Hi gromies, I started a journal outside of AFN so this 1st post covers the grow over the last week, still early days indeed As just recently sprouted!
I previously tried a grow over 30 years ago and not alot of experience …. anough said!
For the grow I’m using a 4x4 grow tent fitted out with 4 pot Autopot system, AC Affinity filter and fan 6” cloudline T6 with environmental controls (limited controls but looks to be good and useful). Small humidifier in the tent.
Equipment;
4x4 Grow Tent
AC AFINITY 6” T6 filter/extractor with temp humidity control
Bloom plus XP3000 LED Light
Small Humidifier controllable via app with auto/manual control
PH pen
TDS pen
4 x Autopot system
Air domes in pots
Mother Earth Coco/perlite mix 70/30
clay balls
Nutrients;
Plagron cocos A
Plagron cocos B
Plagron Power Roots
Plagron Pure Clean
Plagron Green Sensation
Plagron Sugar Rush
PH UP liquid
PH DOWN liquid
Plants autoflowers;
Sour Diesel
Gorilla glue #4
Twisted Cookies
Cherry Cheese Skunk
12/19/21
Setup the Autopots with their socks (Sheet of copper fabric 1 inside the pot and 1 underneath the pot), air domes (mod made here, replaced air pipe work supplied and installed air stones in their place). Then filled the very bottom with clay pebbles (washed and left to soak for 24 hours in water of 5.8PH value previously) to approximately 1” thick around the air domes.
Fill the pots with coco/perlite mix to 1” from the top.
The pots each had 2 gallons of 5.8PH water passed through them slowly over the course of the day.
12/20/21
All pots were charged with starter nutrients.
Cocos a+b, power roots and pure cleanwere prepared, pots charged with a nutrient level of 200PPM.
All pots setup in tent then connected to reservoir and tested for correct operation including the Rez tank and feed system.
Further environment setup tweaked, never ending at the moment seeking the best balance between humidity, temperature and light VPD and as the light also plays a part in the temperature of the tent I experimented with light dimmer switch on the light and also the height of the lamp and even the 6” static fan blowing on the light unit changes things. So keeping an eye on things I log any changes made to each parameter, there are a lot of settings to choose from between the fan controller and the humidifier controls so you can put things right for 30mins but end up putting things way out of whack in the longer run which leads to chasing your tail!!!
Environment I’m looking for the seedlings in the tent:
20/4 day/night
79F
69%RH
300 PPFD
200PPM nutrient feed
VPD keep within recommended guidelines
12/22/21
Today is soak the seeds day with a 24hr soak in water sat on a germination heat pad with a towel over the top. Starting the grow tent up to be ready for the seedlings.
12/23/21
Removed the seeds from water this morning and planted them directly into the Autopots.
They were given a light watering with 5.8PH water and a low dose of Power Roots. More fiddling with environment setup……
12/24/21
Today the GG#4 popped it’s head above soil with the Sour D pushing up later in the day, exciting times.
12/25/21 - Day 1
Twisted Cookies and Cherry Cheese Skunk both showed today on Christmas morning. Again changing tent settings as the environment is not stable regarding temp & humidity control.
12/26/21 - Day 2
All looking ok..ish and not much to see but still trying to dial in good environment setup. The Led Light was moved to 40” above plants and turned up to 100% output. This provides more heat in the tent but still provides the correct 300 PPFD for the seedlings to grow.
I’m using the Photone app on my phone for guidance of the PPFD values.
12/27/21 - Day 3
This morning the seedlings were given a light watering including low level feed of power roots. Looks like I might have found a solution to keeping my environment in the tent more stable.
The following is how I have decided to control the environment in the tent and it seems to work well.
The extractor fan is set to operate at a temperature of 80F, this is to stop the temperature getting too high, the tent is aiming to run at 78/79F during daytime operation, using this setting as more an over temperature setting.
The humidity control is set to operate the fan when it reaches 70%, this is the MASTER control for the system.
The idea for the main environment control using Humidity in the tent is to regulate the airflow using the extractor fan humidity control activating on a regular basis. This has the desired affect of holding temperature and humidity stable.
For this control to happen I have set the Humidifier to its minimum manual level and is active all the time during the day operation when the lights are on.
After trying lots of different settings the above is working well for the seedling stage… I hope, the 4 seedlings appear to be happy.
My environment outside the tent is approximately 70F, 52%RH day and night.
12/28/21 - Day 4
Below is the 1st pic of the girls (hopefully) in their new home.
Top left Sour Diesel
Bottom left. GG#4
Top right. Twisted Cookies
Bottom right Cherry Cheese Skunk
Prepared nutrients and water in preparation to start feeding when ready.
The solution was made to be 5.8PH and 200PPM, this gives it a day or so to settle and evaporate any chlorine etc from the tap water. The tent environment is running nice now, long may it last.
Please feel free to comment on any good or bad things that you think I should be thinking about or that I’m doing wrong.
I previously tried a grow over 30 years ago and not alot of experience …. anough said!
For the grow I’m using a 4x4 grow tent fitted out with 4 pot Autopot system, AC Affinity filter and fan 6” cloudline T6 with environmental controls (limited controls but looks to be good and useful). Small humidifier in the tent.
Equipment;
4x4 Grow Tent
AC AFINITY 6” T6 filter/extractor with temp humidity control
Bloom plus XP3000 LED Light
Small Humidifier controllable via app with auto/manual control
PH pen
TDS pen
4 x Autopot system
Air domes in pots
Mother Earth Coco/perlite mix 70/30
clay balls
Nutrients;
Plagron cocos A
Plagron cocos B
Plagron Power Roots
Plagron Pure Clean
Plagron Green Sensation
Plagron Sugar Rush
PH UP liquid
PH DOWN liquid
Plants autoflowers;
Sour Diesel
Gorilla glue #4
Twisted Cookies
Cherry Cheese Skunk
12/19/21
Setup the Autopots with their socks (Sheet of copper fabric 1 inside the pot and 1 underneath the pot), air domes (mod made here, replaced air pipe work supplied and installed air stones in their place). Then filled the very bottom with clay pebbles (washed and left to soak for 24 hours in water of 5.8PH value previously) to approximately 1” thick around the air domes.
Fill the pots with coco/perlite mix to 1” from the top.
The pots each had 2 gallons of 5.8PH water passed through them slowly over the course of the day.
12/20/21
All pots were charged with starter nutrients.
Cocos a+b, power roots and pure cleanwere prepared, pots charged with a nutrient level of 200PPM.
All pots setup in tent then connected to reservoir and tested for correct operation including the Rez tank and feed system.
Further environment setup tweaked, never ending at the moment seeking the best balance between humidity, temperature and light VPD and as the light also plays a part in the temperature of the tent I experimented with light dimmer switch on the light and also the height of the lamp and even the 6” static fan blowing on the light unit changes things. So keeping an eye on things I log any changes made to each parameter, there are a lot of settings to choose from between the fan controller and the humidifier controls so you can put things right for 30mins but end up putting things way out of whack in the longer run which leads to chasing your tail!!!
Environment I’m looking for the seedlings in the tent:
20/4 day/night
79F
69%RH
300 PPFD
200PPM nutrient feed
VPD keep within recommended guidelines
12/22/21
Today is soak the seeds day with a 24hr soak in water sat on a germination heat pad with a towel over the top. Starting the grow tent up to be ready for the seedlings.
12/23/21
Removed the seeds from water this morning and planted them directly into the Autopots.
They were given a light watering with 5.8PH water and a low dose of Power Roots. More fiddling with environment setup……
12/24/21
Today the GG#4 popped it’s head above soil with the Sour D pushing up later in the day, exciting times.
12/25/21 - Day 1
Twisted Cookies and Cherry Cheese Skunk both showed today on Christmas morning. Again changing tent settings as the environment is not stable regarding temp & humidity control.
12/26/21 - Day 2
All looking ok..ish and not much to see but still trying to dial in good environment setup. The Led Light was moved to 40” above plants and turned up to 100% output. This provides more heat in the tent but still provides the correct 300 PPFD for the seedlings to grow.
I’m using the Photone app on my phone for guidance of the PPFD values.
12/27/21 - Day 3
This morning the seedlings were given a light watering including low level feed of power roots. Looks like I might have found a solution to keeping my environment in the tent more stable.
The following is how I have decided to control the environment in the tent and it seems to work well.
The extractor fan is set to operate at a temperature of 80F, this is to stop the temperature getting too high, the tent is aiming to run at 78/79F during daytime operation, using this setting as more an over temperature setting.
The humidity control is set to operate the fan when it reaches 70%, this is the MASTER control for the system.
The idea for the main environment control using Humidity in the tent is to regulate the airflow using the extractor fan humidity control activating on a regular basis. This has the desired affect of holding temperature and humidity stable.
For this control to happen I have set the Humidifier to its minimum manual level and is active all the time during the day operation when the lights are on.
After trying lots of different settings the above is working well for the seedling stage… I hope, the 4 seedlings appear to be happy.
My environment outside the tent is approximately 70F, 52%RH day and night.
12/28/21 - Day 4
Below is the 1st pic of the girls (hopefully) in their new home.
Top left Sour Diesel
Bottom left. GG#4
Top right. Twisted Cookies
Bottom right Cherry Cheese Skunk
Prepared nutrients and water in preparation to start feeding when ready.
The solution was made to be 5.8PH and 200PPM, this gives it a day or so to settle and evaporate any chlorine etc from the tap water. The tent environment is running nice now, long may it last.
Please feel free to comment on any good or bad things that you think I should be thinking about or that I’m doing wrong.
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