Jimski's Grow Journal

Finally after 2 months I am launched.
Big thank you to all that helped going back 14 years on some threads. I can not thank everyone by name as I spent about 40 hours here on research but as you see a point I make you will know who you are .

This started when my wife bought me a grow tent. It was not the tent I would have chosen but it is a gift from my wife and I love it.
2.7x 2.7 x 60 inch grow tent with 4 duct fan and charcoal filter. 150 watt light x 2 with fans in light. Vivosun e42 controler with one clip on orbital. 4th fan just a old 6 inch plastic fan even with netpots and 5th fan in bottom of tent used for extraction. I have nothing blowing into my tent.
Media is hydro and was the only big mistake I made as the vivuson kit does not meet my specs for airflow into the water du to specs. I am going to use it for this grow but will be upgraded. I ditched the auto water ring as a waste of time and will hand water seedlings until they are supported by the water in the buckets. 2 open hoses for airation the majority of posters stated that the stones were an added expense that was not needed. My buckets look like a pan at medium boil.
The buckets are on the floor with the netpots even with a panel I fabricated to split the tent heat zones. DWC needs a temp close to 65 and with my lung room at 67 degrees the air into the buckets and the extracted airflow in the bottom keeps it cool.
The hardware you see on the panel will allow LST with multiple points and a fixture that will allow me to hoist up the panel to remove the buckets for cleaning. It will also allow me to raise it with a scrog net as a unit to remove the buckets while the pots and plants hang.
Nutrients will be 2 types, Jacks 321 start to finish and the second pot will be the 5 part kit that came from the seed company. Speaking of seeds I will be growing White Widow photo as a first run. The whole internet thinks WW is the best as it works with lower spec lights and nutes but will take higher production lights and nutes ppm.
Controlling the enviroment is not automatic but only requires changing a recipe in the e42 controller. I can run the tent to 90 in about 12 minutes from night time temps and have full control over humidity from 65 to 40 RH. The transition from night to day is helped by my auxillary lights. I have 120 watts of heat lamps pumping UV a,b,and c at the walls for heat. None will e aimed at plant but if the get glancing UV from the lights not worried about it. From my 338bt it does not move ppfd numbers.
IPM. Insect prevention is the 3 rings defense I found in a journal. I use sticky traps and ant baits on the lower and upper areas. All holes in the tent have covers or wrapped with duck tape and in the outer and inner draw strings I placed ant baits and sticky. Just outside the tent is a chemical barrier called defense. It is sprayed on the base of the tent and the carpet out to about 6 inches. There are also insect traps for visual check of infiltration from commando bugs.
Outer barrie includes cleaning all dusty areas out to 15 feet from the tent and spraying barrier defense in a 6 inch band around all outside access like doors and windows. The best thing is the traps. At the outer barrier are simple bug traps that smell good to bugs.
I also have neem oil and and a shop vac with a wand for removal of bugs from tent. It has a thottle on it so I do not suck down a plant leaf.
Backup plans.
I will use a good temp and lots of air in my buckets but I may get slime. I have printed up the tea recipe from here and did a dry run. I have a few small aquarium pumps and stones for the brew.
power loss.
I have nothing but Ford products at the house and each one has a 10 amp ac plug in the back of the center console. I can run a cord in a run everything on the 800 watts the car will make. I am county so power outages can be 2 hours or 4 days.
Btw you can make coffee and run a small griddle off the outlet in the car
One of the things with the vivosun products I did not care for are the sensors and the programming for the "auto" programs where it keeps you in your target zones. It has a hard time understanding when the fan sucks and when the fan blows. The sensors not only have 2 high of an error quotent but I see calibration drift that makes the vdp useless. GIGO for data and control. I have matching old school temp and humidity gauges in all 3 areas , lung room upper and lower. When the sensors on the vivosun are off more that a slight amount I resync the lot and start again. ( omg this is such a pain I rage large over this )
Seeds ( 2 ) are wet and in a drawer upstairs at 75 degrees and 60% rh but of course in a wet paper towl per seed company. I will run my water level even with bottom of nets and install seedling in a tiny bit of rockwool after sprouting 2 inches from netpot bottom. After roots start and I have a small ball will drop water level 1 and then 2 inches as the plant grows.
Feeding.
I have plumbed the buckets to use a vacuum extraction setup for the water. 1/2 hose from bottom of bucket to top of a 5 gallon bucket and then hose to bottom of bucket. I hav

Hit the wrong button and posted in the middle of a sentence. BOOO
As I was saying the hoses go into the bucket and a shop vac attaches to the fitting drawing a vacuum in the bucket that pulls the water out. I then use a second 5 gallon bucket to fill up the buckets by simple gravity feed. Ths shop vac will blow but I am not forcing high pressure water into my grow tent gravity works fine. I even figgured out how much water is in the hoses to I can be exact.
Weekly I will extract all the water and then put straight tap in for 30 minutes and fill. Extract straight water and then gravity feed nutes.
In addition I always have enough declorinated tap to change to a low spec nutes situation if the wheels come off while I brew tea or find out what went wrong. I also have an addional bubbler line ran in to extract water samples for daily look and sniff.

I will update weekly at least and hope to find success here on rollitup.

Jimski said:

Finally after 2 months I am launched.
Big thank you to all that helped going back 14 years on some threads. I can not thank everyone by name as I spent about 40 hours here on research but as you see a point I make you will know who you are .

This started when my wife bought me a grow tent. It was not the tent I would have chosen but it is a gift from my wife and I love it.
2.7x 2.7 x 60 inch grow tent with 4 duct fan and charcoal filter. 150 watt light x 2 with fans in light. Vivosun e42 controler with one clip on orbital. 4th fan just a old 6 inch plastic fan even with netpots and 5th fan in bottom of tent used for extraction. I have nothing blowing into my tent.
Media is hydro and was the only big mistake I made as the vivuson kit does not meet my specs for airflow into the water du to specs. I am going to use it for this grow but will be upgraded. I ditched the auto water ring as a waste of time and will hand water seedlings until they are supported by the water in the buckets. 2 open hoses for airation the majority of posters stated that the stones were an added expense that was not needed. My buckets look like a pan at medium boil.
The buckets are on the floor with the netpots even with a panel I fabricated to split the tent heat zones. DWC needs a temp close to 65 and with my lung room at 67 degrees the air into the buckets and the extracted airflow in the bottom keeps it cool. View attachment 5425487View attachment 5425488
The hardware you see on the panel will allow LST with multiple points and a fixture that will allow me to hoist up the panel to remove the buckets for cleaning. It will also allow me to raise it with a scrog net as a unit to remove the buckets while the pots and plants hang.
Nutrients will be 2 types, Jacks 321 start to finish and the second pot will be the 5 part kit that came from the seed company. Speaking of seeds I will be growing White Widow photo as a first run. The whole internet thinks WW is the best as it works with lower spec lights and nutes but will take higher production lights and nutes ppm.
Controlling the enviroment is not automatic but only requires changing a recipe in the e42 controller. I can run the tent to 90 in about 12 minutes from night time temps and have full control over humidity from 65 to 40 RH. The transition from night to day is helped by my auxillary lights. I have 120 watts of heat lamps pumping UV a,b,and c at the walls for heat. None will e aimed at plant but if the get glancing UV from the lights not worried about it. From my 338bt it does not move ppfd numbers.
IPM. Insect prevention is the 3 rings defense I found in a journal. I use sticky traps and ant baits on the lower and upper areas. All holes in the tent have covers or wrapped with duck tape and in the outer and inner draw strings I placed ant baits and sticky. Just outside the tent is a chemical barrier called defense. It is sprayed on the base of the tent and the carpet out to about 6 inches. There are also insect traps for visual check of infiltration from commando bugs.
Outer barrie includes cleaning all dusty areas out to 15 feet from the tent and spraying barrier defense in a 6 inch band around all outside access like doors and windows. The best thing is the traps. At the outer barrier are simple bug traps that smell good to bugs.
I also have neem oil and and a shop vac with a wand for removal of bugs from tent. It has a thottle on it so I do not suck down a plant leaf.
Backup plans.
I will use a good temp and lots of air in my buckets but I may get slime. I have printed up the tea recipe from here and did a dry run. I have a few small aquarium pumps and stones for the brew.
power loss.
I have nothing but Ford products at the house and each one has a 10 amp ac plug in the back of the center console. I can run a cord in a run everything on the 800 watts the car will make. I am county so power outages can be 2 hours or 4 days.
Btw you can make coffee and run a small griddle off the outlet in the car
One of the things with the vivosun products I did not care for are the sensors and the programming for the "auto" programs where it keeps you in your target zones. It has a hard time understanding when the fan sucks and when the fan blows. The sensors not only have 2 high of an error quotent but I see calibration drift that makes the vdp useless. GIGO for data and control. I have matching old school temp and humidity gauges in all 3 areas , lung room upper and lower. When the sensors on the vivosun are off more that a slight amount I resync the lot and start again. ( omg this is such a pain I rage large over this )
Seeds ( 2 ) are wet and in a drawer upstairs at 75 degrees and 60% rh but of course in a wet paper towl per seed company. I will run my water level even with bottom of nets and install seedling in a tiny bit of rockwool after sprouting 2 inches from netpot bottom. After roots start and I have a small ball will drop water level 1 and then 2 inches as the plant grows.
Feeding.
I have plumbed the buckets to use a vacuum extraction setup for the water. 1/2 hose from bottom of bucket to top of a 5 gallon bucket and then hose to bottom of bucket. I hav

Click to expand...

Good luck with the grow man you find a nice ww you will definitely remember it

update:
Seeds in drawer system stable for 4 days running since seeds put in bag
Both seeds sprouted. One has a tap root 3 times as long as the sister. Paper towels damp in a baggie. Installed in ph rinsed rockwool 3/4 cube. varified both buckets the pebble bottoms touching rockwool damp but does not wick to wool. ph adjusted tap water. installed pebbles to just below lip to block light.
ppfd 130 temp 76.5 / 74% rh single light at 37% vpd .9-1.0 bucket temp 69 degrees. outside 71 rh 46%
will raise ppfd 10 per day one day after leaves show will water am day time every other day and check for roots after leaves show. will stop watering after multiple roots hit water. After leaves show will drain and fill with 50% nutes and hydroguard

fighting cool air im bottom to keep buckts cold leaching my humidity. Panel not sealed well enough. low rh in lung room hard to manage with daytime temps start at 60 and go to 90.

update
Fighting the weather. Seems that I am not the only one using my basement as a lung room. It appears that my house does that also. The RH was not stable enough to run a draw negative as the incomming air killed rh. A new plan seems to be working.

Turned on both lights and set at 28% I have only one fan on in tent and it runs over stainless water bowls with clay pebbles. No leaves yet no need for fans. Still use booster heat lamps for transitions for the first 10 minutes. Panel assembly leaks stopped by 4 inch rolled towels that can double as RH reserviors if needed. Opened up bottom panel area and installed a homemade extractor fan and duct. Also placed small fan outside blowing into bottom area constant right at dwc buckets. Air temp in lower section 67-70 and back at night. inside tent 76.3 degrees RH 78-80 all day. Vdp stable at .6 just waiting on leaves.....

update: This morning one plant has broken through the clay pebbles and has 4 minileaves. Bright green at 6am transition but by noon droopy. 76 degrees 78% rh. rechecked light settings and retested using 338bt tool and got 145 ppdf. Retested using lux meter and found online a spectrum map matching light. based on spectrum and lux ppdf 221! The way I calibrated the ppdf did not properly work most likely as the spectrum choices in the app are like 7-9 and the one in the online calculator has 18 choices and one looked just like the spectrum listed for the light

adjusted light to lowest 25% 6600 lux convert 170 podf. will watch and if second does not break tomorrow will remove pebbles and inspect and if dead will launch another seed.

update:

Second bucket 2 days behind slowly removed pellets and found dead seed. this seed had sprouted but the tap root was 1/3 the length of the live one. In hindsite I should have planted one and rechecked the other one in a day. very bottom of rockwool was just a little damp but dry rest of cube. Not gunna blame seed supplier for this one..
3rd seed in damp towels in the dark.
Bucket one has 4 leafs 2 are seed 2 are sadly scheduled for death by topping in prolly 4-6 weeks. Nutes ready for 4 leaves weak jacks at 125 ppm. I plan on slow rolling lights and nuted until second plant catches up.

update:
netpot front bucket inspection found water clean clear and at pot bottom = 9inches deep. All hoses connected and bubbles go 1/2 way up netpot outside. No roots yet.
bucket number 2 netpot EXACTLY 2 inches down which from my number is the last water measurment I did for volume. I see no leaks into bottom of tent and the govee in there says 51% rh. You can set up the best system you want but if people are involved mistakes will be made. adjusted water level to even with netpot

NOTE: Even with water level 2 inches down the pebbles just under the rockwool were damp. Bucket agitation FTW

update
3rd seed popped and has a nice 3/4 root. As the root looked to long to get into a rockwool starter without damage I placed it directly in the pellets and will water daily without rockwool.
Bucket 1 has one set round one nice set veg leaves and just see buds and next level. will check for roots tomorrow. round leaves still green.

Going Hydro the first time is a bold move. I never ventured over to pure hydro so gonna be fun to see how it goes for you.
I wish you all the best.

update
pot 1 has 4 strong leaves and 2 shrivled round leaves. Same water for 12 days. extracted water and added Jacks at 321 measured and corrected to .4 ec 175 ppm- 200 ppm. Set water level at netpot bottom 9 inches. per instructions will not start hydrogaurd at this time.
Pot 2 no action from seedling above hydro pellets but can see edge of hull and white at an angle so seedling has moved up about 1 inch. will continue to water multiple times a day when pellets dry.

Double checked light both at 28% and lumens at 5500 convert to 170 ppfd and no signs of burn and seedlings always look like they are stretching to me. Will monitor close for nutrient issues like a real bad math error on the nutes
Weekly averages temp 74.1 ( includes 6 hours light off )
RH% 77% and vdp at .7 average for the week.
Ceiling fan reduces tent by .2 degree
Fan blowing on tent lowers .4 degrees on high.
Daily weather system this week of starting at 60 and going to 90 has been stopped by a hurricane remnents. Basement still 70-71 in the day and 68 at night but Rh swings stopped are now steady at 60%. Fans schedule extended for balance. 1-13 when lights on and off.

Update.

After being emotionally ready to write off the third seed and do a one plant grow my bucket 2 seedling broke through today. Hand watering hydropellets is worse than a 4 month old baby but will continue for a few days.
Bucket one after nuted even the round leaves picked up but i am sure will die soon. adjusted lights to 33% top of plant 8200 converted to 220 ppfd. will monitor seedling for stress as this is higher than first bucket but number 1 did not look like it was enjoying low light. I can modify bucket2 light to reduce ppfd but lets see how she rolls. I can check often for stress. Would like to see if bucket 2 basically 12 days behind at this point catches up.

Update
Bucket number 1 has broke theough the netpot bottom and is slurping nutes.
Good color and looks nice wiggling. Adjusted ph to 5.7 from 6.9.
Bucket #2 has 4 tiny leaves and has moved past a level of pellets. Changed out water with just ph balanced no nutes yet. Looks like a runt at the moment. No roots out of net pot.
Adjusted light to reflect 8200 lumens #1 and 7000 #2. From first seedling until after 4 real leaves do not exceed 7k lumens or it starts to turn pale. Hope she catches up.

Update
This morning bucket 1 seedling has separation for finger leaves and 2 tiny fingers on each top 2 leaves. Ph 5.9 today no adds. Bucket seems to track about a .9 ph rise over 48 hours and I think this is due to airation not feeding by the plant.
Bucket 2 seedling progressing well.
This seedling was placed much lower in netpot so I hope it hits water faster than rockwool launched seedling. I will be using the seed provider starting kit nutes and even use thier version of hydroguard and they have bloom nutes and whatnot.

Lumens #1 8200 #2 7200. Have noticed some temp variations that I can not blame atmosphere conditions on and I am starting to think I may have an issue with my lights. Same settings through the day day get stronger and I have been adjusting light down. Will see if I can tie my fluke88 MM onto the corcuit and check amp draw. Damn aluminum wiring......

Subbed! This is going to be interesting.

Update

Bucket 1 5.9 ph still .4 ec as expected no adjustments. Plant looks good fingers developing and some separation from lower leaves.
Bucket 2 no nutes yet plant progressing well.
Insect prevention sweep found area 2 right outside tent has infiltrators. 2 random flies and 2 small moths. Pantry traps for protection. Random pill bug on sticky pad 5 feet away.

Pictures bucket 1 is 12 days ahead of bucket 2 and it shows

Update
This morning coldest day since spring. 42 f and heat kicked on in house. This sent RH out of the limets of wet towels. I had purchased a controller for my heat lamps but I had purchased a duel temp/ Rh controller so I got to it.
This controller is just weird. It will work for dehu and hu as well as 24 hour timer and temp up or down. The thing is when you install the second probe ( Rh) it wipes the memory settings and even calibration.

Took me a while but I now have 24 hour control of temp and humidity again. It is a simple outlet controller that turns a vicks humidifier off and on. will need to duct tape a glowing bar for fan speed but no big deal. I was also surprised how accurate +-1% on temp and .5 % on RH. Very fast sensors and the vivosun laggs behind it a lot. Part of the problem is the lagg on the vaporizer. You have to heat up an element and then let it cool down when it shuts off. Got a nice wave from 75-78 % RH.
All plants progressing and no signs of stress. At 3:30 this am RH warning went after dropping lower than 68% off but that just turns a light on in the app. RH was down to 51% for a while but plants pulled through.

update
Kids doing fine but unless I am really wrong these WW are some hungry plants. Both seedling and early veg have nutes
and the big one perked up for a couple of days then ph rose and ec fell and I have pale creeping up. So does the small ones.


Fed nutes to both bucket one with jacks bucket 2 with seed provided nutes.
Ec .8 #1 ec .5 bucket 2

If they follow same rate will green up then fade 3 days after. At this point bucket 1 will need a change out anyways. Not really trying to do both on the same day

update!
We Are Under Attack!

The white insect scourge has been spotted in the hydroton and leaf damage has been found. Close range sticky traps laid and am researching other treatments. From posts neem oil on plants this young is a no no. I am thinking about using a light shield like product and encasing the top of the net pot and spread that D long word earth Diatomacous I think and make it look like they are in soil.
Except, you know, bubblers and stuff.
Or I send in the big guns.
Since nutes plants exploding seedling loves it bucket one still pissedoff at me but color is back and growing

update
well 2 days of growth and bucket 1 is in need of topping. PH under control wanders from 5.5 to 6.5 EC and ppm in range for veg. I have the next nutes mixed and in the charge bucket for prolly 2 days after top


Bucket 2 may be dead. Gunna blame this again on the noob writing this update. I delayed nutes waiting on the thing to get up the hydroton not realizing that if it takes 10 days to climb out it should have been fed. Leaf tips are clearing but the rest of leaves remain yellow. It continues to raise leaves to the light and is getting taller but not expanding.



After topping will keep tent closed as I want it to recover so we can start LST.