Yesterday, I bought a dehumidifier to bring my basement down to 50% humidity so I could start using my new grow tent.
Today, I put four 3 gallon pots in the tent. Each one has a layer of Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil in the bottom half and up the sides, and the middle “cup” is filled with Fox Farms Happy Frog soil.
In 2 of the pots I have a Super Skunk seed and a White Widow seed, each with a tiny sprout just begun.
In the other 2 pots, I transferred my Super Skunk and White Widow seedlings. I was surprised when I went to transplant them - I expected them to have the beginnings of bushy roots. Instead, they had the equivalent of a tap root. The White Widow was about 3 inches long and the Super Skunk was about 4 inches long - in just 5 days. I wonder if I was underwatering them or if this is the natural way - perhaps the root grows down until it hits bottom and then starts branching out.
In my tent, I was initially going to use a CMH (Ceramic Metal Halide) light, but at the last moment opted to go with a MH/HPS (Metal Halide/High Pressure Sodium) light to save some money. I have a 1000 watt digital dimmable ballast. It can be set at 100%, 75% or 50%. Right now, I have Metal Halide bulb in and the light set at 50% because I’m not sure: at the seedling stage, should I be using minimum power or maximum? And - that is why I will now be tagging @Hogmaster for some advice.
I also thought I should mention the thermometer/hygrometer setup I got. There are lots out there that have a sensor on the end of a cable. This is great because you can have the sensor inside your tent and the meter on the outside. What I found out was - almost all of them only sense temperature at the end of the cable. Only the base unit (the part you would prefer to have outside) itself can sense humidity.
I found a great solution in the ThermoPro TP65 Digital Wireless thermometer/hygrometer. Its remote sensor does both temperature and humidity and is also wireless. It’s very reasonably priced, too.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075QBRR6S/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Even better, it can have up to 3 remote sensors all transmitting to the base unit. So, you could have them in multiple tents, one inside a tent and one outside or in my case - one inside the tent and one inside my space bucket. Here is a link for additional remote units:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072BY1M2V/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
By the way, I currently have my light at 28 inches above the pots.
With that height and at 50% power it is staying right around 75 degrees Fahrenheit.
One thing I couldn’t find an answer to anywhere… for the “socks” (I don’t know what the proper term is) that keep the various portholes on the tent from leaking light (like in the lower right of the tent photo above), should the sock be on the inside or the outside of the tent? Or, does it not matter?
The portholes should be double zippered shut tight if your not using them to prevent light leakage. I try to push them to the outside or as flat in the tent wall as possible. As far as your root development goes what is the PAR reading at the top of the plants? More light intensity usually correlates with more roots and vegetative growth…
Here’s the suggested par levels for different stages of growth;
200-400ppfd for seedlings, clones, motherplants
400-600ppfd for early to late veg
600-900ppfd for flowering
1000+ppfd CO2 is suggested
Thanks. They are double-closed. I just didn’t know whether to push them out or in.
I have no idea what the PAR value is. I just had them in a space bucket with 2-3 (depending on the temperature) 23 watt 6500K CFL bulbs. I originally had 5 bulbs in there, but it was too warm.
I guess a light meter is next on my list of tools to acquire…
Yesterday another Super Skunk popped right up. It still amazes me how they just seemingly appear out of nowhere so quickly like that.
I’m going to forgo the PAR meter - those things are way too expensive for a supposed budget grow. I’ll just have to wing it on the lighting unless @Hogmaster speaks up. I think I might bump it from 50% power to 75% power, though. Because…
With a 400 CFM fan, an air cooled reflector, and the light running at 50% there is hardly any heat being produced below the fixture at all! With my hand a few inches below the glass it feels like just a couple of degrees warmer than the ambient air.
Unless I hear that I shouldn’t use more power, I think I will bump it up since heat doesn’t seem to be an issue.
Here’s one thing I haven’t found an answer to in all my readings, though - it’s not clear when I should switch from misting the soil to actually watering it…
I don’t use a par meter either. I just check the numbers the manufacturer provides online for par levels at so many inches.
I’m now about 16 days in. I’ve switched from spritzing the plants with water to actually using a watering can. In the past few days the leaves have been growing in size and number like crazy. I did have to leave town for about 36 hours, so I wasn’t sure what to do about watering. What I ended up doing was watering them extra before leaving and putting plastic cut-in-half 2 liter bottles over them to retain the moisture. When I got back, they still looked great. A day later though, all 3 plants kind of fell over a bit, so I propped them up with some toothpicks and put a little bit of extra dirt on the side of the stem where it was leaning.
One thing I noticed this morning was that the leaves on both of the Super Skunk plants have both light and dark green coloring on them. I’m not sure what that means. I’ll have to dig around here to see if anyone else got a diagnosis for the same thing.
Do you have a pic in natural light? Giving nutes yet?
The stretching could be due the light source not being close enough. How close is your light?
Those photos were taken under my metal halide light. I’ll have to dig up a handheld light to take into my tent for photos, I guess.
No nutrients yet. From the reading I’ve done, I shouldn’t have to add any until it goes into flower. My container has two soils in it - the young plant is growing in Fox Farms Happy Frog soil and will eventually expand into Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil. It looks kind of like this:
I would go 100% and just give the seeds more distance between the light.
I’m not completely sure this applies to MH/HPS ballast systems. But for many lights, dimming them actually doesn’t reduce the amount of electricity, and can actually increase wear on the bulbs.
And since the fan is doing it’s job to remove light heat you shouldn’t run into any issues even though it is a 1000k just raise that sucker up.
If you have a light meter. seedlings want in the ballpark of 7-15 Klux.
It’s funny that you mention the light, as I was just going to post a question about that. I have a 1,000 watt Metal Halide/High Pressure Sodium fixture with a dimmable ballast. The Metal Halide bulb is in it right now and I was running it at 50% power while the plants were seedlings. The light is 32 inches above the plants.
Now I’m wondering if I should bring the power up to 75% and/or lower the light fixture closer to the plants. Any insight is appreciated. I’m also tagging @raustin to lend an opinion if possible.
One other comment, as I don’t see a light schedule.
Are you doing 18/6 or 24/0. For autos I’m of the opinion to go 24/0.
Your 1000W set-up should yield you some nice mid-sized beasts in about 2 months!!!
I wouldn’t lower the light, but you could bring it up to 75%
Thanks. I just downloaded a lux meter app to my phone and it is only reading 700 to 1400 lux in the areas where the plants are. I know the phone app isn’t very good compared to a real meter, but it’s still an indication I’m way low on light, I think. That’s WAY less than 7,000-15,000.
I’ll be cranking up the power tonight and keeping an eye on the temperature.
Right now I’m doing an 18/6 schedule. I’ll make the power change on the light, see how things go and then maybe go to a 24/0 schedule.
I was considering Mars Hydro Pro II 120. Anyone has the experience with it? Thanks in advance.
My plants are about 25 days old now. I think they look pretty good, but I’ll leave that to the experts. I changed the power on the 1000 watt Metal Halide light to 75% and it appears like the plants stopped growing upward and started spreading out. Right now one Super Skunk is 3 inches tall and 6 inches across. The other is 3 inches tall and 7 inches across. The White Widow is about 2 inches tall and 5 inches across.
It’s starting to get cool down in the basement, so I bought a speed controller to slow down my fan so that the tent doesn’t get too cool. I’m keeping the temperature around 72 degrees Fahrenheit. The humidity was getting down to about 40%, so I just bought a small humidifier and put it in the middle of the tent.
Since I have no heat issues at all from the light, I’m wondering if bumping the power up to the full 100% (1000 watts) would benefit the plants or if they are still too young for that.
I switched from misting the plants to watering them about a week ago. Depending on how wet the soil looks, I either water them twice or three times a day. What I’m not sure about is, when I should switch from watering them that way to the “drenching” method where you keep pouring in water until it runs out the bottom. I may pose that question in one of the other areas of the forum.
Super Skunk 1, 25 days old, 3 inches tall by 6 inches across:
Super Skunk 2, 25 days old, 3 inches tall by 7 inches across:
White Widow, 25 days old, 2 inches tall by 5 inches across:
