Eight Miles High A Growing Journal

[gourmet]

Repotted this morning. I have plastic bags around the bottom of the square buckets to hold in the excess water. I have never tried that before but I am not comfortable the floor of my tent is really waterproof.

75 degrees in the tent and holding pretty steady give or take a degree or two. I have an air conditioner next to the passive intake and that is how I regulate the temperature inside the tent.

I use the LED's only for starting and they work pretty good although there is a little stretch to the seedlings although except for that one grow, the stems stand up straight and tall. I bury the stems when I transplant. Frankly, I do not see any more stretch than when I was using grow lights. I only have room for 5 to 6 plants at a time, so full T5's don't make any sense for me.

 

[gourmet]

Because my tent is so small, a regular size fan takes up the room of a plant, so I recently picked up three small table top fans like you get for using at the office. I fastened one to each of three corner posts. Seems like I am getting appropriate air movement without wasting space.

 

[tastyness]

I've had spills in my tent- held up really well (little spills I'm not a hydro grower)

I would be a little worried about plastic bags on bottoms - might impeded air flow and make things a little mushier than you want.

I would try to find some trays or plastic recycled items to use instead.

Love the fan idea- I'm trying to get a new one today too.

 

[gourmet]

I may have some plastic sheeting I can put on the bottom ...I will have to look. Thanks for the feedback tastyness.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

I put drip trays under all my plants since I always water to runoff.

 

[gourmet]

Holy cow! I checked the tent and the temps were 115 degrees. Poor babies. The duct came off the output fan.

So as long as I had to play in the tent I removed the bags and put a plastic liner in the bottom of the tent for runoff. Will restart my light as soon as the temps are down to 75 degrees again.

 

[4u2sm0ke]

so are the plants in the dark untill your temps get down?....why cant you get the temps lower?....with the right amount of air movement you should be able to maintain heat...whats the ambient heat outside the tent???..and can you pull cooler air from outsdie the house???...sounds like ya have the drip pan in place:aok:..I was going tosay its not good to let the container sit in water too long..anywho..

take care and be safe

 

[gourmet]

Once I rebooked up the duct to the fan the temp started falling immediately.
When the duct came off the fan it was just recirculating the hot air inside the tent instead of pulling it out of the tent. My filter is outside the tent with duct hooking up to the fan inside the tent and the fan pulling the air out of the tent and pushing it through the filter.

However, now the temps today are 90 degrees. There are only two differences from my last grow. One is I am using three small fans to circulate air inside the tent instead of one large fan and two, I am using a new bulb, a sylvania.

It seems to me any 400 watt bulb would generate the same amount of heat and it should not differ between brands of bulbs. However, tonight I am going to change out the bulb and see if the old bulb generates less heat.

If that does not bring the temps down from 90 then I will get an oscillating fan. Then everything will be exactly as it was last grow. I have an air conditioner about a foot and a half from the passive intake. You can feel the cool air being drawn into the tent.

Outside temps are actually cooler than my last grow.

Finally, yes they were in the dark for a few hours while the temp came down.

 

[gourmet]

I've tried everything to bring down the temp and nothing has worked. the only thing left is replacing the air conditioner as perhaps it is not functioning as well as it used to. If the plants are looking fine in veg and growing well, what damage does temps of 85 degrees do to the plants. It seems to me when growing outside the temps get that hot or hotter. I am banking on the hps bulb not putting out as much heat when I go to flower (with luck).

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

I've tried everything to bring down the temp and nothing has worked. the only thing left is replacing the air conditioner as perhaps it is not functioning as well as it used to. If the plants are looking fine in veg and growing well, what damage does temps of 85 degrees do to the plants. It seems to me when growing outside the temps get that hot or hotter. I am banking on the hps bulb not putting out as much heat when I go to flower (with luck).

I don't really get too worried about mid 80s temps. Although I believe that you get the best growth with temps between 60 and 80, I am with you about outside temps.

Are you vegging with a MH? I think they put out more heat than a HPS, but not a whole lot. One of the things you can do is to run your flowering lights at night if temps are an issue.

 

[gourmet]

Thanks Hemp Goddess. I am vegging under Metal Halide. I will be flowering under HPS and I also think the MH run a little hotter. Another think on my side is when I go to 12/12 under hps the temps outside should be getting cooler also. Right now I have the AC down to 68 and the temp is ranging between 81 and 84. As I feel the air coming out of the AC, I think the AC is needing a recharge. Just not in the cards to get a new AC or recharge this one right now.

 

[gourmet]

Woohoo! Hubby reminded me we had an extra air conditioner in the basement so I swapped them out and temp has now stabilized between 76 and 77 degrees.

 

[gourmet]

I thought I would post pics of what the children look like at 17 days from seed after battling 90 to 115 degrees in the tent. Note the first one has burned edges on the younger leaves. Not sure if it was the heat, spilling water on the leaves in combo with the heat, or if I just transplanted them into ffof a little too young and got a little note burn, but the new leaves are looking fine and the other plants are not burned and are looking fine.

The fans in the corners of the tent seem to be moving the air well without taking up the room of an entire plant. My tent is small 2 by 3 so I need every inch for growth. I have 5 plants in there now, but I figured after removing any males that appear I should have room for flowering. I plan to switch them over to 12/12 when they are relatively small...maybe 12 to 18 inches.

With the new a/c in the window next to the tent allowing the fan to pull the cold air through the passive intake my temps in the last 18 hours have now wavered between 74 degrees and 77 degrees. YAY!

 

[gourmet]

Day 18 and I watered today with General Organics Bio Root to help those transplanted roots grow grow grow.

 

[HemperFi]

Happy to hear you got the temps down again. I just read the other day that photo synthesis starts to fall off at around 85 degrees F, and it stops all together around 100 degrees. I don't think it did any permanent damage to the plants though -- just slowed them down a little. They are looking fine, and you are doing a great job

Peace

 

[gourmet]

Thanks HemperFi. They did seem to slow down a bit but seem to be picking up again.

 

[gourmet]

Because I used new FFOF soil rather than recycled, the only thing I have fed the plants so far haS been once drenching with General Organics Bio Root.

Here they are on day 21 from seed. They seem to be making up for the slow down in growth experienced when I was having heat issues.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

It looks like they are recovering nicely. Nice growth since the last pics.

 

[gourmet]

Thanks Hemp Goddess. I was thinking of pinching the tops back but am not sure when to do so.

 

[4u2sm0ke]

Nice recovery...I like to top fim at 4th node...anything sooner I feel is not good

take care and be safe