New grower trying something new (pertetual grow

[Hushpuppy]

You shouldn't have any trouble having things shipped to your place. I have had plenty of things shipped to my door without issue. Most of the time it is shipped in discreet packaging so it isn't obvious what it is. I prefer to order stuff from online than to go to a grow store as you can be profiled and tracked at the store if they suspect MJ growers are coming in. They can't track all of the shipments that go out from online stores if they wanted to so it is safer in my opinion.

I think you will do fine with the 2 600whps lights in the flower tent. And it will generate more heat for your space as well (which can be a whole other issue that we will need to discuss). Ventilation will be a new animal that must be done correctly for good results at harvest time.

You can load pics here without issue. Just make sure you don't have anything showing in them that can identify you or your place. You will definitely need to load them to the computer first so that you can resize them if necessary. You are safer to load pics here than anywhere else.

I think 3gal pots are a good size for doing organic soil growing. The good thing about it is that you don't necessarily have to worry too much about pH adjustment unless your water is waay off. I would recommend that you get some extra beneficial microbes and some "nute tea" to go along with what you are doing. I order most of my stuff from plant lighting hydroponics.com and from discount hydroponics.com. Ebay and Amazon are good for the big stuff but for most of my nutes and maintenance stuff, I go to one of the 2 sites above.

If you are having issues with the soil not drying out, it may be that the soil is too dense and not aerated enough. Most of us here use a lot of pearlite to mix into our soil or soilless medium as it keeps the mediums from compacting and holding water. It is very important for the soil to "breathe" as the roots need oxygen to keep them from drowning. Mixing peat and pearlite into a good dense soil will help it to drain and pull more air into it. If your soil is dense and doesn't have this material that could be what is happening. It is also very important for your pots to have very good drainage to allow extra water to pass through the soil so that the roots don't drown.

Here is a link to something that I believe will serve you in the future: hxxp://www.plantlightinghydroponics.com/espoma-garden-tone-organic-vegetable-food-4-lb-p-4236.html
I wouldn't do an organic soil grow without this stuff as it is a organic fertilizer but it also is loaded with beneficial microbes that will move into your soil and help make the nutrients more available to the plants.

 

[WeedHopper]

Good post Hush.

 

[KoDak]

I had a ventilation system in mind. I usually have the inline fan at the top of the tent with ducting connected at the top of the fan going down inside the tent thru the sleeve of the tent. That ducting is connected to the reflector. one the other side of the reflector, another piece of ducting is connected and going out of the tent, connect to the filter to conceal the smell. I have a speed controller connected to the inline fan. i think i need a better venting system setup.

ill check the link. thnx alot

You shouldn't have any trouble having things shipped to your place. I have had plenty of things shipped to my door without issue. Most of the time it is shipped in discreet packaging so it isn't obvious what it is. I prefer to order stuff from online than to go to a grow store as you can be profiled and tracked at the store if they suspect MJ growers are coming in. They can't track all of the shipments that go out from online stores if they wanted to so it is safer in my opinion.

I think you will do fine with the 2 600whps lights in the flower tent. And it will generate more heat for your space as well (which can be a whole other issue that we will need to discuss). Ventilation will be a new animal that must be done correctly for good results at harvest time.

You can load pics here without issue. Just make sure you don't have anything showing in them that can identify you or your place. You will definitely need to load them to the computer first so that you can resize them if necessary. You are safer to load pics here than anywhere else.

I think 3gal pots are a good size for doing organic soil growing. The good thing about it is that you don't necessarily have to worry too much about pH adjustment unless your water is waay off. I would recommend that you get some extra beneficial microbes and some "nute tea" to go along with what you are doing. I order most of my stuff from plant lighting hydroponics.com and from discount hydroponics.com. Ebay and Amazon are good for the big stuff but for most of my nutes and maintenance stuff, I go to one of the 2 sites above.

If you are having issues with the soil not drying out, it may be that the soil is too dense and not aerated enough. Most of us here use a lot of pearlite to mix into our soil or soilless medium as it keeps the mediums from compacting and holding water. It is very important for the soil to "breathe" as the roots need oxygen to keep them from drowning. Mixing peat and pearlite into a good dense soil will help it to drain and pull more air into it. If your soil is dense and doesn't have this material that could be what is happening. It is also very important for your pots to have very good drainage to allow extra water to pass through the soil so that the roots don't drown.

Here is a link to something that I believe will serve you in the future: hxxp://www.plantlightinghydroponics.com/espoma-garden-tone-organic-vegetable-food-4-lb-p-4236.html
I wouldn't do an organic soil grow without this stuff as it is a organic fertilizer but it also is loaded with beneficial microbes that will move into your soil and help make the nutrients more available to the plants.

 

[Hushpuppy]

It sounds like you have the idea for the ventilation but what you need to do is pull the air out of the tent and filter it as it leaves, while at the same time pulling in fresh air that comes from either outside of the building or from a location where there is plenty of co2. At the same time you want to remove the heat that builds up from the HPS lighting. There are a couple ways of doing this.

For a simple set up of a single 4x4/5x5 tent, you can use enclosed/vented fixtures that are connected to a carbon filter that is inside the tent with the flowering plants, and on the other side they are connected to the exhaust fan which I recommend to be placed outside the tent and closer to where you want the air to be exhausted so that the air is pulled not pushed as vacuum works better than push.

Now being in a living space of a house gives the unique opportunity to circulate the air within the space so that it stays within a comfortable temp range. Also, if there are people and/or pets present they can create co2 levels that are good for the plants. However, if the presence of people and pets aren't enough to create the level of co2 necessary then you will have to pull in fresh air from outside which will require exhausting the air to the outside as well.

going with outside air isn't a problem except for the controlling the atmosphere (temps and humidity). I have found it easiest to control these factors by pulling the fresh air into the larger space of the room where the grow is located, then either heat or cool this air before it reaches the tent. You will have to monitor this air within the room for temp and humidity. You want to maintain 68-73f with 50-65% humidity for the best results within the tent.

I suggest that you get your tent and get everything set up and tested before needing to move any plants to flower as you may find that there are certain alterations that have to be done in order to keep it where it needs to be to have successful, high quality harvests. If you have any questions just ask

 

[zem]

I always try to make as few ducts as i can, and if i had to do them, i do them much bigger than the fan size. i find ducts and obstacles like 90 degree curves to diminish ventilation by so much. all the rooms that i build now, i just place the fan on the wall of the room and make holes and gaps for passive intake, the entire room becomes a duct if you would...

 

[Hushpuppy]

Do you not use enclosed lights so that you pull the heat away from them? Some people use open lights and then use ac and fans to keep the heat from building up. It really depends greatly on the room and the configuration of your setup.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

I have a 6" vortex in my crawl space below the flowering room with 2 nice big bends in the ducting. I think that the amount the air flow is diminished is minimal. I can tell you that I still need the speed controller to cut down the speed of the fan as the pull is so great. While you want to keep bends to a minimum and eliminate any sags, air flow is not diminished much by having a few bends.

 

[ozzydiodude]

If I remember right it 1% air flow speed loss per 10 ft of pipe or a 90* turn

2-90* +10 ft of pipe = 3% air flow loss

so a 400 cfm fan will lose 12 cfm equaling 388cfm

 

[zem]

If I remember right it 1% air flow speed loss per 10 ft of pipe or a 90* turn

2-90* +10 ft of pipe = 3% air flow loss

so a 400 cfm fan will lose 12 cfm equaling 388cfm

from my experience with fans, these calculations must be missing something. I tried to make passive intake with 2x90* curves, made the holes 2x+ the fan size and I could even hear the fan noise going down as I shut my door then go back up as I open it. I had to make a big side hole with no ducts to help and when I put my hand in front of it I can feel strong airflow

 

[ozzydiodude]

The reason your"fan noise going down" (I take this as the fan speed was slowing down) was that the fresh air intake was not big enough to allow the right about of air into the room. You have to size the intake to the proper size as well as the fans. The higher the cfm the bigger the fresh air intake has to be.

 

[KoDak]

Guys. I'm growing in 3gallon pots (i forgot the name.of.the pots, but they are like cloth i guess u can say, they drain out on their own)., My plants are beautiful green but I kept feeling like they should be bigger..I lifted up the pots and I'm noticing that roots are growing from the bottom. Wat can I do? I know this will pose a problem. I'm in a 2x4 tent with 8plants. Bigger pots might not work. Should I just repot the plants back into the 3gallon and try to direct the root else where?

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

Roots do that with those kind of pots (which are called smart pots). It is not a bad thing.

However, 8 plants in a 2 x 4 space could be a bad thing.....

 

[Hushpuppy]

I wouldn't change them from the pots they are in, 3gal is plenty as long as you feed them good. Don't worry about the roots coming out, they do that as it is dark and wet there so the roots think they are still under soil. Once they reach light and air they will self prune. The same thing occurs in the sides of the smart pots and is known as "air pruning". It works quite well for many people who use them to prevent as much root binding.

For some plants at 4-5 weeks veg, they won't be real big, especially if you are using lots of T5 light because that type of lighting encourages close intermodal spacing which keeps the plants short. Once they go to flower, they will stretch out considerably. How many nodes do they have at this point? Not sure if you know these terms; nodes are the points where each leaf/branch grows out from the main stem, internodes are the empty spaces along the stem between the leaves/branches. At 5weeks you should typically have 8-16 nodes depending on several variables.

 

[KoDak]

I made a mistake and repotted 4 of the plants into the same kind of pots, 3gal. Do u think this can pose a problem?

 

[Hushpuppy]

Well if you repotted them its no big deal but if the roots were coming through the bottoms and you broke them and disturbed the others then you will probably have stunned them a bit. They may stall for 4-10 days while they heal the roots. If you didn't damage the roots much, it may not take that long for them to begin growing again.

I don't know if this is the case with them or not but sometimes plants will veg slowly while they are growing roots. Then once the roots are well established the vegging growth will begin in earnest. But if you repot them into bigger pots, they will sometimes stall a bit while the roots reestablish themselves, then the veg growth begins in earnest again.

Make sure they are getting enough light, temps are staying around 75-80f, water them when they feel dry and I would give a light to medium feeding every other watering for soil. I personally like the idea of feeding every time they are watered but use less food so that they don't get overnute burn. But everyone does their own way.

You didn't answer how tall they are right now and how big are they in diameter roughly?

 

[KoDak]

finally got a few pix. they're still doing good. some plants are slightly taller than other.

 

[zem]

very nice Kodak, plant look bushy green and healthy :aok:

 

[KoDak]

Thank u.. the more I'm growing the better I'm getting. The only issue I'm.having is trying to pH nutes perfectly. Im using botanicare. Im pH'ing around 6.0-.6.3

 

[KoDak]

Im.reading the botanicare isn't good. Is it too late to switch to GH? I heard it good. Im only in my second month of veg. What kind of GH should I get if im able to switch

 

[robertr]

I use GH Flora Nova series fertilizer. It is 2 part, easy to use, I get good results but I grow in dirt.