First Grow - 3000w - Ebb & Gro - H&G - Sealed

So instead of flowering 24 plants I think I'm going to only do half of the room. Reason 1: some of the oldest are getting big and I need to get them into flower so they don't over grow the space. Reason 2: some of the youngest look stretchy and week. I'd rather have 15 strong plants than 24 with 9 week ones. The batch of clones I have going would be the next round and they should be ready to flower in a month which would put me on a rotating harvest schedule. So the plan is to put 15 into flower and weed out the 3 weakest when they start to run out of space. Comments?

So today I noticed that the rockwool cubes I'm using are pretty much dry by the end of the lighting cycle. The cubes are 4x4x4" and I've been feeding them once a day till now. During the last week some of the cubes have been light but today pretty much all of them are so I am going to start feeding them twice during lights on. Once at the beginning and another half way through. I think the ladies are drinking enough now for that. I'll post a pic update later today.

One the funniest things about setting up a grow room is that I used to leave all the lights in the house on all the time and now I turn them all off a soon as i leave them room, even if i'm coming right back. Ha!

Hey man nice grow you got going, just wanted to say one thing though that might help you out.

When growing cannabis, the size of the pot will directly relate to how big the plant can get. The deeper the pot the taller your plants will be and the wider the pot is the wider your plants will be (for the most part). Not only this but later in flowering plants will grow lots of lateral roots, which affect how big and dense the nugs will be so you want to use pots with lots of lateral room. Since you are growing in rockwool cubes that aren't that wide or deep you might want to fill the tray with hydroton rocks so that the roots have more area to grow into. The roots won't grow out from the cube as it is because there is light hitting the tray and the second roots come into contact with light, or completely open air, they will turn around.

Hope this helps. Ttyl.

Damios said:

When growing cannabis, the size of the pot will directly relate to how big the plant can get. The deeper the pot the taller your plants will be and the wider the pot is the wider your plants will be (for the most part). Not only this but later in flowering plants will grow lots of lateral roots, which affect how big and dense the nugs will be so you want to use pots with lots of lateral room. Since you are growing in rockwool cubes that aren't that wide or deep you might want to fill the tray with hydroton rocks so that the roots have more area to grow into. The roots won't grow out from the cube as it is because there is light hitting the tray and the second roots come into contact with light, or completely open air, they will turn around.

Hope this helps. Ttyl.

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Thanks Damios. I'm actually going to put the 4x4x4" Rockwool cubes into 2 gallon buckets with hydroton when I put them into flower. Thanks for the tip though. That totally makes sense.

KnowledgeSeeker said:

Today i ordered a Can Fan Max Fan 10" (for room exhaust), (2x) 6" sun tubes, (2x) Adjust-A-Wing medium, (2x) super spreader medium, Vortex 8" inline fan (for cooling lights), and (6) sure-to-grow 2 gal media inserts (I want to try a couple out and see how they perform compared to the hydroton.)

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Nice job ordering the Max Fan. You won't be disappointed. Moving air within the growroom is fundamental rule number 1, right next to enough light. I'm personally NOT a fan of those "batwing" style reflectors, but good luck to you using them. Also, I'm eager to see the results of your STG medium trial. Definitely make sure to post the results of that, as there is little to no information on people using that as their medium.

Mcgician said:

Nice job ordering the Max Fan. You won't be disappointed. Moving air within the growroom is fundamental rule number 1, right next to enough light. I'm personally NOT a fan of those "batwing" style reflectors, but good luck to you using them. Also, I'm eager to see the results of your STG medium trial. Definitely make sure to post the results of that, as there is little to no information on people using that as their medium.

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Thanks for all your help Mcgician. I went with the AAW batwing because Al B. Fuct and SOG were using them and I liked the idea keeping the air flow within the 6" diameter of the ducting and not having the CFM loss of a traditional reflector. I will definitely keep you posted on the STG.

So I've removed the rest of the Grapefruit (with the chlorosis i just didn't see them being top producers) and some more of the Sour D. The plants looked stretchier than I would like and even with 16 in a 3x3' tray they still have some overlapping leaves. I have done some trimming of the lower branches to increase air flow and light penetration. They are all between 18 and 24" tall. I will be putting them into flower at the end of the week. I'll post a pic update in a couple of days.

See this thread for ventilation info: https://www.rollitup.org/grow-room-design-setup/242394-intake-passive-vs-active-cfm.html

See this thread for backdraft dampers discussion: https://www.rollitup.org/grow-room-design-setup/242292-backdraft-dampers.html

So the girls went into flower last night. Hopefully I'll get some pics up soon.

The ventilation/cooling system seems to be working well but will probably require another fan when the second set of lights are put into use. A quick update: I installed a Max Fan 10" 1000 CFM fan for exhaust. I cut an 8" diameter passive intake in the floor to bring cold air in from under the house and installed a backdraft damper. The exhaust fan opens the damper and sucks air in very good. I installed a thermostatically controlled outlet that has a remote sensor located in the subfloor. The therm. outlet is plugged into the cooling outlet of the CHHC-1 along with the AC unit. I set the temp on the therm. outlet to be 74 degrees. The CHHC-1 is set to begin cooling at 81 degrees and stop cooling at 74 degrees. Last night i also plugged a Vortex 8" 750 CFM fan into the therm. outlet as well to bring in air from the subfloor faster. That fan was intended for use with the second set of lights so we may have to purchase another one. So when the cooling is turned if the subfloor air is less 75 degrees not only with the AC come on but the exhaust and intake fans will come on as well. Of course the CHHC-1 is set to split CO2 mode so the CO2 is turned off during the cooling period.

The outside air (subfloor) was 58.5 degrees. Once the temp reached 81 degrees the cooling system came on and it took 10 minutes to cool the room down to 74 degrees. After the cooling period it took 45 minutes for the room to heat back up to 81 degrees. So the ladies will have approximately 1/5 of their time without CO2 supplementation which seems reasonable to me.

It's been a while since my last update. A lot has happened since then but I'll try to keep it brief.

So about 2 weeks ago i put 15 plants into flower. About 1 week ago I pulled the 3 weakest and put them back into veg to use as mothers for a batch of clones. When I put the 15 into flower I had to move my Veg setup (which was in my flower room) to it's new home. Unfortunately, idiot boy (me) didn't do enough environmental testing on the new veg room and all of the clones that I had going at the time died because it got too hot and I wasn't checking them often enough. Shit.

The 12x39" Phresh filter was installed with a 12 to 10" reducer and a 10" backdraft damper connected to the Max fan 10" 1000 cfm fan for exhaust.

The ladies are looking ok. A lot of the sour d are more stretchy/leggy than I would like but I'll make sure that doesn't happen on the next batch. Overcrowding in veg started it and it seems to be a continuation. It seems like some of the plants are showing nute burn. The two Flo are showing it the most. I backed the EC down to 1.5 from 1.8 and we'll see how that goes. Take a look at the pics and let me know what you think. I'm also still fighting chlorosis on one of the OG k(r)ush as well (pic 007).

Caution - do not run a mixed batch of hydroton with SureToGrow. They have very different absorption/retention qualities. I emailed the STG rep and he said:
"Twice a day when the lights are on should be sufficient you may cut back to one depending where you are at in your bloom cycle now. If you are more than half way through bloom once should be enough. The air to water ratio of STG is 18/82 when saturated." Simpsonsampson420 is watering an Ebb & Gro system with hydroton 4 times a day so basically I'm screwed. Since the hydroton would like more frequent watering i'm kind of stuck. Sure I could just pull the STG buckets out every day before one/two of the waterings but let's be realistic here. That's just not going to happen. So since the roots are already through the STG and I can't cut the plants out of it I put about 4 inches of hydroton under the stg block. This way less of the STG block will get soaked and they will hopefully be able to handle more watering. We'll see.

Roots. I didn't take pictures of them but the roots of 75% of the plants are already growing through the bottom of the inner buckets. Hopefully that's good...

Temp. Doing more research on CO2 I decided to raise the temp slightly. The limit on the CHHC-1 is set to 84 and the deadband is set to 7 degrees. That gives an average temp of 81 degrees. The night temp is set to 81 degrees. The CO2 ppm is set to 1450.

I contacted the Vortex fan manufacturer and asked them if there was a performance difference pushing vs pulling air to cool lights. This was their response:

I contacted CF group regarding push vs. pull through a filter with a max fan and this was there response:

"I recommend pulling air through your carbon filter rather then blowing into it. When pulling air through your filter you utilize the full surface area of the filter so maximum contaminant can be adsorbed. The Max Fans are also designed to pull air through a resistance rather then blow into it.
If you are blowing into the filter you should remove the pre-filter and cut a piece off and place it at the intake of the filter (where you are blowing into the center) so it can help capture dust and particles, you will also need to replace this pre filter more often as only a small portion can be used at a time meaning it will become dirtier much quicker."

So this Sour Diesel is starting the 3rd week of flower and it's about 4 ft tall and stretchy. My lights can only go about a foot higher and it's at least 18" above the average height of the rest of the group. Is it too late to top it? Any suggestions?

It's starting to look like things are happening.

KnowledgeSeeker said:

It's starting to look like things are happening.

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Keep it going now...looks like buds to me!

Sure to grow update

Correspondence with SureToGrow regarding feeding schedule. My questions to them:

I have an Ebb & gro hydro system. I was interested your product and decided to try it out. I currently have some plants in that just started their bloom phase. The plants were grown in 4x4x4” rockwool cubes for 4 weeks of vegetative growth and then inserted into the Ebb & Gro buckets. I have half in STG Storm Typhoon media and the other half in Hydroton. In doing more reading about your product it appears that STG may require more frequent watering than hydroton. Is that true? Do you have a recommended feeding schedule for the STB Storm Typhoon product? Currently I am watering for 15 mins twice a day during lights on. Also, do you have the percentages of substrate porosity and air space for STG?

Their response:

Twice a day when the lights are on should be sufficient you may cut back to one depending where you are at in your bloom cycle now. If you are more than half way through bloom once should be enough. The air to water ratio of STG is 18/82 when saturated. I hope this helps.

So i started to investigate the roots to see what was going on.

The plants in sure to grow don't seem to have developed as much root mass as the rest of the bunch. This may be due to overwatering. I have been watering twice a day, once and lights on and again 6 hours later. Just before watering I removed one of the STG plants and the bottom 1-2 inches of the media was still soaked. The roots don't seem to have penetrated through the media and I'm thinking it's because there has been too much water. When I first inserted the STG the level seemed low so I put an inch or two of hydroton below to the STG to raise it up a bit because I didn't want the rockwool cubes to get soaked during watering. Two out of the three have roots that are better but still haven't gone to the bottom of the buckets while all of the plants in hydroton have reached the bottom and poked through. The third STG had very little root development and I decided to cut away the bottom inch of STG and fill the inch void with hydroton. The last pic is of the roots of a plant in hydroton that is about the same size as the plant that is in STG that I cut away the bottom portion.

those are some sickly looking roots. Especially the last one. Have you check your ph/ppm's of your run off? Roted roots tend to raise ph.

Integra21 said:

those are some sickly looking roots. Especially the last one. Have you check your ph/ppm's of your run off? Roted roots tend to raise ph.

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These roots have grown through the bottom of the inner bucket and constantly sit in the nutrient solution in the lower bucket. They are still wet with the nutrient solution in this pic so the discoloration is probably a combination of the residual dark nute solution and also from being soaked in nute solution. The humic acid turns the nutrient solution dark brown so I assume that constantly soaking in a dark brown solution would turn the roots brown. And since they are soaking in solution i think there is probably a lack of oxygen.

My ph has been really stable at 5.8