LED Grow Light Forum

MC,

about how long will that tank last that i saw in one pic? i've got one of those laying around from my homebrewing days.

also, let's say you had a sealed grow room. at what ppm would you have to be concerned to go into and check on the plants, do some work, etc? should you "air" it out first or are those ppms you will be at not harmful?

rkymtnman wrote:MC,

about how long will that tank last that i saw in one pic? i've got one of those laying around from my homebrewing days.

also, let's say you had a sealed grow room. at what ppm would you have to be concerned to go into and check on the plants, do some work, etc? should you "air" it out first or are those ppms you will be at not harmful?

I didn't see the tank but a 20lb tank feeding a 4x4 tent, that's sealed well, *might* last a whole grow. It'll depend on how often you purge, how many/big the plants are, total volume of the room, desired levels, length of veg/flower, etc.

Normal "air" has about 400 ppm and I've worked in rooms with up to 1500 ppm but I have gotten headaches (could be coincidence) if I stayed for prolonged times but *I think* OSHA says that <5000 ppm is safe for humans over an 8 hour day. I wouldn't worry about purging for short visits but if I were going to be in the room for many hours I would...just to be safe. That said, the more you open the room the more co2 you waste.

Yesterday evening, the 1 Incredible Bulk seed popped, as well as 1 of the Money Maker. This morning though, they all have popped.

Incredible Bulk

Unfortunately it looks like one of the Money Makers heaved out of the rockwool. I'm surprised to see this, because the tops were pretty pinched. This may be the one plant I cull by default.


I'm feeding a very mild solution of 1 gal tap water (typical ppm around 130) with 6ml canna bio vega, and 16ml canna bio rhizotonic, pH adjusted to 6.0, applied by dipping the rockwool cubes for 5 seconds when they feel light.

Temperature is currently 80, with 80% RH. Here is a question I have: at what point should the humidity dome come off and the oscillating fans be turned on? I usually wait a week or so but I haven't germinated marijuana before so I wanted to make sure. I'm thinking that when the first true leaves are formed is when to do it.

Also, at what point do I consider putting them under the solar storm? The maximum height I'm able to achieve above the tray is 44".

Basically I want to know when to introduce them to their new habitat. The temperature in there does rise considerably with both the light and the dehumidifier running. I may have to introduce a 6 hour dark period just to allow the temperature to drop a little. Of course, in vegetative phase, the dehumidifier will need to run way less, it only runs constantly to maintain the lowest possible 35%.

And finally at what point are they ready for CO2? Since I've only got one setting: full on, I don't want to overwhelm them with light, heat, and CO2 all at once.

Here's a photo of the grow area. I finally got my plumbing issues sorted out, but it required moving all the grow equipment out, an actual plumber, and then moving all the grow equipment back in. It has been a fun few days.

rkymtnman wrote:MC,

about how long will that tank last that i saw in one pic? i've got one of those laying around from my homebrewing days.

also, let's say you had a sealed grow room. at what ppm would you have to be concerned to go into and check on the plants, do some work, etc? should you "air" it out first or are those ppms you will be at not harmful?

You know, I will defer to SME on everything already said about CO2. I don't plan to be in the room very often, the design allows me to open the doors and sit outside. Obviously the room air and CO2 will mix when I open the tent flaps, but I'll turn off the CO2 until I leave. 1250ppm in an 8x4x6.5 enclosure escaping into a 11x17x10.5 space at 400ppm equals out to .... way less ppm.

As far as how long my tank will last, I don't know yet, but I'll keep this journal updated as to when I purchase a new one. I haven't turned it on yet, so I'll let you know when I do that also.

Thanks everyone for stopping by. I appreciate all the tips and discussion. As this is my first from seed/soil/co2 grow, I feel like a complete beginner in some respects.
MC

Well I decided they'd do fine on the floor outside the tent for a while. The temp will stay below 80, and they can start to get used to the new light. Obviously no CO2 yet or oscillating fans. Maybe they're ready for the oscillating fans sooner than later... what do you think?

I put my fans on my plants as soon as the sprout, need to build strong stems.
Your doing good not putting them directly under the light, if you can give them some natural light also.

GR

gr865 wrote:I put my fans on my plants as soon as the sprout, need to build strong stems.
Your doing good not putting them directly under the light, if you can give them some natural light also.

GR

Hi GR, thanks. I agree, and after 5 hours of letting them sit on the floor, I went to go look at them. They were leaning towards the light, so I'm thinking they want a little more. I turned the tray around, so that they can start to lean back the other way towards the light. I propped them up on a cinderblock, removed the humidity dome, and put the two fans on low-speed directed at the tray. They had a good little sway going!


After an hour or so I went down to check on them. I found one of my little girls laying down, her little stem twisted. Now I'm kicking myself a little for not putting the fans on them yesterday when they all popped.


All the other girls look just fine, but I propped up the 1 money maker with a piece of plastic twist-tie. Hopefully this little chair will give her a nice place to sit while she develops a stronger stem.


Currently the temperature is sitting at 76F, the humidity was rather low at 43% so I put the humidifier out there with them on low to boost that up a little. Rockwool cubes were still moist so I did not feed. I'll check again tonight to see if they need it.

Foliage is looking very dark green! The stems are a little longer than I'd like to see, probably because they needed more light than they were getting.

Thanks again GR8, I appreciate your help.

MC,

I would go ahead and put them in your first pots now, bury them as deep as you can leaving only the leaf growth above the soil line, and you can put some rooting compound along the stem when planting and that will produce more roots along the stem. Then put the fans on them right away, SME told me to do that on my first grow and it pays off. Here are two pic's of the same plant, WW, one taken 8/4, 4 days after transplant and the long stem, like you are seeing, was planted completely up to the seed leaf which your are showing now. The second pic, the same WW, was taken on 8/14, and is the same plant. On 8/8 I added the soil/coir cap on the Hempy buckets to keep light off the Perlite and prevent algae formation, that cap is 1.5 to 2" thick and you can see how much the stem has streached. I cut the lower two node off prior to putting the cap on. I have had the fans on them from day one in Hempy solo cups.





So build those stems for a stronger plant.

GR

gr865 wrote:MC,

I would go ahead and put them in your first pots now, bury them as deep as you can leaving only the leaf growth above the soil line, and you can put some rooting compound along the stem when planting and that will produce more roots along the stem. Then put the fans on them right away, SME told me to do that on my first grow and it pays off. Here are two pic's of the same plant, WW, one taken 8/4, 4 days after transplant and the long stem, like you are seeing, was planted completely up to the seed leaf which your are showing now. The second pic, the same WW, was taken on 8/14, and is the same plant. On 8/8 I added the soil/coir cap on the Hempy buckets to keep light off the Perlite and prevent algae formation, that cap is 1.5 to 2" thick and you can see how much the stem has streached. I cut the lower two node off prior to putting the cap on. I have had the fans on them from day one in Hempy solo cups.

8-4 2.jpg

8-14.jpg

So build those stems for a stronger plant.

GR

Good call, thanks for the photos. Amazing growth in 10 days.

I do not have any rooting compound, so I'll have to travel to the garden store tomorrow for some. As far as the next container I have, it is a 7" rootmaker pot. Would that be too big for the seedlings? My intuition says no, but that a smaller size would be ideal. I also would like to minimize transplant shock so the 7" may be the right next choice.

MC a 7" would be fine, what is the final size container you have in mind. I would not leave them in the 7" all that long, just give them time to establish a decent root system then make you final transplant.
You will do well!

GR

Check my journal for an interesting little story this morning.

Today, I'll be transplanting these plants as suggested by GR above. I will be using rooting compound on the exposed stems, and planting them into their final medium today (canna terra professional plus) in 7" rootmaker pots. The final container for these plants will be 10 gallon smart pots. As RKY mentioned on my grow room design page, 10 gal is quite big... but they're what I have and so I'll see how they work on this grow. Shooting for a large root system, right?

I went down this morning, fully expecting to see my damaged Money Maker completely shriveled from her stem damage yesterday. In fact, the stem looks worse today than it did yesterday.


But, she's looking even more top heavy than yesterday too! Very robust foliage, and although the stem looks to be completely crushed, her true leaves are looking longer and fuller than anyone else's. I did a small foliar feeding last night, but I can't imagine it had that much to do with the new growth. Remarkable.


I suppose here is a good place for me to mention how I feel on the Solar Storm at this point. I haven't used it for more than 2 days of plant lighting, but I've run environmental tests for a little over a week. At this point, I can say 2 things:
1) the light is extremely bright, and well made. It's also very very heavy. To get mine raised as high as I can above the garden bed, it required anchoring to my PVC frame, and also supplemental pulleys to attach it to the top of the tent.
2) the light puts off more heat than I thought it would, and more heat than I'd like. It can easily boost the temperature in my tent from 74 to 91 after 12 hours. Granted, I do not ventilate. The heat stacking would account for some of that, but it's not the "several degrees above ambient" that I was reading elsewhere. We will have to see if this ends up being a problem during grow.

I'll post more pictures today after the transplant. Thank you again for stopping by, and for any tips, comments or discussions you'd like to have.