New Loft Grow Room - Input Appreciated

24 hours in paper towels... so far a couple of seeds look to be swelling/cracking but no tap roots showing yet.

Temp maintained at 22.5-23.7C (72.5-74.6F). Tent humidity at 60% with paper towels nice and damp... maybe something tomorrow? Patience!

loftygoals said:

24 hours in paper towels... so far a couple of seeds look to be swelling/cracking but no tap roots showing yet.

Temp maintained at 22.5-23.7C (72.5-74.6F). Tent humidity at 60% with paper towels nice and damp... maybe something tomorrow? Patience!

Click to expand...

nice seeds & now the fun begins

Had a bit of a panic moment the other day. Went out with the loft hatch open and noticed you could make out the loft hatch outline through a frosted window on the side of the house (didn't think you'd be able to make anything out through it)! So if the hallway light was on and the loft was unlit then you could see a big black square on the ceiling and it's obvious the loft is being accessed. Quickly ordered myself a set of blinds which arrived today and put them up this morning. Loft hatch is no longer visible from outside the house

4 seeds have now popped and have been transplanted into rockwool. 4 haven't done anything yet...

I like to get something done off my checklist every day if possible.

Yesterday I setup a RO water system (one of the cheapest I could find at £49 for a 450L per day system) and attached a 100L water butt as a tank and have started filling it up I have plastic 10L jerry cans waiting to ferry the water up into the hydroponic system.

This evening I installed the veg room floor. I used spray adhesive which worked much better than the stapler round the edges / double sided tape I'd used on the flower room floor previously. Anyway it's done

Now just waiting on these freaking blueberry seeds! We are 5 days down the line and 4 have popped but not made it above ground after being placed in the rockwool yet. The other 4 are just sitting there looking sad. Temp is steady and thermostatically controlled via a heat mat, they are in damp kitchen towel between 2 plates, using pH adjusted tap water... not sure what's going on :\

I'm considering popping some other seeds... maybe try 3-4x purple afghan kush using pH adjusted RO water?

loftygoals said:

I like to get something done off my checklist every day if possible.

Yesterday I setup a RO water system (one of the cheapest I could find at £49 for a 450L per day system) and attached a 100L water butt as a tank and have started filling it up I have plastic 10L jerry cans waiting to ferry the water up into the hydroponic system.

This evening I installed the veg room floor. I used spray adhesive which worked much better than the stapler round the edges / double sided tape I'd used on the flower room floor previously. Anyway it's done

Now just waiting on these freaking blueberry seeds! We are 5 days down the line and 4 have popped but not made it above ground after being placed in the rockwool yet. The other 4 are just sitting there looking sad. Temp is steady and thermostatically controlled via a heat mat, they are in damp kitchen towel between 2 plates, using pH adjusted tap water... not sure what's going on :\

I'm considering popping some other seeds... maybe try 3-4x purple afghan kush using pH adjusted RO water?

Click to expand...

g'day Lofty,
If the seeds are duds then they should send new seeds for free.
Also ferrying water sounds backbreaking unless its someone elses poor back lol,
would it be possible to connect hose & run it
up into the attic/loft with a tap on the end to turn on/off?
VG

Hey vertical,

Well the blueberry seeds were freebies so dunno? I'll give them 2 weeks and then drop an email if nothing happens. Not really expecting much...

I'm trying 4x Purple Afghan Kush seeds now. Have them sitting in a damp paper towel (used pH 6.0 RO water rather than tap water). Other conditions are all the same (temp/humidity controlled)... Fingers crossed!

I know ferrying around water sounds like a pain. Just did some math and I'm going to need around 90 trips up and down the ladder to fill the hydro system! *looks up water hose+pumps* hahaha

Looking good man! I'm sittin' in on this one. I like to see people start from scratch as I am. Good luck and happy growing!

Thanks

Have had an interesting evening. Decided I needed to get my ventilation sorted as the loft temp can rise to 27-28C if I have the house heating on (although I tend to avoid putting the heating on unless I'm expecting visitors). Bare in mind there is no active ventilation at the moment as there is just 1 small tent and 90W of lighting so it's not been an issue so far... but in 3-4 weeks I'd have a big problem!

I already have a vent and 6 inch ducting running to a grill outside (which used to be where the bathroom extractor fan vented). I disconnected the old extractor and plugged in a new one. Wired it up to a mains socket and bypassed the timer so it runs as long as it's switched on. Suspended it from a bungee and attached a filter to stop bugs and crap getting into the room (bought some pre-filter material used on carbon filters). Result? Dropped the temp 10 degrees in an hour. Have now hooked it up via a thermostatically controlled plug to kick in if room temp rises above 21 degrees.

Am waiting on an inline fan to arrive before I hook up the room extraction into the bathroom. Ventilation has cost more than anything else on this build! 5 carbon filters and 7 fans certainly do add up! But that's the price I'm paying for every section of the loft to be carbon filtered separately and then to have a secondary carbon filter going into the house.

So all 4 of the Purple Afghan Kush seeds have cracked. Small tap roots peeking out... will probably transplant them into rockwool tomorrow morning as I'm going to be busy all weekend and probably won't get a chance to look at them again until Monday.

The Blueberry seeds look sad. One is almost peaking out of the rockwool and I think will probably make it. The other 3 that cracked don't seem to be doing much. The 4 that didn't crack are doing nothing after 7 days... I've put them in a ziplock back in damp paper towels and will check on them every few days. After 14 days I'll abandon hope.

Also having a slight problem with my LED lights! It seems switching them on and off a few times when hot can kill the ICs in the cheapo power converters I'm using (cheapest chinese crap I could find that would seem to do the job). After killing 2 power converters in only a week I've abandoned the LED in the germination tent and have hooked up a 125W CFL I had laying around. Immediately noticed the COB LEDs at 90W (somewhere around 8-9000 lumens) were noticeably brighter than the CFL at 125W (apparently 5500 lumens). Luckily I hadn't bought many of the cheapo power converters and can chuck them away without any tears. I've ordered some branded (still kinda cheapo) power converters from hong kong which hopefully will do a better job.

Had a bit of a tidy of the grow room this evening. Moved my germination tent into it's intended final position. All ready to get the big tents up next week and start building the RDWC system.

Cracking stuff. My new build loft doesn't have the luxury of all that space! Damn Taylor Wimpey!

So I'm getting there slowly.

Update on the seeds: The 4 Purple Afghan Kush seedlings are doing well. Only one Blueberry seedling survives but it looks great. The rest stalled after cracking and 4 didn't even crack. They then started to smell badly and turned to mush so I binned them. I think maybe my paper towels and rockwool were too damp? I had given the rockwool a shake after pre-soaking? Live and learn eh? That's why I'm not going for a full on 4kW grow immediately despite having all the bits in place!

Update on the grow room build:
Really starting to look amazing. Space has been maximised I honestly don't think I could have planned it much better. One thing I realised is that there's no way I'd have been able to start the grow and then build around it. Space up there is minimal once all the various bits and pieces started going into place.

I have one of the big 8x4 tents up now. I'm thinking I might put the second tent up soon too (or at least shove it in the attic waiting to be put up) as I don't want anything grow related in the main house once I get into full swing. I'm not someone to do things by halves (can you tell? ) so I have most of the bits in place to make both 8x4 tents and the veg++clone+mother areas all fully operational already. As you can imagine that's a lot of stuff!

RO water system with 100L tank has been setup with an auto shut off valve to keep it full (plus another 100L of plastic Jerry cans to store water). Now have a 400W water pump ready and waiting to pump out of the RO tank through a hose into the attic.

I've also started working on the main tent's lights. Cut up, drilled and painted the steel frame for one of my lights which should cover a 4x4 area. I'm waiting for some power converters and resistors to arrive from the far east before I can get it all wired up though.

Have acquired most of the bits for the RDWC setup too. 17x 20 gallon buckets (I'm going with 8 plants vegged for 6 weeks in each 4x8 tent connected via a joint reservoir and a 225L top up res to keep the water level constant), netpots, pipes, pump and seperate water chiller circuit all here. Just waiting on some connectors to arrive from a local plumbing store and I'll get it assembled.

There are just a few little bits and bobs that need to be sorted over the next week and I think I'm ready for the plants to explode

I'll take some pics over the next few days

loftygoals said:

So I'm getting there slowly.

Update on the seeds: The 4 Purple Afghan Kush seedlings are doing well. Only one Blueberry seedling survives but it looks great. The rest stalled after cracking and 4 didn't even crack. They then started to smell badly and turned to mush so I binned them. I think maybe my paper towels and rockwool were too damp? I had given the rockwool a shake after pre-soaking? Live and learn eh? That's why I'm not going for a full on 4kW grow immediately despite having all the bits in place!

Update on the grow room build:
Really starting to look amazing. Space has been maximised I honestly don't think I could have planned it much better. One thing I realised is that there's no way I'd have been able to start the grow and then build around it. Space up there is minimal once all the various bits and pieces started going into place.

I have one of the big 8x4 tents up now. I'm thinking I might put the second tent up soon too (or at least shove it in the attic waiting to be put up) as I don't want anything grow related in the main house once I get into full swing. I'm not someone to do things by halves (can you tell? ) so I have most of the bits in place to make both 8x4 tents and the veg++clone+mother areas all fully operational already. As you can imagine that's a lot of stuff!

RO water system with 100L tank has been setup with an auto shut off valve to keep it full (plus another 100L of plastic Jerry cans to store water). Now have a 400W water pump ready and waiting to pump out of the RO tank through a hose into the attic.

I've also started working on the main tent's lights. Cut up, drilled and painted the steel frame for one of my lights which should cover a 4x4 area. I'm waiting for some power converters and resistors to arrive from the far east before I can get it all wired up though.

Have acquired most of the bits for the RDWC setup too. 17x 20 gallon buckets (I'm going with 8 plants vegged for 6 weeks in each 4x8 tent connected via a joint reservoir and a 225L top up res to keep the water level constant), netpots, pipes, pump and seperate water chiller circuit all here. Just waiting on some connectors to arrive from a local plumbing store and I'll get it assembled.

There are just a few little bits and bobs that need to be sorted over the next week and I think I'm ready for the plants to explode

I'll take some pics over the next few days

Click to expand...

Heinsenburg 2.0

Cornishi said:

Heinsenburg 2.0

Click to expand...

Not quite! I only have a handful of seedlings

Today has been a bit of a nightmare! I decided to transfer my seedlings out of rockwool and into the clone king (basically a small aeroponic setup). That was always the plan. Once the plants are big enough they'll be transferred again into netpots in the full on RDWC setup.

So I tested the clone king... all seemed to work fine. I actually was sent 2 units by mistake so have a backups of everything (so I thought) in case of disaster. The clone king I bought came with a submersible 110v aquarium pump with a US 2 prong plug. I had a power converter all ready and waiting. Gave everything a wash, plugged it all in... all working fine. Ran it for 20 mins... great. Made up some weak nutrient solution (RO water, 200ppm, pH 5.8 ) and transplanted the seedlings into the clone king. Great! Got myself ready for work and thought "let me check on it one last time"... the pump wasn't working! Tried the other pump which was also dead. Figured it must be the 110v->220v step down power converter! That was the only bloody thing I didn't have a backup of! Scoured the internet looking for a power converter I could buy within the hour... nothing! Arrrggghhh, then I realised I was looking at things the wrong way round. I could just buy a freaking UK water pump! A quick google and I'd located a cheapo pond pump in a local DIY store which was already open. I checked the specs and it was supposed to have the same size water outlet (1/2") and similar flow rates so I ran out the door and bought one. Came back and found it didn't have a bloody plug attached! So wired it up... and then it won't attach to the clone king's nozzles which are waaay too loose! Apparently a US 1/2" is different to a UK 1/2" by about 1mm??! I couldn't wait for silicone sealant to cure so decided to use hot glue! Worked perfectly and managed to get it all up and running again within the hour. Wasn't even late for work

loftygoals said:

as there's quite a chance that I'll f*ck them up on my first grow

Click to expand...

Ha! Not a chance. With the amount of work and research you're putting in. I am confident that you are more than ready.
Will be following your thread with pleasure. Keep up the good Work.

loftygoals said:

Not quite! I only have a handful of seedlings

Today has been a bit of a nightmare! I decided to transfer my seedlings out of rockwool and into the clone king (basically a small aeroponic setup). That was always the plan. Once the plants are big enough they'll be transferred again into netpots in the full on RDWC setup.

So I tested the clone king... all seemed to work fine. I actually was sent 2 units by mistake so have a backups of everything (so I thought) in case of disaster. The clone king I bought came with a submersible 110v aquarium pump with a US 2 prong plug. I had a power converter all ready and waiting. Gave everything a wash, plugged it all in... all working fine. Ran it for 20 mins... great. Made up some weak nutrient solution (RO water, 200ppm, pH 5.8 ) and transplanted the seedlings into the clone king. Great! Got myself ready for work and thought "let me check on it one last time"... the pump wasn't working! Tried the other pump which was also dead. Figured it must be the 110v->220v step down power converter! That was the only bloody thing I didn't have a backup of! Scoured the internet looking for a power converter I could buy within the hour... nothing! Arrrggghhh, then I realised I was looking at things the wrong way round. I could just buy a freaking UK water pump! A quick google and I'd located a cheapo pond pump in a local DIY store which was already open. I checked the specs and it was supposed to have the same size water outlet (1/2") and similar flow rates so I ran out the door and bought one. Came back and found it didn't have a bloody plug attached! So wired it up... and then it won't attach to the clone king's nozzles which are waaay too loose! Apparently a US 1/2" is different to a UK 1/2" by about 1mm??! I couldn't wait for silicone sealant to cure so decided to use hot glue! Worked perfectly and managed to get it all up and running again within the hour. Wasn't even late for work

Click to expand...

Epic story.... hopefully you wont run into too many more of those situations!!

Time for an update with some pics I guess...

So I have one of the tents up. Fits perfectly into place. I'm going to be using the space above the tents to hang my carbon filters and fans which saves wasting space inside the tent.



Have started to built the RDWC system. I'm using 20L buckets (Plant!t branded which have flat sections on both sides so should form nice seals against the plumbing):




I didnt buy enough pipe inserts (needed for every pipe connection with the plumbing system I'm using) so had to stop but all I need to do now is connect up the reservoir which will be outside the tent. Have also put a 10 socket extension in the tent which is rated at 3250W (I'll be using 2400W per tent max).



I'm building in isolation valves so that the reservoir, tent and pump can all be separated without a flood. I'm also connecting up a chiller (Hailea HC300) via a closed circuit inside the res and will be connecting up a Bluelab Guardian for monitoring and a Milwaukee MC720 for automated pH control. Here's where all that will sit:



I'm planning to run a drainage hose from the dehumidifier back into the reservoir too

Also moving ahead with my budget water cooled COB LEDs.

I'm using steel flat sections (much cheaper than aluminium) which have been painted with Hammerite straight to rust spray paint mainly to stop me constantly getting dirty hands from the bare metal. I've then epoxied on cheapo chinese aluminium water blocks and then used thermal cement to attach the COBs. The thermal cement can be separated with moderate force which means I can upgrade to Cree CXBs (or whatever I fancy) after a couple of grows if I want. I had to made modules which attach together as a massive 4x4 light wouldn't fit through the loft hatch! Here are the lights going on:



I've used a selection of cheapo COBs as you can see. I'll be running them around 70W each so we're talking 1100W at the wall per 4x4 area. That's not quite what I planned previously but it makes my life easier when building the lights (which I'm all for! ) For every 4x4 area there are:

4x warm white
4x cool white
2x blue
6x red

And then I've used cheapo braided hose to link the water blocks with cheapo chinese hose clips to secure the hose to the barbs. The connections are very tight (using 8mm ID 14mm OD hose on 10mm barbs with 12mm clips) so I would be very surprised if there was a leak but I'll test that soon enough



The top 2 barbs will be connected together and the bottom 2 will be the in/out connections.

I can't power it all up get because I'm waiting for some power converters to arrive from the far east (resistors arrived yesterday yay!) but because I built an air cooled test unit for my seedling/clone tent I know it'll work fine

Oh and here's the corner where the room's intake and extractor sit. I just need some ratchet straps to arrive so I can hold the secondary carbon filter up and attach it to the bathroom extractor vent.



This really is the business end of the build now!

That is a kick ass set up !!!!!!!!!!! great work so far.

This is definitely a badass grow setup. Very detailed and no shortcuts. I get excited whenever there is an update!

very nice gives me hope about an attic i know of

Looks amazing mate, sub'd!