New 8KW stealth Coco chip grow!

[Lazyman]

Girls got their first good soaking last night, most of em wanted water, got all the digis cranked up to 100%. Reservoirs went from 1800ppm to 1550, just from the microherd! Plants look like they want more food, we'll see if this is enough. I've been learning that all plants need to be roughly the same depth in the smartpots to get the same amount of water, too shallow and they get too dry, and vice versa. Kinda tricky business actually.

Still thinking about doing top feed drip with BLumats and gravity fed from the reservoirs, I imagine there would be little to no runoff but I don't think I could do it with the coco chips, they don't wick well enough to soak the ceramic cone. Starting to think I should have gone with regular coco just for the wicking properties, the chips only wick about an inch over the water line, more would be nice but I guess it's ok to have a dry top layer. I checked several pots and the 1" rockwool cubes were moist on top under the chips so that's ok at least.

Jock Horrors are growing like a weed! Trainwrecks are catching on fast and the AK's have finally caught on to the game, but are at least a week behind the TW and two weeks behind the JH. Dammit.

 

[Lazyman]

Oh, and my wife rocks! She sat down and cut out 170 pot covers for my smartpots for me yesterday, what a doll! Putting em on tonight, we used a bag of scrap plastic I had laying around from previous grows, gotta love recycling!

 

[Lazyman]

Last night had a few friends over, we passed around a pipe to 9 heads and tried 11 different strains, 1-2 hits of each, Man we were TOASTED! Sage N Sour and the Chem Dawg were the big hits though, everybody wanted more of both of those. The S&S is Soooo fruity smelling.

 

[growshower]

give this k+ to the wife for helpin out

 

[Lazyman]

give this k+ to the wife for helpin out

Thanks buddy, she says you made her day!

 

[dongle69]

Starting to think I should have gone with regular coco just for the wicking properties...

You may find that the beneficials like straight coco better as well.
They have a tough go of it in porous media like chips and hydroton.
Maybe a staight-chip mix?

Must have been fun smoke testing all those stains!

 

[Lazyman]

Hey thanks for stoppin in Dongle! Yeah I even wondered if I could do sand or something, but man, the weight in the trays would be a lot. After seeing your happy plants, I think I shoulda tried that at least once, but I figured if I can't make the chips work twice I'm done with em. I bet they would prefer to be top fed, hand watered or drip would be dandy. Maybe I could just buy some regular coco bricks, make it nice and soupy, and just pour it over the chips from the top to kinda fill em in? Then I could drop my flood levels, I'm at like 6 inches right now.

I was happy with the plants once they got their roots established, they can drink a ton and flood often but still use up the water 2-3 times a day. I just put on the 168 pot covers tonight, hoping this helps keep bugs out, and more reflected light (since I don't have any reflective material anywhere near most of the room.) We'll see if it works.

Hey should I do any experiments on this run? I was thinking I could test a bunch of different things on the same strains:

MH Vs HPS yield
pura vida vs lucas
or other organics vs salt nutes
Digital vs analog ballasts
Foliar sprayed vs non
Additives vs no additives
etc...

Anybody got a preference?

I'm testing a couple of the Coco Big Boss cubes too for giggles, got 2 of my Jock Horrors in em (straight coco.)

Yep the various strains were fun, no way to differentiate the highs, so it was just all smell and taste, but still a blast. Got a batch of cookies in return, sweet!

How's your current run goin? Did you add two more lights or are you doing 6K again? You ever think about running CO2?

 

[dongle69]

I was happy with the plants once they got their roots established, they can drink a ton and flood often but still use up the water 2-3 times a day.

Yeah, that is one of the cool things about chunky media, you can usually water more.

Hey should I do any experiments on this run? I was thinking I could test a bunch of different things on the same strains:

MH Vs HPS yield
pura vida vs lucas
or other organics vs salt nutes
Digital vs analog ballasts
Foliar sprayed vs non
Additives vs no additives
etc...
Anybody got a preference?

Wow, choices, choices!
I can't seem to stop myself from experimenting either.
I would say go with what you got one more time since your stuff is healthier now, then experiment next round.
I don't know your situation, though.
If you can afford to experiment, why not I guess?

I'm testing a couple of the Coco Big Boss cubes too for giggles, got 2 of my Jock Horrors in em (straight coco.)

I have seen those but never tried them because of the expense.
I don't see why they wouldn't work great, though.

How's your current run goin? Did you add two more lights or are you doing 6K again? You ever think about running CO2?

Thinks are going good.
I'm about 2.5 weeks into flower.
I'm trying smaller pots this time and the plants grew bigger and faster.
Go figure?
I'm gonna ride the 6 lights probably for good at this location.
I do have co2 at my other house (8x 600w), but I'm gonna stay fresh air at my ICMAG grow, at least for a while...

 

[Lazyman]

Yeah, that is one of the cool things about chunky media, you can usually water more.

Wow, choices, choices!
I can't seem to stop myself from experimenting either.
I would say go with what you got one more time since your stuff is healthier now, then experiment next round.
I don't know your situation, though.
If you can afford to experiment, why not I guess?

I have seen those but never tried them because of the expense.
I don't see why they wouldn't work great, though.

Thinks are going good.
I'm about 2.5 weeks into flower.
I'm trying smaller pots this time and the plants grew bigger and faster.
Go figure?
I'm gonna ride the 6 lights probably for good at this location.
I do have co2 at my other house (8x 600w), but I'm gonna stay fresh air at my ICMAG grow, at least for a while...

Right on lady, good for you! Have you noticed your gpw go up with the CO2 and more efficient 600's? Or is it more strain dependent?

 

[dongle69]

Seems more strain dependent to me.
I never noticed yield difference based solely on co2 vs a properly ventilated room.
It is nice, though, to have internal climate that does not depend on the outside whatsoever.

 

[grow nerd]

I've only lightly researched coco chip vs. pith dust / coir comparisons, and vaguely recall that under those conditions the coir performing better... but I don't think it was a very thorough or well-balanced test. I've also played around a little bit with sample packs of coco croutons (I think GH or Grodan (?!) brand? I forget.) as well as the Down To Earth chip bricks, and didn't much like it but that was after I was already "used to" bagged coir so again not a well-balanced test. Regardless, I've kinda ignored the chips / croutons since then and haven't looked back into that topic... until now.

On MH vs HPS, I think there is a pretty solid consensus that HPS yields better than MH... but most argue that the MH side looked a bit prettier (although leafier) in terms of trichome production and density. Another test doesn't hurt, though, and I'd love to see it done with the level of detail that you go into in your threads. Been a good long time since I've looked into it but IIRC some of the guys who ran these tests were Frozenguy and MTF-something, I think either Sandman or Shaman or something but I could be off. I think he had an avatar of an alligator / crocodile, or something to that extent. Don't hold me to it, though... just going by old, brittle, failing memory.

I've heard of PuraVida Organics being an "organic Lucas in a bottle" or something along those lines, but never really looked into it much after receiving free sample kits from last year's SF indoor gardening expo.

Personally I'm trying to eliminate as many additives as possible, not only for cost reasons but also for simplicity and performance reasons. I think many people use too many additives too blindly and take to heart the label's "promises" a bit too much, not knowing that more often than not an incorrectly used additive is counter-productive and will yield less than a simple mix (I've also seen horrible, shit-yield, non-smokable crops due to misuse of P/K boosters). Surprisingly, I started out on the other spectrum of this reasoning, going with Advanced Nutrients and their method of up-selling more and more bottles.

 

[Lazyman]

I've only lightly researched coco chip vs. pith dust / coir comparisons, and vaguely recall that under those conditions the coir performing better... but I don't think it was a very thorough or well-balanced test. I've also played around a little bit with sample packs of coco croutons (I think GH or Grodan (?!) brand? I forget.) as well as the Down To Earth chip bricks, and didn't much like it but that was after I was already "used to" bagged coir so again not a well-balanced test. Regardless, I've kinda ignored the chips / croutons since then and haven't looked back into that topic... until now.

On MH vs HPS, I think there is a pretty solid consensus that HPS yields better than MH... but most argue that the MH side looked a bit prettier (although leafier) in terms of trichome production and density. Another test doesn't hurt, though, and I'd love to see it done with the level of detail that you go into in your threads. Been a good long time since I've looked into it but IIRC some of the guys who ran these tests were Frozenguy and MTF-something, I think either Sandman or Shaman or something but I could be off. I think he had an avatar of an alligator / crocodile, or something to that extent. Don't hold me to it, though... just going by old, brittle, failing memory.

I've heard of PuraVida Organics being an "organic Lucas in a bottle" or something along those lines, but never really looked into it much after receiving free sample kits from last year's SF indoor gardening expo.

Personally I'm trying to eliminate as many additives as possible, not only for cost reasons but also for simplicity and performance reasons. I think many people use too many additives too blindly and take to heart the label's "promises" a bit too much, not knowing that more often than not an incorrectly used additive is counter-productive and will yield less than a simple mix (I've also seen horrible, shit-yield, non-smokable crops due to misuse of P/K boosters). Surprisingly, I started out on the other spectrum of this reasoning, going with Advanced Nutrients and their method of up-selling more and more bottles.

Wow thanks for the post man, much appreciated, K+ to you!

I used the pura vida last run, it's not designed for coco but now that I know more I think I'm on the same page re: additives. I'm gonna keep it simpler this time, and I think I'll change the res every couple weeks too just to see what difference, if any I get. You do have to add calcium and magnesium to PVO, but I used bone meal and molasses in each res so hopefully won't need to add much cal mag.

I was going to post a new thread about auto-watering with drip (tropf blumats) and using a pressure reducer and cheap fertilizer injectors to water lots of plants with no reservoir and no electricity, but I accidentally deleted the whole thing after it was all typed out, GRRR. I do think the chips would be crazy good with drip, but coir peat is necessary for blumat wicking.

I was thinking of trying one res of my AN 2 part nutes and one of Pura vida, each has 2 MH and 2 HPS over em, and I can just mix em up so there is some of each strain in each res. That would give us 4 different results at least:

Organic and MH
Organic and HPS
Salt nutes and MH
Salt Nutes and HPS

There's even 3 tables with analog ballasts, so if I just keep em sorted I can post good accurate results and compare how the three strains performed. The clones aren't all the same age though, so they can't really be compared to each other fairly.

Thankfully the weather has been cool lately, lights on is about 75, lights off about 79-83 lately.

 

[Lazyman]

Seems more strain dependent to me.
I never noticed yield difference based solely on co2 vs a properly ventilated room.
It is nice, though, to have internal climate that does not depend on the outside whatsoever.

Yeah I suppose you'd have to do two identical runs with same vegged clones from the same mom, back to back to even begin to make a comparison scientific. Pretty tricky.

Agreed on the climate, sealed rooms really make you feel more in control of things, praying for cool weather kinda poisons summer time here.

 

[grow nerd]

My on digital & magnetic ballasts:

I used to run digital 600w's (Lumatek @ 120v w/ Hortilux SuperHPS) before ever having seen a 1kw in action, in person. When I did switch to magnetic 1kw's (Hydrofarm XtraSun ballasts w/ Hortilux SuperHPS's), I remember being a bit disappointed / not too impressed with the 1kw's: just expected more intensity from the extra 400w. But that was not a side-by-side, just two separate instances that were months apart... so again not a very good measure.

However, I re-visited that topic when I saw another person's grow that used both digital and magnetic 1kw's (same bulb); the digitals were noticeably brighter to the naked eye, and he confirmed that was indeed the case (and not just a case of mixed bulb life or other variables).

With that said, my next 1kw ballast purchase will most likely be a magnetic... with slight mixed feelings, but overall I think I will sleep better knowing that I will not have RF/EMI issues (has this been worked out completely, yet?) and also reliability / bulb compatibility. Not to mention up-front equipment costs... about 3x higher for those Quantum's the last I checked. I'd love to switch up to digitals some day, but just not that comfortable with 'em @ 1kw yet.

 

[dongle69]

Agreed on the climate, sealed rooms really make you feel more in control of things, praying for cool weather kinda poisons summer time here.

I have separate fan controllers on my lights and my ventilation.
It keeps things in a tight range but not an exact, constant temp.
If the ventilation air is too cold, then the fans cooling the lights slow down, allowing the lights to warm the room a little.
When the ventilation air is warmer, the fans on the lights run full speed and keep the room just right.
I could just have the controller slow the vent fans down or turn them off when it is cold, but then there wouldn't be enough fresh air in the room.
I just happened to have the extra controller and hooked it up for the heck of it, and it worked out well!

 

[Lazyman]

My on digital & magnetic ballasts:

I used to run digital 600w's (Lumatek @ 120v w/ Hortilux SuperHPS) before ever having seen a 1kw in action, in person. When I did switch to magnetic 1kw's (Hydrofarm XtraSun ballasts w/ Hortilux SuperHPS's), I remember being a bit disappointed / not too impressed with the 1kw's: just expected more intensity from the extra 400w. But that was not a side-by-side, just two separate instances that were months apart... so again not a very good measure.

However, I re-visited that topic when I saw another person's grow that used both digital and magnetic 1kw's (same bulb); the digitals were noticeably brighter to the naked eye, and he confirmed that was indeed the case (and not just a case of mixed bulb life or other variables).

With that said, my next 1kw ballast purchase will most likely be a magnetic... with slight mixed feelings, but overall I think I will sleep better knowing that I will not have RF/EMI issues (has this been worked out completely, yet?) and also reliability / bulb compatibility. Not to mention up-front equipment costs... about 3x higher forthose Quantum's the last I checked. I'd love to switch up to digitals some day, but just not that comfortable with 'em @ 1kw yet.

Yep, like anything, there's tricks to digitals. BTW< I got my Quantums for about $260 each, not too bad but yeah not cheap. Gotta run em on 240V for best results, they run hot if you run em on 120V. And no Hortilux bulbs in digis ever! Ushios are safe, there's one other but I can never remember the damn name. They advertise as 100% compatible with digis and have a 2 year warranty tho, good deal! I'd say a bulb that lost 10% lumens is a bum bulb, gimme a new one, lol.

Yeah the RF issues are all fixed now, poorly shielded cords on the early blue lumateks was the big culprit. My dog still doesn't like em, the digis hurt her ears I think.

 

[Lazyman]

I have separate fan controllers on my lights and my ventilation.
It keeps things in a tight range but not an exact, constant temp.
If the ventilation air is too cold, then the fans cooling the lights slow down, allowing the lights to warm the room a little.
When the ventilation air is warmer, the fans on the lights run full speed and keep the room just right.
I could just have the controller slow the vent fans down or turn them off when it is cold, but then there wouldn't be enough fresh air in the room.
I just happened to have the extra controller and hooked it up for the heck of it, and it worked out well!

Yeah, my ambient still gets up to the 90's at times so just air cooling isn't cutting it for me, gotta do a big power upgrade (new line to building and two new panels) so I can draw some juice for a chiller or something. I'm hoping my Coolerado quote won't give me sticker shock...

 

[dongle69]

I don't think Coolerados work in closed environments unless they have a new model.
I checked them out a year or so back and they didn't have any then.

 

[grow nerd]

I know that poorly shielded lamp cords on the early blue blue and silver Lumatek's were an issue on the 600w's (before 1kw's were introduced), prior to the "internally shielded" feature on later blue & purple versions (which have unshielded lamp cords). But as of about the release time of the Lumatek 1kw's (which were also similarly "internally shielded"), I recall there still being a 1kw-specific issue with RF/EMI. Something about a 10' interference radius with certain frequencies such as AM radio, and possibly also cable. I've read stories of folks who have gotten their cable service shut off because too much noise was being generated from their house, shortly after installing digital 1kw's.

(I used to maintain a digital ballast RF/EMI status thread here, where lots of folks reported back their results with many brands, models, and revisions of digital ballasts.)

I looked into the Quantum 1kw's a bit and saw the "complies with section N of FCC ...", but wasn't sure what that really meant in the real world. I suppose with many folks using 'em w/o problems nowadays it shouldn't be an issue, and I will take your word for it that it's now been addressed. But I don't have any hands-on comfort with that yet in very dense urban settings that I'm used to, and I guess that combination is why I'd be hesitant to spend an extra $1k+ when installing a room.

$260 isn't too bad... is that an out-the-door price or pre-tax? Hydrofarm XtraSun's cost me $130 out the door.

I'll definitely check out the Ushio bulbs; thanks for the tip.

 

[Lazyman]

I don't think Coolerados work in closed environments unless they have a new model.
I checked them out a year or so back and they didn't have any then.

Yeah I'd put the 5-ton one just outside my building and pump the cold air in, I don't really care about the slight positive pressure this might incur, my building doesn't seal well enough for it to be a worry anyway. Price is my main concern, I'm pretty sure I could install it myself.