Dropa Dope My First Grow Journal 400 Watt RDWC 02/17/2010

LEDZEP said:

I have mine on concrete out in a garage. It has to keep things warm now cause we had some storms come through and it's kinda cool. I read not to put it on carpet. If you have to put it on carpet, get a tile or somthing hard and flat to put under it. Also try slowing the pump a little. I have mine hooked up to an adjutable 80-160gph pump and I have it about a 1/4 from the slowest setting so there is a slower flow of water. It is surrounded by the cabinet and some other things in the room and doesnot have the 2' around it but it gets plety of air. What is your pump room temp? Is there a chance the water is heating up before it reaches the res? you can always insulate the outflowing water line??? I don't have to pump mine that far, I wonder if that is causing it to work so hard and heat up? How hot does your grow room get? The pump won't really work good if the ambient temp is 85*-90*. You can always try running it closer and see if that does it. I haven't really tested its cooling ability when the outside air is 78*+
I'll keep watching keep us posted
Peace

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I got mine sitting on a piece of plywood. I thought about slowing my pump down a little bit too but I just wanted to see what it could do. Slowing it down a bit does make sense though. I've got the heat blocked off in my bedroom and I'd say it's about 65* degrees in there. Right now my grow room is staying about 80*. The instructions say not to use the chiller in a room above 95*. It got the water temp down to 70* last night cycle. I don't know I may try moving into my grow room in a few days. I'm getting ready to add some nutes now and I'll defiantly be posting picks in the morning.

Peace

Dropastone said:

I got mine sitting on a piece of plywood. I thought about slowing my pump down a little bit too but I just wanted to see what it could do. Slowing it down a bit does make sense though. I've got the heat blocked off in my bedroom and I'd say it's about 65* degrees in there. Right now my grow room is staying about 80*. The instructions say not to use the chiller in a room above 95*. It got the water temp down to 70* last night cycle. I don't know I may try moving into my grow room in a few days. I'm getting ready to add some nutes now and I'll defiantly be posting picks in the morning.

Peace

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That's pretty cool, it seem like the chiller should at least get it down to the ambient temperature or somwhere in the upper 60's. When my plants were smaller the cabinet temps were above 80 but I set the chiller at 68 and it got it down there, the garage temps were probably in the upper 60's to low 70's. Res temps in the lower 70's is still good especially if you don't have to worry about them. Does the fan on the chiller run all the time?
Peace out

LEDZEP said:

That's pretty cool, it seem like the chiller should at least get it down to the ambient temperature or somwhere in the upper 60's. When my plants were smaller the cabinet temps were above 80 but I set the chiller at 68 and it got it down there, the garage temps were probably in the upper 60's to low 70's. Res temps in the lower 70's is still good especially if you don't have to worry about them. Does the fan on the chiller run all the time?
Peace out

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I'm not sure about the fan running all the time. I do know that if I have the chiller at 68 and it's not going below 70 then it's probably working all the time. I'm gonna snap some pictures right now but there aren't looking pretty. I think I started them back on nutes to soon. I don't know I pretty upset about the whole thing. I keep going over and over it in my mind and I don't see were I went wrong.

Here is what the looked like before I added nutes back to 500 ppm.







All I can do is just ride out the storm and see what happens. I think I need to go back to just straight pHed water for a while till they're looking better.

Yeah I would have to agree D, Ph'd water her for a couple of days she will spring back !!
Also try under fertilizing them.. use less than the recommended dose. it's always better to under feed them and have no problems, than to over feed them and have major problems..
Good luck !!

yea good luck man I'm sure they'll spring back to life.

thanks for sharing the pics ... despite the drooping they have spread nice and wide ... indica? post an update soon. oh and i got the stay of execution, turned out the contractors were real gems, they actually offered it without me asking.

marijuananation said:

Yeah I would have to agree D, Ph'd water her for a couple of days she will spring back !!
Also try under fertilizing them.. use less than the recommended dose. it's always better to under feed them and have no problems, than to over feed them and have major problems..
Good luck !!

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Well I decided to give them another day on the nutes to see what happens. Before this fiasco happened I was @ 500 ppm so they're defiantly used to it. Turns out they are starting to look better, most of the lower foliage is toast but I got new growth on top. I I raised my lights about a foot and that seemed to help as well.

Peace.

josh420stillblowed said:

yea good luck man I'm sure they'll spring back to life.

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Thanks josh. I just can't wrap my mind around what happened. I made sure when I painted my buckets to cover all the holes so I know I didn't have any over spray. I'm thinking that being out of there normal environment for 4 hours did something to them. Hell I don't know but this probably set me back a cpl of weeks till they get healthy again.

Peace

colbalt...blue said:

thanks for sharing the pics ... despite the drooping they have spread nice and wide ... indica? post an update soon. oh and i got the stay of execution, turned out the contractors were real gems, they actually offered it without me asking.

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Yeah It was like they were growing out instead of up and I do think they are some kind of an Indica strain with those fat fan leaves. That's good to hear about the contractors, now you can finish up without having to worry about them. I'm gonna wait till Wednesday before I post any new pics. They will be 4 weeks old by then.

Peace.

Quick Q? Did you by chance leave the FloraShield in the water and just add nutes to it, or did you add the nutes to fresh water? If the FloraSheild is still in res, you need to change it out, back to 500ppm with fresh water, and phed to 5.8.

I am pretty sure that the plants were shocked from the 4 hours in straight, un-ph'ed tap water while you were painting. They show absolutely NO signs of overfeeding, so backing off the nutes is not a good idea, and no more flushing, they definitely need the res to be correct because they are showing sign of deficiency.

Subscribed to read later, looking good can't wait.
cheers!

Dropa, whats up man sorry to hear about your set-back. I am also relieved to hear they are rebounding. Ill be waiting till wednesday to see how they bounce back, good luck man. Hows the chiller?

Peace

dmoose said:

Quick Q? Did you by chance leave the FloraShield in the water and just add nutes to it, or did you add the nutes to fresh water? If the FloraSheild is still in res, you need to change it out, back to 500ppm with fresh water, and phed to 5.8.

I am pretty sure that the plants were shocked from the 4 hours in straight, un-ph'ed tap water while you were painting. They show absolutely NO signs of overfeeding, so backing off the nutes is not a good idea, and no more flushing, they definitely need the res to be correct because they are showing sign of deficiency.

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Yeah I just used the Flora Shield to clean the roots for a cpl of hours and then I did another res change with nutes at 500 ppm and pH at 5.6 but since then it's risen to 6.0 and holding steady.

I've been looking into getting an RO filter but it wont work because my water pressure is to low. You need to have 45 lbs of water pressure for it to work properly and my water pump gets only 35 lbs of pressure. I've been using the culligan water but at $5.00 bucks a bottle I can see that's gonna get expensive as well. So I've been looking into getting a water distiller. They're a little cheaper than an RO filter and it will make 1 gallon of distilled water every 4 hours So in between res changes I could make more than enough to suit my needs.

Just so others know, my tap water pH is 7.3 and that's fine but it's also 920 PPM So that's why I've been using the culligan water. MY water is so bad it leaves a residue on everything it touches. The only thing I use it for is to wash dishes and to bathe. I wont even give it to my dog.

Here are some distillers that I'm looking at.

http://cgi.ebay.com/WATER-DISTILLER-Distillers-NEWST-MODEL-ON-MARKET_W0QQitemZ160411400479QQcmdZViewItemQQptZSmall_Kitchen_Appliances_US?hash=item255943b91f

Here is another one that's a little cheaper.

http://cgi.ebay.com/AquaVie-House-Water-Purifier-System-Distiller-Filter_W0QQitemZ400108655955QQcmdZViewItemQQptZSmall_Kitchen_Appliances_US?hash=item5d28559553

In the long run getting one of these would definitely be cheaper than using culligan water at $5.00 bucks a pop. So far I've used 20 dollars worth and it hasn't even been a month.

Any thoughts on the distiller?

Peace.

SFImage said:

Subscribed to read later, looking good can't wait.
cheers!

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Welcome aboard bud and thanks for looking.

LEDZEP said:

Dropa, whats up man sorry to hear about your set-back. I am also relieved to hear they are rebounding. Ill be waiting till wednesday to see how they bounce back, good luck man. Hows the chiller?

Peace

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The chiller seems to be working fine. I turned down the pump but I didn't really notice any change in the flow. It still wont go below 70 and still rises to 74 with the lights on. I think since I have a multi bucket system it's not cooling like it would if it were all in one container. Later today just before lights out I'll take the temp in each one of my grow buckets then I'll compare it to my main res to see what the difference is. I'll let you know what I find out in a few hours.

My theory about the multi bucket is a busted theory. Main res is 75 grow buckets are 74 off by a degree. But hey I've managed to bring my res down by 12 degrees so I'm happy about that and I'm not gonna freak out about it. Overall I'd still like my room 5 degrees cooler and my res 7 degrees colder but I'm not gonna . I'm satisfied with what I've accomplished. If I do anything else it'll have to wait till the next grow.

Now it's time to smoke a and get all while I watch a movie. If it wasn't raining today I'd be outside picking up dog doo doo. I got quite a bit of English Mastiff nuggets to harvest after the spring thaw.

dropa the booklet i got with my hydroponic nutes says 62F to 70F is optimum but it also says with good aeration 82F is the max without damage. just that the cooler water temp holds and distributes the oxygen (and maybe the nutes) better. hope they pick up soon. wouldn't it be easier to pick those mastiff nuggets while they are frozen solid? i'd be tempted to take my golf club to them one night and try and get them into the next street.

colbalt...blue said:

dropa the booklet i got with my hydroponic nutes says 62F to 70F is optimum but it also says with good aeration 82F is the max without damage. just that the cooler water temp holds and distributes the oxygen (and maybe the nutes) better. hope they pick up soon. wouldn't it be easier to pick those mastiff nuggets while they are frozen solid? i'd be tempted to take my golf club to them one night and try and get them into the next street.

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I might damage the golf club, his nuggets are the size of cow patties, We've been having some warm weather hear for the past week or so melting all the snow it's been in the upper 40's and 50's and now it's been raining for 2 days straight. So the chance of them being frozen is slim to none.

whoo ... that's one huge dog. hope the plants have picked up. are they looking better?

colbalt...blue said:

whoo ... that's one huge dog. hope the plants have picked up. are they looking better?

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Yeah, there looking lots better. Some leaves are still a little droopy but they're gonna make it.

marijuananation said:

Dropastone, It's good to hear that they are rebounding from that fiasco, and everything is back on track.

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Thanks bud I'll be posting a few pics in a cpl of day's.