600 watt 3x3 tent Urban Poison

This is my first grow in my new setup. I've grown on and off in the past in home made stealth boxes, but finally decided to go with a more professional kit. Picked up the quantum 600 grow tent kit from Growers House.com. Overall I'm pleased with the setup but needed a few other things not included such as: Apollo 4 ballast timer, ducting connector for carbon filter, clip fan...

Grow tent: Secret Jardin DS90 - 3x3x6
Light: 600 Watt HPS with vented hood
Exhaust: 400 cfm inline fan with black ops carbon filter
Seed strain: Urban Poison from NirvanaShop.com
Medium: Fox Farm Ocean Forest
Nutes: Fox Farm big three

Germed 4 seeds in shot glass for three days, then planted in ffof in jiffy pots.

Today is 4 days later and 3 sprouts have popped!

I plan to repot into 3 gal fabric pots (smart pots) in about a week when the first set off leaves appear.

I don't plan to use nutes at all in the 4-5 weeks of veg due to the initial nute content of the ffof.

I plan to make my first attempt at the Nebula Manifold method. Hopefully it doesn't extend the veg period by much.

As this is my first run on this setup, I hope to get at least a half gram per watt, though my sights are set higher.

Now that the sprouts are showing I set the timer and began 18/6. The temps are hovering around 89°F, and the humidity at like 15%. Neither is ideal. I think the temps are due to the fact I don't have a clip fan yet to circulate the air. The temp feels much lower above the light, and the hood is cool to the touch, so I'm thinking once I have a clip fan the temps will be perfect. Not sure how big a deal the low humidity will be...

Edit: End of day 1 notes. The jiffy pots are drying out way too fast. I have to water them twice per day. One of the sprouts was so dry I thought it may have died, we'll see how it looks in the morning... I may be moving to 3 gal pots sooner than I planned.

So it's one day later and I repotted the sprouts into their final 3 gal fabric pots. The low humidity proved to be a major problem with the jiffy pots drying out way too fast. I'm also hoping that the increased volume of wet soil will help increase the rh in the tent. I'm now a bit worried about the opposite problem, that the soil will stay too wet, but I'm hoping the fabric pots well aid in even drying of the soil.

So now I'm down to just 2 plants with the third never recovering. So here we are, day 1 of veg.

I have the same tent with a 600w as well. I'm relatively new but it's a good setup. You're using the extra bars to keep the sides of the tent out due to negative pressure? My tent came with three and I use one for the light but it looks like you have them all the way around.
Anyway good luck!

Chef420 said:

I have the same tent with a 600w as well. I'm relatively new but it's a good setup. You're using the extra bars to keep the sides of the tent out due to negative pressure? My tent came with three and I use one for the light but it looks like you have them all the way around.
Anyway good luck!

Click to expand...

Thanks. Exactly right, mine came with four and it helps deal with the neg pressure. I am trying to keep the vent closed to help mitigate the light leakage and the sides get pulled in quite a bit. The extra bars help fantastically. I'll probably end up putting a light trapping fresh air intake through the side port to help as well.

Day 3 update:
All is well on the temps front. My best guess is that the 3 gal pots and soil are providing additional buffer to air temps. But whatever the cause, happy sitting around 78°-80°. Also did seem to help with RH now up around 25%. Not ideal, but certainly better. Seedlings look good, nice and green, standing up straight.

One note though, the pots are still heavy with moisture but I decided to add about 1/2 cup of water around the stem area to keep the top layer moist as it was dry to about an inch or two. After the first week of TLC I'll let them fend for themselves between waterings, but I'm just nervous about them getting too dried out at this stage. Once the roots are established, I'm confident they will be doing fine with a bit of drying.

2 days later, still week 1
New set of leaves emerging.
Some odd coloring on the first set.
Watered 1 gallon straight distilled water between the two pots.
I will be using ph'd tap water from here on out.

V1D5
Starting to accelerate new leaf development. Not sure if the watering has anything to do with it. I suspect it did.

Temps are back up again, but I believe that is due to me restricting the intake vent in an attempt to reduce the light coming out the side. I finally put a clip fan in there and erroneously thought that would reduce the temps below the light due to more circulation. Apparently not.

Next steps will be to use ducting as the passive intake so I can seal off the vent/viewport. I just need some pantyhose to act as a filter/screen (waiting on the wife)...

New passive intake ducting installed. Pantyhose are on the end of the ducting in the side port sock. The light leakage is now roughly a million and a half times better, though the duct isn't long enough to completely trap the light. I have longer sections of ducting available if need be, but this is suitable for now. The most important success is that the side of the tent isn't wide open anymore.

After this grow is done you'll probabaly take a few days to make the changes that you'll be thinking about by the time you're finished. I'm about to start my 4th run and I've made changes (small ones, upgrades) between all runs. Have fun. Great work.

V2D1
Watered a half gallon per pot of ph'd tap water today. Leaf development looking good, 3rd node peeking out. That 3rd node will be the site of the first topping of the Nebula manifold, but I'll wait until a few more leaf sets are out so the roots are established enough to help the plants recover.

On another note, I believe my observed high temps were a result of poor thermometer placement. I recently found a post describing the difference between air temp and radiant heat, where the air temp is what you actually want to measure, and radiant heat not being quite as important. http://cannabis.com/faqs/growing/growroom-how-do-i-measure-temperature-correctly.html

Anyway, temps look good around 78°. Rh is hovering around 30%.

I'm starting to think the discoloration I noticed earlier may be a bigger problem. Yellowing of the leaf tips and some yellow spots on the middle of the leaves. Both plants showing the same. I believe this is a Mg def. Maybe switching to the ph'd tap water will correct this? Anyone have feels on this? Picture below...

Of note: I had to shut down the operation for about 3 hours in the middle of the cycle today. Wife politics... Hopefully it doesn't cause the plants a lot of stress... Cloud cover...

After looking through the resources here on deficiencies, I'm thinking more likely nitrogen def. Probably an indicator that I do need to start nutes despite my beliefs from reading up on other's experience with ocean forest soil.

I'll probably start with a half strength dose and work up from there if needed. I am doing my best to not over nute the plants. This is my first grow in this type of soil. Growing in miracle grow was never complicated, just trust in the force. The new world of nutes... Feeling like a total noob again.

Now I'm thinking maybe a half gallon of water just isn't enough. I bumped up to a gallon apiece. Lots of runoff.

I tested the soil ph and got a reading about 8. So I lowered the ph of the water to 5.5. But I'm starting to think that meter was cheap shit and I just dosed them with acid for no reason.



So that's too bad, but hopefully I find out if i was just under watering.

Here's a pic right before the acid bath:

I don't think those meters are very reliable. If you don't have it already you should buy the liquid PH test kit. It's plenty easy to use and you don't need to mess with calibration like you do with the cheap electronic meters.

I'm growing the same strain right now, I kept her too small and I accidentally broke her in half but she's pretty healthy otherwise. I'm about 22 days in to flowering with mine.

V2D5
Seems a little better today after the soaking. Definitely the heaviest the pot has been through the whole grow.

Still yellow but hopefully it will work itself out. I'm thinking it will green up over a few days.

Posted a separate thread in the plant probs section this past week while I went through the confusion over the yellowing...
https://www.rollitup.org/t/nitro-def.928044/#post-13173715

V2D6
The plants are starting to show differences in their characteristics. One is quite a bit more stout than the other. I've decided to name them since they have their own personalities at this point.

Mary is the tall one on the left, Jane is the short one on the right. Super imaginative, I know.


And here's a better lit pic of Mary showing how the yellowing is progressing. I'm telling myself it's getting better... Comparing against the past two days does seem to show some improvement.

swedsteven said:

• do you let your soil dry before you water again ?

Click to expand...

Yes. I generally check by the weight of the pot, but also by the condition of the plant. If anything, I usually let them get too dry to the point the leaves sleep. If the problem isn't nutes, then it was definitely under watered.

The first week and a half the rh was super low in my house until I remembered to turn on the furnace humidifier. Now it's up, but the tent is still usually 30-35% during lights on.

I've grown many times in MG under 200 watts of cfl successfully for what it's worth. But that's in 7 inch plastic pots and only getting maybe 2 oz. I'm just a bit out of my comfort zone in this setup. Too many of my variables changed at one time, and when I see a problem I am having trouble diagnosing it because of my lack of experience in each of my disciplines that changed: light, soil, high volume tent and ventilation, pot size...

I knew the first run was going to be a learning experience and I would probably screw something up royally. Just hopefully I wouldn't kill the plants. In this setup I should theoretically be able to net over a pound, if i score a qp I would be ecstatic and that's a shitty outcome. In the end I just need enough to get me through the grow after that, and if this crash course gets me the right knowledge, the next one will set me up for a year. This grow op is intended for completely personal use, so I don't need perfect efficiency to meet my needs.

V2D7
New growth looking greener than the last set. What's weird is how fat the leaves are on Jane. I know there is Indica in there to keep the Durban short for indoor grows, but she's much fatter than her sister, though I don't know that both seeds' genetics came from the same parents... Just that they came from Nirvana in the same pack.