I have been reading this from page 1 just now, talking about a GREEN THUMB!!! Wow, they are the best looking buds I have seen on here so far. Just trying to absorb as much information as I can, at the moment I am stuck on the topics of CO2, Nutrients, fans and reflectors. Why do some people make CO2 for the plants (they have the bottles of yeast with tubes coming out), is it necessary? What nutrients do you put in at each cycle and how to know which ones are needed? Are fans completely needed in the tent? For the lights, I would probably use 400w HPS lamps, do you need to use a reflector with them? Also do you have a carbon filter?
Appreciate your expertise!
Hey, icehead, thanks for your compliments! I'm no expert, but I can tell you what I think.
Why do some people make CO2 for the plants (they have the bottles of yeast with tubes coming out), is it necessary?
CO2 is equivalent to carbs that we eat, like rice and bread, but unlike humans, they can just take what they need from the air naturally. Now you can force-feed the plants with the extra CO2 artificially added into the air. Like people getting fat from eating too much carb, they can grow at faster rate, of course if proportionally bigger amount of N P K (like meat and protein for human), and other trace elements (like vitamins), and more light are added to their diet. NOW, question is IF it's sufficient to provide noticeable difference in the growth rate with the fermenting sugar water... I think there so many variables to consider - the volume of the grow tent/closet/room, exhaust, amount of sugar in the water, temperature, etc... I thought about doing it, but I decided to stick with basic for my first grow. There is no need to make it more complicated than it is especially if it's my first. It's like performance enhancing drugs. If you are a novice, no matter how much testosterone you inject into your butt, you are not going to be able to beat Mike Tyson. I think it's something you want to do later to refine your grow once you almost perfect it.
What nutrients do you put in at each cycle and how to know which ones are needed?
Hope you did lots of reading on that one already, a balanced NPK nutes with slight lean on N for veg and more P and K for flowering. You WILL run into some deficiency and overnutes. But, by paying close attention to the looks and the feel of the plants all the time, you can correct it if it's early enough to catch. Like if they look more like lime green near the tip than nice dark green during veg, you might want to bump up more N. If you see brown tip and weird curls and curves in the leaves, you may have overnuted them.
Are fans completely needed in the tent?
Yes, for both exhaust and air movement. You need exhaust, because it's going to get hot in there. You need movement in the air because it creates micro-tears in the stalk and leaves, which makes them repair the tissue, thus stronger body. And no air movement means mold and pests. No good.
For the lights, I would probably use 400w HPS lamps, do you need to use a reflector with them? Also do you have a carbon filter?
So you want to make the system as efficient as possible to save costs, right? When you use a good reflector, you can divert some of the light back to the plants. I don't think my CoolTube is well designed to do that efficiently. I can tell there is a super bright spots in the middle and it does not spread the light evenly. Do some research and don't skimp on the reflector, I'd say. Glad I kept the 8 T5. I think those plants get enough red spectrums from HPS with supplemental blue spectrums from another 400+ watts T5s. I expected much more stretch, but they ended up super stocky and dense. I think it's because the blue light kept the internodes shorter. I've read somewhere that mixed spectrum yields better results, too. But then how about LED?? They are single wavelength light source.... Too many options and discussions, too little time...
Also do you have a carbon filter?
YES! You can get away with that during the veg and maaaybe a week or two into flowering, but the smell will all the sudden scare the shit out of you. When you have air-cooled HPS system, you have two options of ducting system. You can either take the air directly from outside of your grow area (I think this is an ideal way, but you will need one more fan for exhaust!) or like I did, you can attach the carbon filter and take the air from inside the tent through the filter, then - inline fan - CoolTube - and outside. You can save the money this way by not having to pay for another inline fan and the running cost, BUT I think problem is that since I must run it 24/7, I am shortening the life of carbon filter to the max... If you have independent exhaust system, you can set the timer to on/off or even with thermostat.
Hope this answers to some of your questions. (Sorry, I'm not a native English speaker, so ask me if you need clarifications...)
Japonicus
