New Loft Grow Room - Input Appreciated
- Thread starter loftygoals
- Start date
fortheloveofgrow
Member
Wow Lofty! Just incredible man. You're a mad scientist over there! I have zero doubt you will be growing loads and loads of dankness in your first run. You sir, are prepared. Great documentation of your process too, we all appreciate it. Excited to follow your posts on any topic, I have a similar tinkerer/planners approach and can glean much from your experiments. I'll be watching!
loftygoals
Well-Known Member
Bit of an update...
Seedlings seemed to be doing ok but not perfect. I noticed some dark spots on the 1st true leaves on the Blueberry seedling a couple of days ago. Then yesterday evening I noticed the roots all had a very light brown colouring
They're still in the clone king and I hadn't realised how important water temp would be at this stage! It was at 28C and it seems I have some root rot starting
I had spent the day setting up my water chiller loop in the RDWC reservoir anyway so I fired it up for 20 mins and it brought the water temps down to 17C. Then I thought screw it.. changed the water and gave the clone king bucket + pump a wash in hot bleach. Then reloaded fresh water (again RO ph 5.8 200ppm) and put the seedlings back. The old water smelt like the seeds that rotted away a while back in tap water I'm thinking I probably have pythium in my tap water which is what killed all those seeds at the start
So it looks like I'll need a chiller to keep the water cool in the cloner too. I've ordered a 60W Peltier, heatsink and 120W power supply which I'm planning to make into a DIY water chiller and attach to the side of the clone king. I can power it with one of the thermostatically controlled plugs I bought a while back to keep the water at a constant temp. Fingers crossed... Until then it looks like I'll be cooling the water manually once a day
I've also hung and wired up/ducted my carbon filters and fans today. I'll take some pics over the next couple of days... the second tent should be going up tomorrow too. Then I'll have everything "grow" related out of the main house
Seedlings seemed to be doing ok but not perfect. I noticed some dark spots on the 1st true leaves on the Blueberry seedling a couple of days ago. Then yesterday evening I noticed the roots all had a very light brown colouring
They're still in the clone king and I hadn't realised how important water temp would be at this stage! It was at 28C and it seems I have some root rot starting I had spent the day setting up my water chiller loop in the RDWC reservoir anyway so I fired it up for 20 mins and it brought the water temps down to 17C. Then I thought screw it.. changed the water and gave the clone king bucket + pump a wash in hot bleach. Then reloaded fresh water (again RO ph 5.8 200ppm) and put the seedlings back. The old water smelt like the seeds that rotted away a while back in tap water
I'm thinking I probably have pythium in my tap water which is what killed all those seeds at the start So it looks like I'll need a chiller to keep the water cool in the cloner too. I've ordered a 60W Peltier, heatsink and 120W power supply which I'm planning to make into a DIY water chiller and attach to the side of the clone king. I can power it with one of the thermostatically controlled plugs I bought a while back to keep the water at a constant temp. Fingers crossed... Until then it looks like I'll be cooling the water manually once a day
I've also hung and wired up/ducted my carbon filters and fans today. I'll take some pics over the next couple of days... the second tent should be going up tomorrow too. Then I'll have everything "grow" related out of the main house
loftygoals
Well-Known Member
I'll try and take some pics as I'm making it... but it shouldn't be very difficult.
60W Peltier:
£1.32 off ebay (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/281647941472)
80mm CPU Cooler:
£6.99 off ebay (can get one for about £3.40 shipped from China but I didn't want to wait) (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/401084730055)
12V 10A PSU (Peltier needs 5A at 12V and cooling fan uses less than 0.5A at 12V)
£10.49 off ebay (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/191733870857)
Thermostatically controlled plug:
£7.84 on ebay (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/381098253044)
Should go something like this:
1. Wire up the PSU (L, N and GND are marked as you can see on the picture on ebay)
2. Attach a plug to other end
3. Wire up peltier to DC + and - on PSU (if you get them the wrong way round it'll heat instead of cool!)
4. Attach peltier to heatsink with thermal cement
5. Wire up heatsink to DC + and - on PSU
5. Attach contraption to side of water tank to be cooled (probably using epoxy)
6. Plug in thermostatically controlled plug and dangle probe in water tank
7. Set temperature for peltier to be activated
And you're done Total cost £26.68 plus a plug and some wire. I'd definately strap the PSU high off the ground to avoid it getting wet as it has no protection against water splashes. If you wanted to be sensible you'd put the PSU in an IP68 box tied a couple of feet above the ground with rubber grommets for cable exits (can get one off ebay for £7.99 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161974044681).
As I said... I'll try and take some pics of my build
60W Peltier:
£1.32 off ebay (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/281647941472)
80mm CPU Cooler:
£6.99 off ebay (can get one for about £3.40 shipped from China but I didn't want to wait) (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/401084730055)
12V 10A PSU (Peltier needs 5A at 12V and cooling fan uses less than 0.5A at 12V)
£10.49 off ebay (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/191733870857)
Thermostatically controlled plug:
£7.84 on ebay (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/381098253044)
Should go something like this:
1. Wire up the PSU (L, N and GND are marked as you can see on the picture on ebay)
2. Attach a plug to other end
3. Wire up peltier to DC + and - on PSU (if you get them the wrong way round it'll heat instead of cool!)
4. Attach peltier to heatsink with thermal cement
5. Wire up heatsink to DC + and - on PSU
5. Attach contraption to side of water tank to be cooled (probably using epoxy)
6. Plug in thermostatically controlled plug and dangle probe in water tank
7. Set temperature for peltier to be activated
And you're done
Total cost £26.68 plus a plug and some wire. I'd definately strap the PSU high off the ground to avoid it getting wet as it has no protection against water splashes. If you wanted to be sensible you'd put the PSU in an IP68 box tied a couple of feet above the ground with rubber grommets for cable exits (can get one off ebay for £7.99 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161974044681).As I said... I'll try and take some pics of my build
crypticgrower
Member
cool keep it up your gunna have a killer grow
Cornishi
Well-Known Member
So the peltier doesnt need to be in the water? Just on the side of the tank? Will it have enough power to cool through the side then? Will you need a venturi to distribute the water to ensure it's always flowing?I'll try and take some pics as I'm making it... but it shouldn't be very difficult.
60W Peltier:
£1.32 off ebay (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/281647941472)
80mm CPU Cooler:
£6.99 off ebay (can get one for about £3.40 shipped from China but I didn't want to wait) (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/401084730055)
12V 10A PSU (Peltier needs 5A at 12V and cooling fan uses less than 0.5A at 12V)
£10.49 off ebay (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/191733870857)
Thermostatically controlled plug:
£7.84 on ebay (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/381098253044)
Should go something like this:
1. Wire up the PSU (L, N and GND are marked as you can see on the picture on ebay)
2. Attach a plug to other end
3. Wire up peltier to DC + and - on PSU (if you get them the wrong way round it'll heat instead of cool!)
4. Attach peltier to heatsink with thermal cement
5. Wire up heatsink to DC + and - on PSU
5. Attach contraption to side of water tank to be cooled (probably using epoxy)
6. Plug in thermostatically controlled plug and dangle probe in water tank
7. Set temperature for peltier to be activated
And you're done
As I said... I'll try and take some pics of my build
Trying to visualise how it'd work.
loftygoals
Well-Known Member
Yup, side of the tank should be fine. The principal of a peltier is that is takes heat from one side and transfers it to the other side. So one side gets cold and one gets hot. If u attach the cold side to the side of the water tank that should be fine.
In an aeroponic cloner the water is always flowing through the pump and gets mixed constantly. So there shouldn't be any need for extra mixing.
If you Google a bit you'll see other people have successfully done the same thing already. I'll let u know if my attempt works
Edit: Just had a little think and alternatively the water could be cooled directly. That would require a cheapo aluminium water block (which I have plenty of) and a cheapo 12V water pump (which I also have spare
). All the bits should arrive on Monday and then I'll post up some pics
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Cornishi
Well-Known Member
Sounds awesome.Yup, side of the tank should be fine. The principal of a peltier is that is takes heat from one side and transfers it to the other side. So one side gets cold and one gets hot. If u attach the cold side to the side of the water tank that should be fine.
In an aeroponic cloner the water is always flowing through the pump and gets mixed constantly. So there shouldn't be any need for extra mixing.
If you Google a bit you'll see other people have successfully done the same thing already. I'll let u know if my attempt works
Edit: Just had a little think and alternatively the water could be cooled directly. That would require a cheapo aluminium water block (which I have plenty of) and a cheapo 12V water pump (which I also have spare
Are you naturally a handyman like this or are you trained in electrics n shiz? I'd never think to do half the stuff you're doing. Probably why my grow cost soo much to start with
Michael Huntherz
Well-Known Member
@loftygoals Impressive work, you picked the correct screen name! Really cool, ambitious as hell. I'm a Keep it Simple guy, but my idea of simple is complex to some folks, and I have a feeling you're even farther down that scale. This probably is your concept of "simple." Great stuff, rock on. Try a bit of H2O2 in your reservoir to keep those roots white, 2TBSP per gallon of a 3% solution should do it.
loftygoals
Well-Known Member
Nah I havent had any electronics training apart from some basics at school aged 9-11 messing with batteries, LEDs and motors! Oh! and I remember wiring up a mains electric plug at school when I was about 15 tooSounds awesome.
Are you naturally a handyman like this or are you trained in electrics n shiz? I'd never think to do half the stuff you're doing. Probably why my grow cost soo much to start with
Thanks for the advice. I've just changed my cloner water again (am doing it every other day at the moment). I bleached out the container and used fresh water (again RO, ph 5.8, 200ppm). I've hooked up the Hailea HC300 chiller directly to the cloner and have it set at 17C so that should take care of things until monday when hopefully I can build a smaller less overkill chiller. I used H2O2 as suggested and gave the roots a quick wash in H202 while I was at it.
I now have the second tent up, RDWC system all built in both flower tents, fans and filters all hung... Just need these bloody plants to hurry up
loftygoals
Well-Known Member
Had a bit of a disaster over the weekend. I had cheapo chinese hose clips on all hose connections out of my chiller. They were zinc plated which I thought would be fine under water... wrong! On Saturday I noticed the pH had risen to 8.2 so added a bit of pH down... but the pH barely moved, so I added a lot more until I was at pH 5.8. Later I came back and tested it again and the pH had risen again with the seedlings now looking very very droopy! So I emptied the system and had a look for anything different... I found the clips corroded with a powdery coating (they were part of the water chiller loop). The plants look very sad at the moment. I pondered starting again but thought I'd give them a chance to recover and carry on. I think it's gonna be 2 weeks from now before I disturb the seedlings again. I'll just let them chill out and relax You learn from your mistakes eh? That's what the first run is for!
Luckily there were only about 2 places where I had planned to have submerged hose clips so I can easily change them to stainless steel jubilee clips or plastic clips (if I even bother to put clips on submerged connections... which I probably won't now).
Was planning to fill the whole RDWC system tonight and leave it running for 3-4 days to test for leaks. I had my cheapo water pump sitting in the water butt full of RO water, connected up the hose to the pump at one end and to the reservoir at the other end... started it up... and nothing! Then got a small trickle! Basically the pump is not powerful enough to send water from the ground floor up into the loft. I had assumed a 7m delivery height would be enough, clearly not! So I've had to buy another pump... this one is 1200w and has a 46m delivery height and should be able to empty my water butt in under 1 minute
Also had quite a funny encounter while picking up some buckets today. I often have stuff delivered to a collection point locally and go pick things up 2-3 times a week as I'm usually working during the day and miss deliveries otherwise. So I went to pick up some buckets I'd ordered off the net... she finds them, brings them over, asks me what I'm doing with 40 buckets? Not anticipating the question I tell her I'm planting tomatoes in my greenhouse and they works well as cheap pots I honestly couldn't think of anything I'd legitimately be doing with 40 buckets??! She starts to go on about gardening and clay soil I just smile and nod cos I've got no idea what she's talking about hahaha
I'm gonna wire up some fan speed controllers tonight hopefully. High speed RVK and Rhino fans are too damn loud! Low speed are just about acceptable but I'm still slightly concerned about the neighbours
Although realistically I can only hear the low speed ones at night from rooms directly beneath the fans...
You learn from your mistakes eh? That's what the first run is for!Luckily there were only about 2 places where I had planned to have submerged hose clips so I can easily change them to stainless steel jubilee clips or plastic clips (if I even bother to put clips on submerged connections... which I probably won't now).
Was planning to fill the whole RDWC system tonight and leave it running for 3-4 days to test for leaks. I had my cheapo water pump sitting in the water butt full of RO water, connected up the hose to the pump at one end and to the reservoir at the other end... started it up... and nothing! Then got a small trickle! Basically the pump is not powerful enough to send water from the ground floor up into the loft. I had assumed a 7m delivery height would be enough, clearly not! So I've had to buy another pump... this one is 1200w and has a 46m delivery height and should be able to empty my water butt in under 1 minute
Also had quite a funny encounter while picking up some buckets today. I often have stuff delivered to a collection point locally and go pick things up 2-3 times a week as I'm usually working during the day and miss deliveries otherwise. So I went to pick up some buckets I'd ordered off the net... she finds them, brings them over, asks me what I'm doing with 40 buckets? Not anticipating the question I tell her I'm planting tomatoes in my greenhouse and they works well as cheap pots
I honestly couldn't think of anything I'd legitimately be doing with 40 buckets??! She starts to go on about gardening and clay soil I just smile and nod cos I've got no idea what she's talking about hahahaI'm gonna wire up some fan speed controllers tonight hopefully. High speed RVK and Rhino fans are too damn loud! Low speed are just about acceptable but I'm still slightly concerned about the neighbours
Although realistically I can only hear the low speed ones at night from rooms directly beneath the fans...
Michael Huntherz
Well-Known Member
Yikes! I guess that's the thing about scaling to this size out of the gate, when things go wrong they go wrong at scale. Good luck, just keep on top of it and you'll pull through fine, hopefully.Had a bit of a disaster over the weekend. I had cheapo chinese hose clips on all hose connections out of my chiller. They were zinc plated which I thought would be fine under water... wrong! On Saturday I noticed the pH had risen to 8.2 so added a bit of pH down... but the pH barely moved, so I added a lot more until I was at pH 5.8. Later I came back and tested it again and the pH had risen again with the seedlings now looking very very droopy! So I emptied the system and had a look for anything different... I found the clips corroded with a powdery coating (they were part of the water chiller loop). The plants look very sad at the moment. I pondered starting again but thought I'd give them a chance to recover and carry on. I think it's gonna be 2 weeks from now before I disturb the seedlings again. I'll just let them chill out and relax
Luckily there were only about 2 places where I had planned to have submerged hose clips so I can easily change them to stainless steel jubilee clips or plastic clips (if I even bother to put clips on submerged connections... which I probably won't now).
Was planning to fill the whole RDWC system tonight and leave it running for 3-4 days to test for leaks. I had my cheapo water pump sitting in the water butt full of RO water, connected up the hose to the pump at one end and to the reservoir at the other end... started it up... and nothing! Then got a small trickle! Basically the pump is not powerful enough to send water from the ground floor up into the loft. I had assumed a 7m delivery height would be enough, clearly not! So I've had to buy another pump... this one is 1200w and has a 46m delivery height and should be able to empty my water butt in under 1 minute
Also had quite a funny encounter while picking up some buckets today. I often have stuff delivered to a collection point locally and go pick things up 2-3 times a week as I'm usually working during the day and miss deliveries otherwise. So I went to pick up some buckets I'd ordered off the net... she finds them, brings them over, asks me what I'm doing with 40 buckets? Not anticipating the question I tell her I'm planting tomatoes in my greenhouse and they works well as cheap pots
I'm gonna wire up some fan speed controllers tonight hopefully. High speed RVK and Rhino fans are too damn loud! Low speed are just about acceptable but I'm still slightly concerned about the neighbours
loftygoals
Well-Known Member
Hey guys,
Haven't had an update as I've been too busy and the seedlings I started earlier never made it past the incident with the zinc hose clips dissolving into the water After trying to keep them going they were just not doing anything and it seemed pointless to put so much energy into them. So... I killed them
Took the time to finish off the veg room before I started again. Built a RDWC system as you can see:
Using 16x tiny 5 litre buckets Might be small but should be enough to get the plants going for 4 weeks before they get moved into the flower tents. The netpots are compatible with the 20 litre buckets in the flower tents so I just have to move them over... easy peasy?!
I tried quite a few different water pumps. Eventually I've settled on cheap 12V 1000L/h DC water pumps which can be had for £10 each.
Using them for my RDWC circuits and the chiller circuits. Why? They are cheap, have standard threaded 1/2 inch connections (compatible with both my different RDWC and chiller circuits) and can be adjusted with voltage. So I have a 12V PSU in a waterproof box strapped to the wall of the room and then wires with 12V DC coming out into the room. The speed of the pumps can then be adjusted with a simple screwdriver in a few seconds. Any AC pump I tried was more expensive, most were impossible to adjust and the connections could be awkward to interchange between my applications.
For lighting I wanted to have around 600W but didn't want to spend money on more lights... so I built aircooled LEDs using parts I had left over from the water cooled lights in the flower tents:
We have 4x 3500k and 4x 6500k 100W cheapo chinese COB LEDs. Each LED is running around 70W. At the wall they're drawing around 570W total:
I also bought another chiller so I can have separate chiller circuits for the flower reservoir and the veg reservoir. Just finished priming the circuit and it seems to be running smoothly.
So which seedlings have I popped?
Top to bottom:
4x Blueberry
4x Pineapple Express
4x Purple Afghan Kush
4x Viper Cookies
Maybe tomorrow or the day after I'll be putting them into the RDWC setup in some clay balls (fingers crossed!)
No pics of the water cooled LEDs finished yet as I havent powered them up. I'll be putting together the water cooling circuit (car radiator needs mouting onto a wooden frame) tomorrow hopefully!
Haven't had an update as I've been too busy and the seedlings I started earlier never made it past the incident with the zinc hose clips dissolving into the water
After trying to keep them going they were just not doing anything and it seemed pointless to put so much energy into them. So... I killed them Took the time to finish off the veg room before I started again. Built a RDWC system as you can see:
Using 16x tiny 5 litre buckets
Might be small but should be enough to get the plants going for 4 weeks before they get moved into the flower tents. The netpots are compatible with the 20 litre buckets in the flower tents so I just have to move them over... easy peasy?! I tried quite a few different water pumps. Eventually I've settled on cheap 12V 1000L/h DC water pumps which can be had for £10 each.
Using them for my RDWC circuits and the chiller circuits. Why? They are cheap, have standard threaded 1/2 inch connections (compatible with both my different RDWC and chiller circuits) and can be adjusted with voltage. So I have a 12V PSU in a waterproof box strapped to the wall of the room and then wires with 12V DC coming out into the room. The speed of the pumps can then be adjusted with a simple screwdriver in a few seconds. Any AC pump I tried was more expensive, most were impossible to adjust and the connections could be awkward to interchange between my applications.
For lighting I wanted to have around 600W but didn't want to spend money on more lights... so I built aircooled LEDs using parts I had left over from the water cooled lights in the flower tents:
We have 4x 3500k and 4x 6500k 100W cheapo chinese COB LEDs. Each LED is running around 70W. At the wall they're drawing around 570W total:
I also bought another chiller so I can have separate chiller circuits for the flower reservoir and the veg reservoir. Just finished priming the circuit and it seems to be running smoothly.
So which seedlings have I popped?
Top to bottom:
4x Blueberry
4x Pineapple Express
4x Purple Afghan Kush
4x Viper Cookies
Maybe tomorrow or the day after I'll be putting them into the RDWC setup in some clay balls (fingers crossed!)
No pics of the water cooled LEDs finished yet as I havent powered them up. I'll be putting together the water cooling circuit (car radiator needs mouting onto a wooden frame) tomorrow hopefully!
loftygoals
Well-Known Member
Every single seed has germinated nicely and are looking really healthy... except the Blueberry! Are they all just bunk? Is that why they were freebies and why I was having so much trouble at the start?!
Take a look for yourself... decent progress by all the seedlings but nothing from Blueberry
I'll be transplanting into hydroton tomorrow (too tired now!). Most of the seedlings have taproots popping through the rockwool so they're ready
Take a look for yourself... decent progress by all the seedlings but nothing from Blueberry
I'll be transplanting into hydroton tomorrow (too tired now!). Most of the seedlings have taproots popping through the rockwool so they're ready
loftygoals
Well-Known Member
Had an interesting time earlier
I have 3 carbon filters hanging from the ceiling (one from the veg room and two from the flower tents). The veg room fan/filter always looked a little precarious but I was hoping it would be ok... yesterday the filter fell down Didn't do any damage but I had to get it back up there. I'd initially hung it using a ladder before the tents went up. Now there's not enough space to access the filters so what to do?
I climbed up on top of the tents! What a pain in the ass! I was sweating buckets up there Dropped a screwdriver and some rope so had to climb up and down a couple of times (there's not many times I've wished someone was around to help me with this grow... but perched on top of a couple of grow tents looking at my screwdriver on the floor was definitely one of them!). Finally managed to rehang the filter and attach it to the fan. No air leaks and pretty secure now
Lucky I'm not fat
I have 3 carbon filters hanging from the ceiling (one from the veg room and two from the flower tents). The veg room fan/filter always looked a little precarious but I was hoping it would be ok... yesterday the filter fell down
Didn't do any damage but I had to get it back up there. I'd initially hung it using a ladder before the tents went up. Now there's not enough space to access the filters so what to do? I climbed up on top of the tents! What a pain in the ass! I was sweating buckets up there
Dropped a screwdriver and some rope so had to climb up and down a couple of times (there's not many times I've wished someone was around to help me with this grow... but perched on top of a couple of grow tents looking at my screwdriver on the floor was definitely one of them!). Finally managed to rehang the filter and attach it to the fan. No air leaks and pretty secure now Lucky I'm not fat
loftygoals
Well-Known Member
Today I built the frame for the water cooled lights radiator.
Essentially we have a radiator from a 2.0L petrol car which should be capable of dissipating around 57,000W of heat. I'll only be asking it to handle around 1,400W of heat energy at a time so it should be more than up to the task. Then we have a 16 inch 1800CFM car radiator fan all mounted onto a timber frame. I've used foam pads to mount the fan onto the rad to eliminate any rattle.
I've wired it up to attach to the 12V power supply already mounted in the grow room (already has plenty of spare amp capacity) with an inline on/off switch.
Then I've used reducers to make it compatible with a water pump and reservoir (Eheim 1048 ) which I've already mounted in the grow room.
It should be more than capable of keeping the lights cool and hopefully will dump the heat directly out of the flower tents and into my main house. That's the plan anyway!
Essentially we have a radiator from a 2.0L petrol car which should be capable of dissipating around 57,000W of heat. I'll only be asking it to handle around 1,400W of heat energy at a time so it should be more than up to the task. Then we have a 16 inch 1800CFM car radiator fan all mounted onto a timber frame. I've used foam pads to mount the fan onto the rad to eliminate any rattle.
I've wired it up to attach to the 12V power supply already mounted in the grow room (already has plenty of spare amp capacity) with an inline on/off switch.
Then I've used reducers to make it compatible with a water pump and reservoir (Eheim 1048 ) which I've already mounted in the grow room.
It should be more than capable of keeping the lights cool and hopefully will dump the heat directly out of the flower tents and into my main house. That's the plan anyway!
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SoOLED
Well-Known Member
24k Gold one of my all time favs. I have never had a run at it, but a member in our co-op did WOW!
in my area I don't get a lot of freedom to grow lots of strains, people tend to latch on to names around here and if the patients are not looking/asking for it...well I can only smoke so much myself.
looks like you got everything in order, one thing people forget is how messy this hobby is. don't forget a smoke alarm, fire extinguisher. maybe some wireless cams too, you have have your plants on a web cam and get gold.
in my area I don't get a lot of freedom to grow lots of strains, people tend to latch on to names around here and if the patients are not looking/asking for it...well I can only smoke so much myself.
looks like you got everything in order, one thing people forget is how messy this hobby is. don't forget a smoke alarm, fire extinguisher. maybe some wireless cams too, you have have your plants on a web cam and get gold.
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loftygoals
Well-Known Member
So it's been a week (7 days exactly) since the first seed germinated and 5 days since I moved the seedlings into the mini 5L RDWC veg room setup.
I can never quite get an idea of what to expect in terms of growth. Some people post monster pics of "1 week old" seedlings that look almost impossible. So I thought I'd document what happens in my grow under 570W of cheap COB LED lighting.
Here is my Pineapple Express:
Here's Purple Afghan Kush:
Here's Viper Cookies:
Here's what my environment looks like:
As you can see air temp is 23.2C and water temp is 18.6C with 19% RH. I have been experimenting with slowing fans and lowering lights and think I've found the sweet spot.
Finally we have Blueberry. Now initially none popped. I did some surgery on them as it had been 9 days since I started trying to germinate and they weren't doing much. I gently opened up the seed cases (which had already cracked but then stalled) and then replaced them in rockwool in the plastic tray. 2 days ago I got a seedling!
and yesterday I got another:
I put them in the RDWC as soon as the tap root pops through the rockwool cube.
So the grow is coming along nicely
Now how am I doing with the water cooled lights? Well I had a test today. Radiator works nicely and the water cooling keeps the COBs insanely cool. Only problem is the red cheapo COBs I have don't work properly! They're apparently 100W COBs (they're the right dimensions too) and they apparently run at 36V 3.1A... but when I put them above 40W (25V 1.6A) they smoke! A layer of smoke seems to come off the silicone on the front of the COBs even with water cooling So I might have to abandon the red COBs mixed in and have all white (warm+cool mix) LEDs. No biggie, I have plenty of spares because my LED supplier sent me about 40 extra for some reason
I've been looking at the Meanwell HLG-600H-36A driver... has me licking my lips in anticipation! Paired up with Cree CXB3590 COBs and water cooling... would get amazing results and run very cool! I even contacted chinese suppliers for a price and have been quoted $156 per driver which is outstanding! But I've told myself I'm going to get 2 grows under my belt with the cheapies before I shell out the serious cash.
Oh and here's what the whole veg room looks like at the moment:
I can never quite get an idea of what to expect in terms of growth. Some people post monster pics of "1 week old" seedlings that look almost impossible. So I thought I'd document what happens in my grow under 570W of cheap COB LED lighting.
Here is my Pineapple Express:
Here's Purple Afghan Kush:
Here's Viper Cookies:
Here's what my environment looks like:
As you can see air temp is 23.2C and water temp is 18.6C with 19% RH. I have been experimenting with slowing fans and lowering lights and think I've found the sweet spot.
Finally we have Blueberry. Now initially none popped. I did some surgery on them as it had been 9 days since I started trying to germinate and they weren't doing much. I gently opened up the seed cases (which had already cracked but then stalled) and then replaced them in rockwool in the plastic tray. 2 days ago I got a seedling!
and yesterday I got another:
I put them in the RDWC as soon as the tap root pops through the rockwool cube.
So the grow is coming along nicely
Now how am I doing with the water cooled lights? Well I had a test today. Radiator works nicely and the water cooling keeps the COBs insanely cool. Only problem is the red cheapo COBs I have don't work properly! They're apparently 100W COBs (they're the right dimensions too) and they apparently run at 36V 3.1A... but when I put them above 40W (25V 1.6A) they smoke! A layer of smoke seems to come off the silicone on the front of the COBs even with water cooling
So I might have to abandon the red COBs mixed in and have all white (warm+cool mix) LEDs. No biggie, I have plenty of spares because my LED supplier sent me about 40 extra for some reason I've been looking at the Meanwell HLG-600H-36A driver... has me licking my lips in anticipation! Paired up with Cree CXB3590 COBs and water cooling... would get amazing results and run very cool! I even contacted chinese suppliers for a price and have been quoted $156 per driver which is outstanding! But I've told myself I'm going to get 2 grows under my belt with the cheapies before I shell out the serious cash.
Oh and here's what the whole veg room looks like at the moment: