hazyintentions
Well-Known Member
Well, after many mishaps (the sort that come with a first attempt at this) I am proud to announce that my (so be it recovering) babies have caught on.
I don't want to dwell too much on what went wrong and cause many a frustrated night but I'll leave it at I've iron most of the major kinks out and have learned a lot of stuff that can truly only be learned through trial and error.
I will update tonight as I have to leave right now, but I hope that this journal will at least help one person once I've updated with all the mistakes I've made so that someone else doesn't fall prey to the same issues I did.
Toke it easy.
-hazyintentions
EDIT:
Well, after many mishaps (the sort that come with a first attempt at this) I am proud to announce that my (so be it recovering) babies have caught on.
I don't want to dwell too much on what went wrong and cause many a frustrated night but I'll leave it at I've iron most of the major kinks out and have learned a lot of stuff that can truly only be learned through trial and error.
I will update tonight as I have to leave right now, but I hope that this journal will at least help one person once I've updated with all the mistakes I've made so that someone else doesn't fall prey to the same issues I did.
Toke it easy.
-hazyintentions
EDIT:
Well here's my story, now bare with me I'm buzzed right now..
These first 2 plants started (made it above the rooter plugs) November 27th.
I started them when my cabinet was still under construction in the garage. The first issue I ran into was heat. Running the 4 CFL's would heat the veg/clone chamber up to 95 F in no time which almost got my seedling thank god I only left them in the chamber with the door closed for 20 minutes. After that narrow miss I cut a 4" hole and installed a 120mm 50 CFM 12v fan to help ventilate. That helped but I never got to creating an intake so that's on my punch-out list. After getting the seedlings settled in I realized I never truly pushed them into the rooter plugs just simply set them into the small holes after germination, so that combined with the plants being 18" away from the CFL's created major stretching, I cured that by stacking another piece of rock wool on top the first to support to plants lower stem/root.
after that I had trouble maintaining chamber temp because the garage was frequently opened/closed so I then had to move the whole thing into my closet in my room where I could precisely control the environment.
About day 10 the signs of heat stress are truly apparent from the lights, 81~82 F was a tad too much soo I had to keep the door open a crack while they where under full (4x) CFL lighting in the veg chamber.
At day 14 I went to place the ligths under the HPS only to find my ballast to my brand new light is DOA. After investigation I found it to just be a faulty resistor (it pays being familiar with electricity and multimeters ). It took a full 7 days to finally find the right resistor to replace the faulty one.
Upon placing them into the flower chamber which is 2'x2'x>4' I realized that a 250 HPS puts out alot of heat in a 16ft^3 chamber. So I then had to cut out 2 holes in the hood of my reflector to route 4" dryer vent and two other holes into the top of the cabinet for intake/exhaust.While i was at it I went ahead and cut out the intake on the bottom that I failed to cut upon initial construction.
Now even with 2 fans both pulling hot air from the reflector and a third fan venting through the side wall I still hit 85 F+ when the door is closed.
So until I get the size of glass cut that I need to isolate the light from the rest of the cabinet I must leave the door cracked about 2" 24/7.
Okay so fast forward to day #23. Plants are still moving at a snails pace. Damage from the heat stress is still causing stunting. roots have not yet made it to the bottom of the 6" net pots into the res and things aren't looking great. Just a waiting game as the plant recuperate.
After almost of week of watching my yellow plants barely move and still no sign of roots at the bottom of the 6" net pots I popped another seed after consulting in another forum.
That seed popped New Year's Day and it's looking really green. Same day the seed popped the roots of plants A and B finally made it through the bottom of the net pots.
Between then and now The plants have grown 2 new sets of 3 fingered leaves and all the new growth is green.
I will update with current pics of all plants but I will now list what I have learned for anyone who's willing to read this.
#1 - Finish and test EVERYTHING first. Starting with everything in the environment stable and completely finished is 100x easy/better than trying to scramble and finish everything while your plants are trying to cope with your errors. Which brings me to my next lesson.
#2 - PATIENCE is a virtue. Don't get antsy and start your grow before your ready for it like I did, learn everything you need too. Which also leads into something else I've learned.
#3 - Plan out your grow and then review it for missing steps and feel in the blanks until you've got everything you need to do down to a science. Practice things like testing pH and mixing nutrients so you've got it right, the little resources you'll use to learn how to do it right are worth not taxing your plants.
#4- Find a place where controlling the environment outside your space isn't an issue. For me my room worked perfect.
Well I will put up pictures ASAP my usual camera isn't here and the other one's battery is shot.
Gnight.
Update:
This is day #34 for my two elder babies.
78 F
pH @ 6.3
53% RH
10% min suggested mix of Bio-Bloom.
Plant A/#1 Sorry about the flash, I will probably just wait till the next update to put a better picture up but what you can't see here is small grayish spots occurring along the newer growth.
Plant B/#2 This one struggled at first from recovering from it's heat burns. It's looking better than it's beefier sibling and even at this young stage it's clearly a more sative pheno compared to plant A.
Here's the complete view of my cabinet. I believe the spots on plant A/#1 are from a light leak problems with the res, another half-ass job/mistake on my part. Sealing the res is my priority today.
I believe the spots on plant A/#1 are from a light leak problems with the res, another half-ass job/mistake on my part. Sealing the res is my priority today.
Now for the little seedling with big plans.
I'm going to grow this in soil until it catches it's older sister's in size so I can figure out what exactly it is in the 2 week cycle before vegging that I am lacking/missing/no doing.
Well I would love comments/suggestions.
I'm on the learning curve and any tips/tricks are great.
I don't want to dwell too much on what went wrong and cause many a frustrated night but I'll leave it at I've iron most of the major kinks out and have learned a lot of stuff that can truly only be learned through trial and error.
I will update tonight as I have to leave right now, but I hope that this journal will at least help one person once I've updated with all the mistakes I've made so that someone else doesn't fall prey to the same issues I did.
Toke it easy.
-hazyintentions
EDIT:
Well, after many mishaps (the sort that come with a first attempt at this) I am proud to announce that my (so be it recovering) babies have caught on.
I don't want to dwell too much on what went wrong and cause many a frustrated night but I'll leave it at I've iron most of the major kinks out and have learned a lot of stuff that can truly only be learned through trial and error.
I will update tonight as I have to leave right now, but I hope that this journal will at least help one person once I've updated with all the mistakes I've made so that someone else doesn't fall prey to the same issues I did.
Toke it easy.
-hazyintentions
EDIT:
Well here's my story, now bare with me I'm buzzed right now..
These first 2 plants started (made it above the rooter plugs) November 27th.
I started them when my cabinet was still under construction in the garage. The first issue I ran into was heat. Running the 4 CFL's would heat the veg/clone chamber up to 95 F in no time which almost got my seedling thank god I only left them in the chamber with the door closed for 20 minutes. After that narrow miss I cut a 4" hole and installed a 120mm 50 CFM 12v fan to help ventilate. That helped but I never got to creating an intake so that's on my punch-out list. After getting the seedlings settled in I realized I never truly pushed them into the rooter plugs just simply set them into the small holes after germination, so that combined with the plants being 18" away from the CFL's created major stretching, I cured that by stacking another piece of rock wool on top the first to support to plants lower stem/root.
after that I had trouble maintaining chamber temp because the garage was frequently opened/closed so I then had to move the whole thing into my closet in my room where I could precisely control the environment.
About day 10 the signs of heat stress are truly apparent from the lights, 81~82 F was a tad too much soo I had to keep the door open a crack while they where under full (4x) CFL lighting in the veg chamber.
At day 14 I went to place the ligths under the HPS only to find my ballast to my brand new light is DOA. After investigation I found it to just be a faulty resistor (it pays being familiar with electricity and multimeters ). It took a full 7 days to finally find the right resistor to replace the faulty one.
Upon placing them into the flower chamber which is 2'x2'x>4' I realized that a 250 HPS puts out alot of heat in a 16ft^3 chamber. So I then had to cut out 2 holes in the hood of my reflector to route 4" dryer vent and two other holes into the top of the cabinet for intake/exhaust.While i was at it I went ahead and cut out the intake on the bottom that I failed to cut upon initial construction.
Now even with 2 fans both pulling hot air from the reflector and a third fan venting through the side wall I still hit 85 F+ when the door is closed.
So until I get the size of glass cut that I need to isolate the light from the rest of the cabinet I must leave the door cracked about 2" 24/7.
Okay so fast forward to day #23. Plants are still moving at a snails pace. Damage from the heat stress is still causing stunting. roots have not yet made it to the bottom of the 6" net pots into the res and things aren't looking great. Just a waiting game as the plant recuperate.
After almost of week of watching my yellow plants barely move and still no sign of roots at the bottom of the 6" net pots I popped another seed after consulting in another forum.
That seed popped New Year's Day and it's looking really green. Same day the seed popped the roots of plants A and B finally made it through the bottom of the net pots.
Between then and now The plants have grown 2 new sets of 3 fingered leaves and all the new growth is green.
I will update with current pics of all plants but I will now list what I have learned for anyone who's willing to read this.
#1 - Finish and test EVERYTHING first. Starting with everything in the environment stable and completely finished is 100x easy/better than trying to scramble and finish everything while your plants are trying to cope with your errors. Which brings me to my next lesson.
#2 - PATIENCE is a virtue. Don't get antsy and start your grow before your ready for it like I did, learn everything you need too. Which also leads into something else I've learned.
#3 - Plan out your grow and then review it for missing steps and feel in the blanks until you've got everything you need to do down to a science. Practice things like testing pH and mixing nutrients so you've got it right, the little resources you'll use to learn how to do it right are worth not taxing your plants.
#4- Find a place where controlling the environment outside your space isn't an issue. For me my room worked perfect.
Well I will put up pictures ASAP my usual camera isn't here and the other one's battery is shot.
Gnight.
Update:
This is day #34 for my two elder babies.
78 F
pH @ 6.3
53% RH
10% min suggested mix of Bio-Bloom.
Plant A/#1 Sorry about the flash, I will probably just wait till the next update to put a better picture up but what you can't see here is small grayish spots occurring along the newer growth.
Plant B/#2 This one struggled at first from recovering from it's heat burns. It's looking better than it's beefier sibling and even at this young stage it's clearly a more sative pheno compared to plant A.
Here's the complete view of my cabinet. I believe the spots on plant A/#1 are from a light leak problems with the res, another half-ass job/mistake on my part. Sealing the res is my priority today.
I believe the spots on plant A/#1 are from a light leak problems with the res, another half-ass job/mistake on my part. Sealing the res is my priority today.
Now for the little seedling with big plans.
I'm going to grow this in soil until it catches it's older sister's in size so I can figure out what exactly it is in the 2 week cycle before vegging that I am lacking/missing/no doing.
Well I would love comments/suggestions.
I'm on the learning curve and any tips/tricks are great.
