passive plant killer

[Snook]

Lemme ask about lights

Lemme ask about lights

So I'm in a tent (4.9x4.9x6.9)... it is in a room, cooled by central air only (set at 72F). In there are 2 bulbs, stacked, naked, top 600w HPS, bottom 400w HPS. Tent temps are 78-79F. I could run a second 600w hps on the bottom but feel like temps would go up a couple 3 degrees F. Question is, should the 400w be on top and 600w on the bottom? No difference? Might a single 1K be better? Fuggin colas are huge!

 

[disciple]

 

[Snook]

you can put something like a honeywell fan under the lights pointing straight up. The unit I'm referring to is black, has an enclosed shroud, can tilt from 0 deg up through 90 deg, doesn't pan/rotate and moves a lot of air!!

It'll give you a column of air moving some of the heat coming off the bulbs up to the ceiling and off your buds.

And that 600W becomes a possibility. Done and in place



You can 'shape' your plants a bit depending on where you put the most light. Yield comes from having as many bud sites as possible producing. Generally a balanced plant achieves this well. If your lower areas are looking a little thin, line up the 600W with the lower part of the plants during veg.

In flower, you might consider having the 600W line up just above a majority of your bud-sites and that'll likely be the tops if you veg with horizontal light...

If you are lucky enough to veg with the vertical lights, you may have more bulk in the middle in which case the 600W goes lower and the 400W up top.

super good idea to select and utilize a defoliation program.
I do defoliate.. some.


No! no! don't do it!!

Point source light (the center of 1 bulb) vs. line source (2 or more bulbs stacked or lined up):

light falls off from a single bulb at 1 over distance-squared. light falls off from 2 bulbs stacked vertically at the rate of 1 over distance.

in other words where you would have only a quarter as much light at a given distance away from a single bulb, at the same point away from a stacked 2-bulb array you would have 1/2 as much light in terms of fall-off from right beside the bulb.

That is 50% more light!!!

You will have more coverage from 2x600W than with 1x1000W. plus for each watt consumed, more light is given off per watt (and less heat per watt is generated) with a 600W than 1000W.

An awesome place for 1K lights is in a huge tree grow with trees on 6' to 7' centers.

on the other hand if you utilize an effective defoliation program the penetration capability of a 1000W is less necessary. k33ftr33z proved what a coupla 600W's with a 400W in between can do when you're not trying to penetrate a tight canopy!!

In a grow tent heat is always a factor. You don't have unlimited lateral space but you do have some vertical room. So if you can get your plant(s) to grow wide but tall and full of viable bud-sites from top to bottom, you will max out your yield.

One day I may get to wide AND tall.. soon!

2x600W will result in (2) parts of each plant being in optimal light.

I wonder how much the temps would really go up with 2x600?

saweet!

Thanks for the logic, Deciple. 2x600! I hope it doesnt get too hot!

 

[disciple]

 

[Slimm]

I recently ran two 600w bulbs stacked vertically in a small room that was very warm - the ducted cool tubes made it possible. Otherwise it would have been way too hot.

 

[delta9nxs]

“the joy of growing”

“PPK™ -Set it and forget it."

“Pretty colors:”

“a real labor of love.”

“Fuggin colas are huge!”

followed by cooperation and good natured advice! So nice! Isn't it better when we play nice together!

very good posts on tent lighting, disciple. i have never grown in a tent. i grew in closets with flos for about a year, then said fuck it and planted up a bedroom full of hids.

i couldn't operate my 5k flower room without the cool tubes. they are open ended with intake from the room and exiting into the attic. these all have 500cfm duct fans on them. i also run a 250 cfm duct fan at the ceiling to scavenge hot air off the ceiling. the tube fans shut off at lights off but the 250 runs 24/7.

i went under the house and took the end plate off the main 10" house duct from the hvac, installed a 10-8" reducer and ran an 8" insulated duct into the flower room at floor height. it had no heating or cooling previously.

i can shut and open various vents in the house and play with the thermostat settings and control temps pretty good. on a few really hot nights a year i still have to turn off one or two lights for a few hours sometimes.

i am now doing things in preparation for a move. this will be to a piece of property that i will own and will probably never leave. it's bare land right now so it is going to be a process. a complicated process.

on this land i will build a building dedicated to the grow. i want a totally closed environment. this requires co2 and a standby generator.

the biggest part of the puzzle is figuring a lighting and plant pattern. everything else is predicated upon that decision. the building should be as small as will accommodate everything for reasons of operating and construction costs. also to reduce the presence. 8' high and flat roofed, painted hunter green with plants around it. look like a big lawn shed.

super insulated, i'm thinking r-50 ish. dedicated separate heating and cooling operating on different thermostats. mini-split for air and propane for heat, huey and dehuey. I want 50% rh all the time.

propane. they bring it in trucks to your house. they pump it into a big tank in your yard. they don't care how much you use and love it when you use a lot. they are not connected to the electric company in my neck of the woods.

my home will be downsized for my wife and i. the house will be run on all propane appliances, heating, stove, demand hot water heater, clothes dryer, maybe some other things. make energy efficient everything that uses juice.

using a dual meter scheme. two meters, which is very common around here with farmers and people who run a business with a separate shop area because of taxes. you can deduct all of the shop use.

run crossover lines between the panels so that electricity from the house meter can also be used in the "shop". this way, using propane appliances in the house, a significant amount of juice can be diverted to the shop. two normal looking bills are less noticeable than one huge one. again this is very common here, almost everyone with a farm or business out in the country does this.

i want to operate two flower areas with 10 1k's each. flip flopping not only the rooms but the lights within the rooms as well. five on at a time.

with relays i can run this on five ballasts. i can deliver 62 moles/day to each plant with this scheme. vertically stacking the lights i can grow taller plants so this has to be coupled to a double vertical set up in veg too. again flip flopped.

i live in an area with some of the lowest electric rates in the country and have computed the cost of running just the lights in flower at $288 per month. i think both bills will total around $500 per month. not too bad and could be further offset with on site generation.

i realize that i will spend more total money on this scheme than an all electric one but there will be no large electric bills to peruse.

obfuscation and misinformation can be valuable tools.

d9

 

[ImaginaryFriend]

If done properly, growers can safely operate multiple 600W in a grow tent using cool tubes.

I stacked two cool tubes on a carbon filter and pulled out with a 6" 250cfm whisper (I think, maybe it was 400cfm) and the plants could rest against the tubes without thermal burn.

That was with ambient in the low-mid sixties.

And a passive intake.

5x5x7.

My problem was keeping the plants away from the light. Too much plant. Too close to the light. Needed twice the footprint. Or vertical screens. But there still would have been too much plant.

With that foot print, and 1.2K(+), I think I would have been best served with three to four plants stacked in each corner (i.e. twelve to sixteen total), growing towards the middle. Veg just until they show there post-transplant surge, and then flip. Train towards horizontal limbs, rather than tall.

Maybe I have a new build.

Yay.

D9...

Make your meter's visible by binocs from the road so lazy meter readers don't have to even come on your property. It's a nice thing to do anyway.

Put out a couple obvious electrical draws by the shop... Anyone got a big old welder to donate? Anyone?

On site generation can be a hastle without a big plant, and even that is demanding with regard to motor oil change outs, etc. Not a bad idea. Run of propane?

If so, multiple burried tanks, with each one associated with a different company further breaks up the bill.

 

[disciple]

 

[delta9nxs]

hey, IF! they have installed those "smart" meters here already. the typical arrangement now is to put your meter or meters on a concrete obelisk near the road. they don't get out of the truck anymore. they drive down the road stopping every so often and read them electronically. it is also impossible to steal without being caught.

they have "modules" that are optional for extra cost to the electric company. one of these records time of use and use patterns. but i found a guy at a party who works for the electric company and he said the company was too cheap to buy them.

he said they installed them just to cut labor costs for meter readers and to prevent theft. apparently the old meters can be pulled out and turned upside down and they run backwards, removing watts at the same time you are using them. the new meters are supposed to be tamper proof.

i like the idea of generating. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Kz7uFOm84 shows a lister diesel. extremely simple with few moving parts. never breaks. very quiet. they are used all over the world in remote areas. all sizes. fuel efficient. the 1800 rpm gensets are bulletproof. they don't wear like gas engine 3600 rpm gensets. the diesel in the video is 6 hp and burns 1/4 gal per hour. it's only 4400 watts but your can buy any size you want. this one is homemade.

the right piece of property might have a fast moving stream or small waterfall that could be harnessed with an undershot water wheel.

 

[ImaginaryFriend]

50% R.H. all the way through? What do people think of the RH up in the 78% range for better growth till late bloom?

Last run through was in the 70% range throughout.

But I was pulling 600cfm through a 4x2x8 space (so... six changes per minute.) with an active intake. Mold was in the area, and nothing showed up in the garden.

Love the idea of generation in non-friendly places, but it really can be a hassle.

I've spent some time off the grid, and while conventional life is very doable for the considerate individual, full time generation for a grow might be tedius. I didn't follow the link, but if it's quiet, and burly, maybe that's the answer.

Twenty dollars a day for 4k, eighty dollars a day for 20k, two-thousand or so in diesel a month to keep your profile down? Seems like a no brainer. Depending on rates, you'd be paying close to a grand anyway. (Provided you have two plus a backup on standby.)

 

[jjfoo]

@JJFoo:

can you tell medical growers who have plant count limitations how they can use dtw top-fed rockwool cubes on tables to get yields that are equivalent to what they would harvest if they grew trees in PPKs?

plant count limitations mean that we (medical growers with government permits) can only grow a limited number of plants or we go to jail.

We need to get as much yield as we can out of each plant because we only can have a few plants.

can we expect to get as much yield out of each plant in the rockwool cubes on tables as we can using PPK's?

can growers do trees in rockwool cubes on tables? how can we set that up?

I'm asking you because you wrote that you got equivalent yields using both methods and I was surprised so am now curious.

Thank you.

I don't recal saying that I was limiting plants. I assume not all PPK users use this system for that reason. I prefer to grow more plants and veg less.

YOu mentioned that I need to get rid of runoff. I could just reuse it like the PPK and have a no waste recirc. How would that be much different? Instead of my watering sitting in a closed space it is in a res with a pump moving it around.

What do you mean by tree? I think you may be surprised at what can come out of a properly watered six inch cube. Have you ever used them?

 

[jjfoo]

hey, IF! they have installed those "smart" meters here already. the typical arrangement now is to put your meter or meters on a concrete obelisk near the road. they don't get out of the truck anymore. they drive down the road stopping every so often and read them electronically. it is also impossible to steal without being caught.

how would a smart meter prvent theft?

 

[disciple]

 

[Snook]

for people thinking of growing with PPk's and grow tents:

I ran a vertical garden in a 4.5x4.5x7' tall tent. I lit it using 600W-400W-600W for some runs and then 400W-400W-400W-400W.

The 4x400W yielded more than the 600-400-600.

In both cases I used active exhaust, passive intake and no A/C. Ambient outside temp was around 10 deg Celsius.

The structure with the tent in it did not have any heat and there were openings to access outside air close to the tent that I could plumb intake and exhaust ducting to.

I used oil radiator heaters on timers that would come on about an hour before lights off and that would keep temps up and humidity down during the dark period.

I had lights on temps between 77 and 80 F and lights out temps at 70 to 74 F.

I built a dimmer box using a speed control for inductive loads and would turn down the exhaust fan when ambient outside temps dropped lower than 8 degrees Celsius which would maintain temps in the grow tent in my desired range.

I could not run 1400 to 1600W during summer months without temps running up past 85 deg.

My vertical garden had columns extending up. There was some reflection going on from the walls of the tent but it I'm not sure that it had a huge impact on yield. The added penetration (or larger radius of higher lumen, useable light) of the 600W wasn't a huge benefit and the extra heat that close to the buds was something that had to be managed.

On the other hand with 4 trees in PPK's in a grow tent, and some aggressive defoliation, the 600W's would be better at passing through and hitting the reflective walls which would provide better light to bud sites on the back sides of the plants.

A PPK system does not have large opaque columns rising up blocking the back sides of plants and growers will find that reflected light contributes to yield especially when using bare vertical bulbs.

I have a DR120 (Dark Room) from Secret Jardin and I'm really impressed with it!! (I used a borrowed Sun Hut before). My 4x4 tent is for my mom (and clones between runs) but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. The fabric and zippers are strong, the reflective properties are adequate and the vent and cable ports are well thought out. There are 2 large zipped windows to make side access really easy. My unit is light proof.

Another viable option (Snook? what do you think?) is cool tubes ducted together. I own cool tubes but did not rig them because I needed the heat from the bulbs to stay in the tent.

If PPK growers are using something like a DR120 in a home that is already heated, they could duct the heat from the bulbs out and away and just intake ambient air that is already around 72 deg.

If done properly, growers can safely operate multiple 600W in a grow tent using cool tubes.

At the present moment, I have a single 400W MH running in my tent which is vegging the mom. With ambient temps around 68 deg, I can't get the temp in the tent to get up past 70. I've had to turn the exhaust fan way down and relocate the ballast inside the tent. Fortunately it's a Lumatek 400W which means it throws off tons of heat

A nice setup would be 4 plants in PPKs in a DR120 from Secret Jardin. That would leave enough room for a control and a pump bucket plus a circulation fan. A small volume container could fit in the tent as well or a large one could easily be outside with the tubing going in through one of the lower ports.

The grower would get a good yield with a low plant count and without giving up a bunch of square footage.

I did use 2 cool tubes taaped together and I think Imaginary Friend does too, or did at one time. I took them down because the ligting looked subdued. Bare bulbs now. but I did build a chicken wire tube (about 30 inches in diameter and floor to cieling) for when I was away during the last 3 weeks of bloom, so I could rest easy for 8 days not worrying about a brasnch breaking and the cola falling on the bulbs and 'poof' I'm incarcerated for growing and have no home... Interesting about your less light comments (I've read similar comments before). Yesterday, the 400w bulb did not come on with the 600watter. I changed out 3 other ballasts and 4 other bulbs, nada. So untill I sort it out, I will be running 600w instead of 1000w combined. We'll see how it works... gotta go to the VA. Later. Thanks for your comments/views.

 

[ImaginaryFriend]

The key is the solution never re-enters the stock/volume tank once it's passed through the root zone. EC and pH stay super consistent as do the ratios of different elements that make up the PPM or EC.

In a recirc, top-fed RW setup... there is no stock/volume tank that remains undiluted. The second you fill the res and the pump gets going your levels start moving around. There is no incremental blending and if you want optimal results, it certainly isn't "set-and-forget"!

I attribute much of the 'set and forget' to the Jacks profile and think there's something to running the solution through a perpetual garden (i.e. different development states generate different demands and collectively balance out.)

Running just one plant, I saw (but failed to document) some really interesting swings in pH and EC levels, even when my bulk res was just RO. This is an indication to me that some elements were staying suspended in the solution and not being taken up by the plant. This was not as dramatic (I don't think, anyway) when I had multiple phases of growth attached to the same solution. (The most extreme variation, bucket to bucket, was always found in the oldest plant.)

WRT cooltubes, I believe that they serve a purpose. In particular, a safety one. I am more comfortable ignoring a garden when I have bulbs wrapped in UL listed safety glass. They also can move heat pretty effectively, and isolate that air (i.e. move it through a filter.)

 

[delta9nxs]

hey! Disciple! they did a nice job on that house. most of them look a little rough but this one actually looks good. super strong.

i like rh around 50% as a compromise. sometimes when i run over about 60% i get mold and the plants in veg grow well at 50%. it would probably be better to run the vegging plants at a higher rh but more difficult to control two separate areas.

i find i'm spending a lot of time thinking about lighting arrangements. it would be ideal to light a plant from all sides but difficult to achieve efficiently.

what i'm thinking of is lighting one side like i'm doing now but in a wider space, say at least 8 ft instead of my current 6.5'. double stacking 1k's so i can go more vertical.

i would then operate one set of bulbs at a time. 5 lower bulbs for 6 hours and then 5 upper bulbs for 6. this would let me grow 6' plants. yield has to go up. i have found that a single 1k vertically oriented is just right for plants vegged four weeks in a ppk.

i was getting about 30-32" in four weeks with the old pulse system, with the heavier volume i'm getting 34-36" in the same time frame. a single 1k covers this nicely. it's when i get to flower that the current lighting falls short. the middle of the plant has all the real bud weight.

at the range achieving 1500 umols, each bulb is capable of delivering 32.4 moles in a 6 hour period so you would have 64.8 moles per day from each position. each plant would be hit with from 2 positions simultaneously. you could even stagger them, firing 1/2 the lowers and 1/2 the uppers together.

yesterday i replaced all 6 of my 1k hortilux bulbs and for the first time i got to measure new bulbs. when i bought the quantum meter my bulbs already had significant use on them.

at that time the cool tubed lights were producing 1500 umols at 12" from the cool tube. last week i checked them and they produced 1500 umols at 10". the new bulbs in clean fixtures produce 1500 umols at 13.5" from the cool tube.

the bare bulb in veg initially produced 1500 umols at 14". last week it was 12" to get the same reading. last night i got 1500 umols at 15.5" from the new bare bulb.

so anyone running the identical bulb should maintain these minimal distances from the light to avoid photo inhibition.

you can also extrapolate from the above figures that the light loss from a cool tube is not that great. the light at 1500 umols if measured from bulb center for the cool tubed lights is 16.5".

the light from the bare bulb if measured from bulb center gets there at 16.5" also.

we are measuring par radiation so on the face of it most of the light loss through cool tube glass is probably at frequencies the plant does not use or use much of.

if we could get measurements from different bulbs we could make a chart showing distances.

later

 

[delta9nxs]

how would a smart meter prvent theft?

hi, jj! it really won't "prevent" theft but it does guarantee that you will be caught. the meters report to the meter reader's vehicle using rf transmission. they all have tamper report capability. if the meter is disconnected they get a report when they read it.

 

[disciple]

 

[ImaginaryFriend]

or light the middle and lose out on the tendency of apical nodes to really develop buds....

Consider topping your plant just once 10-7 days before the flip for a more squarish development. This may weaken overall structure, but topping around 32" might keep the majority of the plant inside the optimum light.

it would be ideal to light a plant from all sides but difficult to achieve efficiently.

The efficiency challenge is from foot print only... that is, you need to dedicate a lot of space. The yields can be very efficient. Yosemitesam, I think is evidence of large large plants with four way lighting in huge space getting more than respectable yields.

But that's only if you have the space (i.e. 5x5+ to dedicate per plant).

Otherwise, I think bondage is the only option.

So what I'm doing is running 600's all around and then either 400W or 600W in adjust-a-wings over top. so that's vertical lighting PLUS horizontal. Forget efficiency in my garden (my limiting factor is plant count). Those 400W's obviously won't penetrate very far down but they don't need to. I just want to properly light up my tops.

I'm going to kick in the horizontal, reflected 400W and 600W around the end of week (2) of flower to promote better bud set and save the 2 weeks of power. Then from week (3) and on they effects on the tops should be really noticeable. In addition to saving power I also want most of the stretch now to happen laterally instead of vertically. By keeping the primary light source at the sides of the plants I'm hoping to discourage upward growth. Once stretch is done (or just before so I assure good bud set) I'll fire the top lights too and then the only thing growin' upwards should be calyxes

This should be successful.

I very much would like to make a similar build.

One thing to keep in mind is that penetration is not relative to bulb, but to the quantity of light being emitted. So radially, a 1K might have better 'penetration' from its burn point, but that is only because it is pushing so many photons from that spot. If you were to measure the light on the floor from 6 1 Ks, or 10 .6Ks, all ceiling mounted at an adequate distance with appropriate light focusing, you would expect to see equivalent quantities of light (or arguably, slightly more for the 10x.6k better for the efficiencies of the .6k's burn).

you mentioned back that you were running super high temps in your grow space... am I correct in that? If so that could maybe explain the fluctuations you saw. (more water transpired to help cool plant surfaces... stomata close too.... not as much growth... higher concentration of nutes jacks up EC and drops pH.... lower pH prevents takeup of some nutes.... concentration climbs higher.... water added.... EC drops a bit and pH climbs... maybe temps come down a bit, stomata open, transpiration resumes....) - just a guess?

Good memory, but that set up was torn down about a year ago.

This one was in mid seventies, with 60-70% humidity throughout.

I believe the rational of changeout for any recirculation system is true for a PPK.

If your nute profile hits the demands of the plants metabolism, you'll have less residue (i.e. it takes everything up.)

If we presume most of our best profiles are build on mineral tissue samples, we are looking at development over time. So our best profiles are over the whole of the life of the plant.

By running any recirculating system in perpetual, different plants are eating differently, and even out the spikes of the system. (i.e. chowing P during this phase, K over here... etc.)

What the PPK succeeds in doing, in my opinion, is keeping concentrations minimized in the media (i.e. keeping the root zone clean), by flusing continuously all concentrations out of the RZ.

So at various times, I had varioius EC measurements with different pH. So today, ec 1.0 might have a pH of 5.4, and two weeks later, EC of 1.0 might have a reading of 6.0.

(I had my meter set up in my control bucket).

(I had my RO top off to the bulk reservoir, and would add Jacks directly to that when the mood hit me, so it happened that I dropped down to EC 0 in bulk for the last two weeks.)

Since my bulk feed is always the same profile, it stands to reason that the plant is ingesting different profiles throughout growth.

I'll run any pH from 5.4-6.2 without hesitation, and it's worth noting that the readings never worked outside of this range.

My point is, I think, that the PPK doesn't change the metabolic process of the plant, but rather effectively manages what would otherwise be dangerous concentrations. By running a perpetual system, we further reduce these dramatic swings (provided that our starting profile is reasonable for our genetics.)

 

[ExoSteve]

http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/HG-44.pdf

1-This is how the plant killer work? Anybody grow marijuana like this?

2-100% perlite in the forestry tube is good?

3-What is the real interrest of the medium used in the forestry tube?? When the plant have a lot of roots the medium is like useless...!??!?!

4- At the end of the grow...when the 35 gallons pot is almost empty...that doesn't hurt the roots at the top of the pots? They are not in liquid anymore since long time...

5-This can be done with 5 gallons pot and cut the nutirent in proportion of the water used? (5 gallons is 7 x less than 35 gallons...so divide the nutrients quantities by 7 and it work good too?)

6-No need to adjust pH at the beginning?

Thank you!!