My Pandemic Project featuring Chinese LED Strips

sf_frankie · Jun 27, 2020

All 55 transplanted. I will probably end up cutting back the number of plants or adding some supplemental lighting. The 640w version of these lights are only supposed to flower a 4x4 and veg a 5x5 but i upgraded to 720w. You guys think i could just scrog all of the bud sites to fit under the 4x4?

Now I’ve gotta figure out what to do with these left over clones, build a trellis and install the minisplit.

JimmyNuggs · Jun 30, 2020

Guestimate: 3² maybe 4² per light max.
Give em away. Or grow on outskirts for next clone set (but nbrs to be kept are minimal) maybe worth looking at a s.o.g. for those tables. Minimal veg time but with the right pot they are all tops.

sf_frankie · Jun 30, 2020

JimmyNuggs said:
Guestimate: 3² maybe 4² per light max.
Give em away. Or grow on outskirts for next clone set (but nbrs to be kept are minimal) maybe worth looking at a s.o.g. for those tables. Minimal veg time but with the right pot they are all tops.

With the grow bags I can squeeze 5x5 into a 4x4 space so I’m gonna do that for now. Can always remove plants as i go. I’ll likely pull a bunch out before the flip and keep them vegging in another room and then toss them in for flower after the first batch.

sf_frankie · Jul 2, 2020

Minisplit arrived today. Got the indoor unit mounted and the lines run. Just need to get some pavers for the outdoor part and get a sparky out to asses my electrical situation. Got a feeling I’ll need to run romex from the main panel on the house out to the other structure my grow is in. There is a sub panel in the room but the panel is full. I don’t know enough about electrical to do it myself although i could probably figure it out. I’m down to DIY damn near anything but I don’t like to fuck with electricity!

Starting a new nute recipe this week. My buddy had created the original one based on past grows of his but I’ve spent awhile researching nutes and chatting with experienced growers (huge thanks to @Gardenator) and found something more suitable. We were wayyy heavy on nitrogen and completely lacking in P and K and the plants weren’t doing as well as they should. A few were really struggling. Going to be running maxibloom with a few other supplements for a nice 1-2-2 ratio. My recipe should be much simpler than my buddies and ridiculously cheaper.

Keesje · Jul 2, 2020

1000 ppm CO2 seems quite high for plants in this stage to me.
But if they do fine, it is probably ok.

At first you had your filter on the ground and then you moved it to the sealing.
With Led it would be more usefull to keep it on the floor.
That way you force the heat to go down and warm up your plants.
(as you might know many growers with Led have the experience that the temperature in their room is too low)

Like your report and the pics!

sf_frankie · Jul 2, 2020

Keesje said:
1000 ppm CO2 seems quite high for plants in this stage to me.
But if they do fine, it is probably ok.

At first you had your filter on the ground and then you moved it to the sealing.
With Led it would be more usefull to keep it on the floor.
That way you force the heat to go down and warm up your plants.
(as you might know many growers with Led have the experience that the temperature in their room is too low)

Like your report and the pics!

I backed the CO2 off down to 800ppm over a week ago, forgot to log that in my journal. I don’t have issues with low temps now that it’s sealed. I run the room at 84F during the day. I’ve got a few thermometers in the room including one hanging right at canopy level. It’s a few degrees cooler above the lights even with the filter where it is. Temps are surprisingly stable even with the shitty portable AC. LEDs have more usable spectrum than HID so it’s okay to run the room warmer. With HID the unused light spectrum energy is wasted as heat. Since the plant is actually using more of that light energy it’s okay to run warmer room temps. The higher temps actually accelerate the photosynthesis reaction so it’s not just okay, it’s actually beneficial! I’m horrible at explaining things so i hope that made sense! There’s a research paper on blackdog led company’s website that breaks it all down in an easily digestible fashion.

Dividedsky · Jul 2, 2020

So do you have a carbon filter and fan also exhausting the room? See you have 2 set up. Once the mini split comes are you going to fully seal the room. Thats what i do, i have a 2 ton mini split in a sealed room and run a co2 injection with a tank. Only have to run it 15 mins out of the hour and its usually enough to keep my co2 levels above 1000ppm. I have a inline fan carbon filter just blowing and scrubbing air around in room. No air goes outside or comes inside the flower room

ilovereggae · Jul 2, 2020

Sweet setup!

sf_frankie · Jul 2, 2020

Dividedsky said:
So do you have a carbon filter and fan also exhausting the room? See you have 2 set up. Once the mini split comes are you going to fully seal the room. Thats what i do, i have a 2 ton mini split in a sealed room and run a co2 injection with a tank. Only have to run it 15 mins out of the hour and its usually enough to keep my co2 levels above 1000ppm. I have a inline fan carbon filter just blowing and scrubbing air around in room. No air goes outside or comes inside the flower room

The big 8” one hanging from the ceiling is scrubbing/recirculating the air in the room. The little one kicks on for a few mins every couple hours to bring in fresh air and runs for the entire duration for lights out. It’s synced up with a little duct fan down low that grabs filtered air from outside. I modified a hepa filter meant for cars to filter the air intake. Without the air intake it always felt pretty stuffy in there. Even right now when I’m not totally sealed I can maintain 1000ppm with about 15 mins of CO2 gen burn time. I modified my portable ac to pull air from outside. It still sucks out some CO2 enriched air but it’s not as bad as it was

sf_frankie · Jul 2, 2020

ilovereggae said:
Sweet setup!

Thanks!

Did a flush on the four mature plants today and checked the runoff. Was at 2800ppm and the worst one had a pH of 4.7. The nute recipe my buddy made was fucked and the plants were likely over fed. Got a ton of yellowing, dead leaves and weak stems. I spent the last few days coming up with a new recipe based on the KISS method that’s popular on the IC boards. It’s mostly just maxibloom but I’m gonna add a couple of supplements at VERY low levels.The old recipe was heavy on N and had almost zero P or K. The new one backs off the N and should be right around 1-2-2. The KISS method is basically a simplified Lucas method and a lot of people seem to have a lot of success with it. I’ll probably end up flushing for the next week or two before introducing the new formula at 25% and gradually upping the strength over two weeks or so. A bit of a set back but I totally expected this since it’s my first grow. I didn’t bother to educate myself on nutes until this week. Probably should have but I was busy figuring out how to build an ideal grow room. Still having a ton of fun with this though. I have faith that things will turn around and I’ll continue to enjoy learning on the fly.

This guy is not happy!

Gardenator · Jul 3, 2020

Dividedsky said:
So do you have a carbon filter and fan also exhausting the room? See you have 2 set up. Once the mini split comes are you going to fully seal the room. Thats what i do, i have a 2 ton mini split in a sealed room and run a co2 injection with a tank. Only have to run it 15 mins out of the hour and its usually enough to keep my co2 levels above 1000ppm. I have a inline fan carbon filter just blowing and scrubbing air around in room. No air goes outside or comes inside the flower room

Just a question about your room, its fully sealed no air in or out and the air doesnt become stagnant dead air? Do you have an ozone gen or an air purifier in there helping that out? Id be interested in fully sealing my room (have been for a while) but i thought that the air should be exchanged for fresh air every so often and have no pulled the trigger on a completely sealed space, everything is filtered coming in (merv 12) that even blocks mold spores from powdery and anything else that may want to enter the room. Im just wondering how you dont exchange any air without choking the plants because they need fresh air once they have depleted the benifits from it through transpiration?

Dividedsky · Jul 3, 2020

sf_frankie said:
Thanks!

Did a flush on the four mature plants today and checked the runoff. Was at 2800ppm and the worst one had a pH of 4.7. The nute recipe my buddy made was fucked and the plants were likely over fed. Got a ton of yellowing, dead leaves and weak stems. I spent the last few days coming up with a new recipe based on the KISS method that’s popular on the IC boards. It’s mostly just maxibloom but I’m gonna add a couple of supplements at VERY low levels.The old recipe was heavy on N and had almost zero P or K. The new one backs off the N and should be right around 1-2-2. The KISS method is basically a simplified Lucas method and a lot of people seem to have a lot of success with it. I’ll probably end up flushing for the next week or two before introducing the new formula at 25% and gradually upping the strength over two weeks or so. A bit of a set back but I totally expected this since it’s my first grow. I didn’t bother to educate myself on nutes until this week. Probably should have but I was busy figuring out how to build an ideal grow room. Still having a ton of fun with this though. I have faith that things will turn around and I’ll continue to enjoy learning on the fly.

This guy is not happy!
View attachment 4612974

Shit dude 2800 ppms!!! You must be locked out. Have the co2 levels gone up at any time? Usually locked out plant can uptake co2 and your room will have really high levels of co2. I'm running a sealed room, hit me up if you have any questions. Don't sweat it bro, shit happens, after taking a few months off I ran in to some problems starting back up, you'll be alright. Just water straight ph'd water for a week or 2. I can recommend canna nutes- its the canna terra line. Really easy to use, its 1-grow nute, 1-flower nute and a few additives. I feed 2-3 feedings in a row then straight watering. Last feeding was 650 ppms and then a few day later when I did straight water, my runoff was 300 ppms. I use r/o water sometimes half r/o half tap. Canna nutes are the shit and work for me.

Dividedsky · Jul 3, 2020

Gardenator said:
Just a question about your room, its fully sealed no air in or out and the air doesnt become stagnant dead air? Do you have an ozone gen or an air purifier in there helping that out? Id be interested in fully sealing my room (have been for a while) but i thought that the air should be exchanged for fresh air every so often and have no pulled the trigger on a completely sealed space, everything is filtered coming in (merv 12) that even blocks mold spores from powdery and anything else that may want to enter the room. Im just wondering how you dont exchange any air without choking the plants because they need fresh air once they have depleted the benifits from it through transpiration?

Ya my room is full sealed no air in or out. Have 70 pint dehu in the room and 2 ton mini split. Also run a 6inch inline fan and carbon filter just blowing air and co2 around the room.

Dividedsky · Jul 3, 2020

Gardenator said:
Just a question about your room, its fully sealed no air in or out and the air doesnt become stagnant dead air? Do you have an ozone gen or an air purifier in there helping that out? Id be interested in fully sealing my room (have been for a while) but i thought that the air should be exchanged for fresh air every so often and have no pulled the trigger on a completely sealed space, everything is filtered coming in (merv 12) that even blocks mold spores from powdery and anything else that may want to enter the room. Im just wondering how you dont exchange any air without choking the plants because they need fresh air once they have depleted the benifits from it through transpiration?

Plants breath in co2 so the sealed room works great. Doesn't choke out plants at all. My gardening has gone to the next level since getting the mini split and sealing my room. Check out my plants- these girls are only 25 days in flower-

Gardenator · Jul 3, 2020

Dividedsky said:
Plants breath in co2 so the sealed room works great. Doesn't choke out plants at all. My gardening has gone to the next level since getting the mini split and sealing my room. Check out my plants- these girls are only 25 days in flower-
View attachment 4613041 View attachment 4613043 View attachment 4613048

The plants are beautiful, they look super healthy too, i have a minisplit and dehumi and Co2 enrichment as well, i may seal this bad chicken up this weekend and see how the ladies like it, ive always been cautious about having a full seal and not exchanging any air but this gives me some hope, no foreign air at all. I like this idea alot. And again day 23 flower, props them are going to fill right out nicely with another 37ish days to grow good job.

Dividedsky · Jul 3, 2020

Gardenator said:
The plants are beautiful, they look super healthy too, i have a minisplit and dehumi and Co2 enrichment as well, i may seal this bad chicken up this weekend and see how the ladies like it, ive always been cautious about having a full seal and not exchanging any air but this gives me some hope, no foreign air at all. I like this idea alot. And again day 23 flower, props them are going to fill right out nicely with another 37ish days to grow good job.

Ya seal it up dude. I don't run co2 when light are off, obviously. Just have carbon filter and fan on blowing air around, also have the dehu on...ppms are normal 4-500 ppms when lights kick on before co2 starts running.

Keesje · Jul 3, 2020

Gardenator said:
Just a question about your room, its fully sealed no air in or out and the air doesnt become stagnant dead air?

Dead air does not exist.
It is more a thing we say when we - people - are in a room which lacks fresh air.
But plants only need CO2 and O2.
CO2 you can supply with a bottle or a burner. And O2 is always present.

Gardenator · Jul 3, 2020

Keesje said:
Dead air does not exist.
It is more a thing we say when we - people - are in a room which lacks fresh air.
But plants only need CO2 and O2.
CO2 you can supply with a bottle or a burner. And O2 is always present.

People trapped in a sealed box will die from suffication, air is depleted of O2 and CO2 through breathing and transpiration, a completely truly sealed container only holds so much volume of air, our cillia in our lungs uses the oxygen in the air and breathes out the carbon dioxide, you would fully deplete the "air space" of breatheable air if CO2 and O2 are not replenished, the plants however only transpire CO2 durring the day when photosynthesizing and transpire O2 durring their dark period because they are still metabolically active but not photosynthesizing. The plants are creating his fresh air only because he is enriching the day period with CO2 which contains O2 that they will later transpire when the lights go out... dead air does exist thats why people die when a mine shaft collapses because they physically run out of breatheable air, also in this case i imagine every time he enters and leaves his room fresh air is exchanged in due to negative pressure unless he has an air curtain on his door in which case air is pushed out of the space...

Gardenator · Jul 3, 2020

Dividedsky said:
Ya seal it up dude. I don't run co2 when light are off, obviously. Just have carbon filter and fan on blowing air around, also have the dehu on...ppms are normal 4-500 ppms when lights kick on before co2 starts running.

Im going to try sealing it up, i will have to unduct my canfan and seal the ducting up so this will have to be after this current flower cycle im on. Only one thing is i want to run an inline canfan on a damper duct relayed to kick on if the oxygen level in the room drops below a certain level, i will have to solder in a 5v relay into an air quality meter on its alarm signal to kick on the fan and pull fresh air in from outside through a custom filter box. Probly a tote with holes drilled in pulling in air through filters i can change in and out as i need to...

Dividedsky · Jul 3, 2020

Keesje said:
Dead air does not exist.
It is more a thing we say when we - people - are in a room which lacks fresh air.
But plants only need CO2 and O2.
CO2 you can supply with a bottle or a burner. And O2 is always present.

Ya oxygen is always present because it what the plants breath out.

My Pandemic Project featuring Chinese LED Strips

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