Well of course here goes my never ending FUCKING drama of a grow!! Dude I swear i am tested at every corner in every grow. Every fucking month.
So things are cruising along and suddenly I blow a fuse on the entire floor in my house. Strangely enough it was around midnight which is when the HiD comes on. Ironically we were having an espresso so that machine was turning also. So I decided that since the light was blinking alot before coming on maybe it was drawing unnecessarily on the line. So i went out and bought an electronic ballast.
totally cool saving money adjustable light 50% 75% 100% & Super Bright!!!!!! I was stoked!!! I even bought a cool tube! ey? eyyyyy? not bad eh for a 1 plant grow.
Old ballast:
old reflector:
New Ballast:
The Plant - Was doing great until i bought the cool tube and the ballast. Unfortunately, I didn't know that when I put the light in the cool tube I was obligated to cool the tube. SO I ran it with no air circulation and THANK GOODNESS the bulb didn't explode, nor die on me. My girl had forgotten that I started another grow, so she didn't check until I asked her. When she finally goes to check things look cool. She sends me a pic from her iPhone so i can see the root system. All look good until I notice that there is a layer of ??? SOOT or residue on the bottom of the reservoir and covering the air stone which by the way had no air coming out of it!! When i see this I'm thinking "Can't i get a fucking break??"
i text her and she finds the airhouse outside the tank on the floor and reattaches it but the residue is a mystery.
For some reason the light was very inconsistent. it would work sometimes by itself but most times i had to go and fiddle with it before it came on. I cound out that when running a cool tube you must "cool the tube" or funny things start to happen with the bulb/ballast. Since the room was getting a bit crispy at times, and my bulb was burning up, I figured there was one way to get rid of a lot of heat, not only from the light but from the room itself. So i connected the cool tube to the VMC (air circulation thingy).
I put a long tubing on it so as to lower the temperature of the air before it reached the VMC. Yeah i know I'm compromising on efficiency but i think it's better than compromising my VMC with the heat.
Worked like a charm. Light comes on with consistency room is about 7 degrees cooler.
Now one small issue. Plant is dying!!!! Just Dying dude!! I changed the reservoir last week as usual found the residue, so this time i paid more attention to the nutrients as I was mixing. i found that one of my base nutes (which happens to be clear) had some fungus (black stuff) floating inside of it.
To make a long story short i 'm sure my nutrients are bad, they probably got too hot up there and have spoiled and now the plant is suffering.
I've switched nutes all together. Still Adv Nutrients except now I'm on the 3-part system, instead of the 2-part; And i'll keep them out of the attic.
Here is how she looked on the 25th.
Cool Tube housing a 400WHiD
and this is today.
I'm cleaning the reservoir today lets see if i get that film again...
Pure...
I'm hoping to really spark some growth and get it ready for the HiD initiation she will undergo in about 14 days or so.
It's great that she did it but if she'd have told me I'd have known the plant was getting to tall. But after some careful bending! (Real careful I was sweating since this is my only plant!) But we got her under the scrog and she has started to fan out some.
seem to be more stable than the 2 part system (Sensi Grow & Sensi Bloom).
