MY DIY 21st Century 'Flood' & Drain

PetFlora

Well-Known Member
Had a brain fart this morning.

The ufo was too far from the center of the 2 plants, angling it didn't help that much, so...

I took out the middle Y adapter/extender, lowered my ufo, put the vanity fixture directly on top, added Y adapters + extenders + screw bulb leds on each end on each end. This allowed me to center the ufo + led supplemtns directly over the plants


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PetFlora

Well-Known Member
This rig won't accommodate, nor using 3 to create 6 points as the heights would vary.

I have a plan to use a 12" wide board and mount 6 sockets in Merkaba shape, but it will require 4 more 17-22w bulbs, and they are not cheap. Anyway, I have my ufo, which hopefully will bring the best out of BrandX girls, but yeah, it's in the works.

My HOT5 clone tote is so full of young buds, I will have the spare cash once I harvest/cure. Alas, that won't be for ~ 8 weeks
 

polyarcturus

Well-Known Member
srry to hear about the wait, but it should be full of the excitement of growing. but your merkaba is getting there.
 

PetFlora

Well-Known Member
FYI the 22w Utilitech is too heavy to make effective positioning adjustments to the extenders. The 17w Philips is pushing it as well, but not as bad
 

PetFlora

Well-Known Member
Hey bud, I don't have a watt meter

The ufo is supposedly 90w, let's assume 70. The bulbs are 2 @ 6.5w + one @ 17w + one @ 22w. More important is lumens. I have no idea what the ufo lumens are, but the supplement leds are 2 @ 450 + 1100 + 1650
 

PetFlora

Well-Known Member
Just located the UFO box

It has Bridgelux 90 @ 1w diodes 455-470 + 630-660 20 blue + 70 red

Positioning the vanity fixture over the ufo put the screw bulbs too close the canopy (caused some bleaching). Solved that by adding a couple smallish heat sink risers on top of the ufo (but below the vanity fixture), but doing so moved those bulbs too far away. What to do?

Aha! I figured out why I did not buy the 23" extenders, I can simply screw 2 shorter ones together, which I did this morning, putting the 6.5watters right where I want them below the canopy



Weather has been quite cool here for 5 days, so growth has stalled, but we're warming again, up now, so should have some nice growth by Friday.

Secondary growth is very full. Each plant has 5 @ 6" secondary branching + several @ 3-4"


Wondering whether the 20w of blue is too much, and how to compensate. The diodes are protected by a glass (could be clear plastic). The blue diodes are concentrated in the center ~ 4" diameter, so maybe tape something over that area to block the blue. Anybody?
 

PetFlora

Well-Known Member
Running the math I have ~ 120 total watts. For sure 20w are 455-470 from the ufo, what percentage of the 3000k WW have is anyone's guess. I'll go with 20% there as well.

Question- will taping some cardboard over the area of the ufo, where the blues are centered, sufficiently diffuse/reduce/block it?
 

PetFlora

Well-Known Member
HOT5
Gave the girls a much needed trim down below:fire:

LED Tent

Just looked closely at the girls

Wow, the new secondary branching within 4" of the canopy is exploding

The bigger girl is back under the 22w Utilitech and seems very happy there. Since the weather has warmed up a bit (~ 72* day time in the tent) she's responding with a new growth spurt

I am very happy, as this means my $350 ufo purchase (> 3 years ago) will be giving my money's worth for many years to come
 

PetFlora

Well-Known Member
Update

LED


Growing taller + excellent undergrowth. Moved lights up ~ 4" as they were within 3" of the canopy. Leafs not reaching for the sky, so I replaced the 6.5 WW (on the short extender) with a 6.5 NW after taking pics. Will monitor over the next few days. Minor bleaching from over a week ago

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HOT5

Budding nicely. Still stretching, so I snapped a few main stems to assure more light penetration. Need to install light bar (vanity fixture) on one side, below the canopy


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PetFlora

Well-Known Member
Just as I thought, since replacing the the smallest of 4 ww with one small NW, even lowest large leaf nodes are already at least horizontal, the ones above that are well above horizontal, reaching skyward.

Keep in mind this is only 6.5w/~120w: a ~5 % swing toward natural daylight is making a big difference in how the plant is utilizing energy.

I'll take a pic tomorrow

I keep forgetting to mention how thick and strong the main stalks are. The smaller actually has young bark near the base


Holy crap they are 2 months old today
:cool::mrgreen::clap::bigjoint:
 

polyarcturus

Well-Known Member
tbh i havent even been paying attention to my woody haze cross i got going, im gonna have to get a look at her later on.

but yeah man its been a bomb diggity show thus far. still got a ways to go tho:/ but they are looking good? did you ever determine gender?(i think you did)
 

PetFlora

Well-Known Member
Late yesterday I replaced my 45l/m air pump with a 70l/m. It works awesome, but is pretty noisy. Worse (due to not having proper tubing on hand), I used the short piece that comes with it and put it inside my 2 x 4 tent. The off-gassing was strong (no exhaust fan/carbon scrubber). I should have taken it out, but let it stay running all night- and I know better:wall:

The smaller plant was closest to the pump and has been experiencing droop all day. I've been spraying her down, then running the fan on it at intervals.

(Edit: 2 pm It finally occurred to me to replace the nutes, as they were bombarded with the toxins. I also soaked the roots in pure water)

I replaced the 6.5w (480l) bulb with a 850 l bulb. Probably only leave it there for a couple hours

I took a couple pics and then trimmed some of the lower primary leafs, which are as big as my hand. Note how wide the blades are.


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PetFlora

Well-Known Member
Something you can't do with most single light panels is...

use 2 different timers- one for morning & evening light WW (2700-3000K) and NW for 10am- 4pm (5000-6500K). The morning/ evening light could run all day, but add the NW from ~ 2-5pm

I have 2 timers and 2 separate lights, though my ufo is heavy red (though it is farther away from the canopy), so the idea may not work that well here. Stay tuned
 

polyarcturus

Well-Known Member
the way i have it my red led comes on 30 min before the rest of the lights and 30 min after. the red only from the LED is the best for signaling the begining and end of the day in my experience thus far using that method.

yeah i see that indica coming thru on mine some big ol fatty leaves. it is about a 50% indica, just in my experiece with the mother its more sativa leaning. my woody cross is a little different then your and was bred with a sativa, and it still has rather large leaves, but its like 70% sativa, so who knows whats up with that.
 
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