My First Grow, Easy Rider, Tent Set Up, Please Help

Ok, I think im almost ready to go on my first grow. I have a 1x 1mx 1.8 mylar grow tent, a 400w HPS light. a flood and drain hydroponic system,with all nutrients included + ph upper and downer, and seed and clone booster, and seed/clone starter cubes, im still waiting for an 8inch exhaust fan and an 8 nch centrifugal inlet fan (should arrive tomorrow) and my easy rider seeds from amsterdam should arrive next week, but im keen to get ready in the mean time.

I have a few questions,

My grow tent will be set up in the shed which is private and secure, and the roof is lifted aprox a foot off the shed walls for air flow, the shed is about 8mx 6m in total, verylarge, and has a dividing wall down the back end where I am setting up.
My question is, as it is afterall a shed and will be cold at night and hotter during the day, should I run my light from say 4pm til 11am, would that be ok to compensate.
My main concern is temperature. I live in queensland so its hot, and im wandering if I should paint the back wall white, I have read flat white paint is good for reflection, would that help??

I will be setting everything up on sunday, should be interesting. In all the growrooms I look at I keep seeing the insular ducting, is this nessesary, I was under the impression the inlet and exhaust would connect straight to the tent, guess I will find out one way or the other come sunday

I will try to add some pics up on sunday. Any help would be really appreciated, also help with the easy rider strain would be great.

even if you compensate the time that shed will still be blazin during the day. slap a ac unit in there. all the ventilation is good but it seems it will still be really hot like an attic during the day.

Is it safe for the plants to use an AC in there as I would have to shut off the exhaust and inlet fans.

why would you have to shut them off?? power?? if you could cool a room and draw in fresh cool air to your grow area and exhaust it, you should be able to control the temps during the daytime hours. i saw you have a "dividing wall" .. is it closed off from the rest of the shed? hope you can get it figured out. sounds like a pretty good spot.

if you can keep the room cool, and if you have a good exhaust fan you might not even need your inlet fan as fresh cool air will be pulled through your tent and exhausted through your carbon filter.

I was thinking just because air con is supposed to be run in a shut of room, but if its ok to run the exhaust and maybe even inlet than I will. Power may become an issue simply because of how many things will need to be plugged in, maybe I better get a really good powerboard aswell.
The dividing wall in the shed is not totally shut off, but you cant see that area at all, and nobody ever goes out there anyway. Thanks alot for your help, im all ready to set up, just waiting on these seeds to arrive now, and off to ebay to find a cheap air con.

Big intake fan at the bottom
Big exhaust fan opposite it on the top
Or vice versa.Whatever suits your needs best. I run a 1000 watt HPS during a 100+ degree summer in a 2ft wide x 7ft long x 7.5 ft high room w/ only that set up: an exhaust fan at the top corner and an intake fan at the opposite, bottom, corner along w/ a fan blowing around on the plants. Temps never got above 80 in that room!

I'm sub'd for sure

I love chicks even better when they smoke and its even betterer than that if they grow! here have some rep+ for going all out like i did.
Check my crazy set up signature, ive got plenny of GREAT pics and theres some problems i mention about heat but i run a 600W un cooled bulb and i live in Melbourne, great to have another Aussie join up, head over to the aussie growers club and say high

Hey there Ozzy, how has the first night been with your new found clone? hey just a quick question, what are you going to be draining to....a res or waste? the reason why i ask is that i was looking at your pic with the two beds inside your tent, they seem to be sitting on the floor/ground, how are you going to get a good drain? (theres no gravity left to help you)

tricka said:

Hey there Ozzy, how has the first night been with your new found clone? hey just a quick question, what are you going to be draining to....a res or waste? the reason why i ask is that i was looking at your pic with the two beds inside your tent, they seem to be sitting on the floor/ground, how are you going to get a good drain? (theres no gravity left to help you)

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Hey tricka, you found my thread. I thought it dissapeared to the never never lol, cool now I can keep it as my first grow journal. So I'll put those pics here aswell. I guess the flood and drain bed is not very clear in the pic, it has a 30litre resevoir underneath, and then the bed full of clay pebbles sits on top, it has a submesible pump to pump up the water.

Turns out the clone is not a clone, but a seedling. But I didn't have to pay for it. But its in soil, and as you can see I am set up for flood and drain, and am looking into transplanting from the soil to clayballs, but its not looking good.
I dont know how high to hang the light, im worried about burning it, so its outside for tonight, which it has been all along, so wont hurt it.

Do you grow with soil? just wandering if I do have to grow in a pot whats the best soil to use.

Ok for an updat, today I discovered what I believe to be fungas gnats in the soil of the pot, heaps of these little critters, after reading around I decided to go with the drastic approach of repotting. I very carefully disposed of the original pot and soil, and rinsed the roots. I have replanted into a new pot, with nice clean new soil.
I was tossing up between just trashing the plant, or trying to fix it, and I decided to go with the lesson that I will surley learn from trying to treat the problem.
I have also added some fish emulsion and seaweed extract to the water, as both a natural boost to help with the transplant, and it apparently helps prevent any reinfestation. I will be using yellow sticky tape and some potato to detect and further gnats, and if there is still some there, assuming the plant survives all this, I will treat with a mix of 1 part h202 hydrogen peroxide, and 4 parts water to knok the problem on its head.

So my poor little random has been through the ringer today, and is now in the tent with the light going on its first 18hr cycle. And not without issue there either. My inlet fan is so freaking noisy it sounds like a jet, well maybe thats a tad overboard, but its to dam noisy.
With the inlet fan, exhaust and light going the temp was sitting at 25.1c with 64% humidity. After a couple of hours I decided the noise was just to much to bear. It is a centrifugal high power cooling inlet fan, which is apparently designed to be 'quieter' than most ( cough cough my arse its quiet) So tomorrow I will run down and get a much quieter and cheaper inlet fan that doesn't bring attention to itself.
In the meantime I have just taken the pedestal fan down for tonight, the temp went up to 26.5 in a few minutes, but the humidity remains the same. I have not fully zipped up the middle zip in the tent to allow a little more air due to just having the pedestal atm.

So far the plant itself looks happy, im worried this aggresive treatment may kill it, but its only other option was death, so im going to hold out hope for now.

ozgirl said:

Hey tricka, you found my thread. I thought it dissapeared to the never never lol, cool now I can keep it as my first grow journal. So I'll put those pics here aswell. I guess the flood and drain bed is not very clear in the pic, it has a 30litre resevoir underneath, and then the bed full of clay pebbles sits on top, it has a submesible pump to pump up the water.

Turns out the clone is not a clone, but a seedling. But I didn't have to pay for it. But its in soil, and as you can see I am set up for flood and drain, and am looking into transplanting from the soil to clayballs, but its not looking good.
I dont know how high to hang the light, im worried about burning it, so its outside for tonight, which it has been all along, so wont hurt it.

Do you grow with soil? just wandering if I do have to grow in a pot whats the best soil to use.

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Lookin' pretty outstanding on your grow O to the Z. For soil I have a buddy who's using a 50/50 Fox Farm Light Warrior & Fox Farm Ocean Forrest mixed with perlite at a rate of probably 1 to 10 parts. He is getitng some killer vegetation going on in week 6 & this is actually the foundation for an outstanding soil mix invented by TGA Subcool found here: http://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/node/19711

Oh & 1 way to deter pests from invading your grow turf is clean your grow space everyday. Do a decent sweep-up of all soil, plant, matter, or whatever else may end up on the floor of the grow area, then also rub down any spills or spots you see with a h2o2 solution of about 1 to 3 parts or so. Once per week you want to rub down the entire area with a rag and a solution of 1 to 10 parts bleach. This will deter pests from taking over your grow.
Keep up with the great work.

Thanks peteswitch, im trying to keep everything clean, but I worry about using bleach to clean inside the tent with the plant in there. Im just praying I wont have to deal with any more pests, these were bought in with the plant, the pot and soil they were in has been tripple bagged and sealed so none of those suckers get into my gardens. Usually the only pest I deal with around here is caterpillas and spiders.


Well it has been over 24hrs now since the transplant, and the first full cycle of 18/6 under the light, and im happy and surprised to say it looks great so far, I was expecting some signs of shock and wilting to occur by now, but it is standing tall lets hope the next 24hrs are as good.

I also got the new inlet fan in today, works great with no noise, yah. happy.

Well another day has come and gone, and the plant is still looking healthy, so im becoming more hopefull with this plant.

But on another note, I was really hoping my seeds would have arrived by now, but still nothing, so that is disapointing. patients patients.

Today is the 4th day, and everything is still looking fine, I have just moved the plant a little bit closer to the light, as it seems to be adjusting to everything ok, from what I can tell anyway.

hey good to hear ozgirl got any new pics of ya girl for us?

Here is some new photos, as you can see the plant hasn't grown since it went in the tent last wednsday (day 6) but I wasn't expecting it to with the rough transplant.
I cant believe its come through as well as it has. You can see in one of the pics one of the bottom leaves looks deformed, but I think it was just a bug or something damaged it early on, Im not to worried at this stage.

Still no seeds in the mail

Fungus Gnats

Fungus gnats like to feed on roots of the plants and organic matter. Adults and larvae live in moist, shady areas. The adults lay there eggs on top of the soil, near the base of the stem and takes about 4 days to hatch. The larvae will start by eating the root hairs of the plant then working their way up the plant, Fungus gnats like to eat organic matter so they will be stealing away nutrients from your plants, so its best to get rid of them completely. [color=red. Plants growing in rock wool are more prone to getting a more severe infestation than plants growing in soil. If your plants are affected during late flowering or close to harvest, please try to use the safest means of control to be safe to your health.[/color]

Prevent and Control

Prevent indoor entry of gnats by making sure there is no open windows open without screens on. Aug is a bad time for them as they are worst that time of the year.

Put sticky traps on the soil surface to trap the gnats

Put potato slices on the surface of the soil. The larvae like it and will be drawn to it.. After about 4 to 5 days, remove the potato slices with the larvae. To get rid of them you can do a lot of things like either use a NO pest strip, neem oil or putting sand on the surface of the soil will suffocate the eggs and get rid of them as well. Tobacco juice kills them, and works well for re-occurrences!

They can be in or on the soil and can fly. In order to get rid of them you can use neem oil, sand or perlite on the surface again kills them, and no pest strips catch the ones that fly. A chemical product called Zone works very well and is very powerful and works well in Hydroponics/Aeroponics!
Other Products which can be used in Hydroponics/Aeroponics and soil are:


Safer Yard & Garden Insecticide

GNATROL( used in Hydroponics/Aeroponics in the water as well as soil),
Safer Sticky Stakes,
TR-11000 Pyrethrum.
PERMETHRIN dust
Mosquito Dunks

Organic Control

Natrasoap
Pest Oil
Neem Oil
Hot Pepper Wax
Doc's Neem Pest Soap
Sticky traps
Safer's Insecticidal Soap
Neem Oil
Neem 2

http://www.weedfarmer.com/cannabis/tables_guide.php

also that is a nice and easy page to familiarise yourself with how are ya going with your new routine of zipping and un zipping to control temps?

Thats a nice setup you got there, im looking forward to seeing that tent full, sub'd

thanks for than info tricka, and the link. I have just put some potatoe in to detect any larvae if its there. When I transplanted I removed all soil and even rinsed the roots because I dont want any bugs in the tent. I'll be keeping a close eye. And so far so good with the pedestal, the tent flaps are wrapped around it so not a huge light leak, and the temps are staying under 31 now.
Hopefully soon I will build one of those styrafoam boxes to cut the noise of my big fan, and that should really solve any further problems.

Thanks for the comments potgrower and masterhemp, lol, I also cant wait to see the tent full