stuff or did you buy it all new to create those? Just curious as there seems like alot of money in those.

Thanks woodsmaneh... We just added a humidifier and got the humidity up quite a bit... isn't 60-70% pretty high? I used to run my rooms at about 50-55% and the few times I went higher I had problems with PM... I don't want that shit again...

St3ve- The hoods were made from a 6" cool tube and a large adjust-a-wing that we put together... I had a few adjust a wings and a few cool tubes laying around from previous gardens and I wanted to cool the hoods but loved the wings... so we put them together... If you went out and bought both of the hoods it wouldn't be that cheap... luckily I had them laying around...

Update

So the girls have been in the UC for a week now...

PH has been in the 5.6-6.4 range (slowly rises by about .1 each day)... The lows have been because I am still getting used to PHing the system...

TDS was at 250 the first week and yesterday I bumped it up to about 290-300... Only using DM Zone and Ionic Grow right now... I plan on adding a root stimulant soon...

Temp has been right around 80 deg and RH is right around 45-55% depending on the time (it does drop down to around 25% when the room dumps its air but it quickly goes back up to 45-55%)...

Water temp was at 66 but I just dropped it to 63 and tomorrow I will drop it to 62...

The Good- New white roots are poking out from the bottoms of the 8" net pots!

The Bad- The plants are droopy... Seems to be a common problem for people around here but they look bad to me... I am just giving it some time... The RH was really low until about 2 days ago when I added another humidifier... Hopefully that helps things a bit...

The only thing I can think of is transplant shock... The 4 Recons were in 4" pots filled with soilless mix and I just rinsed them off (Everything came off so there was nothing floating around in the UC) and put them into the net pots... The LA Con was in rockwool and I just planted that in the system...

I am hoping that the plants just need to get some healthy roots going (which is happening) and then they will perk up a bit but this is still strange to me... They all look underwatered...

Sorry for the pic quality... I only have my cell camera right now... getting my digital cam back in the next few days...

Any input?

Thanks,
MonsterRobot

Thanks woodsmaneh... We just added a humidifier and got the humidity up quite a bit... isn't 60-70% pretty high? I used to run my rooms at about 50-55% and the few times I went higher I had problems with PM... I don't want that shit again...

You need real good air movement 24/7 at the top of the pots/pails and you should have no issues, if your night temps are high that also encourages PM. I have a couple small fans on the floor just to keep the air moving and have not had any PM issues in years. If your comfortable with 55% that's great and is better than 40%. I think most people run around there even though they don't know why they should.

What Causes Powdery Mildew?

Powdery mildew fungi seem to be everywhere. They overwinter in plant debris begin producing spores in the spring. These spores are carried to your plants by wind, insects and splashing water. Conditions that encourage the growth and spread of powdery mildew include:
Dampness or high humidity (Not common during rainy seasons or in extreme heat)
Crowded plantings
Poor air circulation

When I use to get it I used water with milk to kill it. 9parts water 1 part milk.

The plants have stomata which open and close depending on the RH, the stomata are the gas peddle for growth, at lower RH they are not open very much and that slows growth. At higher humidity levels they are wide open. If your using Co2 it is even more important to have higher levels of humidity.

Make sure that the net pots are filled so they don't let any light into the pails.

When my plants were stressed like this I switch to t5's, flushed, humidified, and slowly added in nutes. Hope things turn around for you soon.

Good info Woodsmaneh... Thanks!

GF- I was going to raise my lights (maybe flip one off for a day or two) tonight and probably give them a flush for a day...

Maybe it is because my water level is too high? it is at the bottom of the net pots right now, but the roots are just poking out too so it seems alright to me...

Do lights need to be kept higher with the UC? With my previous grows I always had the lights closer to the plants than they are now and never had any problems...

I think everything is just more sensitive in uc from what I can tell. As far as your water level. I would say they should be just touching the netpot. but it depends on wheater or not your using rockwool or not. You don't want rw to stay too wet because the plants could be starved of air. I have tried raising mine up and they start to look overwatered. Because the rw stays too wet. I would suggest changing one thing at a time and take notes on what works.
When I started this uc thing I almost expected to fail my first one. Because there's soo much to learn. But I'm hanging in there. Actually I think I'm getting ready to kick some ass real soon. But its been the longest veg roads I've even takin. I have wanted to start over many times. The point is that if you don't make it this run, you just pick up and start over with the new knowledge. Don't give up man and if you have to cut your loss and start over its not that big a deal.

Monster,
my plants did exactly the same thing... looked like over watering, with cal-mag def. Maybe even not enough nitrogen kinda....I thought they looked horrible too!!

Woods threw down what you need on water/co2/humidity. But believe it or not 5% makes a world of difference in the uc. I was at 50-55 and they looked horrible, went to 60-65 and they perked in 2 days.

I raised my lights, did not feed anything over 250-300 made sure ph was within 5.5-6.4 and found that 6.2 was optimum. turned off 4 of my 10 halides and added a humidifier. Bang off to the races.

If your roots look healthy and are still growing, ph is ok and you see the swing, then just let em snap out of it, and dont raise feeding at this time IMHO. Just watch em.

hogan400 said:

Monster,
my plants did exactly the same thing... looked like over watering, with cal-mag def. Maybe even not enough nitrogen kinda....I thought they looked horrible too!!

Woods threw down what you need on water/co2/humidity. But believe it or not 5% makes a world of difference in the uc. I was at 50-55 and they looked horrible, went to 60-65 and they perked in 2 days.

I raised my lights, did not feed anything over 250-300 made sure ph was within 5.5-6.4 and found that 6.2 was optimum. turned off 4 of my 10 halides and added a humidifier. Bang off to the races.

If your roots look healthy and are still growing, ph is ok and you see the swing, then just let em snap out of it, and dont raise feeding at this time IMHO. Just watch em.

Click to expand...

Man Hogaan your gonna make me go buy a big ass humidifier and controller! Mine still haven't hit that stride. They look better every day but still not 100%. I am not able to hit 65% no matter what I do. What type of humidifier are you using?