Grow Growing is so relaxing

[Shredder]

I'm on a roll. In the last two weeks I've had two ballasts burn out. And a bulb I ordered came broke.

And a new strain I tried hermied, two plants roughly 12 ounces with tiny white immature seeds, but seeds, who wants seeds in their herb?

And today I found my super silver haze was mislabeled and the two plants of super silver haze i thought I'm flowering are actually the hermie plants, and I've lost my ssh, and old favorite. And I have two more possible hermie plants instead.

So now I'm making lemon aid. Turning seeded herb into rosin. But thinking I'm jinxed or something lol. Growing can be stressful don't let anyone bullshit you.

 

[momofthegoons]

Sounds like you've had a run of bad luck. Sorry to hear you lost an old tried and true favorite.

But since things seem to happen in threes you've got to have the bad luck covered now. Only good things from here.

 

[Killick]

So a few months back I got a deal on a 315 watt Ceramic Metal Halide light. CMH, at 315 watt, gives similar output as a 600 watt grow light, but uses 1/2 the power and gives 1/2 the heat output. It seemed to work good, so I sold it to a buddy and have a dual 315 to put in. So 630 watts of Ceramic light coming up. And growing is relaxing :)

 

[LesPlenty]

In the last two weeks I've had two ballasts burn out.

I have forgotten how many digital ballasts I have blown in the last 5 years, 3 in quick succession and now I have a Lumatek 600w that has been going for 3 years now, best digital MH/hps ballast you can get, so I have been told, so far I agree. I still have my old magnetic hummer x2 and a spare 400w magnetic to fall back on.
The digital Lumatek is also supposed to be better on globe life due to soft start technology.

I got a deal on a 315 watt Ceramic Metal Halide light. CMH, at 315 watt, gives similar output as a 600 watt grow light, but uses 1/2 the power and gives 1/2 the heat output

I will be very interested in what you think of them, I am not convinced that led is any good for anything but mumma plants but these sound like an upgrade to standard hps and I have been looking for a light to use on a special separate grow.

 

[Shredder]

Both ballasts that burned out were lumatek. One is a 1000w just over 5 yr old, and when it blew I used my 600w lumatek in its place then that one started acting up. That 600w is 10 yr old, lol. I can't really bitch on that one, it still works but shuts down randomly.

In my research I've found lumatek went out of business. I did find one from a third party seller on amazon, but it never shipped. I bought a hydro farm 1000w ballast, and soon ill have a solis tek 1000w. I'll use the solis tek and the hydro farm one will be a spare.

For the 600w veg ballast I'm debating switching to fluoresent or led or the 1000w hydro farm turned down to 600w in winter and something else in summer, or just buy another 600w.

I use the lights for heat when ambient temps average < 50'sF and cool them with sealed hoods exhausting outdoors in warmer months. In my case I need sealed hoods and that leaves out the newest lights on the market, and led lights won't give me enough heat.

I'm not sure what happened with the plant mix up. Either I mislabeled one or transplanted the wrong plant.

The good news is I have 40 grams of rosin to ease my anxiety , lol. And I secured two new to me varieties, 9# hammer and cherry pie. I still will try to get another super silver haze line going as well.

 

[VCNZ]

I've had plenty of success with LEDs. My little grow of less than 1m sq keeps up with my chronic habit and well as some freebies to friends.

 

[Shredder]

I've had plenty of success with LEDs. My little grow of less than 1m sq keeps up with my chronic habit and well as some freebies to friends.

I'm taking care of 5 people plus myself, off 8 plants in slightly more than 2m sq. with two lights. So I gotta keep my shit tight. Two things about led lights for me, one is the price, two is the heat factor. I use the heat off my lights to heat a flower room and a veg room. Together they're 12x24, and it's in otherwise unheated pole barn. I've seen -10 F in that barn, so if I can use the light heat to my advantage it's win win. And in summer I gotta get rid of heat, hence the sealed hoods. They take in air from my barn and that air/ heat goes thru the hoods and depending on the temps exits into my veg room or out outdoors.

Having said that I like the concept. I use 4, 42w 150w equivalent fouro bulbs for seedlings. I'm replacing them with 150-200w equivalent 23 w led bulbs. It's early but things look ok so far. They're just 5000k house type looking bulbs that fit in the same socket and hood of the flouros I'm using up to now. I'll probably change out my barn lights too. The fluoresent lights start dim in cold weather, and I'm thinking the led lights could do better there as well.

 

[LesPlenty]

So I only have another 7 or so years and my Lumatek will be toast too. One thing I do here in Tas to help with ambient temperature is to have my plants light come on at 6 pm and off at 6 am (on bud cycle) and on at 6 pm and off at midday (for veg cycle) I grow in my roof so this helps control temperature a lot for me and has an added benefit that your power meter is not spinning at a hundred miles an hour when the guy/gal reads the meter.

 

[psychonaut]

I had my share of troubles this year. My mars hydro cree 256 burned out one of the LED quadrants. I ended up having to replace the whole unit with a 600W HID (cheap reflector) as I was right in the middle of week 1 bloom. Changed over to 600W HPS, learned that changing the bulb like that at that time is baaaaad, they'll grow like a beanstalk! I had major stretching, even had to supercrop the girls during week 2 and 3 of bloom. I think the yields may have suffered some but certainly didn't have an even canopy so about 60% of the buds are prime tops that got great light. Then I was fighting the excess heat generated by the HPS vs LED, so had one strain (pennywise bagseed) that was throwing nanners like crazy, a couple of the other strains had a nanner here or there nothing excessive like the pennywise. One of my DP white widows was full on hermi with balls and buds, had to cull that one straight away so my garden dropped from 6 to 5.

Anyway, yes growing is not as some easy people make it out to be, sure you can grow buds, but to grow great buds with acceptable yields is not always as easy, for sure not for the novice.

This year I finally figured out exactly how much nutrients to use with my 300 ppm well water. I'm a hand waterer but I dont dare spend money on filtered water or waste water making RO, in Colorado water is pretty much like gold.

And, while we struggle through the grow, sometimes we do things right. This plant has been drying for 11 days in a room that's been between 50-60F with 45-55 RH, dry trimmed on the last day and jarred. Bingo, hit the RH on the mark, this is after 12 hours in the jar, it started out at 56% RH and seems to be settled in here.

If I can do this every time, I'd be willing to deal with some struggles on the grow.

Nirvana Swiss Cheese Auto

 

[Shredder]

I had my share of troubles this year. My mars hydro cree 256 burned out one of the LED quadrants. I ended up having to replace the whole unit with a 600W HID (cheap reflector) as I was right in the middle of week 1 bloom. Changed over to 600W HPS, learned that changing the bulb like that at that time is baaaaad, they'll grow like a beanstalk! I had major stretching, even had to supercrop the girls during week 2 and 3 of bloom. I think the yields may have suffered some but certainly didn't have an even canopy so about 60% of the buds are prime tops that got great light. Then I was fighting the excess heat generated by the HPS vs LED, so had one strain (pennywise bagseed) that was throwing nanners like crazy, a couple of the other strains had a nanner here or there nothing excessive like the pennywise. One of my DP white widows was full on hermi with balls and buds, had to cull that one straight away so my garden dropped from 6 to 5.

Anyway, yes growing is not as some easy people make it out to be, sure you can grow buds, but to grow great buds with acceptable yields is not always as easy, for sure not for the novice.

This year I finally figured out exactly how much nutrients to use with my 300 ppm well water. I'm a hand waterer but I dont dare spend money on filtered water or waste water making RO, in Colorado water is pretty much like gold.

And, while we struggle through the grow, sometimes we do things right. This plant has been drying for 11 days in a room that's been between 50-60F with 45-55 RH, dry trimmed on the last day and jarred. Bingo, hit the RH on the mark, this is after 12 hours in the jar, it started out at 56% RH and seems to be settled in here.

If I can do this every time, I'd be willing to deal with some struggles on the grow.

Nirvana Swiss Cheese Auto

It is sweet when it all comes together!!!

I didn't actually move into this house until April, although we purchased it in oct. so I spent a lot of time planning (daydreaming) about how to have an efficient grow in a somewhat harsh climate. For the most part it all worked out. I did go with a RO water filter tho since our well water is ph9+, and I wish each room had its own intake and exhaust but all in all it's been good. My veg room acts as a lung room for the flower room. And both exhaust into a twelve inch duct that routes it outdoors. So far I've grown all summer for 6 years without AC. I run my flower room from 9pm to 9 am, that helps a lot plus I'm in a northern climate where more than a few days of 90F temps are rare.

 

[psychonaut]

It is sweet when it all comes together!!!

I didn't actually move into this house until April, although we purchased it in oct. so I spent a lot of time planning (daydreaming) about how to have an efficient grow in a somewhat harsh climate. For the most part it all worked out. I did go with a RO water filter tho since our well water is ph9+, and I wish each room had its own intake and exhaust but all in all it's been good. My veg room acts as a lung room for the flower room. And both exhaust into a twelve inch duct that routes it outdoors. So far I've grown all summer for 6 years without AC. I run my flower room from 9pm to 9 am, that helps a lot plus I'm in a northern climate where more than a few days of 90F temps are rare.

Wow that's some wild well water there, ours is just above 7 PH. No idea exactly what is making up the 300 ppm, we get a lot of build up on our taps and don't use a water softener. Water tastes incredible though! I was gonna switch over to RO water until I realized my RO unit was only giving me like 1 gallon of RO water to 4 gallons of waste. Plus it takes forever! I thought about the bottled water at the store but they charge almost $1/ga so I had to make it work. I still need to figure out a good recipe for composted super soil/organic so I can just give water. My last attempt at that had some serious nitrogen toxicity which I have no idea if it was too much lime or I didnt mix my soil enough before composting.

Coco coir with hydro nutrients was really a simple effort I thought, hoping the terpenes weren't compromised too much going that route. I think next time I may switch over to 3ga smart pots instead of 5, it was taking far too much water and the root ball though it took up the entire 5ga pot I saw plenty of room left in the coco for roots to fill so hoping next time 3ga pots will use less water/nutrients and allow for a better runoff to remove the salt buildup.

That organic tho! I wanna get back to it, something lovely about just using water.

I have a small space, we are stuck indoors in Colorado due to laws. Luckily I have space in the room for multiple stages but deal with a lot of heat issues during the summer as we don't have any cooling at all. I'd have to invest in a very expensive greenhouse if I wanted to take advantage of the sun. It's a real shame because at my elevation the sun is extremely intense, to the point where you need to wear sun glasses after it snows or else you'll go snow blind quick. I always thought that intense sun would make for some killer buds!

 

[VCNZ]

I'm taking care of 5 people plus myself, off 8 plants in slightly more than 2m sq. with two lights. So I gotta keep my shit tight. Two things about led lights for me, one is the price, two is the heat factor. I use the heat off my lights to heat a flower room and a veg room. Together they're 12x24, and it's in otherwise unheated pole barn. I've seen -10 F in that barn, so if I can use the light heat to my advantage it's win win. And in summer I gotta get rid of heat, hence the sealed hoods. They take in air from my barn and that air/ heat goes thru the hoods and depending on the temps exits into my veg room or out outdoors.

Having said that I like the concept. I use 4, 42w 150w equivalent fouro bulbs for seedlings. I'm replacing them with 150-200w equivalent 23 w led bulbs. It's early but things look ok so far. They're just 5000k house type looking bulbs that fit in the same socket and hood of the flouros I'm using up to now. I'll probably change out my barn lights too. The fluoresent lights start dim in cold weather, and I'm thinking the led lights could do better there as well.

I have to add a heater in winter to get my tent up to 25 degrees C. In summer I have to be careful but my 12/12 cycle runs from 6pm - 6am avoiding the high daytime temps.

My 2 LEDs are cheap ones not a named brand. I also supplement with CFLs to ensure I get light to all corners. I'm probably drawing close to 400w and know I could get comparable results with HID but don't want to have to deal with the heat. My air flow is passive only no noisy out take fan.

I break many of the rules they say you MUST do when growing indoors and maybe I'm not maximising my yield but I've exceeded my own expectations.

 

[Shredder]

Wow that's some wild well water there, ours is just above 7 PH. No idea exactly what is making up the 300 ppm, we get a lot of build up on our taps and don't use a water softener. Water tastes incredible though! I was gonna switch over to RO water until I realized my RO unit was only giving me like 1 gallon of RO water to 4 gallons of waste. Plus it takes forever! I thought about the bottled water at the store but they charge almost $1/ga so I had to make it work. I still need to figure out a good recipe for composted super soil/organic so I can just give water. My last attempt at that had some serious nitrogen toxicity which I have no idea if it was too much lime or I didnt mix my soil enough before composting.

Coco coir with hydro nutrients was really a simple effort I thought, hoping the terpenes weren't compromised too much going that route. I think next time I may switch over to 3ga smart pots instead of 5, it was taking far too much water and the root ball though it took up the entire 5ga pot I saw plenty of room left in the coco for roots to fill so hoping next time 3ga pots will use less water/nutrients and allow for a better runoff to remove the salt buildup.

That organic tho! I wanna get back to it, something lovely about just using water.

I have a small space, we are stuck indoors in Colorado due to laws. Luckily I have space in the room for multiple stages but deal with a lot of heat issues during the summer as we don't have any cooling at all. I'd have to invest in a very expensive greenhouse if I wanted to take advantage of the sun. It's a real shame because at my elevation the sun is extremely intense, to the point where you need to wear sun glasses after it snows or else you'll go snow blind quick. I always thought that intense sun would make for some killer buds!

Growing organically, and growing water only, can mean different things. Everything doesn't have to n the soil at the start. In my mind growing organically equates to growing with microbes.

For me that includes having a worm bin that generates co2, and a nice top dressing of worm castings every grow cycle. They feed on garden compost, fermented mush left over from my fertilizer projects, and old veggies going bad. You can customize the casting by what you feed them. Need potassium? Feed your worms bananas. Need calcium? Feed them powdered oyster shells. I mostly just feed them a diverse diet. Their bedding is old soil full of roots and compost.

Most of my inputs are homemade. I ferment comfrey leaves, mj leaves, local wildflowers, and I even fermented grass clippings from under my mower, lol. At times I may buy and use alfalfa meal, and neptunes harvest fish in veg. But that's about it. The homemade stuff is loaded with microbes.

 

[psychonaut]

Growing organically, and growing water only, can mean different things. Everything doesn't have to n the soil at the start. In my mind growing organically equates to growing with microbes.

For me that includes having a worm bin that generates co2, and a nice top dressing of worm castings every grow cycle. They feed on garden compost, fermented mush left over from my fertilizer projects, and old veggies going bad. You can customize the casting by what you feed them. Need potassium? Feed your worms bananas. Need calcium? Feed them powdered oyster shells. I mostly just feed them a diverse diet. Their bedding is old soil full of roots and compost.

Most of my inputs are homemade. I ferment comfrey leaves, mj leaves, local wildflowers, and I even fermented grass clippings from under my mower, lol. At times I may buy and use alfalfa meal, and neptunes harvest fish in veg. But that's about it. The homemade stuff is loaded with microbes.

I was hoping water only so that I didnt have to deal with a lot of extra equipment like an aerator for compost teas and such, but now looking back I think it would have been better to make a less rich soil and then supplement with a tea or top feed.

I love your method there! I've got chickens and horses so have access to that manure, we also compost kitchen waste, fan leaves too. Hoping in a year or so we'll have some good compost to work into this sandy soil, I'd love to try some soil under one of my trees as a base since it's already got a lot of the microbes.

I've already got so much components from my last super soil run I need to go through that stuff so I can justify how much I spent on it. Just need some base organic soil and tweak my nitrogen down a bit. Once that stuff's all used up gonna DIY it with what I got and see if I can learn a bit more about it. May be hitting you up for some knowledge!

 

[Shredder]

I was hoping water only so that I didnt have to deal with a lot of extra equipment like an aerator for compost teas and such, but now looking back I think it would have been better to make a less rich soil and then supplement with a tea or top feed.

I love your method there! I've got chickens and horses so have access to that manure, we also compost kitchen waste, fan leaves too. Hoping in a year or so we'll have some good compost to work into this sandy soil, I'd love to try some soil under one of my trees as a base since it's already got a lot of the microbes.

I've already got so much components from my last super soil run I need to go through that stuff so I can justify how much I spent on it. Just need some base organic soil and tweak my nitrogen down a bit. Once that stuff's all used up gonna DIY it with what I got and see if I can learn a bit more about it. May be hitting you up for some knowledge!

You could use top dressed dry fertilizers throughout a grow. Then its mostly water only. A popular brand is espoma. They make a line of organic fertilizers like garden tone, tomato tone, plant tone. They're mostly the same but the npk values are slightly different.

That and some well composted manures should do very well. And worms love horse manure after it ages a bit and the wormer in it disapates. All you need is a tote box, aged manure, and a couple thousand red worms. I bought mine from uncle jims.. If you keep them in the flower room they also add co2.

 

[psychonaut]

You could use top dressed dry fertilizers throughout a grow. Then its mostly water only. A popular brand is espoma. They make a line of organic fertilizers like garden tone, tomato tone, plant tone. They're mostly the same but the npk values are slightly different.

That and some well composted manures should do very well. And worms love horse manure after it ages a bit and the wormer in it disapates. All you need is a tote box, aged manure, and a couple thousand red worms. I bought mine from uncle jims.. If you keep them in the flower room they also add co2.

Yeah I've tried that epsoma tomato tone and garden tone before, reminded me a lot of like the happy frog fruit and flower mix. True, I have top dressed with that before I just always wonder if I give it enough, and give it early enough. I've heard it takes a couple weeks to really start getting down to the roots when top dressed?

Our horse manure we mixed into the flower garden after it aged for over a year and mid summer I went digging the weeds out of the flower bed and was surprised at the number of worms we had. It has raised sides so we're just going to continue to fill it with manure that the worms will break down, a little every year. Eventually it's gonna be a raised flower/worm bed hopefully full of casting rich soil =)

 

[Shredder]

Well my streak of bad luck continues. I ordered a solis tek 1000w ballast off amazon, mostly due to good reviews. It came but doesn't want to work for me. I keep getting error code 5, or open circuits. I tried it on two different hoods and 4 separate bulbs. Now starts the return process. :(

 

[ataxian]

Well my streak of bad luck continues. I ordered a solis tek 1000w ballast off amazon, mostly due to good reviews. It came but doesn't want to work for me. I keep getting error code 5, or open circuits. I tried it on two different hoods and 4 separate bulbs. Now starts the return process. :(

I grew HYDRO however my wife said that it was cheaper to buy it?

I’m going to build a green house.
Outdoors I like however the bug’s R mean?
Hydro is so expensive?

I had colas 4 feet long however to mold ruined the crop?
Throw nearly one pound in da dumpster was so sad!

I know I mention HAWAII a lot?
No bug’s at da time?
Soil rain trade winds.?
Being a HIPPYISH SURFER was easy once a pond a time!

I was going to put some LED lights in my green house?
Growing is hard at times!
It keeps getting cheaper?
My wife won’t let grow?

$38.00 per lid?

 

[psychonaut]

Well my streak of bad luck continues. I ordered a solis tek 1000w ballast off amazon, mostly due to good reviews. It came but doesn't want to work for me. I keep getting error code 5, or open circuits. I tried it on two different hoods and 4 separate bulbs. Now starts the return process. :(

Damn, returns are fairly painless at least. I am using a ipower 600w MH/HPS with a cheap reflector hood, wasn't much and the ballast is pretty minimal feature wise, I have a rotary knob to dial down the power in 25% increments =/ One of the things I loved about my mars hydro cree 256 was the ability to dial in Red and Blue from 0-100%. Bloom was 100% red and blue and it just kicked ass, huge canopy coverage and even stretching. One issue I found with that LED was light burn, may times I had some pure white bleached buds on the tops! Talk about intense.

 

[ataxian]

Damn, returns are fairly painless at least. I am using a ipower 600w MH/HPS with a cheap reflector hood, wasn't much and the ballast is pretty minimal feature wise, I have a rotary knob to dial down the power in 25% increments =/ One of the things I loved about my mars hydro cree 256 was the ability to dial in Red and Blue from 0-100%. Bloom was 100% red and blue and it just kicked ass, huge canopy coverage and even stretching. One issue I found with that LED was light burn, may times I had some pure white bleached buds on the tops! Talk about intense.

Can U put a Lens with UV over the light ? (LED)