Fried my Plants, harvest gone, Help me prevent this

evu80 · Aug 17, 2012

such a sad day for me and my bros. We're relatively inexperienced in this field and could use everyone's advice on how to move forward and how to prevent this from happening again.

It's everyone's worst fear aside from having your front door kicked down by Five O, but our exhaust fan failed to turn on after the plug came halfway loose from the wall plug. Apparently, one of us kicked it loose by accident while doing some routine work on monday night. Everything was working just fine before we left. I guess the vibrations from the fan caused the already loosen plug to loosen a bit more causing the fan to stop working completely. We came back thursday night only to find everything fried in the room. We knew something bad had happen as we were walking towards the unit cause the smell was really noticeable. We're not exactly sure how long its been like this but I'm assuming the fan stopped working sometime Tuesday cause there were new form of mold growing on the wood that were used to create the room.

It was so hot and humid in there that everything was wet and one of the reflector's lens had shattered

So we're 40 days into bloom and not sure how to proceed. Our strain is ECSD, all the pistil has a slight brown color to them now with some burning of the leaves. Other than that, the plant itself looks ok, granted half of them were falling over at the time of discovery.

Should we cut off the bad parts and let it continue its course? or just chop it and try to save what we can. Or scrap it and start over and waste 2 months of hard work. I just need some guidance here.

Also what do you guys do in order to prevent things like this from happening again? I have heard of a safety switch that cuts off the power but is there one made for a flip system, in this case the power box and with remote sensors. The box itself is not in the room where the lights are.

and what about containing the smell should the exhaust fan malfunction?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

NaturalTherapy · Aug 17, 2012

Spend more time there. After you get to a certain size, there's something to do every day. Not really sure at what scale you guys grow, but leaving it to chance for three days -no disrespect- sounds like you either aren't taking it serious, or you just learned another valuable lesson.

Plants may be stunted for a week or so, diminished harvest probable, but continue on until they're done because they may not be perfect, but it's better than nothing. Don't feed them for a week... I don't know how you're growing , soil hydro etc. since they're stressed food will scortch them.

If there is mold on the walls, may be likely it's on the plants, spray stylet oil since you still have 30+ days

Good luck

mal · Aug 17, 2012

A daily visit pays dividends and a carbon filter before exiting the grow space gets rid of the smell. Take care and I hope all ends well

mal

jkbeing · Aug 17, 2012

If you can keep them going, try to finish them. Something is better then nothing. Cut off anything moldy. If your wood is unpainted then get mold inhibiting paint. Everytime i'm away more then two days I start to get nervous. Hope everthing works out better.

Haggardass · Aug 17, 2012

Get some odorless killz, paint the bare wood you wouldnt want bare wood anyway it absorbs light. just cut the dead material off and keep trucking its not over till its over. Pay more frequent visits in the future next time you might come back to nothing but firetrucks and smoke so be happy that you had an easier lesson then it could have been. good luck and happy growing.

Papa · Aug 17, 2012

high-temp shutoff. CAP HLC-3e is one example.

Haggardass · Aug 17, 2012

Papa said:
high-temp shutoff. CAP HLC-3e is one example.

Not a bad idear either.

evu80 · Aug 17, 2012

Papa said:
high-temp shutoff. CAP HLC-3e is one example.

does it come with remote sensors or anything similar cause my understanding is this device goes into the lighting controller or the trigger that turns it on and that is in another room.

evu80 · Aug 17, 2012

jkbeing said:
If you can keep them going, try to finish them. Something is better then nothing. Cut off anything moldy. If your wood is unpainted then get mold inhibiting paint. Everytime i'm away more then two days I start to get nervous. Hope everthing works out better.

oh just the wooden door made from cabinet plywood has mold on it. I think the plants are mold free at this point, but they have some burns from the high temp. I didnt think much about painting the wood to be honest, but ill look into it now

El Cerebro · Aug 18, 2012

sorry to hear, that's rough. hi-temp cutoff and emergency backup exhaust for sure, been there myself and learned the same lesson. keep an eye open for pest outbreaks now too, situations like this are sometimes a catalyst.

remote monitoring with a cheap pc/webcam trained on temp/rh guages might give some peace of mind if you can't be there enough (or a fancier sys if you can afford it).

ttystikk · Aug 18, 2012

most hi temp cutoff units have the sensor on 6 foot, often longer cord. Place the sensor in the room, set your 'chernobyl switch' to like 95, and the system will interrupt power at the ballast (that's what you wire through it, NOT the flipbox!) no matter what's being lit. Most also have some sort of delay timer built in so they will wait to restart. The high-end units will even send text messages warning of out of range conditions.

I second the above advice about spending more time on site- at the very least, your girls will aprreciate the extra CO2...

Dirty White Boy · Aug 18, 2012

Just finish em out. Learn from your mistake and move on. I use to cover my bulbs with socks when I would foliar at night. One night I forgot to take off one of the socks, when the lights. Turned on the bulb caught fire exploded and the burning sock and glass fell into the middle of one of the plants this was about day 40 as well burned it like crazy. I cleaned it up and it ended up finishing very nicely. Pics of those plants are in the so cal catpiss thread.

ttystikk · Aug 18, 2012

that's one hot kinky sox story, brother- so do your bulbs still wear protection, or do you just try to stick with the rhythm method? :confused:

Dirty White Boy · Aug 19, 2012

They only wore protection to give that illusion that they always do, they never wear sox anymore though, and if I do slip one on, i slip it off real fast when the ladys on the table arnt looking........hehehehehehe

serpent · Aug 22, 2012

the sentinel hd-2 save my ass a couple times.high temp shut off with a battery backed up timer.perfect to hook up to your light controller.

Papa · Aug 22, 2012

ttystikk said:
most hi temp cutoff units have the sensor on 6 foot, often longer cord. Place the sensor in the room, set your 'chernobyl switch' to like 95, and the system will interrupt power at the ballast (that's what you wire through it, NOT the flipbox!) no matter what's being lit.

here's what i do, and it seems to work just fine:
i have a good digital timer that i program for lights on/lights off. i plug a good quality (metal) powerstrip into this timer. into this power strip, i plug the trigger cord for the CO2 controller, the trigger cord for my humidifier controller, and my hi-temp shut off (which the trigger cord for the lighting controller then plugs into).
when the lights go on, the CO2 and my humidifier are also ready for action . . . when the lights go off, the CO2 and humidifier are offline. if the a/c were to go out, when the room reached 95˚ the hi-temp shut off would trigger off the lighting controller and kill all the lights.
this setup has worked fine for me. is there a better way i don't know about?

this is a very serious issue for fire prevention. for those of us who run many 1k lamps in small rooms, having bullet-proof hi-temp shut off controls is essential.

Animal Chin · Aug 22, 2012

dont want to harp but be with your plants as much as you can be. i never miss a single day with them but i take this real serious. youve def got to love this because its a full time gig. something i use that has saved my ass a couple times is off site monitoring of my temps and humidity but going in at least twice a day is what i do. i had a titan digital timer take a shit last night and its only a month old so the lights came on an hour late so it wasnt a big deal but if I didnt go in there they would have been off til I did. anyways good luck. oh yeah I duct tape problems such as tape that cord to the wall if need be

ttystikk · Aug 22, 2012

So to recap; a good high temp cutoff with hot start delay, proper wiring and regularly keeping a close eye on your most prized growing possessions to ensure all's well... all around sound advice.

Another strategy to consider alongside the above; sealed and vented hoods with a fan running on a separate electrical circuit from the A/C cooling the room. If either fails, the other still sheds enough heat to keep things from becoming dire... or to put it more simply, a 'fault tolerant' approach to growroom design.

This idea has implications far beyond just lighting... say, if the power fails, having a battery backup on a timer could allow one to operate air and circulation pumps just enough to keep plants alive, perhaps even for days in extreme situations.

1971 · Aug 22, 2012

i built myself a high temp cut-off with a reset button that would not allow the lights to turn back on until the problem is fixed.

the issue with the high temp cut-offs on the market is that they cycle back on once the temps are reduced.

if you are interested in building one, i can certainly post on here how to do so.

evu80 · Aug 22, 2012

1971 said:
i built myself a high temp cut-off with a reset button that would not allow the lights to turn back on until the problem is fixed.

the issue with the high temp cut-offs on the market is that they cycle back on once the temps are reduced.

if you are interested in building one, i can certainly post on here how to do so.

please do so. it would be very helpful

Fried my Plants, harvest gone, Help me prevent this

Fried my Plants, harvest gone, Help me prevent this

evu80

NaturalTherapy

Lighthouse

mal

Premium Member

jkbeing

Haggardass

Papa

Haggardass

evu80

evu80

El Cerebro

ttystikk

Dirty White Boy

ttystikk

Dirty White Boy

serpent

Papa

Animal Chin

ttystikk

1971

evu80

Fried my Plants, harvest gone, Help me prevent this

Fried my Plants, harvest gone, Help me prevent this

evu80

NaturalTherapy

Lighthouse

mal

Premium Member

jkbeing

Haggardass

Papa

Haggardass

evu80

evu80

El Cerebro

ttystikk

Dirty White Boy

ttystikk

Dirty White Boy

serpent

Papa

Animal Chin

ttystikk

1971

evu80

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