Get a Harvest Every 2 Weeks

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fadrian said:
Al, just wanted to let you know im modeling my grow after yours, except im thinkin 4 19"x25"x5" trays. if i grow my plants like you do, nice and small, do you think 6 plants in each tray would do alright?
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6 sounds about right. If I'm visualising correctly, you should be able to fit 6x 8" dia pots in a tray that size. I'm doing OK with 8" pots, should work for you too. :)
 
One device in my op that I haven't said quite enough about is the dehumidifier. Just a little 400 watt unit, but it takes about 10 litres of water per day out of the air.

Before I had the dehumidifier, powdery mildew was killing my leaves as fast as I could grow them and the really big, heavy nice colas got grey mould (bud rot). This all despite a really serious 8" axial blower sucking air out of the room and a pair of 6" axials pulling air in.

I've had this particular dehumidifier in service for about 4-5 years now. It started leaking some water a few weeks ago, so I took it out of the room to tear it apart and fix it. Slacker that I am, I didn't get to the job right away- 2 weeks went by.

Guess what came back? You betcha, powdery mildew and grey mould destroying my buds. Little fungus fuckwits. Humidity had been hovering at 65-70% without the dehumidifier. They reckoned that was as good as an engraved invitation. :?

So... I fixed the dehumidifier. Some internal rust was causing water to drip outside the drip tray. Cleaned up the rust with Mr Dremel and put some silicone sealant in a few places. Working like a charm again, no leaks... but I suspect the steel frame which holds the condensation coils is gonna rust out in a couple more years.

The fun part was that humidity dropped from 65-70% to 40-50%. Otta sort out the fungi.
 
so far humidity isnt a problem, I had a case of p.m. but over the last few weeks i've managed to rid myself of it, I do have a dehumidifier if need be, I bought 2nd hand to make a chiller out of just' n case so if not needed for that I could use it for what it was intended for to take water out of the air
 
akidynoken said:
so far humidity isnt a problem, I had a case of p.m. but over the last few weeks i've managed to rid myself of it, I do have a dehumidifier if need be, I bought 2nd hand to make a chiller out of just' n case so if not needed for that I could use it for what it was intended for to take water out of the air
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Bung it in the grow op as a dehumidifier. Trust me. The dehumidifier was probably my most effective grow-op upgrade. Seriously reduced mould/fungus problems and added about 30-40% to my yields.
 
all right i'll try to fit in there somewhere, maybe cut some vents to the lower area and run it down there, do you think it would pull any moisture from the air?
 
Al, so what works for you is putting the plants in pots (with hydroton as the medium?) and then the pots in ebb and flow trays? how tall, my tray is 5" deep.
 
akidynoken said:
all right i'll try to fit in there somewhere, maybe cut some vents to the lower area and run it down there, do you think it would pull any moisture from the air?
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The dehumidifier will be most effective if you locate it up fairly high in the grow room airspace.

I think you'll be stunned at how much water a dehumidifier removes from grow room air. In fact, if your dehumidifier has a small built in tank to collect condensation, it will fill up FAST.

My unit had a 2 litre built-in catch tank and also has a float switch which shuts off the unit when the internal tank is full. I removed the built-in teacup 'tank' and hardwired the overflow switch to defeat it. I'm using a 25 litre jug, formerly full of H2O2, to catch the drainage from the unit.

You should also consider working out some way to attach a length of old garden hose to its drain and running that hose to a larger container so you can recycle the mineral and chlorine free distilled water that your dehumidifier produces.
 
fadrian said:
Al, so what works for you is putting the plants in pots (with hydroton as the medium?) and then the pots in ebb and flow trays? how tall, my tray is 5" deep.
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All correct except that I use loose rockwool (aka 'floc,' sold in bale-sized bags) in the pots. My pots are common, 8" diameter x 8" tall black plastic pots (the black colour does block some light from roots, but high-intensity light will pass right through some plastics despite being coloured black), $1 each at Kmart.


(click for larger image)

Rockwool holds a lot of water and need only be flooded 1x/day. If you fill the pots with expanded clay pellets, you'll need to flood perhaps 3-4x/day during lights on.

I'm not a fan of expanded clay; it's expensive, heavy and if you drop a handful of it, you will chase it all over the room. It might be re-usable, but not without cleaning and sterilising the stuff, a major pain in the ass all by itself.
 
great stuff Al, just one more question though, how early do you start trimming the lower third of your plants?
 
tomorrow the next set of clones will go in and the others will rotate and get new nutes, its amazing how nice they are growing, cant wait for the next two weeks!wow!
 
they went in and fr about two hours they looked sick but then they perked back up and look real good now, with any luck i'll be seing the sea of green!
 
That was proboly Fdd, im not sure about this but i think the more posts you have the more it takes away or add's to rep. But you've ingnored him, Such a shame he is a nice guy who you would proboly get along with
 
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