Diary of a hot White Rhino. 250w CFL DWC

-TheShortTexan- · Jun 22, 2018

TROLLS BE GONE!!!

Here's in Texas it's already 100 degrees almost every day. If not 105 in between. Got a late start outdoors so I decided to pop two white rhinos into a DWC 7 gallon tote with a 250 watt cfl under a hood... It's not in an air conditioned room nor is that an option at the moment..

BEFORE WE BEGIN....

I KNOW that the ambient air temps are gonna be WAAAY above optimal and this will slow plant growth etc. Res temps will be higher than normal as well... more smaller cfls will generate less heat/be more efficient. The list goes on and on about how this isn't perfect.

BUT... It's what I got so it's what I'll use.

We're gonna treat this as a "How to hydroponics in high temperatures" kind of thing. And see what happens. Sort of an experiment but.... I digress. Any of your experience and help is appreciated!

On to the show!

Equipment:

Vivosun 2'×3' tent
Vivosun 950 gph air pump
4" inline fan and duct
Oscillating fan
250watt Gotham hydro cfl and hood

General Hydro 3 part nutes
Hydroguard
Pancellant ph and ec pen meters.

And of course... good old frozen water bottles for the redneck reservoir chiller.

All to grow 2 White Rhino feminized seeds from Nirvana..

Seeds popped Tuesday so I put em in some horticulture Styrofoam and into the lid. One has sprouted and has its first baby set of serrated leaves and the other just sprouted and shed it's seed.

Stick around! :smokeit:

Sorry for the sideways pics, even when I edited them it wouldn't load straight. Will have to start taking them sideways to begin with!

-TheShortTexan- · Jun 22, 2018

LET'S POLLUTE THIS THREAD

LET'S POLLUTE THIS THREAD

Lets throw some pics or info of cfl/hot weather grows anyone has done in the past in here! Would love to see some past attempts....

If there are any

burmese · Jun 22, 2018

i had no problem keeping plants up to 5cm from 250cfl //horizontally or vertically // in up to 40Celsius outdoor heat.

I had only one fan for oscilating the cfl and 1M2 and 1,8meter high growbox. //passive intake of fresh air-only slightly open growbox//

-TheShortTexan- · Jun 22, 2018

Good to know! I put a larger fan in there last night. High humidity and high temps are a recipe for mold from what I understand. Never ran into it yet! But I hear air flow is critical to prevent it... I ran into root rot last grow. Found this hydroguard stuff that is supposed to do wonders. :plant grow:

The bottle of hydroguard was hot from sitting in the mailbox all day in 100° weather. HOPEFULLY it didn't kill off the bacteria in it...

Anyone ever had a problem with algae USING hydroguard??

-TheShortTexan- · Jun 22, 2018

burmese said:
i had no problem keeping plants up to 5cm from 250cfl //horizontally or vertically // in up to 40Celsius outdoor heat.

I had only one fan for oscilating the cfl and 1M2 and 1,8meter high growbox. //passive intake of fresh air-only slightly open growbox//

What strains did you run?

Bobby Boucher · Jun 23, 2018

Yeah.. I'm guessing Burmese was running soil. I've seen people boasting about running their water temps as high as 80-82, but never 100.

You'd have some invest a fair bit of money into discretely cooling your shed for a hydro operation. If you can't run an ac discretely, im sure it'll look even goofier running around with bags of ice or what have you. Soil generally produces a better product anyways. Nbd.

I would grab a bag of sunshine#4 for the shed project and throw the dwc into a cool basement. I would probably also just.. not grow during the summers. I drove 3k miles a week through Texas for a few years working for Marlboro and.. yeah, no..

TBH, If I were you, I would fill up my gas tank, pick a direction, and just keep f'n driving

-TheShortTexan- · Jun 23, 2018

Thanks for the advice!

:tiphat:

The summers do definitely suck here. Like I said, if it doesn't work out then we will end up with the same amount of bud as if I didn't grow at all. It's always been something I enjoyed. Going to order a copper wort coil and see about making a homeade res chiller!

-TheShortTexan- · Jun 23, 2018

Bobby Boucher said:
Yeah.. I'm guessing Burmese was running soil. I've seen people boasting about running their water temps as high as 80-82, but never 100.

You'd have some invest a fair bit of money into discretely cooling your shed for a hydro operation. If you can't run an ac discretely, im sure it'll look even goofier running around with bags of ice or what have you. Soil generally produces a better product anyways. Nbd.

I would grab a bag of sunshine#4 for the shed project and throw the dwc into a cool basement. I would probably also just.. not grow during the summers. I drove 3k miles a week through Texas for a few years working for Marlboro and.. yeah, no..

TBH, If I were you, I would fill up my gas tank, pick a direction, and just keep f'n driving

And you are absolutely right, if it becomes unworkable and I can't get res temps down with either a diy chiller or anything else for that matter, I'll grab a bag of good soil and maybe some michorrizae to get the roots to take hold and go from there. In all honesty that is PROBABLY what should have been done. So we will see

Bobby Boucher · Jun 23, 2018

If you are going to run it regardless, I would do so with a dead res, at least all the way through veg, and save all the living stuff til the last few weeks of flower, once some sort of harvest has already been secured.. Undeveloped root systems will crumble under pressure. A bigger, more developed plant might just take the beating you are trying to throw at it.

I would at least have a small cab inside where I could veg them out into plants capable of fighting the heat battle in the shed. Younger plants, in the summer months, under the Texas sun, in a shed without ac..

Somebody que in Sarah McLachlan..

-TheShortTexan- · Jul 25, 2018

Long time no post...

Long time no post...

Been awhile but we've made some changes.

Temps were hitting 105-110 here daily. There was just no way to keep the setup where I had it. So I moved everything underground where the basement temps sit at 77°
most of the time. Didn't mean to go so long without posting, but we're still going.

Had an issue with dead edges/yellowing. Looked like nute burn except in the middle of the leaves as well. Thought it was cal/mag deficiency. Did a bunch of reading and came to the conclusion it was lockout from a combination of my tap water and a couple days of 7 pH. (I was constantly having to chase ph down) ditched my 250ppm tap water for some RO water. Much less pH down and more room for available nutrients. Yellowing stopped and pH is much more stable. So far problem solved. Will post more pics of the deficiency and the current setup tomorrow. Slow Internet won't let me upload the rest.

But we are back at it.
:good:

-TheShortTexan- · Jul 27, 2018

Time for some LST

Time for some LST

Getting uneven.
Time to train. :chin:

The plant on the left (AKA Number one) is noticeably taller and bushier than the one on the right. If I hadn't had so much trouble with heat early on, as well as other random fiascos, I would say it was a phenotype superiority. But I can't say that. I think the second plant just got stunted early and is forever behind.

Growing with a CFL Im shooting for a decently even canopy. Too wide is a waste of time and plant energy as the light footprint is small. But some LST was definitely in order.

Temps are 79 @ night 82 in the day.
50-62% RH
I adjust pH to 5.5 and let it drift up to 6.3
EC 1.3 at nutrient fil. Drops to .9 after couple days.
Cal Mag coming soon. Will start supplementing it when it arrives.

BEFORE LST

AFTER LST

Yes those are white pipe cleaners...
Yes I know they look like shit...
So what, you wanna fight about it??

So far so good. Already past a month in veg. Should be seeing much faster results. I blame it on 3 weeks of trying to make it work in the heat.

LESSON LEARNED

-TheShortTexan- · Jul 27, 2018

For anyone drifting through here...

For anyone drifting through here...

What is an advisable EC level?

I'm feeding full strength GH nutes, but its for what it says is the "mild vegetative" stage. Will be stepping it up to "Aggressive Vegetative" at next nute change. What EC level does everyone use? I'm sure this varies but if my EC IS dropping my understanding is that it means they are using more nutrients and can handle heavier feeding. Should it be raised until THE EC reading stays steady throughout the week?

Thoughts appreciated.
:tiphat:

-TheShortTexan- · Jul 27, 2018

A better pH down

A better pH down

Had read somewhere that GH pH down was crap. I don't know that it's crap, but I was certainly having to use a lot of it. Someone recommended pH down by botanicare and I'm thrilled with it so far. Seems to take much less. And is dye free.

-TheShortTexan- · Jul 27, 2018

The first casualty.

Hated to lose it, but she broke off after a little bit of rough love.

Dropped Cat · Jul 28, 2018

I grow without climate control in the deep south US.

Average box temps 92F from mid July to late August.

Any flowering plants harvested by August 1 are depleted at
best but for me any harvest is good.

Any attempt for an August harvest is a waste, even my veg plants
suffer and taking cuttings is a no go in that heat.

-TheShortTexan- · Jul 28, 2018

Dropped Cat said:
I grow without climate control in the deep south US.

Average box temps 92F from mid July to late August.

Any flowering plants harvested by August 1 are depleted at
best but for me any harvest is good.

Any attempt for an August harvest is a waste, even my veg plants
suffer and taking cuttings is a no go in that heat.

That's the kind of temps I was seeing before I moved into the basement. Made quite a diff. Had some trouble in the beginning that set me behind quite a bit. So it's looking like I'll veg til halfway though august. With this strain that puts me mid to late October with is much cooler. What type of lights are you running in that heat?

-TheShortTexan- · Jul 28, 2018

2 days later

2 days later

2 days after LST

Dropped Cat · Jul 29, 2018

-TheShortTexan- said:
That's the kind of temps I was seeing before I moved into the basement. Made quite a diff. Had some trouble in the beginning that set me behind quite a bit. So it's looking like I'll veg til halfway though august. With this strain that puts me mid to late October with is much cooler. What type of lights are you running in that heat?

Flower is 165W PL L, veg is 72W P LL.

As the heat mounts I can switch off one 55W,
so its do able, although I don't start new plants
in flower until September.

Noctua computer fan for circulation.

The plants I flower would obviously do much better
in a climate controlled area, bit of a learning curve
as it is, lol.

-TheShortTexan- · Jul 29, 2018

Dropped Cat said:
Flower is 165W PL L, veg is 72W P LL.

As the heat mounts I can switch off one 55W,
so its do able, although I don't start new plants
in flower until September.

Noctua computer fan for circulation.

The plants I flower would obviously do much better
in a climate controlled area, bit of a learning curve
as it is, lol.

My plan for this grow was to keep it in its original setting and fight the high temps. I had it somewhere I felt was a stealthier location and I'd it took a little longer from high temps so be it. But as BOBBY BOUCHER pointed out. That would have been an idea more suitable for a soil grow. The high res temps I think would have gotten me in the end. Not because of root rot but growth would have just halted completely. I was seeing 94 daytime tent temps regularly. I was just uncomfortable with it.

As for the hydroguard:
Stuff is amazing. No algae in high temps, no root rot. Just amazing stuff. Not saying it's a cure all. But I've seen the difference in growing hot without it and growing hot with it. Speaks for itself

Dropped Cat · Jul 29, 2018

I grow in coco, hempy style, so the high temps were not
as harmful as that found with DWC, but I stopped flowering
in summer because the results were lackluster at best.

Hydroguard is unknown to me, I'll look into it.

Diary of a hot White Rhino. 250w CFL DWC

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