Check out my veg box, at 2x4x4, I was thinking of running my 400HPS with a mover in there.
You don't need a light mover in a space that small.
Light movers are not a good thing, anyway. It's better to have a stationary lamp that suits the size of the space you're trying to light rather than trying to spread light out over an area that is really too large for that particular lamp.
With movers, you have a new figure to contemplate; lux-hours (lumens per sq metre per hour). When a mover has the lamp over one end of the grow, it's not over the other. You have to derate the amount of light the plants are getting owing to the mover having the light elsewhere for a certain amount of time.
Linear light movers also do not distribute light evenly. Plants in the middle of the traverse get more light than plants on the ends. Rotary light movers don't have this problem, but they do need 'slipper ring' connections to conduct electricity to the lamp from the ballast, which can be troublesome.
Also, light movers are mechanically complex. I'm pretty handy with electronics and welding/metalwork and even I would not attempt to DIY one.
Al, what is your opinion about constantly cloning your own female clones as opposed to keeping mothers? Does it really eventually degrade the original genetics? To what degree if any? Thanks.
You've kinda asked two questions there.
It's not smart to try to get away with not keeping mothers by taking cuttings from plants you later intend to flower or are presently flowering. Cuttings taken from plants in flower are notoriously slow to set root. If your only source of cuttings is a plant which has gone in to flower, should you happen to have trouble getting clones to strike (which will take you about 7-14 days to work out) and you decide need more slips, your source plants now have been in flower for a 1-2 weeks, making your problem even worse. Keeping mums is a no-brainer, just requires a little (and I do mean a 'little') space put aside for the purpose with their own 18-24h/day light.
If your question relates to replacing old mother plants with clones taken from them, no problem. I've been doing that since 2002 with Sweet Tooth #4. Taking a cutting from a plant does not alter the DNA. Clones, as the term suggests, are DNA identical to the plant they came from. All of their characters, from colour to potency, will be the same as the mother plant. You can keep replacing mums with clones taken from them for many years, at least 6 years, that I can directly attest to.
Hey Al, I got a bum response in the forums,
No! Say it ain't so! That's never happened before.
I'm looking to make a love den just for seeds. A one time round. I don't wanna dump a ton of electricity, so I have a 70W HPS and a pair of 42W (150W equiv) CFLs.
I'd use the CFLs over the seedlings. The 70W HPS is better used maintaining a (single) mother plant. Seedlings and clones don't need the intensity of HPS, even a small one like a 70.
hi al,
for people using rockwool slabs, will flushing with clearex help stabalize ph by removing the limestone residue? or will the residue always be there and ph needs to be adjusted frequently? thx!
I've searched the web for Clearex's active ingredient/s. No luck. The maker's
website uses a lot of pseudoscientific words intended to convince you that this stuff does something that water won't. Get this 'sciency' gobbledygook:
Leaching with tap or deionized water can lead to hyptonic conditions which cause cell lycis with outflow of essential electrolytes and nutrients. This causes tissue damage leading to serious pathogen disorders such as bacterial and fungal infections.
WTF?
I have a
very special hatred for jokers who attempt to lever people's lack of in-depth scientific/botanical knowledge to sell jugs of stuff with a high water content.
If you can't find out what's in any given jug of stuff, it's a 'magic sauce.' Magic sauces are mainly water but contain high percentages of what retailers call 'profit.' Unfortunately, the 'profit' in magic sauces seems to stop with the seller and not flow on to the buyer...
Botanicare do give a sorta-good explanation on how to flush a plant, though (unnecessary parts removed):
Pour one to two quarts of [plain water, pH adjusted to 5.8] per plant site [...] Dump waste run-off [...] Check EC or PPM in reservoir. Run system for 15 –60 minutes or until EC or PPM stops rising. Dump reservoir.
Unless you've overfertilised a plant (and we KNOW you won't do that, right?), there's no need to leach a plant.
The amount of limestone dust that's in RW will cause pH to bump up only slightly (perhaps 0.1-0.2/day, tops) and is therefore largely insignificant. I
do pre-soak RW cubes with a 5.0 solution to deal with the limestone in RW cubes as this seems to aid rooting speed, but by no means have I proven that to myself or anyone else. It's not generally practical to pre-soak slabs or RW floc as it is hard to drain them fully of any low-pH pre-soak. WIth those materials, you just have to cope with the pH wobble, but it shouldn't be a big deal. Adding tapwater to your tank will swing the pH up much more than will RW.
This much I can tell you; unless Clearex has a very low pH (very acid), it won't react with the limestone (calcium carbonate) dust which remains in rockwool after manufacturing. If Clearex is acidic enough to do anything at all to the limestone dust, it will be especially bad for plants.
One of these days, I'm going to stop complaining about magic sauce sellers and start 'Barnum's Magic Hydroponic Sauces, Inc' and just get fat as hell selling jugs of coloured water to anyone I can fool.