Hmmm123's lowryder2, cfl, grow.

Or right then lets get this thing started before my babies pop though the soil!

Some genral info.
i will be growing 3 lowryder-2's from seed so lets hope for a least one girl! This is my second grow last one went well considering it was my first proper grow here's a link to my last grow incase anyone is intrested, https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/90900-round-2-lowryder2-cfl-grow.html

Cab info.
I will be using the same setup as last time so i'll do a quick recap for everyone. My cab mesures roughly about 90cm high, by 40cm wide and 35cm deep.

Lighting.
Lighting has changed slightly i think so here goes, i plan on having my light cycle 18/6 from start to finish. What lights i'll be using: 125watt dual cfl, that is the only light i plan on having on till i can tell sex. Then i have 2 20 watt cfl's wired up ready to go on when i have got rid of any males. Think that's it. So basically 125watt dual cfl on 18/6 until they show sex then i will switch my 2 20watt cfl's on too to give them that bit more light.

Airflow.
Has also changed slightly at the moment i only have one fan for my exhuast may add an intake fan at a later date if needs be but for now i'm not cos my temps would be too cold if i had another fan on. So i have 120mm pc fan (and it's not the budge type! I got the most expensive one there was so it's fairly quiet.) I wired my 120mm to a 12volt apadter. From my 120mm i have some ducting about 1 metre long max running to my 4inch carbon filter seems to be good air flow though the filter at the moment so all is looking good.

Erm oh yer, temps in my cab are normally between 65-70 with lights on and 60-65 with lights off. I plan on growing in soil, as for nutes well havn't got that far yet so we will see! Onto water had a bit of probelm with water before due to my ph being too high, so now i always add a couple of drops of lemon juice to every litre of water to keep my ph down a bit, also i always let all my water stand for at least 24hours.

I think that's it for now, there's the basic's i'll update with some pics of my setup in a mo!

Or right then on to the pics!

The first pic is of my cab with the door shut and yes the lights are on but that's the light from the window you can see, my cab is light proof!


Second pic is of my cab with the door open and light off.


Pic 3 is of my cab with lights on and the door open.


Pics 4 and 5 are of my filter mainly and my ducting.



And finally the last pic is where the magic is you could say lol. It's a pic of my wiring basically what everything is pluged into, as you can see everything is pluged into a surge protected extension just to be safe!


Will update a bit later on with some pics of my new babies for you all, just need to pot them up first!

A couple of days ago i started to germanated my last 3 lowryder-2 seeds.

So the first 5 pics are of my seeds before they germanted, just to give everyone an idea of what i did.







Moving on, the next 3 pics are of them just before i potted them, i couldn't risk leaving them overnight cos the last thing i wanted was for the tap roots to grow into the cotton wool!





They are now in peat pots, as of about 30mins ago. I put the peat pots with the soil in my cab for a couple of hours before i potted them up didn't want to shock them with soil that was too cold. Talking of soil forgot to mention what soil i was using. (Same soil as last time so things should be fine!) It says on the bag "multi-purpose compost reduced peat formula the perfect balance formula for most plants and seedlings." Also i mixed in some perlite with my soil.

Finally the last 3 pics are of my seedlings in there peat pots.

doesn't look bad.

i didn't look at your last grow, but do you prop the plants up close to the lights when they're small so they're not far?

Also, if you can find a way to flip that filter over so as to eliminate that 180-degree bend in the ducting, you will get better airflow. Ideally, you would want that filter on the intake side, so that all of the air must go through it (making leaks downstream unimportant), but it's a bit difficult when you have limited space as you do.

Thanks for stopping by. Yes they are stood on something so there closer to the light. Didn't really get what you meant about the filter sorry. I think i kinda know what you meant. So if i say put the filter on the floor so there wasn't that bend in then airflow would be better? I just assumed i would be better having the filter higher than my cab with heat rising and all but maybe i got that wrong? I don't get the last bit though about changing the filter so it's on the intake side, it would be really great if you could explain more, cos i'm willing to try improve in anyway possible.

ceestyle said:

doesn't look bad.

i didn't look at your last grow, but do you prop the plants up close to the lights when they're small so they're not far?

Also, if you can find a way to flip that filter over so as to eliminate that 180-degree bend in the ducting, you will get better airflow. Ideally, you would want that filter on the intake side, so that all of the air must go through it (making leaks downstream unimportant), but it's a bit difficult when you have limited space as you do.

Click to expand...

If you just flipped that filter around so it's at the same height but the ducting enters the bottom, you would eliminate the bend, which does reduce your airflow (by air friction, essentially)

Normally, you have the filter inside the grow area, with the ducting running out of the box to pull air through the filter as it leaves the box. Imagine the filter was inside the box, covering the hole in the top, with the ducting running out the top. This way, every bit of air that leaves the box has to go through the filter. This way, if there are any leaks in the ducting or at the connections, it leaks filtered air. As you have it now, if there are leaks anywhere, it will leak unfiltered air.

In addition, if your fan is powerful enough, you will create excess pressure inside the ducting as the fan pushes air toward the filter and the filter restricts air flow through it (the fan pushes air toward and through the filter). If you hook it up so the fan pulls air through the filter, you get air to flow through the filter by reducing the pressure behind it. You can imagine that having excess pressure inside the ducting system will create more leaks (of unfiltered air) than having negative pressure. If you still don't get this I can draw a diagram.

You need to find a way to increase your airflow beyond what you're getting with that little fan, eventually. You're lucky that you have a cold temp problem, but what are your ambient temps outside the box? Is the space not a living area? 60 is freaking cold to live in. Anyway, you can pick up a $20-30 inline booster fan at homedepot to kick up the airflow a notch (or two), but it sounds like you want to be quiet. In any case, if it's too cold, add more light !!

Are those 125W equivalent? Those are too small. If you only have two sockets, throw in a couple of those 100W (For real, not equivalent) bulbs and shine on.

if u dont mind hmmm, im gonna subcribe to this thread, looking good so far. Hows the cold?

Nah i don't mind at all mr west! Wouldn't be the same without you lol. As for the cold still full of it! I'm drugged up on lemsips at the moment though so it's not too bad lol.

mr west said:

if u dont mind hmmm, im gonna subcribe to this thread, looking good so far. Hows the cold?

Click to expand...

Thanks that makes more sense i will have a look tomorrow and see wot i can do! No the 125watt is not the equivalent i don't think, it's a massive bulb! As for the cold temps tell me about it! No it's not in a living space so to speak well i guess it is lol. I have a caravan that i use as my art studio so my cab is in there. It was in in the house but i moved it out there about half way though my other grow, cos it's just easier with it in there. I think i should have enough light though cos my last lowryder did fine in there i'll add a pic below. (pic is from when she was 65days old.) Thanks again for the info!

ceestyle said:

If you just flipped that filter around so it's at the same height but the ducting enters the bottom, you would eliminate the bend, which does reduce your airflow (by air friction, essentially)

Normally, you have the filter inside the grow area, with the ducting running out of the box to pull air through the filter as it leaves the box. Imagine the filter was inside the box, covering the hole in the top, with the ducting running out the top. This way, every bit of air that leaves the box has to go through the filter. This way, if there are any leaks in the ducting or at the connections, it leaks filtered air. As you have it now, if there are leaks anywhere, it will leak unfiltered air.

In addition, if your fan is powerful enough, you will create excess pressure inside the ducting as the fan pushes air toward the filter and the filter restricts air flow through it (the fan pushes air toward and through the filter). If you hook it up so the fan pulls air through the filter, you get air to flow through the filter by reducing the pressure behind it. You can imagine that having excess pressure inside the ducting system will create more leaks (of unfiltered air) than having negative pressure. If you still don't get this I can draw a diagram.

You need to find a way to increase your airflow beyond what you're getting with that little fan, eventually. You're lucky that you have a cold temp problem, but what are your ambient temps outside the box? Is the space not a living area? 60 is freaking cold to live in. Anyway, you can pick up a $20-30 inline booster fan at homedepot to kick up the airflow a notch (or two), but it sounds like you want to be quiet. In any case, if it's too cold, add more light !!

Are those 125W equivalent? Those are too small. If you only have two sockets, throw in a couple of those 100W (For real, not equivalent) bulbs and shine on.

Click to expand...

what kinda art do u do, one of me best mates is an artist, shes learning hypnotherepy at the min lol.

lol, it's only a hobby, i just needed somewhere with a lot of room for all my canvas's

Oh and mr west before you have any thoughts i will not be making the whole caravan into a massive grow room, well not anytime soon anyway lol.

mr west said:

what kinda art do u do, one of me best mates is an artist, shes learning hypnotherepy at the min lol.

Click to expand...

You got anything u could post, im sure im not the only one intrested. puff puff pases another ppp joint lol>>>>>>>> just in case the last 1 was intercepted lol

haha! seem to be doing alot of passing around tonight mr wesr lol. Erm yer i have a couple of ones i have finished i could post, but you will have to wait till tomorrow cos i'm not going out at this time to take pics lol. puff puff pass back>>>>>>>

mr west said:

You got anything u could post, im sure im not the only one intrested. puff puff pases another ppp joint lol>>>>>>>> just in case the last 1 was intercepted lol

Click to expand...

no worries, i only pass wen i got so yay for having something to pass, virtual passes save gear lol

good to see that pic. i just got some LR2 seeds for free and germed them. you run 18/6 all the way through? what was your total time from seed?

Erm no that's a good point i didn't run 18/6 all the way though, for about the first 4 weeks lights where on 24/7 then i changed them to 18/6. As for my total time well she is still going now and will be 10 weeks old tomorrow, i wanted about 40% amber trics but it seems to be taking forever for them to turn amber, think she will be gone by the end of the week though. So about 10 weeks from when she first popped though the soil.

ceestyle said:

good to see that pic. i just got some LR2 seeds for free and germed them. you run 18/6 all the way through? what was your total time from seed?

Click to expand...

So as suggested i have been busy trying to make my air flow better this morning, have flipped my filter over and also sealed all around my fan. pics below let me now what you think! (oh also none of them have popped though the soil yet but i didn't think they would this soon anyways.)





Here is a pic of them in my cab, do you think the lights are about the right distance away?



As always any advice or ideas welcome!

get the lights closer, bout an inch off the soil if u can

You sure they will be ok that close? Last time i roasted my seedlings when i had the lights that close. The soil was dry as it was this morning with them being that far away, not sure why cos temps have been fine if anything a bit low. So i had to give them a bit of water, i no i shouldn't but if i didn't they would have roasted too, only gave them 3 small spoon fulls of water each so not much. The last thing i want to do is roast these seeds too lol. I have clean flim on top of the peat pots to keep the mostiure in so i dunno why they seemed so dry.

mr west said:

get the lights closer, bout an inch off the soil if u can

Click to expand...

fair comment, see how it goes like that then. Ive never used cfls so dunt really know an awfull lot bout them. i wouldnt let them dry out too much.