Pose2B clone grow by Onavelzy

It's a rainy day in my neck of the woods, so a perfect day to blow off other stuff and put my first try out there.

Info on the set up.

Genetics: This is a clone grow. Of the seven plants, six were purchased directly from a local clone vendor. That's where the Pose2B comes in. I don't really believe they are what they are labelled, that'd be a little too lucky. It doesn't matter really. It's my first grow. If they're not true, I learn how to grow. If they are true and I don't kill everything, well, that's a score.

From the clone vendor, I got 2 teens of Dubtech 7, two clones of Adubb and two clones of Gorilla Glue #4.

The last clone is a mystery clone given to me by one of growers I met at the San Diego's Finest meet and greet last weekend. I'm calling it the Elefino cut. It's kind of more fun not knowing what it is. I don't have any pre-conceptions about it but I'm also flying blind in terms of culture. The other strains have encyclopedic amounts of growers' wisdom already posted. For the gift clone, I'm basically going to be a stress tester: Can this strain handle being grown by an idiot?


Grow space: This will be a tent grow in a Secret Jardin 5'x5'x7' 9". The tent was chosen because it came the closest to my ceiling height of 8'. I'll deal with the mismatch in floor area and typical light footprint later. I wanted to provide the most head room possible as some of the plants I was daydreaming about growing are stretchers

The Tent is in a bedroom near the garage. The overall room size is roughly 15' x 15' x 8', including a small half bathroom. The tent dominates the space, kind of like the monoliths in 2001: A Space Odessey

Lighting: The light fixture will be a Grower's Choice 630 DE CMH. I read about it through Hammerhead in the CMH elite thread.

The bulb is their 3K with a lamp shield to protect against potential badness if there is a bulb failure.


Growing medium: I plan on using coco medium with no amendments. I'm aiming at 2 gallon fabric bags as my final pot size. For now, the smaller plants are in Solo cups. The brand of coco is the one my local hydro guy had. I used bagged version, not blocks, and I boiled it before use to try to prevent gnat hatching, as per Stankybeamer's suggestion

Nutrients: My nutrients will be Veg+Bloom, cause that's what Dansbud uses. I've tried to learn what I can from reading threads and whatnot but sometimes it's easiest to follow a model. He's mine.

Water: I was going to try to "get away" with using tap water and using the Veg+Bloom Tap/Hard version but my tap has 350ppm and I just worried I'd run into more problems with lockouts or whatever using that than if I went with R/O. That said, several of the folks at the SDF get together said they grow using tap water and not R/O.

For now, my volume needs are still low, so I'm holding off on buying an R/O system until I can read more about what i need. It's the item that least fits my grow space. I can set it up in the garage eventually and just haul water in. I can get 1-5 gallon jug fills of R/O water at the grocery store for a bit. Hassle but, it's an expense I can defer for a while.

Ventilation: I'm starting out with a Can 66 with a Hurricane 6" 435 cfm. I had to go get those on the hop because those little-assed closes are already stinking up the room. I newb-ily thought I'd have a couple of weeks before that issue came up. The fan does cleanse the whole room for now. Later it will go in the tent, hopefully hung from the tent beams. I'll need to test the weights of the light and filter/fan. It'll be close to 100lb, I'm pretty sure.. I anticipate needing to get a separate fan and filter to keep the room clean because having that odor drifting through the house is not going to fly with the head of household. If I can't keep it under control, I may have to shift things out to the garage. I don't want to do so in mid grow, but I'll roll with the punches (hopefully figuratively).

I still have learning to do with regards to ventilation, especially on the intake side of things as well as figuring out how to balance odor reducing outflow without ruining the temp and humidity of the space.

IPM: I've sprayed with Spinosad and Neem so far. I was wanting to dip and spray everything twice with a variety of things ("Go nuclear" the local hydro guy told me) over three to five days with anti-fungals and anti-bug-als. I'm still on the fence on how what other agents to use and for how long before putting the plants into the tent. So far, no visible bugs. I haven't gotten a hand held microscope though.

Since I started with clones rather than with my initial plan of using seeds, I decided to stay out of the tent until I could go through a quarantine of sorts.

For now, I have the clones in an open closet space next to the tent on a cheap metal shelf thing you find at any hardware store. I put together a 4' powerstrip with 8 outlets. I put in eight Phillips 8.5W LED bulbs (Immense thanks to Blynx and Terpene for your great information on this approach.) The bulbs put out zero heat. In this immediate case, that hasn't been that helpful, as it's been pretty cool here at night. I bought a space heater when the donated clone started to look like it wanted to die. That seems to have helped.

Accumulating all this stuff adds up quickly. I about crapped when they told me how much the fans and filters for ventilation cost. I wanted to get a quiet version of the fan, and still might--that Hurricane sucker is just too loud--but I can't throw that kind of money down right now with everything else too. I'm having to make "Do I really need that right now?" kind of choices that I wish I didn't have to

I'm already going on way too long with this. I'll fill in more details as I go.

My first try at inserting pics (damn Iphone and its sideways BS):

The Pose2B Family



Pose2B Dubtech 7 teen


Pose2B Adubb


Pose2B GG#4

The Elefino cut


The sideways tent, fan and filter


Yes, that Elefino is looking a bit wilty. It's a lot better than I made it look a couple of days ago. After a couple of too cool nights, maybe some initial over-watering and possibly premature up-cupping, i produced this:

Stayin' Alive

Stayin' Alive

All the plants continue to look good. Not surprisingly, the Dubtech 7 teens have had the most growth. I had the canopies evened out to roughly similar heights by putting the plants under risers of various heights. I initially set them up with the canopies about 2-3 inches below the light.
In the first couple of days, I had to lower the shelf of the rack a few inches because the taller of the two Dubtech 7 teens grew into the lights.


this pic is from aroud 4-5 d ago:



Of the smaller clones, the Adubbs have grown more than the GG4 and the Elefino cut by a couple of inches at least (blurry hand held pic, sorry. I was squatting, should have just sat on the floor). compare the heights tonight with the prior pic. I was surprised. I just assumed the GG4 would out grow anything


Not to jinx things but I'm happy with how well the Elefino gifted clone has recovered. I was pretty sure I had boxed it the first couple of days. It seems much healthier and happier now. It seems like it has more new growth than the GG4 so far:



in the group shot, it's the clone in the middle.


I've kept them in the closet 'quarantine' space because I wanted to reduce the chance of bringing pests into the tent. I wanted the chance to treat at least twice with an insecticide and miticide as well as a fungicide. So far, i have only done two treatments (spray, not dunk) with Spinosad and one with Neem. All have been applied at lights out. Kind of unnerving putting them to rest with moisture on the leaves and surface of the soil but that's what i've read to do to avoid leaf burning. I have several other treatments on hand I could use but may hold off. They're kind of high end.

Since the initial growth has been good, it might be possible to get them to a point where I can take clones and move the clones into the tent rather than the main plants.

I could probably take clones from the dubtechs right now but I don't want to do too much too soon. They've been here for 9 days and it's been an inconsistent environment the first few days.

I may just say F it and put them all in the tent and release the big light. It would be nice to get all of them to a similar height and state of root development though.

here's a pic or two of the Pose2b gro bro's. Pose to b a border collie, a cattle dog and a pit/cattle dog mutt, all rescue. great dogs and friends.

they're actually not allowed in the room. they would end up wrassling around and would drag everything out into the living room and commence to tear it all to shreds. They love to shred stuff. Can't imagine those bozo's high on ingested weed, god forbid.

Looks lke you're figuring it out. Each application of insecticide / fungicide brings with it the possibility of phytotoxicity....so I would tread lightly unless you see an actual problem. Scope your plants often!
Not to diminish the sense of mystery but here's what the clone I gave you can become=

Grow Tech said:

Looks lke you're figuring it out. Each application of insecticide / fungicide brings with it the possibility of phytotoxicity....so I would tread lightly unless you see an actual problem. Scope your plants often!
Not to diminish the sense of mystery but here's what the clone I gave you can become=
View Image

Click to expand...

Thx for the advice GT.

Hand held scope is the next purchase. Along with some cloning gear

The pic and ID help explain the stem color so far. I thought it was because I cold stressed her the first few days but looks like its her way.

Parentage points to Indica dominance. We'll see how growth compares in veg. I believe my other clones will be more stretchy but no telling.

Her real name is a lot better than Elefino too.

I like your powerstrip / light bar! And you totally won me over with the Trump-Sad! image.

If you want to get about 2x as much light out of those LEDs:

Terpene said:

I like your powerstrip / light bar! And you totally won me over with the Trump-Sad! image.

If you want to get about 2x as much light out of those LEDs:
View Image

Click to expand...

Thanks for coming by Terp! I looked at the photos of your set up, in Blynx's and some others and they all seemed to have those bigger ceramic bases so i was worried these little plug in socket dealies from HD would be wrong for some reason. They haven't gotten hot in any way though and they required no tools or skills. Plug and grow works for me.

i debated popping the tops. Once i go to flower in the tent, I'll probably create a veg set up in that closet and will look at popping the tops. One of those 'one of these days' purchases for me will be a light meter. I want to know what I would putting out from that strip with a variety of bulb combinations. For example, how much would be too much for newly cut clones or seeds under the dome, etc

Fwiw, the seeds I've ordered were inspired by your grows. I have a package with some Ace Sativas on the way. Hopefully. Order went in 2/7 and nothing yet.

Take care,
Ona

onavelzy said:

Thanks for coming by Terp! I looked at the photos of your set up, in Blynx's and some others and they all seemed to have those bigger ceramic bases so i was worried these little plug in socket dealies from HD would be wrong for some reason. They haven't gotten hot in any way though and they required no tools or skills. Plug and grow works for me.

i debated popping the tops. Once i go to flower in the tent, I'll probably create a veg set up in that closet and will look at popping the tops. One of those 'one of these days' purchases for me will be a light meter. I want to know what I would putting out from that strip with a variety of bulb combinations. For example, how much would be too much for newly cut clones or seeds under the dome, etc

Click to expand...

I do ceramic bases on everything because of how well they handle heat. I have run a few plastic / metal cheapie sockets and had no problem with 14w bulbs - but I generally don't trust plastic / metal socket combos. Granted, we're talking about very little heat when compared to a traditional halogen or incandescent 100w which you could cook an egg on.



I have yet to hit the point of too much light. My veg cabinet is 20w per sqft and registers around 1000-1500 on my light meter (a cheap swing style hold-all unit) which I believe is in umol based on taking said meter to various HPS grows. As an idea of brightness, a 600HPS flowering canopy is 1000-1200, 1000w HPS flowering canopy is 1300-1600. My new 250w flowering fixture is brighter than any canopy I've visited, so no idea what that is going to be..

I would be very interested in what a proper meter comes up with in terms of numbers from these little gems.

I think you'll really like the Ace lineup. I have yet to try anything that Dubi puts out that isn't stellar. What did you end up picking up?

Zama, OTH, destroyer, Durban, GT. no point in pussy footing around

Moving Day!, Or not

Moving Day!, Or not

I worked last night so I had the day to get out and catch up on some of the errands i needed to do.

Here's the light fixture:


The bulb and safety sheath:



I put the light and the filter with fan in the tent. I put the plants in and turned on the light.


It took 8 minutes to go from 72 degrees to 80 degrees at 3 inches off of the floor. The the 435 cfu fan creates what looks like excessive neg pressure but even with that outflow and a separate small vortex fan blowing up toward the top, the temp still crept up another couple of degrees. That's concerning. I knew from a prior test run the light would raise the temp in a closed, un-ventilated tent to 97 degrees and drop the humidity 20 percentage points. I was counting on the high extraction rate to counter that. I was even shopping temp controlled fan regulators, so I could maybe keep the fan running at a lower RPM a lot of the time.

First big issue, I guess. Don't want to move the plants into the tent if I can't keep the temps in control. That's not even factoring in the humidity and the air flow stress that might happen. Back to the LED ghetto for now I guess.

I had covered an intake vent with a HEPA filter for passive intake but once the temps jumped like that, I started opening up zippers, un-cinched the closed port holes etc. I took off the Hepa filter from the air intake mesh window and pulled the velcro cover off of the intake window on the other side of the tent. That has stopped the rise I think. If the temps get back down from the current 84, I'll try closing some zippers.

It's looking like I'll need to get an intake fan and filter. I still have to see how the Rh does, It's at 45 now, down around 8 from ambient. I'll save that issue for another time.

It's like they say about the game of golf, "If it was easy, it wouldn't be any fun"

These are HID bulbs so u will need to cool the tent. Cycle the air. Size your fans so you have some suckin on the tent. You can add a speed control on the exhaust to adjust this. I use a 4" intake on a 6" exhaust. what ever your Ambient temps are is the min temp you will get without cooling. My canopy is about 25" from the bulbs. Its running at 77F with outside intake off. Just running my exhaust. With intake on it runs at 72f or colder. Its to cold to run the intake right now.

Thanks for dropping in HH. The advice was very useful. First thing I noticed today was that the temps went up quickly again after lights on, from the ambient room temp of 70 to a tent temp of 79 in just a few minutes. But then it stabilized at 78-79 for the next 6 hours.

My first thought was that the bulb and fixture, being brand new and not having had a 100 hour burn in, may have been running hot on the first light up and were then performing better on the second light up.

Later in the day, the tent crept up into the low 80's. I went out into the kitchen to get something and realized how cool the rest of the house was compared to the tent room. I opened a couple of screened windows and the door between the tent room and the rest of the house. The temp went down smoothly to 77.

As Hammer pointed out, I do need to put cooler air into the tent. Letting warm air go in passively doesn't help. I haven't worked out a way to run the tent outflow conduit to a window yet, so for the moment, I just let it go into the room. It of course kept the room warm, which of course got the tent hotter.

Raeders going, "Duh"



It's not that I wasn't aware that was happening, I just didn't think the room was that warm.

Anyway, for now, I'll keep some windows open during lights on and will probably also put the vortex blowing air into the mesh window on the side of the tent.

I'll look into getting this dryer window vent for the out flow ventilation:


Unfortunately, it's only available with a four inch diameter. It will also need some kind of varmit barrier to be attached somehow.

While I'm using open windows and doors to lower the room temp, I have to figure out how to get that closet space I used for my quarantine area to keep a stable and warm enough temp to grow cuttings and seeds in. Maybe just hang curtains of white poly, space heat that corner of the room and use a heating pad with a thermometer. Or run the tent out flow to that space to warm it. But then the main room gets warm....

I had thought that the weight recommendations for the ceiling struts in the tent would prevent me from hanging the filter and fan at the ceiling level. The weight of the fan and filter is 53lbs and the fixture is 16lbs. Each strut has a max weight of 30 lbs. If I move the fixture to a single strut running one direction and then hang the filter from the other two struts running cross-directionally to the fixture strut, I should be ok. I'll try it out later tonight. I'm also going to try shifting the tent position in the room. That may allow me to run vent conduit out the window to minimize the re-heating effect from my current layout.

All these words and no plants!! No bueno.

This will be a kinda crappy picture but I wanted to see how the mesh window worked for pics. So far, plants are holding up fine. Every one seems to be growing, but in a leggy way.



If you've gotten this far in the thread, I want to apologize for my wordiness. I know ppl don't like that. I often go back and edit out a lot of the verbiage to make it more follow-able. Bear with me and thanks for coming by

onavelzy said:

It's a rainy day in my neck of the woods, so a perfect day to blow off other stuff and put my first try out there.

Info on the set up.

Genetics: This is a clone grow. Of the seven plants, six were purchased directly from a local clone vendor. That's where the Pose2B comes in. I don't really believe they are what they are labelled, that'd be a little too lucky. It doesn't matter really. It's my first grow. If they're not true, I learn how to grow. If they are true and I don't kill everything, well, that's a score.

From the clone vendor, I got 2 teens of Dubtech 7, two clones of Adubb and two clones of Gorilla Glue #4.

The last clone is a mystery clone given to me by one of growers I met at the San Diego's Finest meet and greet last weekend. I'm calling it the Elefino cut. It's kind of more fun not knowing what it is. I don't have any pre-conceptions about it but I'm also flying blind in terms of culture. The other strains have encyclopedic amounts of growers' wisdom already posted. For the gift clone, I'm basically going to be a stress tester: Can this strain handle being grown by an idiot?


Grow space: This will be a tent grow in a Secret Jardin 5'x5'x7' 9". The tent was chosen because it came the closest to my ceiling height of 8'. I'll deal with the mismatch in floor area and typical light footprint later. I wanted to provide the most head room possible as some of the plants I was daydreaming about growing are stretchers

The Tent is in a bedroom near the garage. The overall room size is roughly 15' x 15' x 8', including a small half bathroom. The tent dominates the space, kind of like the monoliths in 2001: A Space Odessey

Lighting: The light fixture will be a Grower's Choice 630 DE CMH. I read about it through Hammerhead in the CMH elite thread.

The bulb is their 3K with a lamp shield to protect against potential badness if there is a bulb failure.


Growing medium: I plan on using coco medium with no amendments. I'm aiming at 2 gallon fabric bags as my final pot size. For now, the smaller plants are in Solo cups. The brand of coco is the one my local hydro guy had. I used bagged version, not blocks, and I boiled it before use to try to prevent gnat hatching, as per Stankybeamer's suggestion

Nutrients: My nutrients will be Veg+Bloom, cause that's what Dansbud uses. I've tried to learn what I can from reading threads and whatnot but sometimes it's easiest to follow a model. He's mine.

Water: I was going to try to "get away" with using tap water and using the Veg+Bloom Tap/Hard version but my tap has 350ppm and I just worried I'd run into more problems with lockouts or whatever using that than if I went with R/O. That said, several of the folks at the SDF get together said they grow using tap water and not R/O.

For now, my volume needs are still low, so I'm holding off on buying an R/O system until I can read more about what i need. It's the item that least fits my grow space. I can set it up in the garage eventually and just haul water in. I can get 1-5 gallon jug fills of R/O water at the grocery store for a bit. Hassle but, it's an expense I can defer for a while.

Ventilation: I'm starting out with a Can 66 with a Hurricane 6" 435 cfm. I had to go get those on the hop because those little-assed closes are already stinking up the room. I newb-ily thought I'd have a couple of weeks before that issue came up. The fan does cleanse the whole room for now. Later it will go in the tent, hopefully hung from the tent beams. I'll need to test the weights of the light and filter/fan. It'll be close to 100lb, I'm pretty sure.. I anticipate needing to get a separate fan and filter to keep the room clean because having that odor drifting through the house is not going to fly with the head of household. If I can't keep it under control, I may have to shift things out to the garage. I don't want to do so in mid grow, but I'll roll with the punches (hopefully figuratively).

I still have learning to do with regards to ventilation, especially on the intake side of things as well as figuring out how to balance odor reducing outflow without ruining the temp and humidity of the space.

IPM: I've sprayed with Spinosad and Neem so far. I was wanting to dip and spray everything twice with a variety of things ("Go nuclear" the local hydro guy told me) over three to five days with anti-fungals and anti-bug-als. I'm still on the fence on how what other agents to use and for how long before putting the plants into the tent. So far, no visible bugs. I haven't gotten a hand held microscope though.

Since I started with clones rather than with my initial plan of using seeds, I decided to stay out of the tent until I could go through a quarantine of sorts.

For now, I have the clones in an open closet space next to the tent on a cheap metal shelf thing you find at any hardware store. I put together a 4' powerstrip with 8 outlets. I put in eight Phillips 8.5W LED bulbs (Immense thanks to Blynx and Terpene for your great information on this approach.) The bulbs put out zero heat. In this immediate case, that hasn't been that helpful, as it's been pretty cool here at night. I bought a space heater when the donated clone started to look like it wanted to die. That seems to have helped.

Accumulating all this stuff adds up quickly. I about crapped when they told me how much the fans and filters for ventilation cost. I wanted to get a quiet version of the fan, and still might--that Hurricane sucker is just too loud--but I can't throw that kind of money down right now with everything else too. I'm having to make "Do I really need that right now?" kind of choices that I wish I didn't have to

I'm already going on way too long with this. I'll fill in more details as I go.

My first try at inserting pics (damn Iphone and its sideways BS):

The Pose2B Family
View Image


Pose2B Dubtech 7 teen
View Image

Pose2B Adubb
View Image

Pose2B GG#4
View Image

Click to expand...

Get an RO system , believe me you'll thank me later . they make portable units that you can hook up in that bathroom right under the sink . they do 50 gallons a day or 100 gallons a day . just run a hose to a barrel , new garbage can or a tote , & put a float valve to shut off the flow .


https://hydrobuilder.com/hydro-logi...C-KKWqSbI1U3_EhQb31EUl_-aqhdHmKo90aAu_U8P8HAQ

http://www.purewaterclub.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=95

looks like you've done your research & are off to a good start

that GG4 looks legit , i hope it is !!!

good luck dude !

Hey brother it was good to meet you! Good luck on the grow

cyat said:

Hey brother it was good to meet you! Good luck on the grow

Click to expand...

Thanks Cyat. I was like a kid at the campfire listening to all the big kids tell stories. I had a great time. Thanks for dropping in. I'm working my way through the list of beginner's errors. So far, nothing lethal.

dansbuds said:

looks like you've done your research & are off to a good start

that GG4 looks legit , i hope it is !!!

good luck dude !

Click to expand...

Hi Dan, Thanks to you as well for stopping by. Means a lot to me.

On the R/O system, the only reason I haven't put one in yet is that the house CEO has discussed with me shifting operations to the garage. I'm not wholly opposed to that set up. It has some pluses as well as minuses. I figured I'd deal with lugging water for one grow while I sort out if that's where things are going to end up. I'm trying to keep it simple and not re-do a lot of things.

Trying to figure out the "best way" to do things has led to a lot of inertia on my part. Paralysis by over-analysis. Thanks for the advice. Please feel free to offer more at any time

Lot's of right ways of doing stuff, I know, but some are righter than others. I'm way open to advice from everyone.



Take care,
Ona

Looking good Ona just keep it simple and let them grow, Trust me its way too easy to over think this shit...... Just go with the basics for now and you won't go wrong.... Thats all im doing really and my grow is going amazingly well..... If there a little leggy then slowly work on training them to the shape and height you need them to be. Im not sure what your goals are with those specific plants but you have time on your side now weather there moms or flowered plants should make a difference in how you train them...... I commend you on your set up..... nice and clean but you will change your mind a thousand times on your setup, so be open minded to redoing things, all of us have done that and most change setups or at least tweak things constantly. Before we get to a point where we're comfortable working with the systems we build.....
you're on your way and looking strong Best of Luck

Aspenou812 said:

Looking good Ona just keep it simple and let them grow, Trust me its way too easy to over think this shit...... Just go with the basics for now and you won't go wrong.... Thats all im doing really and my grow is going amazingly well..... If there a little leggy then slowly work on training them to the shape and height you need them to be. Im not sure what your goals are with those specific plants but you have time on your side now weather there moms or flowered plants should make a difference in how you train them...... I commend you on your set up..... nice and clean but you will change your mind a thousand times on your setup, so be open minded to redoing things, all of us have done that and most change setups or at least tweak things constantly. Before we get to a point where we're comfortable working with the systems we build.....
you're on your way and looking strong Best of Luck

Click to expand...

Thank you for coming over Aspen. I appreciate your encouragement and advice. I think I may be on the opposite end of the organizational mind spectrum than you. You described yourself as somewhat OCD, a great mindset I would think for this activity. I'm so easily distracted by one detail or as yet unsolved problem that I pachinko around from one thing to another. ADD is not a good way to garden. I haven't done a good job heeding the advice I give our trainees at work: "Do one thing well, not two things poorly".

Following your grow log has been very useful to me. I will keep learning as long as you keep posting.

Take care,
Ona

KISS = Keep It Simple Stupid
Ona Your very own advice is the very best to follow..... " Do one thing well instead of two things poorly" This was exactly my focus point 4 years ago..... so If i was Ona i would Keep all my Genetics labeled for starters.... If i were Ona i would Keep all the one off plants as mothers choose the plant you want out of the one you have multiples of as a dedicated mother, Focus on your mother room getting setup and operational, Did you get the Vege +Bloom like Dan and I use? Get those plants healthy and work out your heat issues, if you're going to be moving go ahead and move before you get too involved. Focus solely on the basics, if you dont have pest and you have your genetics for the time being just wait and keep your area clean try not to apply things to the plants until it is needed Now that you have your fingers in the GREEN you can apply what you have learned and make more informed decisions on what works for you.... you dont have to have all the answers that's why you're here with us on ICMag. Help and advise is no more than a post away. Document and take pictures people here won't steer ya in the wrong direction....... you have your fingers in the green now and that's half the battle....... Good Luck and Keep em green....

This is all a lot more complicated than you all make it seem.

Temperature: I have no clue what is going on. The basic thermometer/humidity meter from the hydro shop I have in the tent reads way above how the room feels. I went and got a new one today and got reading from the external probe that was 8 or more degrees higher than using the device itself to give a reading, despite the fact that they were in the same spot, perched on the edge of a 4" pot. I then took a reading at the same place with a temp gun and it was 7 degrees cooler than either of the thermometer readings. I currently have no way of knowing if my tent is getting too hot during lights on. I'm running back and forth opening and closing windows, zippers, portholes but without knowing what I'm adjusting. If I can't get a dadgum temperature reading down.... The guy at the other hydro store I go to told me, "I've learned to go by feel". Good advice but I'm at work most of the time, so that's going to be a kind of after the fact response for me.

Light: I started this out under a row of eight LED bulbs, 8.5W each. I got an inexpensive light meter today that measures lux and footcandles, not PAR or PPFD. I didn't need a more exact device yet. I just wanted to know how my CMH compared to the LEDs. I wanted to get an idea of relative light intensity to get a sense of how close to the canopy I should put the hood.
The LED's read mid-5000 lux at approximately one foot from the bulbs and roughly 3500 lux at the level of the clone tray (20 inches).

When I took a reading from the CMH in the tent, with the hood at the top of the tent, the reading at the top of the canopy (approx 15" from the floor) was 1400 lux. I had to move the light probe up to about 2 1/2 feet from the light to get mid 5000 lux.

If I understand that right, to get the same light intensity from the 630W CMH as I did from the 70W of LED's, I'm going to have to start moving the hood to around 3 feet from the canopy, maybe closer.

It also tells me that those cheap LED bulbs make a lot of light and next to no heat. For around $55-60 ($29 for 8 spot power strip, approx $15 for the plug in sockets and around $15 for eight bulbs). I know I'm not measuring usable spectrum here, I just figured the CMH would be a lot brighter than that.


I don't know. So many variables. This is worse than Algebra