hellraizer30
Rebel From The North
lmfao.......
It's A Fuct World
- Thread starter Al B. Fuct
- Start date
lmfao.......
mountainboy
Well-Known Member
Al, just trying to mimic your set up best as I can. I am changing my bulbs out after this run,and was curious what type 1000watt hps you run?
I know you use 400hps for your mums, but as of now I have a 250watt MH. Just wanted to ask, what degree K is best for mums. I found a GE 250 that is 6000deg. K, with 19000 lumens, and another that is 4200deg. K and 23000 lumens. should I go for lumens or deg.K?
Thanks again for your help.
I know you use 400hps for your mums, but as of now I have a 250watt MH. Just wanted to ask, what degree K is best for mums. I found a GE 250 that is 6000deg. K, with 19000 lumens, and another that is 4200deg. K and 23000 lumens. should I go for lumens or deg.K?
Thanks again for your help.
Al B. Fuct
once had a dog named
Thanks for that. I tend to avoid the terms oo ee oo ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang, for reasons which should be self-evident.
OK
No problem for flood & drain watering systems. World of hurt if you're in DWC or aero. You need backup AC for DWC & aero systems. In terms of photoperiods, not a worry for plants on vegging cycle. For plants in flowering cycle, it's not a real big deal but a long night is preferred to lights going on & off.
A few days without power can be a real big problem. That long will tend to cause vegging mother plants go into flowering. Flowering plants will muddle through a few days without light, but humidity will spike up to 100% pretty fast without ventilation. 100% RH will cause bud rot (botryritis) and powdery mildew in nothing flat. A genset with enough grunt to run a couple kW of light will cost you several thousand bucks. Bear in mind that a 1000W HPS needs about 2kW for a brief period to start & warm up the lamp before it falls back to about 1100W. However, you might be able to save your bacon with a smaller, perhaps 1-2kW genset running some temporary fluoro lights for the mothers along with your ventilation and/or a dehumidifier.
I do run a UV ozone gen in the area outside of the grow op to handle scents from the bud dryer. You should not breathe O3 for extended periods of time- the main hazard is eye & lung irritation. I turn mine off when I'm going to be in the area for extended periods.
If you post cannabis pix, make sure you've stripped the EXIF data out of them. Phone cameras, notably those in iPhones, will append the phone user's name and other info like GPS coordinates into the images. Most cannabis board software will strip the EXIF data but you should remove it yourself to be certain. However, it's pretty unlikely that text that you post to cannabis boards will get you busted, at least as primary evidence. First, cops need a warrant to monitor your communications and even then, any good lawyer will tell you that an IP address is not a person. However, if you've attracted the attention of LEO by other means, you can bet that your data devices will be seized & searched. Use some commonsense and don't post direct evidence of business dealings around cannabis. SMS messaging is really pretty easy to eavesdrop upon. Be very wary of mobile phones. They are nifty little tracking devices that can reveal your location if wiretapped.
In-sink garbage disposers can be put to good use. Don't overload them, plugging up your plumbing with plant waste can out you when the plumber comes. You might dry plant trimmings & crunch the stuff up to reduce visual identifiability then distribute it amongst weeds & whatnot. Least preferable is disposal in common rubbish, but if you must, triple or quadruple bag it and use the same sort of bags you'd use for other rubbish. It's security by obscurity, though, which is never a good practise.
I do have a plan B, which for security reasons I can't discuss here.
You could probably do those trays with a pair of 400HPS, one over each pair.
Sounds about right.
The light in the mother plant area is a 400HPS in a simple reflector. The exhaust fan for the mums is almost directly above it.
Rockwool floc works pretty well for the mums because they're under 24H light and do get big & thirsty especially near time to do a batch of cuttings.
If I really wanted to bump up production, I'd do CO2- probably good for about 15-20% uptick. More frequent watering invites problems if the plants can't suck it up. If power cost was not a consideration, I might put a 600 over trays 1 & 2 and 1000s over trays 3 & 4. Also would be good for about 15-20% over a pair of 1000s running the lot, but would really bump up the power cost.
I can't think of any single item that I'd add that I don't already have.
Get a vacuum food sealer! Buds that are vacuum sealed and kept in a cool dark place will store a few years at full or damn near full potency. Vac sealed buds could be kept in a refrigerator at about 5C if you like. Don't put buds in a freezer.
I have dual-output air pumps, each output runs one bubble curtain.
No. Aeration not only dissolves O2 in the nute solns, it also stirs the tanks.
Note- always put air pumps and air tubing above the level of the nute solutions in the tanks. If there's a power outage, water will siphon out into pumps & tubes put below that level.
I have grown NL in the past and it's a very good SoG performer. Haven't grown Bubblelicious & thus can't comment.
Build your op to suit your own needs first. There's a pretty good chance you'll produce more than you can smoke. Vac seal your over-run and see what happens down the track. Bear in mind though that having pounds around for a long time isn't the best idea if things go badly.
I have a wholesale account at a supplier of rockwooly sorts of stuff. I buy a 2250-count carton of Grodan MM40/40 wrapped cubes every few years. Can't really advise you on retail suppliers as such.
You can use either a metal halide or an HPS for your mums. An HPS will cause stems to be a bit more elongated than MH, but that's just fine for mums from which you'll be cutting rather long clones. Lighting for mums is not that fiddly, don't stress too much about the different colour temps of MH lamps for vegging mums. You probably won't note any difference at all between a 6000K or a 4200K MH lamp. Luminous output is much more important in flowering than in vegging.
Actually, I have an infinite improbability drive and occasionally turn into a whale or a potted plant at appropriate times.
mountainboy
Well-Known Member
Al thanks for the MH info. I know your where answering alot of stuff ,but could I get the info on what brand 1000watt hps you use. Thanks.
Al B. Fuct
once had a dog named
Sorry, I missed that. I use GE Lucagrow HPS lamps. Lucagrow lamps maintain more of their initial luminous output over a standard 12 month service life than any others I've used. Very consistent quality over the years. I can run Lucagrows for 18 months if I want to. Have never had a total failure of a Lucagrow lamp.
mountainboy
Well-Known Member
No need to apologize. Thank you for getting back with the info Al. I will order my new bulbs today.
klx
Well-Known Member
G'day Al,
Great thread you have here and also your others, I have had a good look through them. I have been out of the game (and out of the country) for a number of years and off the boards since but all good things and all that, so am back and designing the new op and am leaning towards your setup, it looks much lower maintenance than the bucket systems I always used in the past but still cranks it out very nicely indeed.
I have a couple of Qs if that’s ok?
One thing I wanted to avoid this time if possible was bags of medium. I am done with clay pellets thats for sure. I was wondering have you ever experimented with a no medium solution...off the top of my head something like a smaller bowl with a hole in the middle of the base placed upside down inside your pots. Then placing the 40mm RW cube on the upside down bowl so the roots grow down through the hole and have some space to develop, out of the light in the gap below. Some sort of collar to support the plants……or something similar. . It would obviously need more thought and the flooding frequency would need to be tweaked for individual trays etc but do you use medium purely to give the plants a stable base and for the redundancy of pump failure or are there other problems with a no medium setup? Do you see any other negatives to it if I could sort out some way to support the plants and put a redundant power supply in place for the pumps? I could go NFT but I like the simplicity of the F&D with limited plumbing and no small diameter tubing.
Regards odour control, humidity and exhausting. Let's say the lights are cooled separately and I have a speed controlled exhaust that runs at full speed above 26C and half speed below 24C in a negatively pressured room to ensure all air is being exhausted through a scrubber. Would that reduce the effectiveness of a dehumidifier a lot by pulling the nicely dehumidified air straight out?...what would you recommend in terms of having the air exhausted through a scrubber at all times but also keeping the humidity under control. Let’s say I am in the Sydney region in terms of humidity levels.
Other than that it looks like you have the setup pretty much dialed in so just finally, I nearly choked when I saw the “new” electricity prices in NSW. Pretty much doubled since I pulled down my last op in 06 and took off OS. I know a lot of the boys are running bridged meters but I am not keen to do that, so with the higher elec costs now do you think there is any value in digital 1000W ballasts, or the ROI still too long on the difference in the original purchase vs a 10% power saving even with the increases rates?
Sorry for the long winded post and cheers in advance for advice!
Great thread you have here and also your others, I have had a good look through them. I have been out of the game (and out of the country) for a number of years and off the boards since but all good things and all that, so am back and designing the new op and am leaning towards your setup, it looks much lower maintenance than the bucket systems I always used in the past but still cranks it out very nicely indeed.
I have a couple of Qs if that’s ok?
One thing I wanted to avoid this time if possible was bags of medium. I am done with clay pellets thats for sure. I was wondering have you ever experimented with a no medium solution...off the top of my head something like a smaller bowl with a hole in the middle of the base placed upside down inside your pots. Then placing the 40mm RW cube on the upside down bowl so the roots grow down through the hole and have some space to develop, out of the light in the gap below. Some sort of collar to support the plants……or something similar. . It would obviously need more thought and the flooding frequency would need to be tweaked for individual trays etc but do you use medium purely to give the plants a stable base and for the redundancy of pump failure or are there other problems with a no medium setup? Do you see any other negatives to it if I could sort out some way to support the plants and put a redundant power supply in place for the pumps? I could go NFT but I like the simplicity of the F&D with limited plumbing and no small diameter tubing.
Regards odour control, humidity and exhausting. Let's say the lights are cooled separately and I have a speed controlled exhaust that runs at full speed above 26C and half speed below 24C in a negatively pressured room to ensure all air is being exhausted through a scrubber. Would that reduce the effectiveness of a dehumidifier a lot by pulling the nicely dehumidified air straight out?...what would you recommend in terms of having the air exhausted through a scrubber at all times but also keeping the humidity under control. Let’s say I am in the Sydney region in terms of humidity levels.
Other than that it looks like you have the setup pretty much dialed in so just finally, I nearly choked when I saw the “new” electricity prices in NSW. Pretty much doubled since I pulled down my last op in 06 and took off OS. I know a lot of the boys are running bridged meters but I am not keen to do that, so with the higher elec costs now do you think there is any value in digital 1000W ballasts, or the ROI still too long on the difference in the original purchase vs a 10% power saving even with the increases rates?
Sorry for the long winded post and cheers in advance for advice!
Al B. Fuct
once had a dog named
Welcome back!
Sure.
What you're proposing sounds like aero but without the water sprayers or nute soln with air stones in it. I don't think it'll work without active misting of the roots by some sort of system.
If your op is in a high humidity location, it's probably better to go with straight thermostatic control of the exhaust/intake fans and let a dehumidifier handle the RH during lights-off. Scents won't escape much during lights-off if your grow is reasonably well sealed.
Yep, with power prices hovering around 24-27c/kWh, it's very tempting to bridge out a power meter. All I can say is DON'T DON'T DON'T. Bridging a power meter is extremely dangerous and is a very quick way to attract the attention of the electricity provider. If you bypass the power meter, your consumption will go to zero and the supplier will, without your knowledge, send out a tech to find out why your meter has failed. The techie will pop in a new meter and either find the bridge or, if you have hidden the bridge, discover by use of a clamp ammeter, that your wiring is still drawing current without a meter installed. In either case, you're busted.
If you connect the op to power before it hits the meter, you could conceivably use a contactor (relay) with the actuating coil connected to the 'legal,' post-metered supply such that when the post-metered supply is switched off, the contactor opens and interrupts unmetered power to your op. This would make it harder to find by random inspection, but still entails making connections to live wires. I can't emphasise enough just how dangerous this is. While this method of connection is harder to detect, all the techie has to do is put a clamp-type ammeter (amprobe) on the service drop and compare the current draw to that indicated by the meter- and boom, game over. S/he'll see more current draw on the amprobe than on the service meter. Mind, kWh meters don't indicate direct current draw, meaning it's not that easy to see a discrepancy, but that's still 'security by obscurity' which is by no means a concealment sufficient to keep you from going to the hoosegow.
If you have off-peak power, which is priced much lower than domestic rate (7-9c/kWh), you could tap power post-meter but before the 'ripple control receiver' which is a switch that the supplier remotely controls, so they can shed load during peak usage hours. This is somewhat safer to do since the main switch for the residential service will shut off power for the purpose of making connections. However, it's easily detectable by anyone who looks in your breaker box. The off-peak service meter will still be spinning even when the ripple control receiver switch indicates that it is open (off-peak power disconnected)- and the jig is up.
In general, it is not a good idea to monkey around with mains AC supplies and I strongly recommend against it.
As regards the power savings of electronic (digital) ballasts, the savings isn't usually quite 10%, usually closer to 5%. However, with the cost of power where it is, it may be economical to use them. If you do opt for electronic ballasts, buy a spare to keep on the shelf in case one fails- and they do fail at much greater rates than coil & core 'magnetic' ballasts. Service life of electronic ballasts tends to be 3-5 years (don't think I've ever seen one with more than a 5 year warranty); magnetics can go 10-20 years if the capacitor is replaced about every 5-7 years. Get a lux meter and make note of initial lamp brightness on installation of the gear and check the luminous intensity every few months. Re-lamp annually and recheck luminous intensity. If the capacitor is still OK, the intensity should remain the same as when you first installed the new gear.
Rotsaruck!
klx
Well-Known Member
Yes the aim is to minimise the bags of medium, if possible. Have been looking at some foam wholesalers and thinking some medium density foam may be an option. Will try a couple of things but if it has to be floc/perlite or similar solution so be it.
Thanks, will start out with this and go from there.
My brother in law is an electrician and is of the same opinion. I have been doing some ringing around and "off peak" is not the same for all utility companies....so yes I will just do my best to minimise the cost legally without sacrificing yield which would be false economy anyway.
Thanks, you've been very helpful.
ringlead3r
Active Member
Al,
If your heat mat is set to high would roots not grow towards the mat?
If your heat mat is set to high would roots not grow towards the mat?
klx
Well-Known Member
Hi Al,
Ok, what do you think about this:
Standard Ebb & Flo tray with a sheet of polystyrene (or similar) clamped to cover the entire top of tray (no light into tray) .
Holes cut in the polystyrene to take 4" or 5" (or even smaller?) neoprene collars.
Rooted clones straight out of an aero cloner into the collars, into the tray 12/12.
The collars support the plant while it is small, until the roots form a mat in the tray to support the plants when they are bigger. (maybe netpots with a collar would be better?)
Flood frequency will have to be trial and error but say flood 5 mins on / 55 mins off during lights on as a starting point.
Negatives:
Cannot move plants around once the roots mat.
Pump failure will be catastrophic. (could use 2 small pumps instead of 1 large per rez as redundancy?)
Getting the flooding right when plants are young may be challenging.
Positives:
No pots to fill or clean
No media, ever!!!
Lots of oxygen to the roots
Less work and $$ overall.
Could it work do you think?
This guy did something similar but I would prefer a tray to fence posts - https://www.thcfarmer.com/community/threads/custom-medium-less-ebb-flow-grow-posts.20284/
Edit> Actually, it seems some people are way ahead of me... http://www.botanicare.com/Tray-Lids-P100.aspx
Ok, what do you think about this:
Standard Ebb & Flo tray with a sheet of polystyrene (or similar) clamped to cover the entire top of tray (no light into tray) .
Holes cut in the polystyrene to take 4" or 5" (or even smaller?) neoprene collars.
Rooted clones straight out of an aero cloner into the collars, into the tray 12/12.
The collars support the plant while it is small, until the roots form a mat in the tray to support the plants when they are bigger. (maybe netpots with a collar would be better?)
Flood frequency will have to be trial and error but say flood 5 mins on / 55 mins off during lights on as a starting point.
Negatives:
Cannot move plants around once the roots mat.
Pump failure will be catastrophic. (could use 2 small pumps instead of 1 large per rez as redundancy?)
Getting the flooding right when plants are young may be challenging.
Positives:
No pots to fill or clean
No media, ever!!!
Lots of oxygen to the roots
Less work and $$ overall.
Could it work do you think?
This guy did something similar but I would prefer a tray to fence posts - https://www.thcfarmer.com/community/threads/custom-medium-less-ebb-flow-grow-posts.20284/
Edit> Actually, it seems some people are way ahead of me... http://www.botanicare.com/Tray-Lids-P100.aspx
mountainboy
Well-Known Member
Hey Al, just wanted to stop by and wish you a Merry Christmas! Thanks for all the help!
facestabber
Active Member
Very long, very informative thread but I'm left with a question for Al or anyone else with a good answer. Is H2O2 capable of killing/ curing cyanobacteria ("brown slime algae")? I've been reading over the Heisenberg Tea thread and it implies that neither H2O2 or Chloramine are effective for treating this particular root problem in hydro. Like Al I'm a sterile rez guy so the thought of a chloramine/peroxide resistant root pathogen really scares me. Anyone defeated this slime using sterilizers or is the beneficial tea really the ONLY cure?
hellraizer30
Rebel From The North
H202 will not cure it! That form of bacteria is deadly and yes i have had it! Last summer i got it in a ebb and grow during a hot
summer. The fill lines were the cause, with them laying under the lights baking
nothing worked tryed h202 and bleach still nobuano... So i started brewing hies tea and problem solved!
as a alternate to the tea im trying out pond zyme as its highly rec by superstoner. Very cheap and seems effective in killing
everything so far..
im sure al will have some thoughts to it but this is just my exp.
Krondizzel
New Member
H202 will not cure it! That form of bacteria is deadly and yes i have had it! Last summer i got it in a ebb and grow during a hot
summer. The fill lines were the cause, with them laying under the lights baking
buano... So i started brewing hies tea and problem solved!
as a alternate to the tea im trying out pond zyme as its highly rec by stonerguy. Very cheap and seems effective in killing
everything so far..
im sure al will have some thoughts to it but this is just my exp.
I'll keep that in mind. Haven't had this issue. Now I know the fix muahahaha.
facestabber
Active Member
H202 will not cure it! That form of bacteria is deadly and yes i have had it! Last summer i got it in a ebb and grow during a hot
summer. The fill lines were the cause, with them laying under the lights baking
buano... So i started brewing hies tea and problem solved!
as a alternate to the tea im trying out pond zyme as its highly rec by stonerguy. Very cheap and seems effective in killing
everything so far..
im sure al will have some thoughts to it but this is just my exp.
Why the need for an alternative? Trying to prevent resistance or Heis-Tea stop working for you?