do you see any benefit in this practice of 48 hour lights out before flowering?
Nope. My clones go straight from the clonebox to flowering.
how do i multi quote your quote...like when you break up a paragraph and respond to each sentence.....do i just copy & paste like a madman?
When I reply, I hit the quote button on the post I'm replying to, which gives me an edit box containing the text I want to cite. Then I break it up into the specific queries I need to address. I highlight the text I need to reply to and hit the QUOTE button (
), which wraps that text in quote tags. Then I enter my comments. Looks like this (using curly brackets so you can see the format, normally these have square brackets):
{quote}Should I lubricate my owl?{/quote}
why yes, you should, but don't wax your weasel!
people with your knowledge and patients are rare
Thanks, sorry you had to spend so long in the waiting room with the 14 year old magazines, gotta get new chairs in there too...
I was Just wondering what your guys thoughts would be on 4 600w in a single 8 in duct with 1x 786 cfm fan or would it be better for two lights to a run and two fans got my 4 3'x3' tables trying Al's way out
While I prefer no more than 2 in a row, you can daisy-chain up to 3 cooltubes in a row, pushing them with a single 150mm axial blower. Each cooltube will raise the temp of the air going through the duct line by about 7C. If the cooltube intake air is 20C, the air temp in the duct after the first cooltubed lamp in the chain is 27C, 34C after the second, 41C (!) after the 3rd. If you put 4 in a row, the temp at the end of the duct line is 48C (!!). The glass on the (3rd &) 4th tube will get too hot and that heat is convected into the grow room air, negating the purpose of having them.
You want to run 4 lamps in cooltubes (which are 150mm dia), so you should use
two, separate duct runs, each with a 150mm blower pushing cool air into the duct lines, with 2 cooltubes in each. This will keep the heat mostly in the air in the cooltubes' ducts instead of warming up the cooltube (and aluminium duct if used) exterior surfaces. Insulated ducting helps keep heat inside the ducts, but isn't essential.
WBW, ALL CAPS in one run-on sentence really doesn't make you
any more readable! When you write in ALL CAPS- you are YELLING! PLEASE DON'T YELL AT ME!
While I don't expect you to be a professional writer, all the same, I don't want to have to work to decode your writing AND work to sort out your grow problems.
Please use SENTENCES, such as I've done for you here in my quotation of your last post. The quality of my reply is dependent upon how well I understand your query. Clarity is
everything. Make yourself readable- or make yourself scarce!
THEY ARE UNDER 2X40 WATT FLORO COOL WHITES AND TWO 32 WATT CFL BRIGHT WHITE.
6 SEEDLINGS IN ROCKWOOL JUST POPPED OPEN WITH THERE FIRST SET OF LEAVES AND THE ROOTS ARE COMING OUT THE BOTTOM.
I HAVE A 400 HPS THAT I WANTED TO KEEP ABOUT THREE FEET ABOVE THEM.
Introduce them to the 400 with about 4' clearance for the first week, then drop the light 1' each week until the lamp is about 1' above the nearest leaf tips.
THE RAINFORST 36 IS A AEROPONIC SYSTEM THAT HAS A WATER PUMP INSIDE THE RES WITH A PIPE GOING TO THE LID SPRAYING AND DIFFUSING THE WATER TO ALL 6 SITES,
IT WATERS ALL 6 SITES UNTIL I TURN OFF THE PUMP
This is a job for a timer! Don't rely on yourself to do the watering.
SO THE ROCKWOOL CONTINUES TO GET DRIPPED ON THRU THE COCO LINERS/HYDROTON.
THE COCO LINERS WERE GIVEN TO ME WITH THE SYSTEM ALONG WITH 3 INCH NET POTS AND HYDROTON.
You have rockwool
below the coco liners and pellets? huh?
If I understand you correctly (and I'm not sure I do), you're drip feeding rockwool on some unknown schedule. Don't drip feed rockwool. Discard the coco liners.
How is it that you have a drip feed when you have an aeroponic system?
Aero should be wetting the netpots of pellets from the bottom. The RW cube should be nested in the netpots of pellets with at least 25mm of pellets between the RW & the aero mist so only the pellets are getting dampened.
MY PH IS 5.7 AND IM USING GH FLORA MIX 1/4 STRENGTH FOR THEM NOW AND I WAS GONNA WAIT TILL NEXT WEEK TO UP TO 1/2
5.7 is close, but pH should be 5.8.
"1/4 strength" tells me approximately nothing. What's the nutrient strength in ppm?
Good morning Al, I was looking over the homemade batwing reflector in your gallery and was wondering what size (thickness, width, length) sheet of aluminum you would suggest to make one?
The thickness isn't all that critical. The aluminium sheet just has to be thick enough to be stiff enough to hold its shape once you roll it up and put the fold on the centreline. The AAWs are made from 1mm thick aluminium sheet. You can make it any size you like. The larger it is, the more effective it will be in bouncing light down to the plants.
Also, how effective do you think this DIY version would be compared to the $200 original one.
The AAWs are made from polished aluminium, the surface of which has thousands of ~1mm dia dimples made with a round-nosed punch. The dimples diffuse light to prevent hotspotting.
You probably won't be able to faithfully replicate the dimpling in the home workshop. Once you have formed the batwing shape, paint the underside of the batwing with flat white, hi-temp automobile exhaust header paint; this will diffuse light sufficiently and make the DIY unit perform similarly enough to the commercial version to work OK.
The large AAWs are each made from 2 panels of 1mm thick aluminium sheet, 610mm x 700mm wide (width is parallel to the long axis of the HPS bottle), joined at the centre with about 30mm overlap at the join.
Also Al I set my ph at 5.8 yesterday and I just went and checked it now (not even 24hrs later) and the ph has risen to 6.0. Do you know what could be causing this?
Could be a couple of things. If you're using rockwool media, RW has a small amount of limestone dust remaining from manufacturing. This will cause pH to bump up a little until the limestone dust is either flushed out of the medium or is neutralised by reacting with acids in the nutrient mix. Pathogen infections of the system can do the same, but often much more dramatically than .2 in 24h. Use H2O2 50% grade at 1ml/L in your tank, reapplied every 3-4 days to stop pathogens dead in their tracks as well as introduce O2 directly into your roots. This should be part of your routine. H2O2 must be applied regularly to do any good.
hey al
i just started 12/12 cycle 7pm to 7am and today is day 2 of the cycle and my piece of Sht timer flooded my table before lights out today and i just noticed and turned the lights back on for the plants because they were drooping a bit,
So what happened? Your timer didn't shut off and they were flooded all night? I'm not clear on what the problem is.
Leaves normally droop a little during lights-off. Not a worry. Turn the lights on, photosynthesis restarts and they again begin to transpire water, which plumps up the cells and makes the leaves stand erect (
baby! 
). The droop will go away in about 10-15 mins post lights-on.
Droopy leaves DURING lights-on are a sign of trouble- usually means the roots can't supply the needs of the plant.
they are fine now but i'm just stressin about the pos timer and went and bought a new one 15 minutes ago
should i not worry and just continue tomarow with the 12 12 cycle ?
You're fine, carry on.
well i feel like i just got in trouble. but thanks for thr info again.
