Design Flaw in my room? Is RH Fluctuation causing stress? (If so, how to fix)

I'm also doing this using a cloud based wifi one that goes through a gateway and smart outlets. Thats why I was able to produce the bar graph showing the fluctuation.

Overgrowtho said:

What medium did you start in to avoid burn? What method did you settle on for watering quantity and regularity for seedlings / early veg? For yellowing what did you change?

Click to expand...

I use starter cubes then transfer to Stonington blend for the 1 gal pots. My first run i went straight to supersoil in the final container. It actually worked fine but was def steessful until the seedlings adapted. Any soil would work fine for the first 3 to 4 weeks, I dont mind spending $20 or so on Stonington which is excellent.

After 3 to 4 weeks i go to 3gal, then final pots. In the past that was 7gal, but im going to 10gal this round.

Watering is done slowly, in several rounds. My 3 gal pots for example. The first time I watered fully I went slowly. About 2 cups per round. Waiting 10 min per round. After 2 rounds, i went to 1 cup per round. At 6 cups total -- every pot had some runoff, most very little, a couple a bit more. That is my "max". I feel how heavy they are then water up to 6 cups depending.

With 10 gal i will likely use a meter to assist me as i could but wont be lifting them lol! I dont know what the max will be for those. My 7gal took up to 1.5 gal every 2 days at peak.

Watering, in supersoil is the main event besides training. So i take it very seriously and focus myself into making it a slow, relaxed careful process.

Yellowing in the 1 or 3 gal indicates it has begun to use up its nutes...i transplant and reamend that old soil. When in flower, they need topdressing of the same soil or something else a few times in flower. This round i will fill my pots to 7gal at the transplant, and topdress the same soil a few times in flower to avoid yellowing. Late yellowing imo is fine, say after week 6 or 7.

Well I broke down and bought a 170$ de-humidifier so I can better control the RH without messing up the temps.

The range daily was about 40-80% albeit averaging on-point at 65%. Especially after watering, humidity is too high.

Did I over-react in ordering a 170 watt dehumidifier??? (The current one I have is a non powerful type, no compressor and very low wattage).

BobThe420Builder said:

Super soil is ruff for beginner growers, your going to have a struggle I'd say thru your entire grow

Click to expand...

I do agree making your own supersoil is prone to error for beginners, but I think buying a bagged supersoil that is known to work great like Roots Organics Lush, or KIS Organics, or BuildASoil is one of the easier ways to go for a new grower. I know for myself that when I finally switched to BAS and went to a water only regimen it made my whole grow less stressful and wasn't chasing deficiencies and trying to correct them the whole grow. I figure you can either buy cheap soil and have to add bottles to it the whole time, or just buy something properly amended from the beginning and that can be recycled rather than having to keep buying more inputs every round.

ilovereggae said:

I do agree making your own supersoil is prone to error for beginners, but I think buying a bagged supersoil that is known to work great like Roots Organics Lush, or KIS Organics, or BuildASoil is one of the easier ways to go for a new grower. I know for myself that when I finally switched to BAS and went to a water only regimen it made my whole grow less stressful and wasn't chasing deficiencies and trying to correct them the whole grow. I figure you can either buy cheap soil and have to add bottles to it the whole time, or just buy something properly amended from the beginning and that can be recycled rather than having to keep buying more inputs every round.

Click to expand...

This poses the questions for me:
1. in a nutshell, how to you (amend to) recycle, if you DO do that? You do right? not just recycle without replacing some fresh content? You let it ferment?
2. what medium do you start in before transplanting to super soil and do you take any special steps to avoid SS nute burn such as layering?

Overgrowtho said:

Well I broke down and bought a 170$ de-humidifier so I can better control the RH without messing up the temps.

The range daily was about 40-80% albeit averaging on-point at 65%. Especially after watering, humidity is too high.

Did I over-react in ordering a 170 watt dehumidifier??? (The current one I have is a non powerful type, no compressor and very low wattage).

Click to expand...

Smart idea right? I dont see how people maintain an indoor grow without a strong dehumidifier (esp after watering). The humidity is out of control today again. Even the aircon set to a lower temp doesnt help for long at all.

It looks like your plants have varying degrees of nutrient burn. I agree with your conclusion that your soil is too hot - some more than others. You might be able to flush some of the excess nutrients out in order to save this run. I'd be inclined to get some pot risers and flush while checking the ppm/ec and ph of the runoff to see what is coming out of the pot. If you can get those numbers lowered to a reasonable range, your plants should get back on track. Pot risers, a shop vac, and plain water could probably do wonders.

I use an Inkbird Humidity Controller IHC200 which controls both my exhaust fan (or dehu depending on need) and humidifier. The controller only cost $40US and does a great job keeping RH within the appropriate VPD range that I am looking for. I agree with Wastei, though, that humidity is not your main issue right now.

Your grow room really looks great.

Best regards.

Overgrowtho said:

This poses the questions for me:
1. in a nutshell, how to you (amend to) recycle, if you DO do that? You do right? not just recycle without replacing some fresh content? You let it ferment?
2. what medium do you start in before transplanting to super soil and do you take any special steps to avoid SS nute burn such as layering?

Click to expand...

Dont overthink it. And don't try mixing and ammending your own right away. You are making things harder on yourself that way. Thats why I said supersoil is great for new growers if you buy it prebagged. Mixing your own there are a million input variables. You can make your own of course but unless you really know what you are doing, its going to take some experimentation and trial/error to figure out what works. From experience this is going to take 6 mos to a year to dial in, specific to strain.

I just finished my first round with the BAS. it still has plenty of juice left in it so I just mixed in some fresh EWC and some myco granular and mixed it up and repotted new plants. I have a couple friends using their stuff, and you can usually get 3 rounds out of it before you need to do a heavier ammending.

I use this same soil from seedling to harvest, but I am using BAS Light. Maybe the ones w guanos or fish would burn small plants but the stuff I am using does not.

Although it is not my main issue right now, I'm pretty sure the 180 watt de-humi will be indispensable in flower and help reduce stress (due to VPD fluctuations) in veg.

I am def not into making or amending soil so early in my adventure signifigantly... Ed Rosenthal commented that many advanced growers just buy it.

Instead of flushing with water, I think I just need the roots to establish deeper into the up-potted super soil nicely, which is perhaps slowly occurring right now. I hope that stunted ones will, in doing so, return to vigor. I think it is progressing now but slowly, so I'm glad about that (more new growth is green, even I set it back by FIM topping on some...).

However instead of a "flush" I think the best would be to kind of flush + activate the soil with an AACT - "actively aerated compost tea" perhaps? Who agrees? To jumpstart the roots?

Now this is something I am a newb on, so I am not sure if it should be more or less focused on the bacterial, microbial, fungal... or what the heck to do? In the meantime I have top dressed with castings, compost, organic top dress fert and sprayed leaves with kelp. I did this because in another thread some advice came, about activating the soil to make it living more. AACT was recommended.

I have tested runoff and the pH was okay in 6-7.
The EC as I understand for organics (and in this question as pertaining to runoff) is not exactly relevant. Please correct me if wrong or any mistake?

ComfortCreator said:

The system when it is running should be fighting in one direction, not 2. While it is good to have heat and ac...humidifier and dehumidifier, 95% of the time only half the stuff should be running.

Having too tight a tolerance is what makes it keep fighting itself. Allow a range of several degrees and only have one system work to keep it there. Same for humidity. If its usually too low, set up the tolerances so it typically only adds humidity. At lights out, a dehuey running for a few cycles would be a worthwhile add on. But otherwise i think its just the setup of ranges.

Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing as ComfortCreator. Could be diferent in a closed enviro like yours, but wouldn't you usually need either to heat and humidify, or cool and dehumidify, one or the other, not both. Maybe I'm missing something, like you're in the desert or the tropics. But a few percent one way or the other isn't going to hurt anything?

Tropics. Closed enviro. Mostly I just need to cool and adjust humidity (usually down). Yes a few temp degrees okay. But not 10 to 40% RH! Glad I ordered the dehumidifier.

Anyways that will be fine, my main problem is the soil questions above in #29.

Overgrowtho said:

Well I broke down and bought a 170$ de-humidifier so I can better control the RH without messing up the temps.

The range daily was about 40-80% albeit averaging on-point at 65%. Especially after watering, humidity is too high.

Did I over-react in ordering a 170 watt dehumidifier??? (The current one I have is a non powerful type, no compressor and very low wattage).

Click to expand...

I don't think 170 W is too strong for a dehuey. should be fine.

Overgrowtho said:

Although it is not my main issue right now, I'm pretty sure the 180 watt de-humi will be indispensable in flower and help reduce stress (due to VPD fluctuations) in veg.

I am def not into making or amending soil so early in my adventure signifigantly... Ed Rosenthal commented that many advanced growers just buy it.

Instead of flushing with water, I think I just need the roots to establish deeper into the up-potted super soil nicely, which is perhaps slowly occurring right now. I hope that stunted ones will, in doing so, return to vigor. I think it is progressing now but slowly, so I'm glad about that (more new growth is green, even I set it back by FIM topping on some...).

However instead of a "flush" I think the best would be to kind of flush + activate the soil with an AACT - "actively aerated compost tea" perhaps? Who agrees? To jumpstart the roots?

Now this is something I am a newb on, so I am not sure if it should be more or less focused on the bacterial, microbial, fungal... or what the heck to do? In the meantime I have top dressed with castings, compost, organic top dress fert and sprayed leaves with kelp. I did this because in another thread some advice came, about activating the soil to make it living more. AACT was recommended.

I have tested runoff and the pH was okay in 6-7.
The EC as I understand for organics (and in this question as pertaining to runoff) is not exactly relevant. Please correct me if wrong or any mistake?

Click to expand...

I should have known you was tropics based on your avatar, lol. Plenty know more than me, but I'll throw in here that from what I understand MJ leans towards needing bacterial microbes more than the fungal ones. And I don't understand EC but yes, the runoff measures are not very useful, and pH is not a big concern in soil as I think everything buffers back to the soil's pH. Not sure if I'm answering your question but if your soil is hot it is still an issue in organic soil. But I'm not sure organic growers are measuring PPM's or EC's, especially since the runoff measure isn't very useful. People are sending their homemade soil to labs for nutrient tests though. I don't measure shit anymore, not that I shouldn't. I think you'd be fine with FFOF, and maybe a little tea and kelp sometimes if you want. If not FFOF then adjust, and maybe something good for K (bat guano?) near week 4 if you're really kickin it. just thoughts

raggyb said:

I was thinking the same thing as ComfortCreator. Could be diferent in a closed enviro like yours, but wouldn't you usually need either to heat and humidify, or cool and dehumidify, one or the other, not both. Maybe I'm missing something, like you're in the desert or the tropics. But a few percent one way or the other isn't going to hurt anything?

Click to expand...

Each room or tent requires that you create an even temp and humidity across the canopy by dialing it in for that space. If there are outside walls the outside temps have a big impact even in a well insulated space.

A system that automates it is great, but the room has to be consistent first. One that goes way up and down is not well calibrated to begin with imo. Lights on the temps should rise and plateau at the right temp by controlling airflow into the room and temps if necessary. Each component can have its own automation -- like a humidistat on a humidifier, a temp gauge on a heater or a home ac/heat system...or a controller can handle the automation.

If you are going to use a controller, the system already has to be partially dialed in...my system runs itself with a little daily tweaking with no auomation except sometimes a humidifier w humidistat.

ComfortCreator said:

Each room or tent requires that you create an even temp and humidity across the canopy by dialing it in for that space. If there are outside walls the outside temps have a big impact even in a well insulated space.

A system that automates it is great, but the room has to be consistent first. One that goes way up and down is not well calibrated to begin with imo. Lights on the temps should rise and plateau at the right temp by controlling airflow into the room and temps if necessary. Each component can have its own automation -- like a humidistat on a humidifier, a temp gauge on a heater or a home ac/heat system...or a controller can handle the automation.

If you are going to use a controller, the system already has to be partially dialed in...my system runs itself with a little daily tweaking with no auomation except sometimes a humidifier w humidistat.

Click to expand...

Gotcha. I'm totally unsealed, no tent, but do some controlling. I use the outside atmos. to my advantage as best can. I dial things in, leave 'em for a while, then the outside weather changes, and I have to redial again. Doesn't work too bad. Example, in late flower I'm 78F high 68 low, rH 40%. In winter I'll have to humidify. That's one of my hardest to adjust. But the plants do fine at 30-40% except for babies. < 20% I start feeling problems. and > 70%.

raggyb said:

Gotcha. I'm totally unsealed, no tent, but do some controlling. I use the outside atmos. to my advantage as best can. I dial things in, leave 'em for a while, then the outside weather changes, and I have to redial again. Doesn't work too bad. Example, in late flower I'm 78F high 68 low, rH 40%. In winter I'll have to humidify. That's one of my hardest to adjust. But the plants do fine at 30-40% except for babies. < 20% I start feeling problems. and > 70%.

Click to expand...

How big is the space? Humidifying for veg is common almost everywhere in Winter. It shouldnt cause you problems though that should be fixable. Whats the main issue?

ComfortCreator said:

How big is the space? Humidifying for veg is common almost everywhere in Winter. It shouldnt cause you problems though that should be fixable. Whats the main issue?

Click to expand...

space I guess is uh, 1200 cubic feet? not quite sealed either. don't get wrong idea it's not filled with plants though but I wish. I've managed to get it up to 35% in winter without having to sell the baby's crib.

I don't think humidity is your problem.

I'm thinking somewhere along these lines:

1. Your soil is too acidic due to over watering causing lockout. I would check the runoff water coming from your plants. If its acidic add some lime and cut down on the watering.
2. Nute burn. Your SS could be too hot.
3.Fungus Gnats or Root Aphids. Have you checked for these? they can cause a lot of phantom deficiencies and problems that you just cant figure out.