Newbie tent grow!!!!!

[Justanotherfarmer]

I just read on another forum that if you have a 440 cfm filter and you have a 430 cfm pulling air out of your tent it would be bad for your filter to add any other fans to boost the cfm.....is this true? I just thought it wouldnt matter since all your doing is pulling air through carbon......but my common sense needs common sense sometimes so if I am about to do something bad to my setup please tell me......I just want to add more cfm to the exhaust system so that more heat will be pulled out....and I thought it would be kind of plug and play.....since this is my first real grow I am just reading as much as I can and flying by the seat of my pants.......

 

[Hushpuppy]

As far as topping versus fimming: I prefer fimming in most conditions as it gives better bushing affect. But for new plants from seed I like to top them early on then fimm them later(just my way of doing things). The great thing about doing fimm is that you almost can't screw it up. Iff you take too much then it is just a topping. If you don't take enough then when it grows out you just do it again or top it. What you did looks like it will do fine either way.

I personally would put my exhaust fan outside the tent as it get quite warm, and takes up space. You answered your own question about having vacuum within the tent. Positive pressure within the tent will force air out through places where the filter can't do its job of removing odor. It doesn't matter a lot where you place the exhaust fan as long as it is pulling air from the tent rather than trying to push it. I had my fans nearly 10' away from my tents and had them pulling air through the filter and 2 lights, then 10' of flex hose before reaching the fan. I had no problems with them not being able to cool the tents.

It is not good to over-pull the filter as it is rated for the amount of air volume that it can handle effectively. Over-pulling it won't necessarily damage it but it causes it to be ineffective at scrubbing odor and can cause it to clog quicker. Iff you need to add more cfm of air movement to your tent then you should either get another filter that is bigger or add a second filter and fan. I suspect that having the fan pushing air in is causing the issue though. Don't push air into the tent. you can use it to pull fresh air into the room where the tent is but then allow the exhaust fan to pull the outer air into the tent as it is pulling the heated air out of the tent.

Unfortunately I have no experience with the FF nutrients, But the addition off lime to the soil will not hurt you on the pH so don't worry about that messing up anything. People with gardens do it all the time to "sweeten" the soil. What it is doing is bringing the pH into a better position that is between 6.0 and 7.0.

 

[Justanotherfarmer]

**** ME IN THE ***........I clicked on the wrong pic oh well nothing I Can do about it now......if you know how to delete a photo that has been posted let me know.....either way....I hope the admins and moderators see this and help me out. I contacted them and reported the post so I hope they act soon. Here is the pic I wanted to post

View attachment DSC00450.JPG

 

[Locked]

It looks like Rose took care of it for you brosef...

 

[Justanotherfarmer]

Ok MAD PROPS TO ROSEBUD FOR DELETING A PIC I DIDNT WANT POSTED. THANK YOU ROSEBUD FOR BEING JOHNNY ON THE SPOT. Seriously bad pic was only on for like 10 mins. Much respect....didnt need that pic on the net, especially this site. THANK YOU ROSEBUD!

Alright that is a diagram of my vent setup maybe I wasnt clear in my description and the photos of the system it self not clear enough.....I find that a good diagram will answer alot of questions. Hope that makes more sense hush.

 

[Justanotherfarmer]

I am currently in the process of spreading .5 tsp of lime in all my girls and working it in with a fork very gently as hush suggested Im also feeding them there first real dose of big bloom(6-4-4). It says regular feeding 2-3 tsp per gallon once a week and heavy feeding 4 tsp once a week. I mixed up two gallons and put 2.25 tsp in it. So that should be right around half strength. Hope this fixes the wilting issues and some spotting on the leaves and if this doesnt fix the purple stems I will repeat next week with another .5 tsp of lime per plant.......If that doesnt fix the purple stem issues Im gonna try some fertilzer that has some calcium and magnesium in it......read that could also be an issue

 

[Justanotherfarmer]

Little update...
In just six hours of adding .5 tsp of lime and a half strength dose of grow big almost half of my plants are already looking better. The leaves are no where near as droopy in fact some of them took normal again. I just topped/fimed a day or so ago they still need time to adjust but the leaves perked right up......Ya know what hush puppy.......WORD TO YOU. I'm adding to your rep that **** was on point with the lime advice.

 

[Rosebud]

We are very fortunate to have Hushpuppy here.. Thanks Hush.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

First of all, it will really improve the performance of your fan if you get rid of all the dips you have in your ducting. When it has to do whoop-de-doos it looses power quite fast. You can get semi rigid ducting for pretty reasonable that works well and can be run without dips--that cheap flimsy ducting really is counterproductive. You can probably do without the intake fan also. You do not want your intake more than the exhaust. Most of us do not use an intake fan at all.

I would get rid of the duct booster fan. When you add a booster fan, you are not increasing the cfm--you do not add the cfm of the 2 fans together and get a bigger cfm. In fact if the booster fan is close to your exhaust fan it can actually slow the flow of air being detrimental rather than helpful.

Soil plants do not react that fast to changes--i.e. something you did 5 hours ago is not going to be seen for probably several days. I know that it is hard, but I think you need to take a deep breath and slow down some. There is such a thing as loving your plants to death. Decide on a nute regime and then go with that. I wouldn't be trying this and that and some other thing the hydro store guy was trying to sell, especially since you are a new grower. Decide if you want to stay organic or use chemical nutes. The FF ones you mentioned are all chemical except Big Bloom.

Your plants are looking good. I would recommend that you kind of just leave them alone--let the lime do its thing. Don't flush unless you have some kind of toxic buildup. If you are running organic soil, you can't really flush anyway. Pick a nute line you like and follow their directions. Give the things you do time to take effect before trying something else.

 

[Justanotherfarmer]

Thanks hemp. I agree....it is bad to love something TOO much. You hit the nail right on the head with that one. I know Ive moved right on out of the love and right up into obsession. Its hard for me to not go look at them every hour...literally. I have picked a nut. line(fox farms) and I have started to write everything down that I do to them in a basic calender, just mark what I fed them or added to them and how much and when I watered......Im gonna keep my intake fan as is for now......Im gonna try and test not having it on for a few days to see if I dont have much of a temp issue.....anyway thanks hemp....and I'll try to pop a prozac and stabilize my obsession......

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

We have all gone through that, so we understand. I do know how hard it is not to be fussing over them all the time. I had a friend that ran the FF 3 part with the Open Sesame, the Cha Ching and the other one and he really liked it. Take everything that the grow store salespeople say with a grain of salt. Their job is to sell stuff, so don't be sucked in to trying every new additive or greatest new thing. I have tried a whole bunch of them and aren't too impressed with them. I personally like the General Hydroponics Flora series--3 parts in different ratios for vegging and flowering.

If you keep the intake fan, just make sure that you still have negative pressure in your tent or you might as well forget the fan. If you do not maintain negative pressure, the incoming air will push the smell through every little crook and cranny. And if you have an intake fan more powerful than your exhaust fan, that is what will happen. You lose more cfms when you connect a carbon filter to the fan. Seriously, try to take care of the sags in the ducting--that cuts your air flow a whole whole lot..

 

[Justanotherfarmer]

Little update.....on two of my plants I'm seeing what I think are preflowers. At least last year when I just threw some bag seeds in some pots and put them out side that's what they looked like when they started to flower(just looked at pics from those and they look like crap compared to this year, as I didn't put any effort other than watering and some regular fish emulsion) They are very small white like 1cm or 2cm hairs.......if they are the preflowers as I suspect I am being rewarded for all my efforts......cant wait to see what I got so I can thin the heard....also just said to hell with it with the 3 little guys that I had going.....I have 7 strong, vibrant and healthy plants in a completely different stage in there life cycle and they wont be ready to go by the time the others are so screw em......

Also I have had my intake fan which is 440 cfm at around 5 percent which equates to 22cfm per minute I have a 3x3x6 room so that should be plenty. Every 3 min its pumping enough air to fill the room and Im still able to maintain negative pressure. Thinking about pumping it up to 10 percent and seeing if I can still maintain negative pressure, the more fresh air the better, I think.

The only one of my plants that is still wilting I just transplanted it into a larger pot(I had not done that before it was still in a small 6in pot I didn't get enough pots when I went to the store so I let it slip till now...) That was the only difference in care so I hope that makes it happy since it now has more room for its roots to grow. I know hemp told me to leave things alone but alot of the roots were poking out the bottom so I figured I was stunting it by leaving it in a smaller pot while the others got larger ones.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

I'm not sure you are understanding the ventilation thing. If you have passive intakes and an exhaust fan that is pulling 430 cfm, you are getting 430 cfm (less air loss from duct bends, filter, etc) of fresh air going through your tent. When you put a fan at the intake that is pushing that much less air than the exhaust is pulling, it is detrimental. It makes the exhaust work harder to try and get up to its 430 cfm capacity and it actually will cut down your air flow, not the other way around. There is a reason that a whole lot of experienced growers only use 1 fan.

I don't see any alternating nodes on your plants yet--usually the first sign of sexual maturity. It could be preflowers or it could be new growth, which sometimes really looks like female preflowers.

LOL--if it was rootbound (but probably not, the roots will grow out the bottom way before it becomes rootbound) that is not really "messing with it". What I was trying to say was to get some kind of nute regime, stick with it, and give the plants time to see the results of anything you have done. With hydro, plants can react overnight, but soil plants it takes longer, unless it is something real extreme.

Your plants look good. Hoping for 3-4 healthy females for you (you don't have room for more).

 

[Hushpuppy]

Totally agree with The Goddess Thanks for the props, I am happy to help whenever I can. The cool thing with the lime is that it will also supply magnesium as it buffers the pH. The pH buffering may be the reason for the quick response but hard to say. As The Goddess said, you want to allow a few days after doing changes to see all the results before making any other changes.

 

[Justanotherfarmer]

Alright I get it.....well not really but I will turn the intake fan off just fuzzy on how the plants will get fresh air. Will it be pulled through all the seems...I was under the impression I wanted to have my tent sealed up as much as possible. Do I keep one of the socks open or less closed. .......that's what I don't get. I also just went to home depot and got 2 8 ft runs of rigid ducting like hemp suggested will overhaul the vent setup tonight. I also got pipe insulation that I'm planning on wrapping around the ducting from my fan that's hot in the tent to keep that heat out aswell and any left over why not insulate my reflector too.....that stays pretty cool except the part closest to the light bulb and even that is just warm but any heat insulation in the tent can't be a bad thing I don't think. ...

 

[Locked]

just fuzzy on how the plants will get fresh air. Will it be pulled through all the seems...I was under the impression I wanted to have my tent sealed up as much as possible. Do I keep one of the socks open or less closed. .......that's what I don't get.

All the tents I own have flaps on the sides for fresh air to come in. I use negative pressure created by my inline fan pulling the air out of the tent through my cool tube. The fresh, cooler air is drawn in from the bottom flaps.

You can see them at the bottom on this pic. ♫♫♫
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[Justanotherfarmer]

I see them but I don't have them I have two socks at the bottom and two windows at the bottom of the tent. If you don't mind taking a min to Google something Google secret jardin dark street 2 dr90. That is the exact tent I have.

 

[Locked]

I guess those are your passive intakes then. I have never used that type of tent.

♫♫♫

 

[Justanotherfarmer]

OMG someone gets it......see why I'm confused

 

[Justanotherfarmer]

Luckily I got some 90 degree collar fittings too while I was at home depot so I'm gonna stick that in the sock just to make the sock stay open and rigid. My concern is won't that let light in during the dark period.....I don't want to keep the room the tent is in completely dark during the light off period.....still need to see in that room