# New Loft Grow Room - Input Appreciated



## loftygoals (Feb 10, 2016)

Hey guys,

I've been planning my new loft grow room for about 3 months and been working on it for about 6 weeks. I was aiming to get growing at the start of Feb but am a couple weeks behind as it's been a lot more work than I thought.

I'd been thinking of growing for a few years but never had anywhere suitable. It needed to be hidden away from prying eyes. So one night a few months back I opened up the loft hatch to see if it would be suitable... wow!

 
Loads of room but dusty, cold and drafty! No way was it suitable like that. There was loads of junk up there. 4 TV aerials laying around, a garage door which had been broken into pieces and someone decided to store in the loft?! So I got cleaning, cleared the central area and started laying a chipboard floor. This was hard work with no proper lighting, dust was everywhere but I got there eventually...

 

With a floor done I could work without being scared of putting my foot through a ceiling (came close a few times!). I ran 2.5mm mains cable off the upstairs mains electric supply in a ring. I wired up 5 double sockets for a start which should be able to supply 32A 240V (7680 watts max) in total.

 

Now for insulation. I decided on celotex between the rafters. I've only gone with 50mm which I think is enough (I have my own FLIR camera arriving soon so I should be able to take a good look at the roof myself ). The U value of unfilled cavity walls of this house would be 1.6 W/mk while the celotex has a U value of 0.44 W/mk which means the roof should be loosing about 4x less heat than the walls (it's not quite that simple because I'm leaving the timbers uninsulated other than some aluminium tape but you get the idea... 50mm of celotex should be plenty in theory).

 

This was quite a challenge! The rafters were all different widths apart and some were at wonky angles... but I got there in the end.

 

I used expanding polyurethane foam to seal off the corners completely and aluminium tape on all joins. 

 

This week I've been building an insulated stud wall on the party wall to keep out any stray noise/smells from the neighbours. I'm almost done. Just need to tape up the studwork. It's been pretty hard work because I have a no power tools or hammering after 6:30pm rule (common sense IMO) and most days I'm at work during the day... anyway we got there eventually!

 

So I'm almost at the point where I can get started growing. I didn't want to germinate anything and not have things setup properly then mess around with small plants in the room while I'm sawing timbers and insulation.

Today I went and cleaning up the house. I've even changed the bathroom extractor fan outlet to a larger grill (the old fan didn't work and the old grill was badly yellowed anyway). I've repainted the bathroom ceiling and loft hatch with Dulux Trade Diamond paint which is supposed to be 10x tougher than normal paint so can be cleaned to remove any signs that I've been using the hatch 

I'm relatively limited for headroom particularly around the sides where the roof slopes in. So I've bought 2 8x4 foot Roof Qube tents. They'll go in the middle obviously and I'll probably link them together in the future. I'm planning a RDWC setup and have bought most of the bits. Then I'm a little stuck with how best to use the rest of the space? This was my thinking (grey lines are load bearing walls or massive 2x15 inch beams):

 
So I'm thinking I can build 2x veg cabinets into the corners to get my plants started for 2-3 weeks and then move them into the central tents. The whole loft area is going to be supplied with air from a single side vent which was already in place and I'll be venting into the bathroom via an extra large extractor fan vent which is carbon filtered. The central tents are going to run their own 8 inch carbon filter too so any air going into the house will be double filtered from flowering plants. I'll be running a 265W dehumidifier in the grow room and then a 500W dehumidifier in the house to keep condensation down. I have an industrial Ozone generator which I'll run if I open up the tents.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Comments? 

Planning something special for lighting too... water cooled DIY COB LEDs being cooled by a car radiator and a 16inch 1800cfm car radiator fan blowing over it


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## loftygoals (Feb 11, 2016)

Nothing? Oh well


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## elastic-man (Feb 11, 2016)

Mate that looks out if this world  what I'd give for that space  plus you done a sterling job fixing it up  keep at it bro defo know what you're doing by the looks of it  crack on mate can't wait to see this fired up 
Atb


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## loftygoals (Feb 11, 2016)

Thanks 

Never done a grow before so a little apprehensive about it and defo don't want to get caught!

Have just ordered some pond liner for the floor. By my calculations the central floor area should hold over 1000 litres (If I have a barrier around the edges a minimum of 4 inches high) before it starts overflowing. Considering there's not going to be that much water up there in the first place it should survive a full on disastrous complete system water loss without damaging the ceilings below... that's the plan anyway 

Gonna be starting with 8 Blueberry fem seeds. I'm setting Friday 19th Feb as my seed start date now. Should have the cabinets built and the roof tested with the FLIR camera by then *fingers crossed*


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## KryptoBud (Feb 11, 2016)

Nice job, looks good. Do you think you'll need any air conditioning in the summer months?


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## Justinsbudzzz (Feb 11, 2016)

Love this setup looks like your in for some fun..


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## a senile fungus (Feb 11, 2016)

It's so nice to see it done right!

Usually it is, "hey, I put some cardboard up, and now I can't figure out how to stabilize temps and why my ceiling is sweating!"

I wish you the best.

You will need to trouble shoot air movement and humidity, but sounds like you're figuring that out. 

One day at a time.

You won't know what's gonna change until you change something !


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## loftygoals (Feb 12, 2016)

This afternoon I've spent a couple of hours working on the floor. I had to fit in new boards around 2 large 2.4mx0.6m boards which had been placed up there previously and had been hammered in with nails (prone to squeaks). Well the joins between the new and old boards were really squeaky and the old boards were coming loose in places. I had considered ripping up that section of floor and just replacing it with new but it seemed quite a waste of time and effort just to eliminate some squeaks. So... I bought some steel mending plates:
After an hour with my impact driver, 19 mending plates and 300 screws... the floor is completely squeak free  The old nails have been reinforced with screws too so it should stay squeak free for good 

I also had another look at the layout and hit a stumbling block! I hadn't considered the space the loft ladder takes when it's up in the loft (as I'm never up there with it fully up). So I climbed up while the ladder was still up in the loft and checked out how much space it takes... Luckily with some juggling I can still fit my tents in  But the tent nearest the ladder needs to move over so it's in the recess in the party wall. That means the veg cabinet on that side gets bigger and the one on the other side gets squashed to make it pretty worthless. So it looks like I'm having 1 larger 8x8 veg room now rather than smaller ones on each side... will make my life easier in the long run too 

Here's the new layout:


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## loftygoals (Feb 16, 2016)

Today has been quite productive. Had a day off work 

I've sealed off the loft completely now so wanted to check for heat leaks with my new FLIR camera. Put a 2000W fan heater up there over night and in the morning it was 34 degrees in the loft. -3 outside this morning... There was frost on the outside of the roof and the average roof surface temp was around 1.5C. Exactly the same as the neighbours  There were no hot spots and the windows from both houses were around 5-7C (so were loosing a lot more heat than the roof). So we have successful heat stealth  (can't show pics of the house for obvious reasons)

Also built the veg room walls and have the floor ready for the pond liner to go in. Just waiting for some double sided tape to arrive and I'll be putting the liner down... hopefully this weekend.

On track to get the seeds going by the end of the week *fingers crossed*.


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## Indagrow (Feb 16, 2016)

I would just suggest some 3mil plastic, it helped me out a lot with my loft grow room.. Helped contain smell and water from going to the floor (celling) below. Maybe it's just me but I want to keep all the moisture in the room and not let it out. Room looks fucking sick tho man i would have been pumped to find that room!


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## BarnBuster (Feb 16, 2016)

real nice fucking job, lofty. sometimes it takes a while for folks to read the thread depending when you post. You won't have a problem in the summer time with heat and or moisture build up? and like @a senile fungus says you have to keep an eye on the airflow and moisture re: for the house itself. i like the progress pictures, makes the rest of us go up into the attic, look around and think... 

_edit: super first posts!_


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## loftygoals (Feb 16, 2016)

Indagrow said:


> I would just suggest some 3mil plastic, it helped me out a lot with my loft grow room.. Helped contain smell and water from going to the floor (celling) below. Maybe it's just me but I want to keep all the moisture in the room and not let it out. Room looks fucking sick tho man i would have been pumped to find that room!


Yeah, gonna be putting 0.3mm pond liner down with a 4 inch minimum border around the walls. That should hold more than triple the amount of water in the whole RDWC system in the event of a catastrophic leak 



BarnBuster said:


> real nice fucking job, lofty. sometimes it takes a while for folks to read the thread depending when you post. You won't have a problem in the summer time with heat and or moisture build up? and like @a senile fungus says you have to keep an eye on the airflow and moisture re: for the house itself. i like the progress pictures, makes the rest of us go up into the attic, look around and think...
> 
> _edit: super first posts!_


Thanks 

The loft is sealed apart from 1 vent from outside which will blow in and 1 vent going into the bathroom extractor grill. I'm gonna vent into the bathroom (double carbon filtered air - once out of the growing space into the left space and then filtered again just before it hits the bathroom) and have 2 dehumidifiers ready to go (one 265W to run in the loft and one 500W to run in the house). Hopefully that should be enough to control temps and humidity.

I'm not going to be running AC. Not needed in the UK climate. We get about 2 weeks of hot weather a year if we're lucky!

If I really get stuck with temps in the summer I could make a second vent into the house but I really want to avoid that if possible. At the moment I could rip everything out and leave no trace within a day if I really needed to but making a second vent hole in a ceiling would make that impossible.


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## sixspeedv (Feb 16, 2016)

I'm subbed up. Your build out is awesome man can't wait to see some plants and lights in there.


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## BamaBoyBeRolling (Feb 16, 2016)

Amazing craftsmanship. Since its a attic grow I would do co2 to make venting less of an issue then you could have completely sealed rooms with a portable air unit plugged into the walls for when the temp starts reaching 95 degrees. So you don't have to have a room blazing hot or pushing out suspicious amounts of hot air out of the roof.

EDIT
Just make sure to have a co2 reader in the rooms below the grow to see if it leaks. If so I think you can figure it out.


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## whitebb2727 (Feb 16, 2016)

I like it. Good job. Does it have one of those fold down ladder? Those suck.

Looks good and clean. Have fun. I'm subbed.


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## Indagrow (Feb 16, 2016)

Typical co2 range is around 400ppm.. However co2 is a heavy gas you will find less in your attic (mine read 213) I had to supplement just to get it back to 'normal levels' although you said uk is cold with the heat that comes from these added lights you may want to think of some co2 action. I HAD to run it coupled with silica to battle some hot temps, hopefully this isn't the case for you


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## jaibyrd7 (Feb 16, 2016)

Very nice!


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## verticalgrow (Feb 16, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Today has been quite productive. Had a day off work
> 
> I've sealed off the loft completely now so wanted to check for heat leaks with my new FLIR camera. Put a 2000W fan heater up there over night and in the morning it was 34 degrees in the loft. -3 outside this morning... There was frost on the outside of the roof and the average roof surface temp was around 1.5C. Exactly the same as the neighbours  There were no hot spots and the windows from both houses were around 5-7C (so were loosing a lot more heat than the roof). So we have successful heat stealth  (can't show pics of the house for obvious reasons)
> 
> ...


g'day Lofty,
are u going to be using hps?
great to see 110% effort & thx for sharing
VG


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## loftygoals (Feb 17, 2016)

whitebb2727 said:


> I like it. Good job. Does it have one of those fold down ladder? Those suck.
> 
> Looks good and clean. Have fun. I'm subbed.


Yup squeaky aluminium fold down ladder. Sucks but that's what I'm working with... I've oiled it up and it's not too noisy now.



verticalgrow said:


> g'day Lofty,
> are u going to be using hps?
> great to see 110% effort & thx for sharing
> VG


No probs. I'm going with DIY water cooled cheapo chinese COB LEDs. I'll post some pics when I'm working on the lights but it'll involve:
96x 100W COB LEDs running at 45W each (4300W total in the 8x8 flower area)
Water cooling with a 40x40cm car radiator and 16 inch 1800cfm car radiator fan

I used to be into PC watercooling way back in 1999-2003. When I first got started there were no specialist pumps available (everyone used pond pumps), a handful of waterblock manufacturers, dodgy tubing etc. Putting together this water cooling setup should be a doddle and cheap too 

Each 4x4 light (1080W at the wall with 24 COBs) will cost around £240 for me to make. I actually already have all the bits and made a 90W air cooled unit as a test (which is now going to sit in my clone tent). The 2 big advantages of my setup I can see are:
1. all the heat will get pumped directly into the radiator which will be outside the grow area.
2. the LED units will be upgradable if the grow proves to be a success and I feel the need (CREE CXBs would add another £3-7,000 to the cost of the lighting! No way I'm investing that much before I've even seen a seedling!)


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## loftygoals (Feb 19, 2016)

So... here's an update!

Managed to get the veg room walls up. Got all the edges sealed up etc also wired up 2 more sockets on the stud wall and joined the mains ring together neatly (previously it looped back on itself as the stud wall wasn't done yet):

 

Got the floor all swept up. Clogged my vacuum cleaner filters and killed the motor cleaning up there! Installed the pond liner on the floor. Used a combination of double sided tape and a staple gun (don't worry, only stapled the edges! haha) to maintain a 5 inch high border all the way around:

 

Here's a bit of a sneak at some of my supplies... I need to get everything up there and outta my damn bedroom soon! Starting to get annoying 

 

Tonight I've been setting up my seedling/clone tent:

 

Barely any noise. I measured 22db (whisper quiet) at 2.5m. No way anyone can hear anything outside the room... and I want to keep it that way!

I'm planning to germinate in paper towels and then move to rockwool cubes to get established, then into a clone king 36 to grow a bit more, and finally into RDWC.

I've setup a 4 inch fan and carbon filter but they're not turned on yet. I'm running my 90W LED light just to keep some warmth in the tent tonight and have a thermometer/hygrometer monitoring the environment until I can check on everything in the morning. I also have a 9W heat mat attached to a thermostat. It's set to keep the seeds at 21C (70F) and the probe is sitting inside 2 plates with damp paper towels and my seeds 

So which seeds have I picked? Well I bought quite a selection and also got a load of freebies I probably wouldn't have picked myself 

 

12x Blueberry
10x Purple Afghan Kush
6x Viper Cookies
6x Northern Lights (3x Sensi Seeds and 3x Ministry of Cannabis)
6x Pineapple Express
3x Chocolate Mint
3x Super Lemon Haze
2x Lemon OG
2x Pineapple Kush
1x Sour Diesel
1x Chocolope
1x Critical Jack
1x Kandy Kush
1x 24k Gold
1x Blue Venom
1x Auto Dark Purple

All fem seeds  So what's the plan? Well I'm gonna start with 8x Blueberry freebies as there's quite a chance that I'll f*ck them up on my first grow  So I'm not gonna be too precious about them... I'm only utilising 25% of the potential grow area but am aiming to be 100% operational (8x8 veg and 8x8 flower) for the second grow.

My todo list for the next 2 weeks:
1. setting up my reverse osmosis water filter unit
2. setting up room ventilation
3. putting up the large tents
4. building the RDWC system
5. building the water cooled COB LED lights

Long way to go!


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## loftygoals (Feb 20, 2016)

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!


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## verticalgrow (Feb 21, 2016)

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!


nice seeds & now the fun begins


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## loftygoals (Feb 23, 2016)

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...


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## loftygoals (Feb 24, 2016)

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?


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## verticalgrow (Feb 24, 2016)

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.
> 
> ...


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


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## loftygoals (Feb 24, 2016)

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


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## Johnny-mariseed (Feb 25, 2016)

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!


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## loftygoals (Feb 25, 2016)

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.


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## loftygoals (Feb 26, 2016)

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.


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## Cornishi (Feb 27, 2016)

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


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## loftygoals (Mar 2, 2016)

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


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## Cornishi (Mar 3, 2016)

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!
> 
> ...


Heinsenburg 2.0


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## loftygoals (Mar 3, 2016)

Cornishi said:


> Heinsenburg 2.0


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


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## 420 Boy (Mar 3, 2016)

loftygoals said:


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


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.


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## Cornishi (Mar 4, 2016)

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


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


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## loftygoals (Mar 4, 2016)

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!


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## thewanderer718 (Mar 4, 2016)

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


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## sixspeedv (Mar 4, 2016)

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


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## saiyaneye (Mar 4, 2016)

very nice gives me hope about an attic i know of


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## Keggz (Mar 5, 2016)

Looks amazing mate, sub'd!


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## 420 Boy (Mar 6, 2016)




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## Cornishi (Mar 6, 2016)

I reckon I'll get you to come kit my space out when I'm ready lol. The man is a mind!


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## fortheloveofgrow (Mar 6, 2016)

Wow Lofty! Just incredible man. You're a mad scientist over there! I have zero doubt you will be growing loads and loads of dankness in your first run. You sir, are prepared. Great documentation of your process too, we all appreciate it. Excited to follow your posts on any topic, I have a similar tinkerer/planners approach and can glean much from your experiments. I'll be watching!


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## loftygoals (Mar 9, 2016)

Bit of an update...

Seedlings seemed to be doing ok but not perfect. I noticed some dark spots on the 1st true leaves on the Blueberry seedling a couple of days ago. Then yesterday evening I noticed the roots all had a very light brown colouring  They're still in the clone king and I hadn't realised how important water temp would be at this stage! It was at 28C and it seems I have some root rot starting 

I had spent the day setting up my water chiller loop in the RDWC reservoir anyway so I fired it up for 20 mins and it brought the water temps down to 17C. Then I thought screw it.. changed the water and gave the clone king bucket + pump a wash in hot bleach. Then reloaded fresh water (again RO ph 5.8 200ppm) and put the seedlings back. The old water smelt like the seeds that rotted away a while back in tap water  I'm thinking I probably have pythium in my tap water which is what killed all those seeds at the start 

So it looks like I'll need a chiller to keep the water cool in the cloner too. I've ordered a 60W Peltier, heatsink and 120W power supply which I'm planning to make into a DIY water chiller and attach to the side of the clone king. I can power it with one of the thermostatically controlled plugs I bought a while back to keep the water at a constant temp. Fingers crossed... Until then it looks like I'll be cooling the water manually once a day 

I've also hung and wired up/ducted my carbon filters and fans today. I'll take some pics over the next couple of days... the second tent should be going up tomorrow too. Then I'll have everything "grow" related out of the main house


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## sixspeedv (Mar 9, 2016)

Would love a DIY guide on the Peltier chiller once you get all settled in up there. Keep up the awesome work!!


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## loftygoals (Mar 9, 2016)

I'll try and take some pics as I'm making it... but it shouldn't be very difficult.

60W Peltier:





£1.32 off ebay (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/281647941472)

80mm CPU Cooler:
£6.99 off ebay (can get one for about £3.40 shipped from China but I didn't want to wait) (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/401084730055)

12V 10A PSU (Peltier needs 5A at 12V and cooling fan uses less than 0.5A at 12V)
£10.49 off ebay (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/191733870857)

Thermostatically controlled plug:





£7.84 on ebay (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/381098253044)

Should go something like this:

1. Wire up the PSU (L, N and GND are marked as you can see on the picture on ebay)
2. Attach a plug to other end
3. Wire up peltier to DC + and - on PSU (if you get them the wrong way round it'll heat instead of cool!)
4. Attach peltier to heatsink with thermal cement
5. Wire up heatsink to DC + and - on PSU
5. Attach contraption to side of water tank to be cooled (probably using epoxy)
6. Plug in thermostatically controlled plug and dangle probe in water tank
7. Set temperature for peltier to be activated

And you're done  Total cost £26.68 plus a plug and some wire. I'd definately strap the PSU high off the ground to avoid it getting wet as it has no protection against water splashes. If you wanted to be sensible you'd put the PSU in an IP68 box tied a couple of feet above the ground with rubber grommets for cable exits (can get one off ebay for £7.99 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161974044681).

As I said... I'll try and take some pics of my build


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## crypticgrower (Mar 10, 2016)

cool keep it up your gunna have a killer grow


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## Cornishi (Mar 10, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> I'll try and take some pics as I'm making it... but it shouldn't be very difficult.
> 
> 60W Peltier:
> 
> ...


So the peltier doesnt need to be in the water? Just on the side of the tank? Will it have enough power to cool through the side then? Will you need a venturi to distribute the water to ensure it's always flowing?
Trying to visualise how it'd work.


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## loftygoals (Mar 10, 2016)

Cornishi said:


> So the peltier doesnt need to be in the water? Just on the side of the tank? Will it have enough power to cool through the side then? Will you need a venturi to distribute the water to ensure it's always flowing?
> Trying to visualise how it'd work.


Yup, side of the tank should be fine. The principal of a peltier is that is takes heat from one side and transfers it to the other side. So one side gets cold and one gets hot. If u attach the cold side to the side of the water tank that should be fine.

In an aeroponic cloner the water is always flowing through the pump and gets mixed constantly. So there shouldn't be any need for extra mixing.

If you Google a bit you'll see other people have successfully done the same thing already. I'll let u know if my attempt works 

Edit: Just had a little think and alternatively the water could be cooled directly. That would require a cheapo aluminium water block (which I have plenty of) and a cheapo 12V water pump (which I also have spare ). All the bits should arrive on Monday and then I'll post up some pics


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## Cornishi (Mar 11, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Yup, side of the tank should be fine. The principal of a peltier is that is takes heat from one side and transfers it to the other side. So one side gets cold and one gets hot. If u attach the cold side to the side of the water tank that should be fine.
> 
> In an aeroponic cloner the water is always flowing through the pump and gets mixed constantly. So there shouldn't be any need for extra mixing.
> 
> ...


Sounds awesome.
Are you naturally a handyman like this or are you trained in electrics n shiz? I'd never think to do half the stuff you're doing. Probably why my grow cost soo much to start with


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## Michael Huntherz (Mar 11, 2016)

@loftygoals Impressive work, you picked the correct screen name! Really cool, ambitious as hell. I'm a Keep it Simple guy, but my idea of simple is complex to some folks, and I have a feeling you're even farther down that scale. This probably is your concept of "simple." Great stuff, rock on. Try a bit of H2O2 in your reservoir to keep those roots white, 2TBSP per gallon of a 3% solution should do it.


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## loftygoals (Mar 11, 2016)

Cornishi said:


> Sounds awesome.
> Are you naturally a handyman like this or are you trained in electrics n shiz? I'd never think to do half the stuff you're doing. Probably why my grow cost soo much to start with


Nah I havent had any electronics training apart from some basics at school aged 9-11 messing with batteries, LEDs and motors! Oh! and I remember wiring up a mains electric plug at school when I was about 15 too 



Michael Huntherz said:


> @loftygoals Impressive work, you picked the correct screen name! Really cool, ambitious as hell. I'm a Keep it Simple guy, but my idea of simple is complex to some folks, and I have a feeling you're even farther down that scale. This probably is your concept of "simple." Great stuff, rock on. Try a bit of H2O2 in your reservoir to keep those roots white, 2TBSP per gallon of a 3% solution should do it.


Thanks for the advice. I've just changed my cloner water again (am doing it every other day at the moment). I bleached out the container and used fresh water (again RO, ph 5.8, 200ppm). I've hooked up the Hailea HC300 chiller directly to the cloner and have it set at 17C so that should take care of things until monday when hopefully I can build a smaller less overkill chiller. I used H2O2 as suggested and gave the roots a quick wash in H202 while I was at it.

I now have the second tent up, RDWC system all built in both flower tents, fans and filters all hung... Just need these bloody plants to hurry up


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## loftygoals (Mar 15, 2016)

Had a bit of a disaster over the weekend. I had cheapo chinese hose clips on all hose connections out of my chiller. They were zinc plated which I thought would be fine under water... wrong! On Saturday I noticed the pH had risen to 8.2 so added a bit of pH down... but the pH barely moved, so I added a lot more until I was at pH 5.8. Later I came back and tested it again and the pH had risen again with the seedlings now looking very very droopy! So I emptied the system and had a look for anything different... I found the clips corroded with a powdery coating (they were part of the water chiller loop). The plants look very sad at the moment. I pondered starting again but thought I'd give them a chance to recover and carry on. I think it's gonna be 2 weeks from now before I disturb the seedlings again. I'll just let them chill out and relax  You learn from your mistakes eh? That's what the first run is for!

Luckily there were only about 2 places where I had planned to have submerged hose clips so I can easily change them to stainless steel jubilee clips or plastic clips (if I even bother to put clips on submerged connections... which I probably won't now).

Was planning to fill the whole RDWC system tonight and leave it running for 3-4 days to test for leaks. I had my cheapo water pump sitting in the water butt full of RO water, connected up the hose to the pump at one end and to the reservoir at the other end... started it up... and nothing! Then got a small trickle! Basically the pump is not powerful enough to send water from the ground floor up into the loft. I had assumed a 7m delivery height would be enough, clearly not! So I've had to buy another pump... this one is 1200w and has a 46m delivery height and should be able to empty my water butt in under 1 minute 

Also had quite a funny encounter while picking up some buckets today. I often have stuff delivered to a collection point locally and go pick things up 2-3 times a week as I'm usually working during the day and miss deliveries otherwise. So I went to pick up some buckets I'd ordered off the net... she finds them, brings them over, asks me what I'm doing with 40 buckets? Not anticipating the question I tell her I'm planting tomatoes in my greenhouse and they works well as cheap pots  I honestly couldn't think of anything I'd legitimately be doing with 40 buckets??! She starts to go on about gardening and clay soil  I just smile and nod cos I've got no idea what she's talking about hahaha

I'm gonna wire up some fan speed controllers tonight hopefully. High speed RVK and Rhino fans are too damn loud! Low speed are just about acceptable but I'm still slightly concerned about the neighbours  Although realistically I can only hear the low speed ones at night from rooms directly beneath the fans...


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## Michael Huntherz (Mar 15, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Had a bit of a disaster over the weekend. I had cheapo chinese hose clips on all hose connections out of my chiller. They were zinc plated which I thought would be fine under water... wrong! On Saturday I noticed the pH had risen to 8.2 so added a bit of pH down... but the pH barely moved, so I added a lot more until I was at pH 5.8. Later I came back and tested it again and the pH had risen again with the seedlings now looking very very droopy! So I emptied the system and had a look for anything different... I found the clips corroded with a powdery coating (they were part of the water chiller loop). The plants look very sad at the moment. I pondered starting again but thought I'd give them a chance to recover and carry on. I think it's gonna be 2 weeks from now before I disturb the seedlings again. I'll just let them chill out and relax  You learn from your mistakes eh? That's what the first run is for!
> 
> Luckily there were only about 2 places where I had planned to have submerged hose clips so I can easily change them to stainless steel jubilee clips or plastic clips (if I even bother to put clips on submerged connections... which I probably won't now).
> 
> ...


Yikes! I guess that's the thing about scaling to this size out of the gate, when things go wrong they go wrong at scale. Good luck, just keep on top of it and you'll pull through fine, hopefully.


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## loftygoals (Apr 2, 2016)

Hey guys,

Haven't had an update as I've been too busy and the seedlings I started earlier never made it past the incident with the zinc hose clips dissolving into the water  After trying to keep them going they were just not doing anything and it seemed pointless to put so much energy into them. So... I killed them 

Took the time to finish off the veg room before I started again. Built a RDWC system as you can see:

 

Using 16x tiny 5 litre buckets  Might be small but should be enough to get the plants going for 4 weeks before they get moved into the flower tents. The netpots are compatible with the 20 litre buckets in the flower tents so I just have to move them over... easy peasy?! 

I tried quite a few different water pumps. Eventually I've settled on cheap 12V 1000L/h DC water pumps which can be had for £10 each.







Using them for my RDWC circuits and the chiller circuits. Why? They are cheap, have standard threaded 1/2 inch connections (compatible with both my different RDWC and chiller circuits) and can be adjusted with voltage. So I have a 12V PSU in a waterproof box strapped to the wall of the room and then wires with 12V DC coming out into the room. The speed of the pumps can then be adjusted with a simple screwdriver in a few seconds. Any AC pump I tried was more expensive, most were impossible to adjust and the connections could be awkward to interchange between my applications.

For lighting I wanted to have around 600W but didn't want to spend money on more lights... so I built aircooled LEDs using parts I had left over from the water cooled lights in the flower tents:

 

We have 4x 3500k and 4x 6500k 100W cheapo chinese COB LEDs. Each LED is running around 70W. At the wall they're drawing around 570W total:

 

I also bought another chiller so I can have separate chiller circuits for the flower reservoir and the veg reservoir. Just finished priming the circuit and it seems to be running smoothly.

So which seedlings have I popped?

 
Top to bottom:
4x Blueberry
4x Pineapple Express
4x Purple Afghan Kush
4x Viper Cookies

Maybe tomorrow or the day after I'll be putting them into the RDWC setup in some clay balls (fingers crossed!)

No pics of the water cooled LEDs finished yet as I havent powered them up. I'll be putting together the water cooling circuit (car radiator needs mouting onto a wooden frame) tomorrow hopefully!


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## loftygoals (Apr 3, 2016)

Every single seed has germinated nicely and are looking really healthy... except the Blueberry! Are they all just bunk? Is that why they were freebies and why I was having so much trouble at the start?!

Take a look for yourself... decent progress by all the seedlings but nothing from Blueberry 

 

I'll be transplanting into hydroton tomorrow (too tired now!). Most of the seedlings have taproots popping through the rockwool so they're ready


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## loftygoals (Apr 4, 2016)

Had an interesting time earlier 

I have 3 carbon filters hanging from the ceiling (one from the veg room and two from the flower tents). The veg room fan/filter always looked a little precarious but I was hoping it would be ok... yesterday the filter fell down  Didn't do any damage but I had to get it back up there. I'd initially hung it using a ladder before the tents went up. Now there's not enough space to access the filters so what to do? 

I climbed up on top of the tents! What a pain in the ass! I was sweating buckets up there  Dropped a screwdriver and some rope so had to climb up and down a couple of times (there's not many times I've wished someone was around to help me with this grow... but perched on top of a couple of grow tents looking at my screwdriver on the floor was definitely one of them!). Finally managed to rehang the filter and attach it to the fan. No air leaks and pretty secure now 

Lucky I'm not fat


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## loftygoals (Apr 5, 2016)

Today I built the frame for the water cooled lights radiator.



Essentially we have a radiator from a 2.0L petrol car which should be capable of dissipating around 57,000W of heat. I'll only be asking it to handle around 1,400W of heat energy at a time so it should be more than up to the task. Then we have a 16 inch 1800CFM car radiator fan all mounted onto a timber frame. I've used foam pads to mount the fan onto the rad to eliminate any rattle.

I've wired it up to attach to the 12V power supply already mounted in the grow room (already has plenty of spare amp capacity) with an inline on/off switch.

Then I've used reducers to make it compatible with a water pump and reservoir (Eheim 1048 ) which I've already mounted in the grow room.

It should be more than capable of keeping the lights cool and hopefully will dump the heat directly out of the flower tents and into my main house. That's the plan anyway!


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## SoOLED (Apr 5, 2016)

24k Gold one of my all time favs. I have never had a run at it, but a member in our co-op did WOW!

in my area I don't get a lot of freedom to grow lots of strains, people tend to latch on to names around here and if the patients are not looking/asking for it...well I can only smoke so much myself.


looks like you got everything in order, one thing people forget is how messy this hobby is. don't forget a smoke alarm, fire extinguisher. maybe some wireless cams too, you have have your plants on a web cam and get gold.


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## loftygoals (Apr 8, 2016)

So it's been a week (7 days exactly) since the first seed germinated and 5 days since I moved the seedlings into the mini 5L RDWC veg room setup.

I can never quite get an idea of what to expect in terms of growth. Some people post monster pics of "1 week old" seedlings that look almost impossible. So I thought I'd document what happens in my grow under 570W of cheap COB LED lighting.

Here is my Pineapple Express:



Here's Purple Afghan Kush:



Here's Viper Cookies:



Here's what my environment looks like:



As you can see air temp is 23.2C and water temp is 18.6C with 19% RH. I have been experimenting with slowing fans and lowering lights and think I've found the sweet spot.

Finally we have Blueberry. Now initially none popped. I did some surgery on them as it had been 9 days since I started trying to germinate and they weren't doing much. I gently opened up the seed cases (which had already cracked but then stalled) and then replaced them in rockwool in the plastic tray. 2 days ago I got a seedling!



and yesterday I got another:



I put them in the RDWC as soon as the tap root pops through the rockwool cube.

So the grow is coming along nicely 

Now how am I doing with the water cooled lights? Well I had a test today. Radiator works nicely and the water cooling keeps the COBs insanely cool. Only problem is the red cheapo COBs I have don't work properly! They're apparently 100W COBs (they're the right dimensions too) and they apparently run at 36V 3.1A... but when I put them above 40W (25V 1.6A) they smoke! A layer of smoke seems to come off the silicone on the front of the COBs even with water cooling  So I might have to abandon the red COBs mixed in and have all white (warm+cool mix) LEDs. No biggie, I have plenty of spares because my LED supplier sent me about 40 extra for some reason 

I've been looking at the Meanwell HLG-600H-36A driver... has me licking my lips in anticipation! Paired up with Cree CXB3590 COBs and water cooling... would get amazing results and run very cool! I even contacted chinese suppliers for a price and have been quoted $156 per driver which is outstanding! But I've told myself I'm going to get 2 grows under my belt with the cheapies before I shell out the serious cash.

Oh and here's what the whole veg room looks like at the moment:


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## SoOLED (Apr 8, 2016)

how many vertical feet to you have? I don't see any shadows. they are gonna to get a lot of light for sure. which is going to make them very big =)

keep that CALMAG on ready 5, cause your going to have some massive trunks no doubt.


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## loftygoals (Apr 9, 2016)

I went and pulled out my wide angle lens to get a shot of the current LED height. I now have 720W (10x 100W COBs running about 70W each) of cheap COB LEDs in there and could get them about 5ft off the floor.



The veg room is about 6ft from floor to ceiling but is in an awkward shape:



The idea being to move the plants from there and into the 8x4 flower tents once they're big enough:



Where hopefully 2200W of lighting will be waiting per tent. Should have the lights up (in one tent at least) very soon. The RDWC setups have been built. Air pumps in place. Ventilation all sorted with each area carbon filtered...


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## SoOLED (Apr 9, 2016)

excellent, you out did yourself for sure. keep them toping clips sharp your gonna need them.

I doubt we will not see the back wall for long.

.


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## Calvin Noir (Apr 9, 2016)

Fantastic job on your setup. I hope there is some seats free at the front so I can sit there and enjoy the show


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## loftygoals (Apr 10, 2016)

Bit of fiddling today.

Put a 12 inch desk fan in a corner of the veg tent. It's slightly too strong on setting 1 so I've had to jiggle the plants around a bit.

As most of the seedlings are 8 days old I've upped the PPM from 350 to 500. Eventually balanced the pH at 5.8... I get a bit flumoxed by pH really. I have a auto pH doser which is going to go onto the flower reservoir and wanted to do the pH of the veg room manually as it shouldn't be as prone to drifting and gives me an idea of how to program the pH doser. So far I've been patient and not overcorrected and had to do the funky pH up/down dance. But it takes over an hour for the pH to settle and over that time it's really tempting to fiddle some more. Sometimes I forget to recheck for a few hours (like today) and have the plants sitting at pH 4.4 for a while  Ahh well, live and learn eh?

Also added a light timer. Moved from 24/0 to 20/4 which I think I'll stick with for the next 2 weeks...

Most of the plants have roots coming out of the netpots and into the buckets now. You can really tell which ones got there first as there's a dramatic increase in size already. There are just 2 Purple Afghan Kush seedlings and the 2 Blueberry seedlings (to be expected as they're 5-6 days behind all the others) which haven't made it out of the netpots yet.

Now I have a bit of a quandary... As only 2 of the Blueberry seeds made it I have 2 spaces free. Now do I pop a couple of other strains I fancy? Or do I just stick with these for now? I'm thinking the sensible thing to do is just grow out 14 plants and train them to fit the whole flower area? Considering I'm planning to grab a few clones and make some mother plants (have to setup an area for mothers in autopots still) from these it seems adding more complexity for a newbie like me would be an unnecessary burden at the moment...


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## awil7698 (Apr 10, 2016)

Hey loving the operation dude I was wondering where do you vent all your hot air I'm sure uve already mentioned earlier but I've forgotten lol


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## roundplanet (Apr 10, 2016)

Goodgagamoo what a great job! I wish the best of luck with this and many many more grows.


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## sixspeedv (Apr 10, 2016)

Lofty is a dam wizard!


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## resinhead (Apr 10, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> 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.
> 
> ...




Dang! Your approaching this project like an experienced pro! Nice work!!


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## loftygoals (Apr 10, 2016)

awil7698 said:


> Hey loving the operation dude I was wondering where do you vent all your hot air I'm sure uve already mentioned earlier but I've forgotten lol


Room intake is from the old bathroom extractor vent in the roof so I get fresh air coming in. Room extractor is into the bathroom (old bathroom extractor vent). So all the heat goes into the house and there is no heat signature visible from outside. I have a FLIR camera and have checked it out myself. Compared to the neighbours the roof is about the same temp and THEIR chimney stack is hotter than mine 

I have 2 dehumidifiers ready to go for when it gets humid in the house/loft.


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## awil7698 (Apr 10, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Room intake is from the old bathroom extractor vent in the roof so I get fresh air coming in. Room extractor is into the bathroom (old bathroom extractor vent). So all the heat goes into the house and there is no heat signature visible from outside. I have a FLIR camera and have checked it out myself. Compared to the neighbours the roof is about the same temp and THEIR chimney stack is hotter than mine
> 
> I have 2 dehumidifiers ready to go for when it gets humid in the house/loft.


Awesome man some set up . Can I ask where you got your flir camera?


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## loftygoals (Apr 10, 2016)

awil7698 said:


> Awesome man some set up . Can I ask where you got your flir camera?


"FLIR one for iPhone 5" can be had for about £110 on ebay. Plug it into an iPhone 5 and you have a FLIR camera! Works very well and can be used to check canopy temps, light temps, locations of pipes in walls etc too.

You can get an android version and a iPhone 6/iPad version but they're about double the price. Beyond that you're getting into serious cash for dedicated FLIR hardware.

I really wanted one for peace of mind. If I hadn't have been able to check my roof temps myself I'd either have stuck triple the insulation on or might not have started the grow at all. There are reports of a guy with a FLIR camera mounted on a drone looking for grows to rob in my area and the police helicopter also flies over my house every day. It's well documented to have a FLIR camera and looks for grows in between other activities. So I'm very paranoid when it comes to heat sigs!

Edit: here's a link to the story about the grow thief in my area http://gizmodo.com/clever-crook-uses-a-drone-to-find-weed-so-he-can-steal-1564697853


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## loftygoals (Apr 14, 2016)

Arrrrggghhh I have brown algae. Realised on Monday night that one of the Viper Cookes and one of the Pineapple Express looked stunted compared to the rest. Checked out their roots and there was a small brown patch on the Pineapple Express. Because the containers are black it was difficult to see much especially with all the air bubbles. So I switched off the air pump and there was some brown algae on the inside of the rubber grommets which was slimey to touch 

So I did some reading. This is definitely not pythium as the water is well oxygenated (around 140L/min of air in only 80L of nutrient solution) and is chilled (max 20.2C min 15.5C average 17-18C). Brown algae apparently loves this sort of environment too 

So on Monday I changed the nutes and made up a Hypochlorite solution which was applied it at 1ppm. On Tuesday I added another 1ppm. In the meantime I ordered a UV filter and had an Ozone generator waiting in the wings anyway.

So this morning I did some cleaning! Dumped the nutes and washed the whole system through with peroxide solution. Scrubbed all the system through with a brush and flushed it with 120L of RO water. My previous reservoir was a black rectangular tote from Ikea... I realised it was very slightly opaque and a light leak might have caused my problem... so I had to unplumb it and swapped it to a 20L black bucket. Redrilled the holes for the RDWC, chiller, fill and drain ports. Attached my new UV filter. Put the Ozone generator in there too.

Have filled it up with fresh 550ppm nute solution and 2ppm chlorine (hypochlorite again).

The stunted plants already seemed to be making a recovery with just the hypochlorite doses this week so hopefully adding the ozone and uv will keep the algae at bay especially as I've swapped the res too... fingers crossed!


----------



## Roger A. Shrubber (Apr 14, 2016)

Good Luck.
sorry i took so long to check out your stuff, you're doing awesome.
keep posting, you have some great ideas


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## Bubblegum31 (Apr 15, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Today has been quite productive. Had a day off work
> 
> I've sealed off the loft completely now so wanted to check for heat leaks with my new FLIR camera. Put a 2000W fan heater up there over night and in the morning it was 34 degrees in the loft. -3 outside this morning... There was frost on the outside of the roof and the average roof surface temp was around 1.5C. Exactly the same as the neighbours  There were no hot spots and the windows from both houses were around 5-7C (so were loosing a lot more heat than the roof). So we have successful heat stealth  (can't show pics of the house for obvious reasons)
> 
> ...


I thought that flir cant detect windowes temprature, is that is not correct?!


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## Bubblegum31 (Apr 15, 2016)

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!


Raise seeslings temprature to 25 c

They will germinate in no time

All the best

Looking great

Subd


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## Bubblegum31 (Apr 15, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Bit of an update...
> 
> Seedlings seemed to be doing ok but not perfect. I noticed some dark spots on the 1st true leaves on the Blueberry seedling a couple of days ago. Then yesterday evening I noticed the roots all had a very light brown colouring  They're still in the clone king and I hadn't realised how important water temp would be at this stage! It was at 28C and it seems I have some root rot starting
> 
> ...


Not trying to put you down..

Hydro is very hard for a first time grower..

I started in coco, while everybody sayed start in soil, I didnt liesten.

Till my second run I was learning alot and getten better by time.

Still coco is hard for me to switch to hydro 

What I wanna say is that you are still very early in your grow.

Just get two bags of dirt or even coco briks that expands in water if you dont wanna go up and down your home with 50L bags, and release ur head from this headache...

Any way you are doing great alot in here will be watching your grow, great setup.

All the best

Bubble


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## Fast dog (Apr 15, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Arrrrggghhh I have brown algae. Realised on Monday night that one of the Viper Cookes and one of the Pineapple Express looked stunted compared to the rest. Checked out their roots and there was a small brown patch on the Pineapple Express. Because the containers are black it was difficult to see much especially with all the air bubbles. So I switched off the air pump and there was some brown algae on the inside of the rubber grommets which was slimey to touch
> 
> So I did some reading. This is definitely not pythium as the water is well oxygenated (around 140L/min of air in only 80L of nutrient solution) and is chilled (max 20.2C min 15.5C average 17-18C). Brown algae apparently loves this sort of environment too
> 
> ...


My man you are very well informed and prepared, your set up is fire !!! You must of waxed plenty of dosh on this project its mind bending I don't think I've ever seen someone go about their first grow as good as you have are you sure you havnt done this before lol and your very lucky to have a space like that available I will be watching your thread closely mate exciting stuff congrats


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## Bubblegum31 (Apr 15, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Arrrrggghhh I have brown algae. Realised on Monday night that one of the Viper Cookes and one of the Pineapple Express looked stunted compared to the rest. Checked out their roots and there was a small brown patch on the Pineapple Express. Because the containers are black it was difficult to see much especially with all the air bubbles. So I switched off the air pump and there was some brown algae on the inside of the rubber grommets which was slimey to touch
> 
> So I did some reading. This is definitely not pythium as the water is well oxygenated (around 140L/min of air in only 80L of nutrient solution) and is chilled (max 20.2C min 15.5C average 17-18C). Brown algae apparently loves this sort of environment too
> 
> ...



Use hydro guard or dutch master zone


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## loftygoals (Apr 15, 2016)

Bubblegum31 said:


> I thought that flir cant detect windowes temprature, is that is not correct?!


FLIR can definitely detect window temps. It can't see temps through windows but it picks up the window surface temp.

I've read everything possible on root rot and slime. Every mega thread on every forum on teas, sterilisers etc. I've even read everything I could find on fish forums. I've checked out every single product on the market and your suggestions are good ones. My environment is already pretty good (chilled water at 16-18C, 26C max air temps directly under lights) and I changed my res to a light proof bucket and lid so I'm hoping I can beat this quickly.

I'm going with the sterile approach first... Already taken apart the system and scrubbed with peroxide. Dutch Masters Zone is just a chlorine based steriliser. I'm using hypochlorite solution (DIY Clear Rez/Pool Shock) at 2ppm (high dose) so a very similar approach. Additionally I've hooked up an 18w inline UV filter plus an Ozone generator running at 250mg/h for 1 hour on and 4 hours off (I'm waiting on an ORP meter to get the Ozone levels dialed in perfectly). So we have... Peroxide scrub, Hypochlorite 2ppm , UV, Ozone... That should kill everything! But I'm creating a couple of new problems for myself because steriliser levels need to be perfect to avoid also killing plants and not causing an issue with nutrients. Anyway I'm aware of the potential problems and hopefully how to avoid them.

If that fails (would be very surprised) then hydro guard is another good suggestion. It is a beneficial bacteria product. The main alternative to sterilisation would be introducing bennies but I would probably be brewing some tea instead of using an off the shelf product. I have EWC, Great White, ZHO and molasses waiting in the wings. If sterilisation fails or I run into problems as a side effect then I'll try the tea route instead.

I'm not going to be switching to Coco before I have tried everything possible. Other people have beaten algae so I can too!

If I really have tried everything and have no luck THEN I might consider switching to another medium but it's not going to be a fleeting decision.


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## Bubblegum31 (Apr 15, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> FLIR can definitely detect window temps. It can't see temps through windows but it picks up the window surface temp.
> 
> I've read everything possible on root rot and slime. Every mega thread on every forum on teas, sterilisers etc. I've even read everything I could find on fish forums. I've checked out every single product on the market and your suggestions are good ones. My environment is already pretty good (chilled water at 16-18C, 26C max air temps directly under lights) and I changed my res to a light proof bucket and lid so I'm hoping I can beat this quickly.
> 
> ...


All the best man... Your answers dosent makes me get worried about you lol . Logic and simpel... 

Now I am worried on my self loool

I didnt know that flir can check window temps as well

My flower room temperature without any kind of insulation is 24/25c

Do you think that this will show on a big time on flir?!

Two days back hele was above my home and stayed long!!

Yasterday I heard it as well....

So am started to get worried!!

Any suggestions!?

I dont think that the house walls will be warm if inside the home is 24/25 right?

Maybe the window?!

Should I insulate it you think?


----------



## loftygoals (Apr 15, 2016)

Bubblegum31 said:


> All the best man... Your answers dosent makes me get worried about you lol . Logic and simpel...
> 
> Now I am worried on my self loool
> 
> ...


Windows will be fine at 25C. Don't worry about insulating them. Loads of people have their house temps set at 25C anyway. I insulated my loft because it would be giving off loads of heat if completely uninsulated. My insulation isn't even up to official building standards in the UK but it's plenty to hide the heat inside. A normal room at 25C is nothing to stress over.

Which country are you in? FLIR can't be used without a warrant in the US but can be in the UK. They don't use it to detect small grows in the UK, they're looking for whole houses that have been converted or people that are thought to be stealing electricity.


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## Bubblegum31 (Apr 15, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Windows will be fine at 25C. Don't worry about insulating them. Loads of people have their house temps set at 25C anyway. I insulated my loft because it would be giving off loads of heat if completely uninsulated. My insulation isn't even up to official building standards in the UK but it's plenty to hide the heat inside. A normal room at 25C is nothing to stress over.
> 
> Which country are you in? FLIR can't be used without a warrant in the US but can be in the UK. They don't use it to detect small grows in the UK, they're looking for whole houses that have been converted or people that are thought to be stealing electricity.


Am in holland bro,

Maybe that justify my english 

Chees and flower land including cannabis lol 

In holland helicopters is fucken every where!!

Seriously man its UP Normal how many heles they have in here!!!

In here they can flir with no warrant also if they just smell it they can come in!

I think ill have to buy one of those just to be in the safe side!!

Or maybe even if am not asking for too much you can try it for me??!!

Set any room on 25c and check with flir??

I dont steal electricity am running 6 lamps plus everything on 30amp breaker 

am thankful we have 230v in here 

Thanks for all the help in advance

Bubble


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## loftygoals (Apr 15, 2016)

Bubblegum31 said:


> Am in holland bro,
> 
> Maybe that justify my english
> 
> ...


It will look something like this:







But that's what most houses look like anyway. There's nothing to be worried about at 25C. It will look normal compared to the neighbours.

Have a look at this story:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1039768/Police-raid-home-Blunkett-Bobby-infrared-helicopter-mistook-bad-insulation-cannabis-factory.html

That's what I wanted to avoid! You can see her loft glowing compared to everyone elses... but everybody's windows are glowing, its nothing to worry about at all


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## Bubblegum31 (Apr 15, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> It will look something like this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks alot man.. I live in ground floor I have no chimney..

I have just found acompany online that rents expensive flir equipments in here

Maybe ill try it my self just to know how it all looks like

Thanks alot for your answers and all the best in ur grow.

We are following 

Bubble


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## loftygoals (Apr 15, 2016)

I'm on day 13 now. So here's a 2 week update...

After scrubbing the whole system yesterday and loading up the UV filter, Ozone and Hypoclorite the plants are probably quite stressed. They had their roots dangling in the air for about 2 hours so there's obviously been a little drying. So far there's no sign of slime anywhere and the water still looks crystal clear.

Previously I was using Canna A+B with Rhizotonic and Cannazyme... yeah... screw the extras! I've dropped down to just Canna A+B with the sterilising agents.

Here's a pic of Viper Cookies day 11:

 

And Viper Cookies Day 13:

 

Despite all the fucking around there has been some reasonable growth. The roots seem to be recovering:

 
You can clearly see which roots are old (creamy brown colour) and which have sprouted since the sterilisation began (white roots coming from the bottom). You can also see where the tips of the old roots probably dried out a little yesterday while I was cleaning. I'll try to post a comparison shot next week.

As you can see I've also added "collars" of plastic sheeting around the netpots. They block out any light which might have been coming through the very top corners of the hydroton and only took a few mins to make with spare sheeting I have laying around so I thought were a worthwhile addition.

Also... I said I wasn't going to get AC because it wasn't needed in the UK... well I changed my mind! Yesterday we had a mini heat wave (already gone lol) and the temps outside got up to 17C for a while in the afternoon. The loft got up to 30C with lights on  I set the light schedule to 18/6 (was 24/0 for week 1 and 20/4 for week 2) and have lights off from 11am to 5pm but once I power up the flower tents at 2000W each flip flopping 12/12 over the summer I'm going to have a problem! So I got myself a portable 1 ton AC unit  Only problem is the fucker is so heavy! Ever tried to carry a bulky 37kg unit up a loft ladder on your own? ZOMG! I got it about 6 steps up but had no way to keep my balance plus lift so had to come back down. I'm having to make a rope harness and have ordered a set of pulleys to winch the sucker up into the loft!


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## Roger A. Shrubber (Apr 15, 2016)

your name should have been "Weedguyver" ....i needed somewhere to grow so i built this professional grow room out of duct tape and baling wire


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## SoOLED (Apr 15, 2016)

..and THEY say stoners have no motivation, lack the ability for complex tasks and computation.

why the reputation for lazy cartoon watching morons?

case in point, this build from, conception, construction, to execution of purpose.

I wish this was on Netflix with a few seasons, so I can see what happens already =)


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## Bubblegum31 (Apr 15, 2016)

SoOLED said:


> ..and THEY say stoners have no motivation, lack the ability for complex tasks and computation.
> 
> why the reputation for lazy cartoon watching morons?
> 
> ...



Ja man ppl think that growing those ladys is piece of cake and for lazy ppl they have no idea how much work you have to do on daily basis!!


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## loftygoals (Apr 16, 2016)

Can you believe the British weather? I bought an AC thinking we'll be having a heat wave... Woke up this morning... It's been snowing overnight and everything is white!


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## Bubblegum31 (Apr 16, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Can you believe the British weather? I bought an AC thinking we'll be having a heat wave... Woke up this morning... It's been snowing overnight and everything is white!


Lol

You will need it one day believe me ..

Now the temprature outside is 10\18 c maybe even less

What are you going to do in june\july when its 24\25 outside 

I have mine on standby


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## loftygoals (Apr 17, 2016)

So yesterday I noticed some more slime had grown on the rubber grommets in some buckets. Not a lot but enough for me to notice as I know exactly where to look. Roots have made a recovery in that they are not brown or mushy but they don't seem to be growing particularly fast. So what to do? Well I gave another dose of hypochlorite 1ppm (that makes 4 doses in a week) and ran the ozone generator for 5 mins in each bucket individually and also gave everything another clean. The reservoir seemed clear so I think the UV steriliser and ozone in the res are working but the individual buckets (and probably the roots) have been colonised with bacteria which is managing to grow on surfaces again. Hopefully running the ozone in individual buckets will sterilise them.

Then I ran the ozone generator on 1/2 power in the res continuously overnight (had been running at 60 mins on and 240 mins off for the past 4 days). This morning there was no sign of slime algae anywhere but most of the plants looked a little droopy! There is also a rust ring evident probably where the ozone has precipitated out the iron from the water (well known effect of ozone). So I think I have as close as I can get to a sterile environment...

Inevitably there will be spores or dormant bacteria laying around the place. Some people call this "hydro herpes" because it pops up when you least expect it... now is the time to hit it hard! So I started to brew some EWC tea yesterday. I'm using 5ml Great White, 2.5ml Molasses, 30ml Earthworm Castings and 4L RO water in a 5L bucket with an airstone which has been brewing for 24 hours. This morning I turned off the ozone and UV, emptied out the system to remove any residual chlorine and then refilled with RO water. Have pH'd down to 6.0 and added around 1L of the tea to the system equally distributed between the plants.

I'll run 24 hours without nutes and then add them back at 1/4 dose for 24 hours before bringing them up to around 600ppm at 3 days. I'll be aiming to add 1L of tea to the system at 3, 6 and 9 days. Hopefully... hopefully... this beats it once and for all!


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## Bubblegum31 (Apr 17, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> So yesterday I noticed some more slime had grown on the rubber grommets in some buckets. Not a lot but enough for me to notice as I know exactly where to look. Roots have made a recovery in that they are not brown or mushy but they don't seem to be growing particularly fast. So what to do? Well I gave another dose of hypochlorite 1ppm (that makes 4 doses in a week) and ran the ozone generator for 5 mins in each bucket individually and also gave everything another clean. The reservoir seemed clear so I think the UV steriliser and ozone in the res are working but the individual buckets (and probably the roots) have been colonised with bacteria which is managing to grow on surfaces again. Hopefully running the ozone in individual buckets will sterilise them.
> 
> Then I ran the ozone generator on 1/2 power in the res continuously overnight (had been running at 60 mins on and 240 mins off for the past 4 days). This morning there was no sign of slime algae anywhere but most of the plants looked a little droopy! There is also a rust ring evident probably where the ozone has precipitated out the iron from the water (well known effect of ozone). So I think I have as close as I can get to a sterile environment...
> 
> ...


Wish you all the best.... Doing good so far..
If this didnt work... Go get you H&G Roots excel and dutch zone

They work together very well..

Never tryed the combo but H&G I use regularly and it suppose it protect roots with like a film cover

And everybody says good stuff about zone and that it works with Roots excel as its not bennys as ppl think....

You have invested alooooot till now, so Ill pay this extra cents and spare your self the headache..

This probleem is taking long like that, and if any thing it causes headache and slow growth beside all the stress you have them go through by changing the sloution almost daily to different nutes and regime

Try to make it more simple..

My 2 cents

Bubble


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## loftygoals (Apr 17, 2016)

Bubblegum31 said:


> Wish you all the best.... Doing good so far..
> If this didnt work... Go get you H&G Roots excel and dutch zone
> 
> They work together very well..
> ...


Thanks for the input. Yeah, this is a bit of a pain... but I feel confident things are under control. I'll give the tea 2 weeks from now and reassess.

Here's a side by side 36 hour comparison of what just sterilisation has done for me before adding bennies:

 

As you can see new roots are growing and looking good.

I picked that plant to compare because it has easily identifiable landmarks on the roots so you can see it's the same one. Here's one of the other plants:

 

Showing good signs of recovery. I will keep posting updates good or bad as it seems like root rot/slime in RDWC is a common problem!


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## incogneato420 (Apr 18, 2016)

Subd in. Got a bit of attic envy lol. Looking to do an attic grow room as well but not near the same amount of room


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## Gregor Eisenhorn (Apr 18, 2016)

Lofty I have been following for some time, but I have to ask this.. why the hell weren't you given your own TV air time? You could of made your own episodes, that would of been so fun to watch. 

Anyway, I'm no tinkerer so I cannot fully understand the things you did, but I must say that this is the most proffesional grow room/build I have ever seen, fantastic job that equipment is top notch... maybe one day I'll have a go at my attic and see what I can do.

This is proper chicken soup and it looks like everything is starting to turn around, those roots are recovering nicely.


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## loftygoals (Apr 18, 2016)

TV sounds like waay too much hard work!

Had an incident with the RDWC pump blocking off this morning. Mixed up 1/4 dose nutes and an hour later nothing seemed to have mixed. pH and EC were all over the place in different buckets. Checked the pump and there was no flow to the res. Isolated it with the valves (really grateful for putting those in now!) and pulled the pump out. Checked it submerged in some water and got no output but it was buzzing like the impeller was spinning. Opened it up and there was some plastic debris from drilling holes when I assembled the system stuck together with some root matter to completely obstruct the flow. Rinsed it off under the sink and it was clear in 2 seconds. Screwed it back together and it's been perfect 

Here's another roots comparison pic. Left to right we have:

1. 4 days after I first saw slime and started sterilising. The roots seemed to be making a comeback but the plants didn't seem happy up top with all the chlorine+ozone.
2. 36 hours later - when I added bennies
3. 24 hours later - plants now looking much happier up top too.

I'm confident most of the plants will fully recover from the slime now. The vast majority are looking healthy with good root growth. Only a couple of the Purple Afghan Kush plants are looking a little stunted and droopy, but I think I just caught it in time. A couple more days and I think the whole lot would have been toast because the roots seemed to be disintegrating quickly!


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## loftygoals (Apr 19, 2016)

Some root porn. Check out the hairy mycorrhizae covered roots!

Applied the second dose of tea and upped PPMs to 600.

Some leaves are showing signs of ozone damage. I think it has it's place but definitely have been converted to a benny believer! I was going to top after 3 nodes but I think I'll wait a while now.

Here's Pineapple Express day 17 from seed:

 

Next up I need to sort out the mother room. I'll start on it tomorrow... It never ends! 

I have a 110W T5 fixture, 6x autopots, plastic sheeting and some pond liner to install. Before I can do that I need to build one last internal wall. I've been putting it off because it's going to be quite a tight squeeze working in a corner of the loft. I've been planning on taking the tops I remove from the best looking plants, rooting them and using them for the mums.


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## loftygoals (Apr 20, 2016)

The pulley came today:

 

Put a hook above the loft hatch and hung it up... what a mission!

Managed to haul the AC unit to the loft entrance and then it was a real nightmare pushing it up from underneath. 2 people would have made life much much easier. At one point I did wonder what would happen if the AC just got stuck in the loft hatch and I couldn't move it anywhere hahaha

I've hooked it up now and had it running this afternoon as we've had another mini heat wave. Has controlled temps nicely 

I was planning on suspending it from ropes/ratchet straps (like my chiller) but I'm not sure I'd trust the weight. I have it sitting on a neoprene foam pad at the moment and that seems fine.

This build has been a lot more expensive than I initially planned!


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## Roger A. Shrubber (Apr 20, 2016)

it is incredible how fast it adds up, have to go buy chain, hooks, timers, power strips, extention cords, hose clamps, exhaust hose.....i can't walk out of the hardware store without being 50 bucks poorer, but somehow happier.
can't even imagine what you've invested, but it looks like its going to pay off


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## loftygoals (Apr 20, 2016)

Roger A. Shrubber said:


> it is incredible how fast it adds up, have to go buy chain, hooks, timers, power strips, extention cords, hose clamps, exhaust hose.....i can't walk out of the hardware store without being 50 bucks poorer, but somehow happier.
> can't even imagine what you've invested, but it looks like its going to pay off


Know the feeling!


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## MoodyShoes (Apr 20, 2016)

Really good work mate. I've fitted a lot of Celotex between rafters myself and it's not an easy job. Kudos for all your time and effort.

Don't be too put off if your first grow isn't 100%....there's only so far research can get you and you'll learn a shit load more about your own setup and environment, and how to manage it effectively over the coming months. Come the second grow the penny will have dropped and it'll all seem a lot easier.

Great stuff.


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## loftygoals (Apr 22, 2016)

3 week (day 20) update

Topped up to 600PPM and applied 3rd dose of bennie tea today. I'm going to go with a res change every 2 weeks unless I spot something dodgy going on I think. That way I can coordinate brewing tea with my res changes.

Roots looking good:

 

They have that shiney fish bone quality going on. Also look hairy in places. All very healthy I think 

Here's Pineapple Express day 20:

 

And here's the veg room:

 

You can see there are a few plants that look a bit smaller as they were set back about 5 days when the root rot hit compared to the ones which kept growing. Only 1 of the Purple Afghan Kush plants got really stunted and is about 10 days behind it's sisters at the moment. You can see it's the one on the Left row, third one up.

I have some rhizotonic which I'd bought as it was recommended by Canna's guide... not going to be using it anymore as I wonder whether it was partially responsible for the root rot? Possibly not. Anyway I decided to use it as a foliar spray instead. Have given the stunted plants a couple of sprays today and will keep doing it until they're really back on track again.

Also have done some work on the mother room. Put up some celotex as internal walls. Sealed up the edges with my fave... expanding foam!

 

Have mounted a 4 inch fan and carbon filter in there. Hooked up a 10 port extension and hung a 2x55w T5 light fixture. Only waiting on another small section of pond liner to arrive and I'll seal the floor. Then I have a 6 pot autopot to take care of the mother plants. Going for a 60% coco/40% perlite mix. I'll only need about 4 cuttings from each mum every 2 months max so I'll be aiming to keep them really small.

Once the mother room is completed I just need to apply some finishing touches to the flower tents and I'm all "done"!

Think a 5 week veg would be reasonable? Gives me 2 weeks to fanny about "finishing" things.


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## verticalgrow (Apr 24, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> 3 week (day 20) update
> 
> Think a 5 week veg would be reasonable? Gives me 2 weeks to fanny about "finishing" things.


g'day Lofty,

5 week veg should be perfect, they will double in size after you flip to 12/12 cycle. 
Also like the coco/perlite mix for keeping the roots healthy, just watch out for gnats.

 VG


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## twistedentities (Apr 24, 2016)

Not sure how long it took to read but well worth it! Outstanding work and prep. Best of luck to you. Gonna keep an eye here. I think some epic grows are on the way


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## verticalgrow (Apr 24, 2016)

Everytime i read this thread my back starts aching.

have you got a dry room in the Loft or are you gunna dry plants in the spare bedroom?

 Vg


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## loftygoals (Apr 24, 2016)

verticalgrow said:


> Everytime i read this thread my back starts aching.
> 
> have you got a dry room in the Loft or are you gunna dry plants in the spare bedroom?
> 
> Vg


Hahaha! My back is just about holding up!

Drying is a bit of an unknown. I have a 1x1x2m tent I could possibly use in a spare bedroom for a week. Load it up with a carbon filter and put a dehumidifier in the room set to 60%?

Alternatively I could use one of the 8x4m tents for a week? The plan was to have clones ready to go straight after the chop though. I dunno really.


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## verticalgrow (Apr 24, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Hahaha! My back is just about holding up!
> 
> Drying is a bit of an unknown. I have a 1x1x2m tent I could possibly use in a spare bedroom for a week. Load it up with a carbon filter and put a dehumidifier in the room set to 60%?
> 
> Alternatively I could use one of the 8x4m tents for a week? The plan was to have clones ready to go straight after the chop though. I dunno really.


Yea for sure, using the 4 x 8 tent for getting clones to the 5th week of veg then transfer to bloom tent &
having no downtime is great idea. it doesnt matter if clones are in for 6 weeks, it just means bigger roots &
bigger stem which support more buds.

The 1 x 1 tent should work for drying if it has plenty of ventilation.i would just use a spare room so its Less work for your poor old back.
 Vg


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## SoOLED (Apr 24, 2016)

does that back wall open up? the celotex one.


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## loftygoals (Apr 24, 2016)

SoOLED said:


> does that back wall open up? the celotex one.


Nope. There's a brick chimney stack behind that celotex insulation.

When I took that pic I was standing in the doorway; which is a zipper stuck onto plastic sheeting.

It can be tight in there!


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## loftygoals (Apr 25, 2016)

Day 23 update

Given them a foliar rhizotonic feed, benny tea and topped up nutes to 600ppm again. They seem to be drinking about 5-6L a day at the moment. Res change due every 14 days. There is some slimey/furry build up only on the rubber grommets which connect the buckets again but the roots look very healthy still. I think it's a benny build up rather than cyanobacteria slime but am keeping a close eye on it.

Aircon is keeping up nicely. Have set room temp to 19C and chiller temp to 16C which keeps canopy temp at 23C and bucket water temp at 17.5C. The bathroom where the aircon vents isn't hot at all as long as I keep the door open so the air mixes into the house.

The plants started to smell a little around day 14. Now there is a definite cannabis smell as soon as I open the zipper. No sign of any smell in the loft outside the veg area or in the house though.

Here's what they look like:

 


Definitely growing quickly. Slight droopyness is due to just having had foliar spray. Comparing to the pic I took on day 20 most have doubled in size!

You might also spot that I popped another seedling! I had an Auto Dark Purple fem seed and had 2 buckets spare so thought it would be a good idea to run it too. Not planning on running any autos again but who knows. It's 6 days old and is supposed to be ready in 45-55 days so should beat all the other strains by about a month. Should give me a chance to practice trimming/drying.


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## verticalgrow (Apr 25, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Day 23 update
> 
> 
> Here's what they look like:
> ...


Are those hebel bricks under DWC buckets?

How much do they weigh? nvm my back is aching again

VG


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## loftygoals (Apr 25, 2016)

verticalgrow said:


> Are those hebel bricks under DWC buckets?
> 
> How much do they weigh? nvm my back is aching again
> 
> VG


Concrete blocks yeah  Not that bad to get up the ladder though.

Most difficult things to get into the loft were... water chillers, AC and tents. Anything bulky over 20kg is not easy to carry up a loft ladder alone


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## GuttaCannabis (Apr 25, 2016)

Nice work I'm sub


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## verticalgrow (Apr 25, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Concrete blocks yeah  Not that bad to get up the ladder though.
> 
> Most difficult things to get into the loft were... water chillers, AC and tents. Anything bulky over 20kg is not easy to carry up a loft ladder alone


Thx Lofty, at least you dont have to go to the gym anymore. 

Did you calculate the cost before starting this epic project?
Cheers VG


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## loftygoals (Apr 25, 2016)

verticalgrow said:


> Thx Lofty, at least you dont have to go to the gym anymore.
> 
> Did you calculate the cost before starting this epic project?
> Cheers VG


Er... yeah... um... initial budget was £4k ($5.8k in USD). I actually planned to be 25-50% operational for my first grow and then to finish things off for my second grow... but I've worked out that it's easier to just get things done properly first time round.

So... we're at around £7k ($10.1k in USD) now


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## Roger A. Shrubber (Apr 25, 2016)

and here i was bitching about spending 1500 bucks over the course of 6 months of experimenting, but, you get what you pay for, especially when you do your research first. just wait and it'll pay for itself soon


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## loftygoals (Apr 26, 2016)

Arrrgghhh, slime is back. Went to look at the grow room this morning and the Purple Afghan Kush plants were all droopy. Inspected the roots and found blobs of snot in places.

Benny tea every 3 days alone hasn't managed to keep the slime away 

Have given the whole system a scrub in dilute peroxide which circulated for an hour. Then flushed through with 80L of RO water. Now refilled with RO water and 2ppm hypochlorite. Turned on the UV filter and ozone generator again. Gonna run 24 hours with no nutes and then do another res change tomorrow and will add in 1/4 strength nutes for a day.

This time wasn't as traumatic as the last but still a bummer!


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## Roger A. Shrubber (Apr 26, 2016)

just a thought but you are in an old dusty attic, perhaps its something in the woodwork, is there any way you could spray an antifungl or something like that all over the attic walls and floor? where is your air supply from? is there a duct its drawing through or just ambient air in the attic? if theres some kind of duct it may need to be vacuumed out and spray some antifungal in it maybe. seems strange that it keeps coming back with all the cleaning you're doing of the set up itself, sounds like theres something in your environment thats causing it


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## verticalgrow (Apr 26, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Arrrgghhh, slime is back. Went to look at the grow room this morning and the Purple Afghan Kush plants were all droopy. Inspected the roots and found blobs of snot in places.
> 
> This time wasn't as traumatic as the last but still a bummer!


G'day Lofty,

Are u gunna use coco for mothers?
Also have u seen Air pots?
heres a link for air pot systems: http://www.progrow.co.uk/acatalog/air_pot_systems.html

Cheers VG


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## loftygoals (Apr 26, 2016)

Roger A. Shrubber said:


> just a thought but you are in an old dusty attic, perhaps its something in the woodwork, is there any way you could spray an antifungl or something like that all over the attic walls and floor? where is your air supply from? is there a duct its drawing through or just ambient air in the attic? if theres some kind of duct it may need to be vacuumed out and spray some antifungal in it maybe. seems strange that it keeps coming back with all the cleaning you're doing of the set up itself, sounds like theres something in your environment thats causing it


I think more likely the slime was just on the roots. All it would take is 1 little spore and I'd get reinfected. I think I'm unlikely to get rid of it completely from this grow now... but I'll try anyway 



verticalgrow said:


> G'day Lofty,
> 
> Are u gunna use coco for mothers?
> Also have u seen Air pots?
> ...


I'd not paid them much attention before. Look interesting.

I was planning on using Autopots: http://www.autopot.co.uk/watering-systems/easy2grow-kits

Just load up the reservoir once a week and it'll water itself. Sounds ideal for small mums.


Good news I guess. I just had a look at the girls and they're no longer droopy. The slime seems to be disappearing with the lack of nutes and chlorinated water. I'll add nutes back in tomorrow and do another res change.


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## MaiNiaK420 (Apr 26, 2016)

If you have more of that white tubing you're using to connect your buckets. Hold a piece up to the light. If light is penetrating the white tubing algae will grow. 
I also noticed some clear tubing coming from your chiller. When light hits water algae grows.
The good news is you're on the right track. Small amounts of bleach or H2O2 will keep things running smoothly. The only down side is it kills any beneficial bacteria and can mess with certain nutrients. Like organic nutrients, but most hydro nutes will work just fine.


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## loftygoals (Apr 27, 2016)

Good thought but the white tubing is actually double layer black/white iceline.

http://agradehydroponics.com/products/ice-line-30m

Definitely not that causing light leaks  wish it were... Easy fix!

Chiller has clear tubing yes. It has a separate closed loop. So there's a stainless steel cooling coil in the reservoir which exchanges heat with the nutrient solution. That way the chiller stays completely clean and I don't have to worry about blockages or bad bugs getting inside. The water in that clear tubing doesn't mix with the nutrient soln.

Have done a res change today and scrubbed the system again. Flushed through with RO water and then reloaded with RO water, Hypochlorite 2ppm and 1/4 nutes. Actually only took me an hour this time. I could probably cope with cleaning out the system once a week if I had to. Daily maintainance is usually only about 30 mins anyway.

Minimal snot on the roots now. Only a slight brown tinge and most of the droopyness has gone. Hopefully I've caught this early!


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## MaiNiaK420 (Apr 27, 2016)

Well your definitely on the right track. That chlorine will help. 

Good luck.


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## Gregor Eisenhorn (Apr 28, 2016)

Lofly maybe you should try out some Pythoff? It's esentially chloramine and Flairform (the company) also makes these test kits that will allow you to determine how much of the stuff to use to properly get rid of root rot.

You also use it at a 0.1ml/l rate, so you won't have to buy the stuff every month.


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## loftygoals (Apr 28, 2016)

Well at the moment there's no more slime in the system. Roots are looking slightly brown tinged but not too bad and there's white growth from the tips.

So I think the slime is on the back foot for now.

I've gone to 1/2 strength nutes and added 1ppm chlorine again.

I've been reading about slime on pool sites and think I have a grasp of how they control it. Free chlorine reacts with bugs and becomes bound. When that happens it looses its power to disinfect. So in a pool you need to monitor free and total chlorine levels to keep it clear. You can do an overnight free chlorine loss test to check whether the free chlorine is being used up fighting slime. You can also monitor ORP which is linked to pH and free chlorine levels. To keep things simple I'm going to try adding 1ppm chlorine daily and then every 7 days do a complete res change. I'll also keep an eye on ORP levels.

Fingers crossed!


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## Roger A. Shrubber (May 3, 2016)

HEY! Time for an update, i know you brits are used to shows with 6 episodes a season, but us yanks need weekly updates, with christmas specials


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## loftygoals (May 4, 2016)

Been busy with other stuff, sorry for lack of updates.

I've overcome the root rot but it took a few days. Went something like this:
Day 1: 2ppm hypochlorite + plain RO water, no nutes
Day 2: Added 1ppm hypochlorite + 1/4 nutes in RO water
Day 3: Added 1ppm hypochlorite + topped up to 1/2 nutes
Day 4: Drained the system, filled with RO water added nutes to 600ppm + added 10ml Real Growers Recharge powder (basically a mix of bennies)
Day 5: Nothing
Day 6: Nothing
Day 7: Drained system to check for slime and found none yay! Filled with RO water added nutes to 600ppm + added 5ml Real Growers Recharge powder

We have beautiful roots growing again and no signs of slime. Obviously the previously infected roots are brown and stringy but there's no snot anywhere. I've taken some pics but don't have my SD card with me so I'll try and post them when I can.

To be honest although I know I can fix the slime now this is getting a little tiresome. To top it off I'd previously tested the big RDWC system with plain RO water. There was about 2cm of standing water in the res (no nutes as it was just a leak test) which had been there for about a week. I went to check on the system and found a layer of slime growing on the bottom of the res! There were no nutes, no lights, no roots... nothing in that system and slime managed to grow  It's obviously in my environment and could pop up at any time. Sux!

So... I'm considering maybe moving to hempy buckets. I won't transplant this current crop but it's likely the clones I take will end up in a different, less rot prone, system.


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## Roger A. Shrubber (May 4, 2016)

you know, theres a school of brewing where they put the raw beer in the attic and let the yeast in the air grow in it. thats what i've been thinking about the whole slime saga. is your air coming in from outside? can you run it through something like a hepafilter or an ionizer? i'd be willing to wager that its not something in your attic, its something thats in the air. any chance you live close to a microbrewery or one of your neighbors brews his own?


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## loftygoals (May 4, 2016)

Roger A. Shrubber said:


> you know, theres a school of brewing where they put the raw beer in the attic and let the yeast in the air grow in it. thats what i've been thinking about the whole slime saga. is your air coming in from outside? can you run it through something like a hepafilter or an ionizer? i'd be willing to wager that its not something in your attic, its something thats in the air. any chance you live close to a microbrewery or one of your neighbors brews his own?


Yeah I have a 5 inch fan (approx 60cfm) intracting air to the loft. The end of the duct is covered with a pre-filter but this is not a HEPA filter. So it's possible air is contaminated.

I doubt my immediate neighbours brew and that side of the house is quite a way from the next building. I dunno?

I could put a HEPA filter on the end of the duct I guess...


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## Gregor Eisenhorn (May 5, 2016)

Since you believe it to be an enviromental problem, how about just continuously running a sterelizing agent to keep the water dead? That way root rot will never have a chance to infect.

There are few cures I can think of:
-Pythoff,
-Pool Shock aka calcium hypochlorite (that's what you've been using yes?),
-Buddhas Tree Defender,
-H202, but that's not really worht the price in such a huge system like yours.

Sure, you'll have to add it all the time but it beats going to hempy. Active hydroponics is the way to go!


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## Roger A. Shrubber (May 5, 2016)

i don't have a lot of experience with hydroponics, just use a little aerogarden to start cuttings. will continually running a sterilizing agent allow mycorrchizae to grow in the roots? does it really matter in hydro? know they're damn good to have in soil.


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## Gregor Eisenhorn (May 5, 2016)

Not really unfortunately, but I prefer the sterile method over the beneficial bacteria one, never liked the idea of something living in my reservoir.


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## loftygoals (May 5, 2016)

Gregor Eisenhorn said:


> Since you believe it to be an enviromental problem, how about just continuously running a sterelizing agent to keep the water dead? That way root rot will never have a chance to infect.
> 
> There are few cures I can think of:
> -Pythoff,
> ...


Yeah I've been using generic "Pool Shock".

The problem I have now is that slime seems to grow so quickly! This last time round I found snot on 1 plant and within a day everything was infected... and then fighting it is a real effort. I decided to go RDWC to save time and maintenance. If I need to inspect roots all the time for rot that kinda negates the advantages... for me. I will finish this grow and make a decision.

Let me show you what I had to deal with this week. So when I first noticed small spots of snot on the roots things didn't look *too* bad. I started sterilising and thought I'd controlled it as roots still looked white for the most part:

 

But the roots have a slightly beige tinge and seem very floppy and weak. Brushing them with my finger broke pieces off easily and growth up to really started to slow.

When I added the Real Growers Recharge everything was instantly stained brown (this is 36 hours after the Recharge was added and things are actually less brown!):

 

Only 10ml of Recharge in my 50L system turned the nutrient soln really dark. That's just the nature of it. It does highlight damaged roots quite well. New/undamages roots look white or have light staining while damaged/recovering roots are very heavily stained and look floppy.

Here's a good illustration of recovering roots:

 

You can see thick white roots growing from the root tips and out of the netpot while the damaged mass of roots in the middle does not recover it's colour or strength.

 

Here's a pic of week 3 (Left) and week 4 (Right). I'm not worried about the yellowing of lower leaves, that corresponded exactly to when the roots were rotting away and I had to run no nutes for 24 hours before adding them back slowly. New growth looks good which is the important thing. Slightly disappointed overall as the slime really set me back but oh well.

I think I'm going to veg another 10 days and then flower them...


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## Gregor Eisenhorn (May 6, 2016)

Lofty next time there won't be any slime to deal with, because you'll have it all figured out! Unfortunately I'm a one tub DWC system, not even coming close to being as complicated as your system so I can't help much. 

And despite the setbacks, that growth in 10 days is awsome, another 10 and they'll definitely be ready to flower.


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## loftygoals (May 6, 2016)

Gregor Eisenhorn said:


> Lofty next time there won't be any slime to deal with, because you'll have it all figured out! Unfortunately I'm a one tub DWC system, not even coming close to being as complicated as your system so I can't help much.
> 
> And despite the setbacks, that growth in 10 days is awsome, another 10 and they'll definitely be ready to flower.


Not convinced I have it all figured out!

Anyway I've assembled the autopot system for the mums and put up some plastic sheeting with a zipper for the door.

Have also mixed up the medium. I've gone with 2 inches of clay pebbles at the bottom and then a 60/40 coco/perlite mix. I think I'll get some good clones for the mums in another few days. They're all supposed to be fem seeds but I'll clone the best 2 of each strain just to be certain.

I'm gonna be away over the weekend. Hopefully I don't come back to a slimy mess on Monday!


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## Roger A. Shrubber (May 7, 2016)

when you're using coco, remember you have to use extra cal-mag, and flush every couple of weeks, i switched to it and like it, but it has idiosyncrasies.
i actually add a TBSP of pelletized lime per gallon of container while i'm mixing it up, slows down how fast it eats cal


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## nicougrik (May 9, 2016)

Hey awesome thread man, you really went all out for your first grow, the level of effort is inspirational.
The algea problem is a bitch, but with your dedication and research I don't doubt you'll figure something out. 
Also, I love the collars on the plants and i thought, why not make the whole top of the bucket reflective ? 
Grow rooms are always lined up with reflective material except for the pots and floor, I think im going to try it.
Subbed.

Oh and dont forget to update !! how did the weekend go ? has the algea come back ?


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## loftygoals (May 9, 2016)

I was a little anxious leaving things alone over the weekend because it was going to be 7 days since the last res change and that is around the time where slime had taken over previously... but to my surprise roots are looking fine! I did a res change on Monday morning and noticed there is a little slime around but it's not the same as before. Previously it was white and snotty. The slime is now dark brown and gritty looking. I've read that bennies can make brown slime like that (and the Recharge is really dark brown so that would fit)... so as long as the roots are looking fine and growth is good I guess I'll keep adding the Recharge!

Here's a pic of what things looked like when I got back:

 

This evening I topped most of the plants and took a load of clones. Only the smallest Purple Afghan Kush wasn't topped as it's a real runt compared to all the others. I'm attempting to clone in rockwool as I'm too freaked out by slime to use the aerocloner!

I've put the clones in a corner of the mother room under 110w of T5:

 

Here's what the room looks like after topping:

 

I'm going to veg another 7 days and then flip to 12/12.

I'm not too sure what I'm going to do with the next grow. I'm kinda leaning towards binning the RDWC and switching to hempy... Slime has just been too stressful! I've even been considering making up the "veg" room to 1000w of LED and flowering this crop where it stands. Then vegging the next crop simultaneously in the "flower" area. I dunno


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## fortheloveofgrow (May 9, 2016)

I think you gotta give your rdwc system at one more run! You've got a pretty complex kit put together and knew there'd be some tuning. Your decision and design processes have been sound and you hit a hiccup. You now have at least some semblance of a working solution and can continue to dial it in. Your lab is probably only a few cycles away from a [nearly!] autonomous industrial goodie factory


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## verticalgrow (May 9, 2016)

fortheloveofgrow said:


> I think you gotta give your rdwc system at one more run! You've got a pretty complex kit put together and knew there'd be some tuning. Your decision and design processes have been sound and you hit a hiccup. You now have at least some semblance of a working solution and can continue to dial it in. Your lab is probably only a few cycles away from a [nearly!] autonomous industrial goodie factory


g'day Lofty,

Divide & conquer, nxt time split the crop between 2 systems 
That way u have a back up if 1 system fails
VG


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## loftygoals (May 9, 2016)

verticalgrow said:


> g'day Lofty,
> 
> Divide & conquer, nxt time split the crop between 2 systems
> That way u have a back up if 1 system fails
> VG


Ooooh! Now that is a good idea!

I could easily do one 8x4 tent RDWC and one 8x4 tent hempy side by side.


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## verticalgrow (May 9, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Ooooh! Now that is a good idea!
> 
> I could easily do one 8x4 tent RDWC and one 8x4 tent hempy side by side.


This guy runs 4 plants DWC & gets 7 pounds 

https://www.rollitup.org/t/my-latest-vert-garden.898041/


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## Roger A. Shrubber (May 9, 2016)

i think thats a great idea, don't give up the original plan until you have something better to take its place, you may even discover ones better for veg, one for flowering? never know till you try


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## Gregor Eisenhorn (May 10, 2016)

It's good to see the roots all healthy and recovering after the weekend. I'm with the others, next run will be 200% better.

So you're thinking of going perpetual? Lovely, I'll need to try that one day, although it seems like a ton of work. But more work= more/faster bud.


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## Big smo (May 10, 2016)

I have a lot of catching up to do but what a great thread . Looks like a nice job done congratulations and yes it is wonderful to see a room done right. I'm a builder and an inspector by trade. Recently completed some nice rooms myself and it's a great feeling


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## nicougrik (May 13, 2016)

Hey Lofty, lets get an update !


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## loftygoals (May 14, 2016)

Lol! OK here's an update.

The slime is back despite the bennies. I think these plants are buggered. I'm stuck in a cycle of recovery, slime, recovery, slime.

Using sterile measures (UV, Ozone, chlorine) and low ppm nutes I can get new white root growth but if I turn that lot off then slime finds a way to grow on the damaged roots and eventually takes over. If I leave the sterilisation going then the plants get unhappy and yellow (tried turning ozone off and reducing chlorine but its a balancing act and the slime seems to win before plants are happy).

Here's a shot of roots this morning 



To top it off I'm getting bits of dead roots blocking the water pump and RDWC tubes (3 blockages in the past day).

So I'm going to try passive hydro. I transplanted the auto that I started 2 weeks ago into a 5L hempy bucket I made to try it out 2 days back. Here's a pic today:



Seems happy enough. Ignore the water on the floor, I'd just watered and hadn't cleaned up yet.

So... I've taken 20 clones 3 days ago which are in rockwool. I can't see this current crop being salvaged now  so I took another 20 clones and put them in the aero cloner just for kicks.




The res is full of RO water with "pool shock" at the "clear rez" concentration. I haven't bothered with hooking up a chiller (I have one going spare! lol) because room temp is only 20C and I'm using a timer to control the water pump so it shouldn't heat up much.

I bought an ANLY repeat cycle timer and mounted it onto a small timber stand. It has dials which allow 0-25 mins on and 0-25 mins off . I'm running it 2 mins on and 5 mins off.

Also aiming to get the LED lighting finished this weekend. I've got 4x 450W light bars in place but am adding another 4x600W. Here's one of the 600w lights wired up:

 

I have the other 3 built, just need wiring up which will take around 2 hours each. The plan is to swap the cheap COBs to CXBs after a couple of grows (No way I could afford 80x CXBs off the bat). Just haven't got any plants to put under them at the moment


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## nicougrik (May 14, 2016)

There's only one last thing to try Lofty.. 

Introducing the Siamese Algae Eater... a fish that eats algea 
"It is a voracious eater and will consume not only algae from plants, glass and decorations, but leftover pellets, parboiled vegetables, flake food and live food...They require a large amount of living plants and plenty of room to explore and feed which makes a longer tank more desirable. Owners should keep the tank lid on since they can easily jump out."

lol, has anyone ever put live fish or shrimp to get rid of algea ? haha


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## Gregor Eisenhorn (May 14, 2016)

Aw sorry to hear that lofty, it must be extremely frustrating for you. Hopefully passive hydro will turn out better!


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## Roger A. Shrubber (May 14, 2016)

keep at it man, most people take 3 or 4 grows to just figure out how to properly set a grow room up. you did your research and got it on the first try. it usually takes people a couple of grows after they figure out the room to get the actual growing dialed in. you got at least a three grow jump on most people.
wait for the epiphany, they never come as fast as i'd like, but i find they do come.


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## loftygoals (May 15, 2016)

Check this out 

2100W of water cooled COB LEDs in a 8x4:

 

2x450W bars with 8 COBs each. Dirty voltage control via buck boosters and resistor current limiting.
2x600W bars with 20 COBs each. Meanwell HLG-600h driven.

2.1kW per tent. 4.2kW total. All water cooled.

I think this is the first large'ish scale water cooled LED grow setup.

Both tents now setup the same. Once these clones get rooted they're going under these bad boys in hempies!


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## SoOLED (May 15, 2016)

that's awesome, its like how I would do homepot if I had the skill and they put in charge of the lighting section.

sorry bout them roots, but I'm sure you're not alone. maybe you could cut the number of buckets until you get it dialed in and add more slowly. and the Chinese fish sounds cool. though I'm not sure how him would get on with all the nuets-n-such.

in the meanwhile you could just go a coco/pro mix, grow something simple.


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## loftygoals (May 15, 2016)

Since I have that auto in a 5L hempy so I can move it around... and I'm gonna be running the lights overnight as a test anyway...

 

It won't know what hit it


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## verticalgrow (May 15, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Since I have that auto in a 5L hempy so I can move it around... and I'm gonna be running the lights overnight as a test anyway...
> 
> View attachment 3682718
> 
> It won't know what hit it


g'day Lofty,
What are those black plastic squares on the floor called?
nice job on the DIY lights & take care of ur back 
cheers VG


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## loftygoals (May 15, 2016)

Hi mate,

They are flexi trays:

http://www.growell.co.uk/deep-flexi-trays.html

You can also get "Garland" trays which are plastic and not flexible:

http://www.grotechonline.co.uk/hydroponics.asp?page=garland

The flexi trays have the advantage of folding up so they'd fit through a tight loft access hatch 

Back is holding up well. I've started some quality exercise which usually keeps it happy.


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## Gregor Eisenhorn (May 16, 2016)

Holy crap, I've never seen a water cooled LED setup on this site before, you should definately go tot he LED section and show of your build.  nice work!


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## loftygoals (May 18, 2016)

So I've been a busy bee over the past couple days.

I washed 300L of perlite and 100L of vermiculte. What a pain in the ass! 

Have filled up 14x 20L hempy buckets with a perlite base upto the drainage hole and then perlite/vermiculite in a 3:1 ratio. This is exactly Hempy's original formula.... I've read his recommendation to stick to this the first time and then change things after a couple of grows as you get used to it.

So... what was I going to transplant into these buckets? Well I've taken a risk and chopped the bad roots, washed them in chlorinated water and then transplanted them. I managed to get new white healthy roots growing again with lots of sterilisation, this is what most of them looked like before the root trimming:

 

I trimmed all the bad stuff so there was only a couple of inches left. Will see how it pans out...

Here's a 8x4 tent with all the buckets inside. I'm planning on moving half the buckets to the other tent but at the moment they fit into one, so while they're recovering and small I'll keep them together. After a week I'll move them across.

 

I've got 1.2kW of lighting running in there at the moment. The difference in room temps going from air cooled to water cooled is phenomenal. 1.2kW watercooled lights keep the tent cooler than 600W of air cooled lights.

I think this is because the heat is being pumped directly out of the tent with the water and then dissipated by the radiator outside. So I'm not relying on air as a medium to move the heat.

Anyway... new plan! 2 weeks for these to root properly and then flip to 12/12!


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## loftygoals (May 30, 2016)

Update!

So it's been about 12 days since I moved all the plants out of RDWC and into hempies. I've had everything in the same 8x4 tent under 1200w of COBs. Not turned up the lights to max because I was trying to give them a chance to root. Another 2 days and I'll switch to 12/12.

Here's what they all look like:

 

They're about 8 weeks old now but have been through root rot x3 in RDWC and then had their roots chopped and were transplanted into hempies.

The auto is 6 weeks old and was severely nitrogen toxic about 2 weeks ago as I hadn't switched to bloom nutes early enough. I'd thought the droopyness/clawing was due to transplant/root issues. Anyway I figured it out when buds appeared and very very quickly switched.

The Pineapple Express were both calcium and magnesium deficient. I had also put this down to root issues but have now switched from RO water to tap water (which is 220ppm so should be fine). Hopefully that solves it before I need to add calmag.

Also potted up the mother room about 10 days ago. They've taken really well under 110w of T5!

 

I'll try to keep them "bonzai" as I'll only be needing about 16 clones every 2 months.

I had 20 clones in the aerocloner and 20 clones in rockwool. They ALL rooted so I've thrown out 20! I potted up 16 into hempies and have put them in the veg room. I only did that yesterday (hence why they're so small compared to the "mothers" I potted up about 10 days back despite being from the same batch of clones).

 

I dismantled the RDWC system, swept the floor and cleaned out the room with bleach before introducing new plants. I'll be hand watering daily until the roots hit the bottom. I've turned most of the LEDs off in the veg room and only have 200w running at the moment.

Overall I'm reasonably happy with the switch from RDWC to hempy. It takes me around 45 mins to 1 hour of maintenance per day for 32 buckets + 6 mothers in autopots... but once that's done there's no stress for the rest of the day/night. Trying to fight slime in RDWC was just a constant stress even though the actual daily maintenance time was less (more like 10-20 mins) when things were running smoothly.


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## verticalgrow (May 30, 2016)

g'day Lofty,
how big are the pots in the autopot system?
VG


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## Roger A. Shrubber (May 30, 2016)

glad to hear from you. all those plants look pretty good, especially with what they've gone through.
hope the hempys do the trick, dwc has always seemed like a very fragile system to me


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## nicougrik (May 31, 2016)

Nice ! 
I've also just put my girl in a small hempy and it is much much better. Very little maintenance, its been 5 days since ive watered now and dont expect ill have to any time soon. just 2 minutes per day of taking a look at the growth and adjusting lights if needed. 
Cant wait to see those switched to 12/12


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## sickleaf (May 31, 2016)

Jeez man, that's a platinum setup  *Loft envy activated*


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## loftygoals (May 31, 2016)

verticalgrow said:


> g'day Lofty,
> how big are the pots in the autopot system?
> VG


Hi mate,

They're 8.5L each.

Here's a pic with a 10L nute bottle plus a 1L jug for scale:


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## loftygoals (May 31, 2016)

nicougrik said:


> Nice !
> I've also just put my girl in a small hempy and it is much much better. Very little maintenance, its been 5 days since ive watered now and dont expect ill have to any time soon. just 2 minutes per day of taking a look at the growth and adjusting lights if needed.
> Cant wait to see those switched to 12/12


I've just switched to 12/12 today. Pretty certain they've all rooted well.

The idea of RDWC was great but it wasn't meant to be this time.


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## Gregor Eisenhorn (Jun 1, 2016)

Maybe on your next run eh? Good job that they survived and are doing great, can't wait to see how they sssssstretch.


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## loftygoals (Jun 6, 2016)

It's been 6 days since I flipped to 12/12. I'm going to have to flower under 1.2kW per tent (2.4kW total) over the summer. When the temp outside goes over 25C and I have lights at full blast (4.2kW total) the room temps slowly climb to around 30C despite staggering the tents. The 12000 BTU air con unit I have can't handle hot weather plus massive lighting loads. I think being at the top of the house isn't helping much.

Hempies are doing really well. Much easier and less stress than RDWC. New growth is very healthy and there are no new signs of calcium or magnesium deficiency since swapping to tap water a week back.

 

Those are 4 Pineapple Express at the top and 2 Blueberry at the bottom. I supercropped them 2 days ago as they were starting to get tall but there was plenty of space between buckets. It seems to have made some difference.

The other tent has 4x Viper Cookies and 4x Purple Afghan Kush plus 1 Auto Dark Purple. The auto is about a week away from the chop I think. I haven't taken any pics today as the tent is in the dark at the moment.

The clones I planted are also doing reasonably well after a week in 20L buckets.

 

I've been watering them daily with around 200ml of nutes each around the stems. I'll give them another week to be sure they're rooted well and then move to larger volumes every few days.


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## Roger A. Shrubber (Jun 6, 2016)

looking good. i know the rewards from dwc are nice, but everyone i talk to that does it tells me horror stories about losing whole crops to root rot, or at least getting their plants stunted badly by it, costing them half their harvest or more. no ones ever told me a hempy horror story, at least not about root rot.


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## loftygoals (Jun 6, 2016)

Roger A. Shrubber said:


> looking good. i know the rewards from dwc are nice, but everyone i talk to that does it tells me horror stories about losing whole crops to root rot, or at least getting their plants stunted badly by it, costing them half their harvest or more. no ones ever told me a hempy horror story, at least not about root rot.


Yeah, seems pretty common sadly. I imagine it's great when it works properly but if you get the lergie it's a complete nightmare.

I took some pics of the other tent. 4x Viper Cookies at the back and 4x Purple Afghan Kush at the front with the Auto Dark Purple finishing off in the middle.

 

The Purple Afghan Kush had a really hard time in DWC. Growth was slow, it was really short and stumpy. They've all recovered quite well in the hempies.

Also the mothers are growing really quick in the autopots.

 

Only 110w of T5 and just over 2 weeks old from clones. They're going to need trimming weekly and lots of training to keep them under control! Might have to take one of the T5 tubes out to drop them down to 55w as I was hoping for slow steady growth


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## Thc247 (Jun 6, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Yeah, seems pretty common sadly. I imagine it's great when it works properly but if you get the lergie it's a complete nightmare.
> 
> I took some pics of the other tent. 4x Viper Cookies at the back and 4x Purple Afghan Kush at the front with the Auto Dark Purple finishing off in the middle.
> 
> ...


keeping moms in auto pots doesnt seem like a wise idea to me lol as they grow like monsters they look nice and healthy thou


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## loftygoals (Jun 12, 2016)

Thc247 said:


> keeping moms in auto pots doesnt seem like a wise idea to me lol as they grow like monsters they look nice and healthy thou


Yeah, the idea was to have a mega low maintenance setup. Fill the res once a week and forget about them. From that perspective it's working well as the first full res is down to 1/3 after around 2 weeks.

The issue is that they're growing faster than I expected under 110w of T5! I removed all large fan leaves this week which has helped slow growth significantly. I guess I'll keep defoliating the big stuff.

Anywho... took some pics today. 12 days into 12/12.

Here's the Pineapple Express (back 4) and Blueberry (front 2) tent:

 

And here's the Viper Cookies (back 4) and Purple Afghan Kush (front 4):

 

Clones in the veg area are also coming along nicely at just under 2 weeks:

 

Today was the first time I filled their hempy reservoirs completely. I did 7 days of watering 200-250ml a day. Then 3 days of 500ml per day and finally 2 days of 1L per day before I watered til run off today. Pretty certain they've all rooted to the bottom of the buckets now. It'll probably be a week or so before I need to water them again which is nice!


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## kkmmbb1 (Jun 14, 2016)

What a great tread loftygrow. I am really impressed, i love watching grows where there is put max efford into the build/design process. Well done! Im glad you switched from rdwc to hempy, seems to me like a very good choice. Loving the water-cooled cobs btw, never seen someone watercool them, great work. I am also working on lights with cree cxa3050 and some full-spectrum leds, but nothing major like your grow. Thumbs up from my side! I am def following along your thread from now, have a great day and best of luck friend!


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## loftygoals (Jun 14, 2016)

kkmmbb1 said:


> What a great tread loftygrow. I am really impressed, i love watching grows where there is put max efford into the build/design process. Well done! Im glad you switched from rdwc to hempy, seems to me like a very good choice. Loving the water-cooled cobs btw, never seen someone watercool them, great work. I am also working on lights with cree cxa3050 and some full-spectrum leds, but nothing major like your grow. Thumbs up from my side! I am def following along your thread from now, have a great day and best of luck friend!


Thanks 

Good to hear you're doing a LED build. Take your time and I'm sure it'll turn out well. You'll constantly be coming up with new ideas and ways to improve the lights. I promised myself no tinkering for at least 2 grows; else I'd already be at it!

Hempy buckets was definitely a good move for me. My RDWC setup was doomed but they've taken to hempies brilliantly. Thinking back 4 weeks ago I took 40 clones because I thought the whole crop was toast and I'd have to start again.

I posted this thread to give others ideas. If it wasn't for other people posting their setups and ideas on forums I probably wouldn't have even started this grow room in my loft, wouldn't have thought of building DIY lights and wouldn't know what a Hempy bucket was... sharing is caring? 

Good luck with your grow!


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## loftygoals (Jun 16, 2016)

Day 15 of 12/12. Taken some more pics.

Blueberry (front 2) + Pineapple Express (back 4):



Purple Afghan Kush (front 4) and Viper Cookies (back 4):



I'm having to use a 2m length of guttering to water the plants at the back now. No way I'm getting through that jungle 

I also finally chopped the Auto Dark Purple yesterday at just over 8 weeks old. Apparently it was supposed to be ready in 45-55 days. Got some fruity smelling purple buds off it which I have my drying in my newly setup drying tent (60x60x140cm tent with a drying rack, 6 inch carbon filter and dehumidifier in the room)... hopefully in a few days I'll post some pics of the good stuff.


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## verticalgrow (Jun 16, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Day 15 of 12/12. Taken some more pics.
> 
> I also finally chopped the Auto Dark Purple yesterday at just over 8 weeks old. Apparently it was supposed to be ready in 45-55 days. Got some fruity smelling purple buds off it which I have my drying in my newly setup drying tent (60x60x140cm tent with a drying rack, 6 inch carbon filter and dehumidifier in the room)... hopefully in a few days I'll post some pics of the good stuff.


G'day Lofty,
i heard Auto Dark purple was great for back pain. 
Those DIY lights seem to be working a treat 
VG


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## 420 Boy (Jun 16, 2016)

hi Lofty,
How are your plants doing?

EDIT *while browsing the page, you've updated * cool


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## loftygoals (Jun 16, 2016)

verticalgrow said:


> G'day Lofty,
> i heard Auto Dark purple was great for back pain.
> Those DIY lights seem to be working a treat
> VG


Look forward to trying it 

Yeah, the lights seem to be working well. Only time will tell...



420 Boy said:


> hi Lofty,
> How are your plants doing?
> 
> EDIT *while browsing the page, you've updated * cool


Amazing. Comparing my pics from 10 days ago to today they've twice the size


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## Buds4Fun (Jun 17, 2016)

Just want to say WOW. Solid effort, doing something like this has been my dream for many years.


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## loftygoals (Jun 20, 2016)

Almost 3 weeks since flip to 12/12.

Pineapple Express (back 4) and Blueberry (front 2):

 

Viper Cookies (back 4) and Purple Afghan Kush (front 4):

 

Clones now 20 days since transplant into hempies (gonna have to top and train them as I need to let them get to 8 weeks veg... have drops the LEDs in the veg room to 450w only):

 

Also dried the Auto Dark Purple freebie which I grew along side everything else. Came to 9 grams dry which isn't great... but considering it was a freebie auto, had root rot, nitrogen toxicity and was transplanted from DWC to a hempy bucket during it's short life (45-55 day strain)... I'll take it


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## loftygoals (Jun 25, 2016)

Pineapple Express doing particularly well 25 days after flip:

 
 

Everything seems to be going to plan at the moment


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## TheBlowInn (Jun 26, 2016)

Great thread. I too am looking at using a loft. Could you used drip irrigation & maybe link it to soil moisture monitors ? You can get quite cheap domestic watering systems that work automatically.


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## loftygoals (Jun 26, 2016)

The floor was getting a little grotty and I could see some small dead leaves at the bottom at the back of the tent so I decided to do a clean out today.

Took out a couple of plants, managed to remove all the small dead crap which I couldn't reach before. Also wiped down the floors with a bleach/water solution. I absolutely wreak of weed at the moment! Because the air is double carbon filtered I couldn't appreciate the smell before, but when you're right in there fiddling with the plants... 

Also noticed the Pineapple Express is more developed than I'd realised! Seems to be steaming ahead really really quickly!

Went to get my camera to take a few proper shots... Here's the tent (PEx4 at the back and BBx2 infront):

 

And here's a shot of a Pineapple Express bud today (day 26 since flip):

 

Not even 4 weeks and it's getting frosty  Also found some rusty spots on a few lower leaves so I'll add a little more calmag (was only feeding 0.1ml per L on top of 210ppm tap water).


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## loftygoals (Jun 26, 2016)

TheBlowInn said:


> Great thread. I too am looking at using a loft. Could you used drip irrigation & maybe link it to soil moisture monitors ? You can get quite cheap domestic watering systems that work automatically.


I have absolutely no idea mate. This is my first grow and I've been through building an insulated grow room, germinating seeds in paper towels and then rockwool, RDWC in hydroton, cloning in an aerocloner and then rockwool, keeping mothers in coco autopots, treating root rot multiple times, building water cooled LEDs and finally transplanting into hempy buckets. I haven't touched drippers, moisture monitors or soil. The thought of even reading about another way of growing before I'm finished with this grow doesn't exactly fill me with enthusiasm!


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## TheBlowInn (Jun 26, 2016)

I would love your set up but I would be concerned that it can't be dismantled in a hurry if you get unwanted visitors or need access to the loft wiring etc


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## Corbzilla (Jun 26, 2016)

This is an amazing thread! I thought I'd done a good job on my loft. Wouldn't even dream of posting a pic of it on here, would be somewhat embarrased You've inspired me though. Appreciate you taking the time to write up such a detailed thread when you're, very obviously, a man with his hands full! Great work!


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## Roger A. Shrubber (Jun 26, 2016)

very nice, glad the buckets are working well for you.


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## loftygoals (Jun 26, 2016)

Corbzilla said:


> This is an amazing thread! I thought I'd done a good job on my loft. Wouldn't even dream of posting a pic of it on here, would be somewhat embarrased You've inspired me though. Appreciate you taking the time to write up such a detailed thread when you're, very obviously, a man with his hands full! Great work!


Sharing is caring  Loads of things I could have done better IMO but as long as I've done my research and given it a good shot I'm happy. Nobody should be embarrassed when it comes to sharing their grow. How else are we all going to learn from each other? 



Roger A. Shrubber said:


> very nice, glad the buckets are working well for you.


Thanks  Yup the buckets are behaving themselves nicely but I'm already starting to want some automation! No idea how some peeps water their plants 6 times a day


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## Roger A. Shrubber (Jun 26, 2016)

i'm small enough to not worry about it, but everyone i've talked to highly recommends the drip rings for coco and perlite, to avoid the erosion pit that comes from one emitter running hard enough to water a good sized plant


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## loftygoals (Jun 27, 2016)

Viper Cookies still stretching 

The one at the back left is still growing 2-3 inches a day! It's stretched above the lights since yesterday. I've tied it down (quite a challenge to get in there!) but damn they're big!

 
Also found a bug in my mum room. Saw the same thing a few weeks back sitting on a leaf but couldn't get a snap. As far as I can tell plants look very healthy in coco/perlite autopots, can I safely ignore the bugger?


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## Roger A. Shrubber (Jun 28, 2016)

i'm not sure what that is, but i doubt it'll bother your plants. it might bite you and give you the lergie, though


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## verticalgrow (Jun 28, 2016)

Roger A. Shrubber said:


> i'm not sure what that is, but i doubt it'll bother your plants. it might bite you and give you the lergie, though


it looks like a mozzie/ kill the blood sucking vampire


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## loftygoals (Jun 30, 2016)

Am paranoid wondering if it's an adult fungus gnat, Have placed a yellow insect trap around the mums to see if anything gets stuck 

Here's a bit of a 30 day flower update... I've started adding PK 13/14 at 0.5ml/L this week with total PPM around 600-650. I'm going to continue for 14 days total (9 days left) and then drop it.

Here's the Viper Cookies (back 4) and Purple Afghan Kush (front 4):

 

Viper cookies have grown into monsters. They're each drinking 4L of nutes per day and the plant at the back Left has several tops which grew above the lights despite being topped and supercropped. I've had to tie it back in a few places.

I've also spotted a bit of an oddity. One of the Viper Cookies appears to grow bud from it's fan leaves in a couple of places:

 

Purple Afghan Kush looking good too:

 

There's a tiny bit of tip burn as I think I fed at 750ppm a couple of times while I was getting the nutrient ratios dialled in but it's not too bad.

Also did a bit of a tidy and have setup my drying tent in the loft in anticipation of what's to come


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## Indefinately (Jul 1, 2016)

Hey Lofty,

You have done an amazing job, it's hard to believe it's your first grow.

Should be proud of all your work mate.

You will be rewarded very soon by the look of it.



Indefinately
"Let there be Green in 2016"


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## loftygoals (Jul 1, 2016)

Mums looking good. They're bursting with tops to clone but it's going to be at least another 2 weeks until I'll be ready to do chop them off. I did some supercropping yesterday just to get the tops out from under the lights...

 

Plants in veg also coming along. This is 4 weeks after transplant. The hempies have been very easy; they have about 4.5L of water capacity until I get runoff but the plants only drink around 500ml per day max in veg (much less when they're very small)... so I can get away with watering once a week no probs!

 

They're only under 420W of light spread through a 8x4 area to keep growth slow and temps low (gonna be another 4 weeks at least until I can start to flower them). I've just rotated the larger plants out of the picture and put the smaller ones directly under the lights to try and even them up a little. The Purple Afghan Kush in particular is very slow in veg compared to everything else.


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## Indefinately (Jul 1, 2016)

Hey Lofty,

Give us a run down of your medium and feed ( EC ) for you hempies.

Where abouts did you drill the hole for the bucket? How did you cover the hole? Flyscreen or mesh?

What's your feedback on Hempies in general buddy?

Nice work as usual mate!

Indefinately
" Let there be Green in 2016 "


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## loftygoals (Jul 1, 2016)

Indefinately said:


> Hey Lofty,
> 
> Give us a run down of your medium and feed ( EC ) for you hempies.
> 
> ...


Thanks 

I've kept it as close as possible to Hempy's original formula. You can find his original post on MrNice forums in a thread called "The Hempy Bucket". He says he's been perfecting it for around 25 years so why try and reinvent the wheel?

So I'm using 20L (5 gallon) buckets. The hole is 1/2" in diameter. Somewhere I read a post from him which advised he kept the internal res to be 20% of the total volume of the bucket so I actually got an empty bucket and put in 5L of water. Then I measured the depth of the water (2 inches). Finally I drilled holes so that the bottom of the hole was 2 inches from the bottom of the bucket (so the centre of the hole is around 2 1/4 inches from the bottom). This takes the guesswork out of placing your holes  You don't need to cover your holes, the perlite doesn't really escape.

My internal res is filled with perlite only until just above the bottom of the drainage hole. The rest of the bucket is filled with perlite/vermiculite in a 3:1 ratio.

Hempy advised pH 6.2. So that's my target. I check runoff from 1 bucket only about once a week just to get an idea of the internal res conditions. I've found pH wanders up to around 6.5 so I drop my nute solution pH to around 5.8-6.0 to balance it.

I'm not a fan of mopping up and disposing of huge volumes of nute solution so I aim for minimal runoff (I have to carry any runoff back down my loft ladder in a bucket to dispose of it). Hempy also said having loads of runoff was a waste. You get an idea of how much each plant drinks daily and can use that to have only 100ml or so of runoff as a target.

Both Hempy and Heath Robinson have stated they've used any Hydro A+B mix with good results (but I've also seen them both mention Canna Aqua A+B specifically) so that's good enough for me. Heath aims for 1.0-1.2 EC in veg and 1.2-1.4 EC in flower. I've found that to be about right. If I go above 1.4 EC and don't replenish the nutes in the res with loads of runoff then it gets more concentrated over time. The highest I've seen the runoff was 2.0 EC when I fed with 1.5 EC strength nutes for a few days so I just went down to 1.1EC for a couple of days. Heath advises running veg nutes for 10-14 days into flower to stop nitrogen deficiency from developing in earlt/mid flower so that's what I've done. Heath has also stated he sometimes adds some PK 13/14 to his grows so I decided to add that too as it's very cheap (actually bought it from Poundland for... £1 for 200ml! That should make 400L of nutes so £1.50 is enough for 1 whole grow and also means I use less Canna Aqua nutes). I decided to go for 0.5ml per L in every feed weeks 4 and 5 keeping my total EC target the same.

So you can see I'm standing on the shoulders of giants here. I haven't really come up with anything on my own. I've just tried to stick with advice from good growers who have shared what they do.

Overall Hempies are very easy and stress free. Particularly in veg they barely need any attention. Once you have the buckets filled with medium and your clones planted... there are no moving parts to fail, you just water and can chill out


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## Indefinately (Jul 1, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Thanks
> 
> I've kept it as close as possible to Hempy's original formula. You can find his original post on MrNice forums in a thread called "The Hempy Bucket". He says he's been perfecting it for around 25 years so why try and reinvent the wheel?
> 
> ...


Your a smart man Mr Loft!

If only all "new" growers followed the people that have problem solved and perfected techniques over many years instead of trying to re-invented the wheel.

I have tried the Hempy system.
I may use it for my mothers again.
I flowered them last time in 25 litre buckets with perlite at the bottom and coco for the rest of the bucket. They ended up being trees which were not practical so I won't be flowering hempies again.

I have saved your notes for my Next go at Hempy buckets, cheers for the detail.

Big Rep for all your work and attention to detail bud, your new hobby will consume your life like you can't believe.

Indefinately
" Let there be Green 2016 "


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## Feisty1UR (Jul 2, 2016)

wow... all I can say! how long did it take you to set all of this up in total?  looks amazing -

you've given me some great ideas for future projects. atb with this


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## loftygoals (Jul 2, 2016)

Feisty1UR said:


> wow... all I can say! how long did it take you to set all of this up in total?  looks amazing -
> 
> you've given me some great ideas for future projects. atb with this


I started kitting out my loft with flooring just after Christmas 2015. I intended on having a 1000w grow (25% of capability) started after 5 weeks and having my first crop done by the end of April 2016...

Turned out that was too optimistic. It actually took me 4 months to get the loft done and my grow properly started but I got the whole grow room operational in that time.


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## Feisty1UR (Jul 2, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> I started kitting out my loft with flooring just after Christmas 2015. I intended on having a 1000w grow (25% of capability) started after 5 weeks and having my first crop done by the end of April 2016...
> 
> Turned out that was too optimistic. It actually took me 4 months to get the loft done and my grow properly started but I got the whole grow room operational in that time.


Damn... that's ALOT of dedication. Either way, the grow looks great so far!  how many years have you been growing roughly? 

I setup my first grow the start of this year, finished around april time. Currently working on my next grow, upgraded my grow space/grow technique, going for a 4x4 SOG style grow this time around.

Would you consider growing using SOG? / or suggesting it at all?


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## loftygoals (Jul 2, 2016)

Feisty1UR said:


> Damn... that's ALOT of dedication. Either way, the grow looks great so far! how many years have you been growing roughly?
> 
> I setup my first grow the start of this year, finished around april time. Currently working on my next grow, upgraded my grow space/grow technique, going for a 4x4 SOG style grow this time around. Would you consider growing using SOG? or suggesting it


This is my first grow... so roughly... er... a few months 

I wouldn't consider having all my flower space (2.4x2.4m) as a SOG because watering that many plants would just be a bloody nightmare. I have a full time job! I can barely handle watering 16 pots once a day 

I'd consider a smaller tent (maybe 60x60cm) with a SOG inside for a specific strain. I'm a long ways off that sort of experimentation though.

The next upgrade I'm eyeing up is swapping my COBs to Cree CXB3590 3500k CD units and then also adding vertical style LED side lighting to bring up all the lower buds. I should have a crazy trial run going within a few months


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## Feisty1UR (Jul 2, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> This is my first grow... so roughly... er... a few months
> 
> I wouldn't consider having all my flower space (2.4x2.4m) as a SOG because watering that many plants would just be a bloody nightmare. I have a full time job! I can barely handle watering 16 pots once a day
> 
> ...


Haha you have the same kind of idea as me - Next grow I'm hopefully going to invest in some COB units too, I've been eyeing up these http://timbergrowlights.com/250-watt-cree-cxb3590-5-cob-kit-meanwell-hlg-power-supply-free-shipping/

I'm only using a 600w HPS + Air-cooled hood. (That was my upgrade)  please don't laugh - Last time I used a 400w HPS with basic reflector, only yielded 10oz 

You've definitely done more research than me, feel free to give me a little advice whenever you have time  Ideally wanted to squeeze as much out of this 4x4 as humanly possible, SOG seemed the way to go


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## loftygoals (Jul 2, 2016)

Feisty1UR said:


> Haha, you have the same kind of idea as me - Next grow I'm hopefully going to invest in some COB units too, I've been eyeing up these http://timbergrowlights.com/250-watt-cree-cxb3590-5-cob-kit-meanwell-hlg-power-supply-free-shipping/
> 
> I'm only using a 600w HPS + Air-cooled hood. (That was my upgrade) please don't laugh  Last time I used a 400w HPS with basic reflector, only yielded 8oz


Nothing to laugh at  That's a very good result for a 400w HPS 

That kit looks good. I was having a good look a few weeks ago.

Only bit of advice I'd give you is have it clear in your head why you're upgrading (I need to cut my electricity costs, I want more total yield, I want to keep the same yield but cut the heat etc) and base your upgrade off that. Don't just upgrade for the sake of it.


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## Feisty1UR (Jul 2, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Nothing to laugh at  That's a very good result for a 400w HPS
> 
> That kit looks good. I was having a good look a few weeks ago.
> 
> Only bit of advice I'd give you is have it clear in your head why you're upgrading (I need to cut my electricity costs, I want more total yield, I want to keep the same yield but cut the heat etc) and base your upgrade off that. Don't just upgrade for the sake of it.


Electricity costs, have control over temps, extra yield ($$$), . Pretty much exactly what everyone wants, right?


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## loftygoals (Jul 2, 2016)

Feisty1UR said:


> Electricity costs, have control over temps, extra yield ($$$), . Pretty much exactly what everyone wants, right?


I guess yeah 

I'd say make yourself familiar with efficiency of different lighting technologies and why certain lights give you more GPW than others. I don't post in the lighting section much but I'm very familiar with pretty much everything out there at the moment lighting technology wise.

I found table 3 in this article useful for helping me understand why certain lights are better than others: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0099010#pone-0099010-t003

Your 400w HPS would have put out just over half the umol/j (0.94) as a double ended Gavita (1.70) or CMH (1.46). So it's using almost twice the electricity to produce the same amount of light for the plants (1.8x a Gavita or 1.55x a CMH). Which is why your GPW is just over half of what you'd hope/pray for from a high end light. The LEDs in that table are old technology and you can see why old LEDs didn't produce much more GPW than HIDs... the umol/j is similar so GPW will also be similar.

The kit you linked to from Timber has 5 Cree CXB3590s driven at 50w each. They will produce around 2.5umol/j. At 250w that means 625umol/s total output. What does that mean for you? Well you got 283g of bud from 491umol/s total under your 400w HPS so you could probably expect around 360g from 625umol/j (the 250w kit) under the same conditions. 77g extra.

How much electricity saving do you make over that grow? You use 150w less for 12h a day for 2 months of flower (108kwh) and 150w less for 18h a day for 6 weeks of veg (121kwh) which is 229kwh. My electricity costs £0.11 per kwh so only £25 (around $33 US) of electricity savings over the whole grow but it cost you $499 to buy the kit. Is it worth it? Well if you grew the same total amount of cannabis then it's probably not worth it TBH because it would take 7-8 grows to pay for itself (if you include bulb prices). But if you get an extra 77g of yield then it pays for itself in 1 grow.

Now you've upgraded to a 600w HPS it gets even more blurry  That's why it's very difficult to get definitive answers on lighting upgrades!

That is what I mean by having it clear in your head why you're upgrading


----------



## Feisty1UR (Jul 2, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> I guess yeah
> 
> I'd say make yourself familiar with efficiency of different lighting technologies and why certain lights give you more GPW than others. I don't post in the lighting section much but I'm very familiar with pretty much everything out there at the moment lighting technology wise.
> 
> ...


I'm going to have to read this 2 or 3 times to fully understand it lmao

So It's mainly down to umol output? How are umols calculated? 

I was thinking about purchasing 3-4 of the CreeCXB bars, either the 300 (4) or the other. Still undecided. 1 for top lighting (maybe 2) and 2 for side lighting

Everyone on here talks about the G per watt method, so I go by that lol (Probably not the best method). I'm going to hope I can pull 600g from my 600w light  with SOG and an Ebb n flow system, it's easily done compared to traditional grows, or SCROG from what I've researched

I'll have 36 rooted clones, once flowered, each pulling (hopefully) 1/2 oz each. 36 x 14 = 504. I'm still happy with that  if I'm able to yield more.... that's even better 

Side note: Read up somewhere that the 600w HPS is the "most efficient" HID bulb. Not sure if that claim is true or false


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## loftygoals (Jul 3, 2016)

Yup mainly down to umol output. Also known as Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) which is measured in thr number of photons the light emits or Photosynthetic Photon Flux (PPF).

If you check that table I linked you'll see a magnetic ballast HPS gets about 0.94umol/w while a electronic ballast HPS gets about 1.30umol/w and a double ended HPS gets about 1.70umol/w. So for the same wattage a DE will grow more, followed by a normal electronic ballast and finally a magnetic ballast gets least. The light technology is more important than just saying a 600w is most efficient.

A Gavita 6/750 DE running at 600w will grow almost double what a magnetic ballast 600w HPS does.


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## Indefinately (Jul 3, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Yup mainly down to umol output. Also known as Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) which is measured in thr number of photons the light emits or Photosynthetic Photon Flux (PPF).
> 
> If you check that table I linked you'll see a magnetic ballast HPS gets about 0.94umol/w while a electronic ballast HPS gets about 1.30umol/w and a double ended HPS gets about 1.70umol/w. So for the same wattage a DE will grow more, followed by a normal electronic ballast and finally a magnetic ballast gets least. The light technology is more important than just saying a 600w is most efficient.
> 
> A Gavita 6/750 DE running at 600w will grow almost double what a magnetic ballast 600w HPS does.


Never heard of DE HPS

http://maximumyield.com/blog/2014/09/01/seeing-double/

Why is anyone using normal HPS.
I have been away from the growing seen for a few years and it's amazing the technology upgrades.

So much to learn.....

Indefinately
" Let there be Green in 2016 "


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## Will Thayer (Jul 3, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> The next upgrade I'm eyeing up is swapping my COBs to Cree CXB3590 3500k CD units and then also adding vertical style LED side lighting to bring up all the lower buds. I should have a crazy trial run going within a few months


Hello Lofty,
I have been watching and admiring your efforts for sometime now. You are an intelligent and research driven grower and it shows in all you have done thus far. Kudos to you. 
I am in the U.K. as well and have some experience with building COB fixtures and sourcing parts in Europe. When you are ready to upgrade your lights I would be more then happy help you find what you need. The size of your grow would make Cree a significant upfront investment. It might be more cost effective to give the Citizen CLU048 series a look when you're ready. I wish you continued success in all your endeavours.

Cheers,
Will


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## TheBlowInn (Jul 3, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Nothing to laugh at  That's a very good result for a 400w HPS
> 
> That kit looks good. I was having a good look a few weeks ago.
> 
> Only bit of advice I'd give you is have it clear in your head why you're upgrading (I need to cut my electricity costs, I want more total yield, I want to keep the same yield but cut the heat etc) and base your upgrade off that. Don't just upgrade for the sake of it.


The electricity savings don';t seem that good but maybe the combination of saving plus lower temps could make it worthwhile. I am looking at all options because I don't want to invest in the wrong long term choice.

Do you have any concerns with the Electric company detecting significantly higher usage ?


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## Feisty1UR (Jul 3, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Yup mainly down to umol output. Also known as Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) which is measured in thr number of photons the light emits or Photosynthetic Photon Flux (PPF).
> 
> If you check that table I linked you'll see a magnetic ballast HPS gets about 0.94umol/w while a electronic ballast HPS gets about 1.30umol/w and a double ended HPS gets about 1.70umol/w. So for the same wattage a DE will grow more, followed by a normal electronic ballast and finally a magnetic ballast gets least. The light technology is more important than just saying a 600w is most efficient.
> 
> A Gavita 6/750 DE running at 600w will grow almost double what a magnetic ballast 600w HPS does.


I've been looking online most of the gavita DE systems aren't able to run using AC,

Indefinitely is right, you have a TON of knowledge with these new techy systems. Iyoo what would you suggest for my plan? SOG 4x4.

At the start I was honestly debating using a big 3x3 T5 light lmao


----------



## loftygoals (Jul 3, 2016)

The catch all answer for "what is the best light?" is the light with more yield for less wattage than its next most efficient competitor.

So if we take a 1000w DE Gavita = 1751umol/s of PAR output. If you're running Cree CXB3590s at 50w then 1751/2.5=700w.

Anything between 700w and 1000w of Cree CXB3590 COBs running at 50w (or lower) each... should cost less to run and yield more than a Gavita. If you go below 700w of COBs then you get a better yield from the Gavita so that becomes the better choice.

Over the long term that is the only answer that makes economic sense as long as the initial outlay is affordable and you can be bothered to build them IMO.

You can substitute other COBs such as Citizens or Veros. They are much of a muchness in terms of efficiency at wattages commonly used by grow lights at this point.

If you don't want a COB light then a DE HPS is best, then a CMH, then a electronic ballast HPS and finally a magnetic ballast.


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## Feisty1UR (Jul 3, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> The catch all answer for "what is the best light?" is the light with more yield for less wattage than its next most efficient competitor.
> 
> So if we take a 1000w DE Gavita = 1751umol/s of PAR output. If you're running Cree CXB3590s at 50w then 1751/2.5=700w.
> 
> ...


Can you get AC Hoods for DE HPS? I want to get the most out of my next 1-2 grows with the best/cheapest light possible. Then invest in some COB lighting afterwards.

Speaking of electronic ballasts, I read a post on here earlier - Not sure if this is true. But I'm not comfortable taking the risk honestly.

https://www.rollitup.org/t/warning-digital-electronic-ballasts-can-get-you-busted-the-a-m-radio-test.497790/


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## loftygoals (Jul 3, 2016)

Sun Systems AC/DE 8 inch hood?


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## Indefinately (Jul 3, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Over the long term that is the only answer that makes economic sense as long as the initial outlay is affordable and you can be bothered to build them IMO.


On COBs , I'm surprised there not being manufactured in "ready to grow" lighting systems.
It's all DIY as you said, I definitely wouldn't be bothered building them.

I'm really surprised as I thought this was the way to go and would be ready to ship on an online shops. Not having to buy parts and build it out.


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## loftygoals (Jul 3, 2016)

Indefinately said:


> On COBs , I'm surprised there not being manufactured in "ready to grow" lighting systems.
> It's all DIY as you said, I definitely wouldn't be bothered building them.
> 
> I'm really surprised as I thought this was the way to go and would be ready to ship on an online shops. Not having to buy parts and build it out.


http://www.tastyled.com/
http://www.pacificlightconcepts.com/shop/

They're available but expensive which is why you probably haven't seen them around much.

My intention is to have a total of 3600w of COB top lighting. If I wanted to have that pre-built it would cost $725 for a 320w unit (around 56% efficient) from PLC. So I'd need 11 units at a total of $7975. That comes to £7500 for me when you include VAT and import duty. Eyewatering!

I could make my own 3600w Cree CXB CXB3590 lights (56% efficient like the PLC unit) from scratch for around £3800 all in. 50% discount over prebuilt but not the same finish 

I could upgrade my current lights (reuse the frames, cooling and drivers) with 3600w of Cree CXB3590s (each COB running lower wattage) and have them around 62% efficient for around £3600.

I could buy 4000w of DE HPS for $1700 (£1400 here). That is 18% of the cost of prebuilt COBs for 75% of the PAR output! If you make it 5000w of DE HPS against 3600w of pre-built COBs then the HPS only cost 23% and produce about the same amount of light. That's why there are always different opinions on "which is the best light?"


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## Big smo (Jul 3, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> http://www.tastyled.com/
> http://www.pacificlightconcepts.com/shop/
> 
> They're available but expensive which is why you probably haven't seen them around much.
> ...


Great thread! The timber grow light kits are of the cheapest options when you factor in quality and price. The passive cooling is a great option too. 4 3590's in a painted housing range from 700-1000 usd when the timber is 400.


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## Indefinately (Jul 3, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> http://www.tastyled.com/
> http://www.pacificlightconcepts.com/shop/
> 
> They're available but expensive which is why you probably haven't seen them around much.
> ...


You have explained it in laymans terms for me to understand.

When you talk about efficiency, what are you referring to?

I have spent hours over the last few day reading about cobs and it's very confusing and a little off putting as there are a heap of RIU advertisers ( Manufacturers ) that are just arguing back and forth about design and output and who's idea it was originally.

Lol

You have explained it better than all of them could alltogether.


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## Big smo (Jul 3, 2016)

Indefinately said:


> You have explained it in laments terms for me to understand.
> 
> When you talk about efficiency, what are you referring to?
> 
> ...


lol! I was just at the same thread and got this alert. They have a lot to learn about running a buisness.


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## Will Thayer (Jul 4, 2016)

There is definitely a lot of ego driven poo-poo to wade through in the LED sub forum but also some really helpful and innovative folks as well. Over time you learn who to listen to and who to ignore. 

I knew nothing about COBs last year and now I can not stop making them. If Timber or the Cutter kits were around when I started looking into COBs I would have went with them because they provide almost everything you need to build your first light.

There are cheaper COB options if you just wanted to dip your toe in the efficiency waters. Something like a DIY veg light with CXA2530 would not cost all that much and still blow t5 out of the water. My first build replaced a 215w T5 veg light with a 150w dimmable LED that produces more photons per watt and no regular bulb changes.

Cheers,
Will


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## loftygoals (Jul 4, 2016)

Will Thayer said:


> There is definitely a lot of ego driven poo-poo to wade through in the LED sub forum but also some really helpful and innovative folks as well. Over time you learn who to listen to and who to ignore.
> 
> I knew nothing about COBs last year and now I can not stop making them. If Timber or the Cutter kits were around when I started looking into COBs I would have went with them because they provide almost everything you need to build your first light.
> 
> ...


I agree the LED sub forum is filled with little diamonds but also has some ego mixed in. If you're critical of everything you read you can still get a lot out of it. There's nowhere else on the net with as much technical info on grow lighting IMO.



Indefinately said:


> You have explained it in laymans terms for me to understand.
> 
> When you talk about efficiency, what are you referring to?
> 
> ...


A 100% efficient 3500k LED would emit 324 lumens/watt of light.

A 50% efficient 3500k LED would emit half that amount of light... so 162 lumens/watt.

You can measure the amount of power going through an LED and the amount of light it emits to discover how efficient it runs. The more efficient your light is the less heat it emits. In an ideal world we'd all be running 100% efficient lights which emit just light and no heat. In the real world

Lumens are a measure of light available to human eyes to see, PAR measured in umol is a measure of light available to plants to photosynthesise. Plants don't take up light in the same way as human eyes which is why PAR is a better measure of grow light brightness than lumens. Having said that if you only have lumen data available then you can get a rough idea of how different lights might compare for growing.


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## coreywebster (Jul 4, 2016)

Firstly.... GO UK!!!!
Secondly I love reading your posts lofty, you always come across as considerate, educated and well researched without been a dick like some folks can be prone to. Plus I like your ingenuity in your grow room.

@Indefinately When folks talk about efficiency with cobs or hps, they are referring to the amount of heat to light ratio, if you have a 600w hps that is 35% efficient then you have 65% of the watts creating heat and 35% light. With cobs at best, or so I have read that can be reversed, although a lot seem to be 40+%-50% from what I can gather. I read supre had made a 65% effiicient cree cob fixture.
Also cutter.au do some good kits, they don't need much more than a screw driver and you would have to buy some aluminium L shape for the frame. That vid I linked to you before, he has a vid assembling them so you could see how simple it is. I have to say the thought of building frightened me to start with.. The kits are named after him but he isn't the guy selling them.
Anyway will leave that there, before someone shoots me down for not owning one but praising them...lol

Looking forward to joining team efficiency one day in the not too distant future.

Happy grows everyone!


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## Will Thayer (Jul 4, 2016)

My go to flowering fixtures consist of 8x CXB3590 3500K CD driven @ 700ma I run three of these at the moment. That should put them around 64% efficent. The drawback is initial cost for more COBs. I also add deep red mono leds but that is just to tinker with spectrum and not a necessity. The trend at the moment seems to be less COBs driven a bit harder which is more cost effective and you still get around 50% efficiency.

I pay the same per KW as Lofty @ about 11p. Leds do put off heat and photons not used by the plants eventually convert to heat but compared to a HPS for me at least leds are the way forward.

In Lofty's example above about 4000w of DE HPS you would have to factor in cooling which would add to the financial outlay. Even in the U.K. with our somewhat uninspiring summers loft spaces are massive solar heat stores. With only roof slate and kingspan between your grow and the sun we are talking some serious BTUs even before you fire up a HPS system. I think we all would prefer to use available watts for photons not air conditioning.

Side note: Lofty I apologize if I am stepping on your thread. Since I share nothing about my hobby with anyone in real life you folks are my best bet for a good natter on my favorite subject.

Cheers,
Will


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## Indefinately (Jul 4, 2016)

coreywebster said:


> Firstly.... GO UK!!!!
> Secondly I love reading your posts lofty, you always come across as considerate, educated and well researched without been a dick like some folks can be prone to. Plus I like your ingenuity in your grow room.
> 
> @Indefinately
> ...


Your on the money Corey, Lofty is definitely one of few growers ( new growers especially ) that are so well educated and helpful without being cocky/arrogant when explaining things to people.

Big Respect to Lofty, amazing first crack at growing. Pro level effort and will be pro level harvest for sure!

I will definitely give them ( COBs ) a try in the not too distant future, although I will spend a few more months watching and reading. Learning from others succes and failures.
That's why I enjoy spending time speaking to like minded growers on This amazin forum.
Just going the LED section of the forum the most "hostile" part of the site. Not directed towards me, but in general.

Technology will continue to change the way we do things in all facets of our lives. 
Growing Dope is no different I guess.

I'm still a few months from having my op up and running, but am enjoying catching up with the New trends and following all the grows in the mean time.

Indefinately
" Let there be Green in 2016 "


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## JJARTS (Jul 4, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> I've been planning my new loft grow room for about 3 months and been working on it for about 6 weeks. I was aiming to get growing at the start of Feb but am a couple weeks behind as it's been a lot more work than I thought.
> 
> ...


You could think about an central AC in the future, vents and extractors are good when is cold weather, but in a hot and humid summer?, with a central AC you dont need to blow nothing out side and if you do CO2, it will remain inside longer... if AC is intalled the carbon filter will be out side the room to clean any scape, but the AC must be a 5tons unit that will take care of the humidity and give you a 0.0 ppm water.


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## Big smo (Jul 4, 2016)

JJARTS said:


> You could think about an central AC in the future, vents and extractors are good when is cold weather, but in a hot and humid summer?, with a central AC you dont need to blow nothing out side and if you do CO2, it will remain inside longer... if AC is intalled the carbon filter will be out side the room to clean any scape, but the AC must be a 5tons unit that will take care of the humidity and give you a 0.0 ppm water.


You are 100% correct here. It's not as much heat for most people it's more the humidity. Watering 2 gallons per plant is like pouring 2 gallons of water in the floor. I water on average 20 gallons per day between all my plants. In and out air works like you said in colder months but when temps hit 70+ al the way to 95+ here the Ac needs to run.


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## Will Thayer (Jul 4, 2016)

Central AC is not as popular here in the U.K. for residential homes. I run my lights from 23:00-11:00 all year round. That gives me time in the morning for garden maintenance before I go to work. My CO2 is generated for free by my family as they sleep. I have an active air intake that draws from our landing central to all the bedrooms. The CO2 monitor shows a 1100 ppm just from a family of four getting their beauty sleep. Also in the winter warm air is pumped into the loft grow space to keep the ladies cozy. To keep humidity in check I exhange air constantly and have one of these as a failsafe
.
It has a maximum draw of 230w but never goes anywhere near that. It is a set and forget unit, you dial in your desired humidity and it kicks in when needed. We are pretty fortunate (or not) that British weather is rather mild all year round. I spent last summer in Texas visiting my Mum and 95f with high humidity is no joke. I could not live there without AC nevermind the plants.

Cheers,
WIll


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## Indefinately (Jul 4, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> This is my first grow... so roughly... er... a few months


How you doing Loft,
How is your first grow going, any updates?

You should start up a journal .

I'm still blown away this is your first grow!


Indefinately
" Let there be Green in 2016 "


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## loftygoals (Jul 4, 2016)

lol thanks 

Now on Week 5 (Day 35 since flip)

These are the 4 Pineapple Express girls:

 

The 2 Blueberry are too big to get a shot of without going round to the other side of the tent now  I'll try and get a shot later in the week...

Here's one of the PEs (don't mind the wind burn from the fan):

 

Here's a Purple Afghan Kush:

 

And finally Viper Cookies:

 

They're all coming along nicely.

Checked my runoff after watering the PE/BB tent and found it had crept up to pH 6.7 and EC 2.6  Have just watered the other tent with calmag/pH'd water and got pH 6.2 EC 1.2 which is perfect. Will do the same for the PE/BB tent tomorrow. That's probably why I'm starting to get some tip burn again. I'm only using 0.5ml/L of PK 13/14... can't imagine what EC would be if I was using 2.0ml/L like the bottle suggests! Now I see why everyone's so wary of burning their plants with the stuff!


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## loftygoals (Jul 5, 2016)

Day 35 for the VC/PAK. I call this tent the jungle 



The negative pressure from the extractor fan was sucking in the walls quite a bit. I'm probably loosing around 10% of the tent area at canopy level... so I did some research on how I could steal the area back without using a rigid structure... and I'm going to be using bungees attached to the tent poles. Already ordered myself some bungee cord and hooks to make up the correct size bungees as it would be insanely expensive to do it properly with premade cords. Every little helps 

Also scared myself for a second thinking I had a smell leak in the house earlier. Eventually figured out it was me I could smell  I have "grow room" specific clothes and shoes. They smell so strongly now I was catching the scent off my own clothes lol


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## Will Thayer (Jul 6, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Also scared myself for a second thinking I had a smell leak in the house earlier. Eventually figured out it was me I could smell  I have "grow room" specific clothes and shoes. They smell so strongly now I was catching the scent off my own clothes lol


LOL,I do that all the time! No one in my house knows what I am up to in the loft and I am so paranoid that smell will give me away I end up smelling cannabis everywhere. I had a slight leak once and my other half mentioned it, I shamelessly blamed our neighbors because I am a craven sod.

Lofty, your project is looking fantastic! I still have trouble wrapping my head around this being your first foray into the hobby. Cracking job!

Cheers,
Will


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## loftygoals (Jul 8, 2016)

Day 38 since flip and things are plodding along.

Purple Afghan Kush is staring to go a little purple... who'd have thought?

 

Closeup of PAK

 

Also the veg room is starting to get a little crowded 

 

I've done some topping and LST but they're ready for the flip already! (5 weeks since going into hempies) Somehow they've got to last 3 more weeks until I can think about chopping the girls currently in the flower tents. I think I'm going to have another jungle on my hands!  

Will be going with 6500k COBs when I upgrade the veg lights later in the year to try and control that stretch.


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## loftygoals (Jul 9, 2016)

Done my weekly veg+mum maintenance tonight.

 

Mums desperate for me to take some clones!  They'll have to last until after next weekend. That'll give them 14 days to root before I get round 3 planted up (crosses fingers).

Also caught that mozzie that I posted a photo of a while back. Just 1 got stuck to the yellow paper and I haven't seen any since. Hopefully it was nothing


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## Indefinately (Jul 9, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Done my weekly veg+mum maintenance tonight.
> 
> View attachment 3728212
> 
> ...


What maintenance do you do exactly?

They look very healthy.
Great job as usual Lofty!


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## loftygoals (Jul 9, 2016)

Indefinately said:


> What maintenance do you do exactly?
> 
> They look very healthy.
> Great job as usual Lofty!


Autopot system just needs the reservoir filling. The 6 plants drink about 3L per day max so I just add 20L per week to keep it ticking over. Takes literally 10 mins to mix and top up. I also supercrop anything that's getting too close to the lights. For 6 plants it takes less than 20 mins per week. Insanely simple to maintain.

16 vegging hempies get trained once a week and I add also 1L of nutes to each bucket twice a week. I probably spend around 2h per week on them.

Flowering hempies need watering every other day for the first 3 weeks of flower and then the bigger plants need daily watering. I also remove any dead leaves and mop up any runoff. I spend about 1h per day on those.

Overall not too bad. The only complaint I have is that I can't leave the flowering girls alone for more than 2 days.


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## Will Thayer (Jul 10, 2016)

Loftygoals,
Your systems appears to be working a treat. I envy your ability to tend to your garden when you wish. I have to deal with the schedules of two teenagers and my other half. I have to wait to have the house to myself so none of them find out about my secret hobby. Maintenance can be a logistical nightmare at times.
You're not looking for a flatmate by any chance? 

Cheers,
Will


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## loftygoals (Jul 10, 2016)

Will Thayer said:


> Loftygoals,
> Your systems appears to be working a treat. I envy your ability to tend to your garden when you wish. I have to deal with the schedules of two teenagers and my other half. I have to wait to have the house to myself so none of them find out about my secret hobby. Maintenance can be a logistical nightmare at times.
> You're not looking for a flatmate by any chance?
> 
> ...


How do you do it?

Doesnt everyone get really suspicious?!


----------



## Will Thayer (Jul 10, 2016)

Ninja skill level +85.  Most probably dumb luck.
I might be just kidding myself and they know and mock me behind my back. My other half may be implementing a "don't ask don't tell" policy. 
You guys and one mate I have helped set up a small grow are my only outlets on the subject. 

Sometimes I have bouts of mania and want to run around shouting
* "I GROW,I GROW WEED EVERYBODY COME SEE!"* kind of like when cats have that mad minute of running around the house in the middle of the night. I guess that would be silly though. 

Cheers,
Will


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## loftygoals (Jul 12, 2016)

Day 42 since flip and some of the girls (PAK and PE in particular) are starting to look ripe.

This is what I'm greeted with in the BB/PE tent. That's why there haven't been any blueberry shots in a while... can't get a good shot!



Here's a closeup of a BB sidebud. The buds have a lot of fattening up to do. They've only really started to increase over the past few days.



And... PE:



Closeup:



I think PE and PAK will be done within the next 2 weeks so I think I'm going to give them water only from now. I'm going to try and salvage/reuse as much of the perlite/vermiculite as possible so I'd like to get as much of the nutes out of the medium as I can. Runoff is about EC 1.8 so they should keep going off the built up salts for a few days anyway.

BB and VC look like they have another 3 weeks so I'll keep going with the nutes for them.


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## loftygoals (Jul 15, 2016)

Mums were getting way out of control  They were starting to come up against the light despite all the training I could manage so I had to do some drastic trimming as I'm away all weekend!

 

Took clones for round 3 while I was at it. I've taken 5x Pineapple Express #1 (fastest finishing and frostiest), 8x Pineapple Express #4 (fastest growing, best fruity smell and biggest buds) and 10x Purple Afghan Kush #1 (quickest veg, best smelling and fastest finishing).

I'd not taken a mum from my PE #1 plant before as it wasn't as quick growing as #3 and #4 and had calcium deficiency early so I thought it wasn't going to be worth keeping... but turns out to be the frostiest and fastest in flower by a long way. Luckily I did have 1 clone vegging so I took clones off her and will make one a new mum. PE #3 mum is going to get binned I think. What's the lesson here? You need to flower a girl before deciding to bin/keep it for sure. There might be a gem hiding or you might have picked a wrongun.

PAK is getting slightly more purple. Supposed to be finished in 55-60 days. Here's a closeup from day 46:


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## coughphee.connoiseur (Jul 15, 2016)

@loftygoals 

How you liking the viper cookies, what is she like? i have to ask because I've wanted this strain since i heard about it about 2 years ago... i know its from seed bc i have never seen a clone on the market.


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## loftygoals (Jul 16, 2016)

coughphee.connoiseur said:


> @loftygoals
> 
> How you liking the viper cookies, what is she like? i have to ask because I've wanted this strain since i heard about it about 2 years ago... i know its from seed bc i have never seen a clone on the market.


Viper Cookies is interesting. Smells of sweet exotic spice with some cookie mixed in (some have more cookie smell than others). Massive growth with multiple thick colas. Yield will easily be the biggest of the strains I'm doing on this grow (maybe double any of the other strains). Stretch was about 4x. Can see them taking 9-10 weeks to finish. In a couple of weeks when I've chopped Pineapple Express and Purple Afghan Kush I'll take some proper pictures (too crowded at the moment). If the finished flavour is any good then it looks like a winner.


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## coughphee.connoiseur (Jul 16, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Viper Cookies is interesting. Smells of sweet exotic spice with some cookie mixed in (some have more cookie smell than others). Massive growth with multiple thick colas. Yield will easily be the biggest of the strains I'm doing on this grow (maybe double any of the other strains). Stretch was about 4x. Can see them taking 9-10 weeks to finish. In a couple of weeks when I've chopped Pineapple Express and Purple Afghan Kush I'll take some proper pictures (too crowded at the moment). If the finished flavour is any good then it looks like a winner.


Moxie Seeds yeah? or were you lucky to find a cut?


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## loftygoals (Jul 16, 2016)

coughphee.connoiseur said:


> Moxie Seeds yeah? or were you lucky to find a cut?


Moxie seeds yeah. Im in the UK and don't know any other real life growers so no clones for me! Seems like a good choice as long as the flavour ends up nice.


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## coughphee.connoiseur (Jul 16, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Moxie seeds yeah. Im in the UK and don't know any other real life growers so no clones for me! Seems like a good choice as long as the flavour ends up nice.


Yes indeed always the better choice of course....


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## Cornishi (Jul 17, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Moxie seeds yeah. Im in the UK and don't know any other real life growers so no clones for me! Seems like a good choice as long as the flavour ends up nice.


We're more elusive us Brits eh!


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## Will Thayer (Jul 29, 2016)

@loftygoals,

Where you at girl? I like your posts, don't be a thread tease

Cheers,
Will


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## coughphee.connoiseur (Jul 29, 2016)

I agree though i want to see those viper babies


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## loftygoals (Jul 30, 2016)

Will Thayer said:


> @loftygoals,
> 
> Where you at girl? I like your posts, don't be a thread tease
> 
> ...


Hahaha, every spare min has been taken up trimming. Sooo tedious! At my current rate I can manage about 150g dry per day before I want to kill myself.

I'll post a proper update on Monday or Tuesday. Should have 1/2 the crop trimmed and dried by then.

Also have a load of 9 week vegged monsters waiting to flip and a load of clones waiting to take their place!

It's all go!


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## loftygoals (Jul 30, 2016)

coughphee.connoiseur said:


> I agree though i want to see those viper babies


I'll take some pics. The buds are massive!


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## loftygoals (Jul 31, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> I'll take some pics. The buds are massive!


Took some Viper Cookies pics.

3/4 of the plants have started foxtailing everywhere. New growth coming out of the mid level buds too. That may be a reflection of the temp in my tents... (which I'm purposefully running at 31C lights on and 25C lights off) or maybe the fact the lights are 6-8 inches from the top of the canopy. Anyway the plants are massive and buds are huge!

 

Here's a closeup of a bud:

 

Trichome shot:

 

This is the start of Day 61. I'm going to let them run for 70 days I think... Have started giving them plain water anyway.


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## Will Thayer (Aug 1, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Took some Viper Cookies pics.
> 3/4 of the plants have started foxtailing everywhere. New growth coming out of the mid level buds too. That may be a reflection of the temp in my tents... (which I'm purposefully running at 31C lights on and 25C lights off) or maybe the fact the lights are 6-8 inches from the top of the canopy. Anyway the plants are massive and buds are huge!This is the start of Day 61. I'm going to let them run for 70 days I think... Have started giving them plain water anyway.


Looking great, The foxtailing does not look too bad. It is a bit of a bugger to trim though. really impressive results!
Welcome back, we missed you.

Cheers,
Will


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## Roger A. Shrubber (Aug 1, 2016)

lookin great, best first grow i've seen, especially considering all the root problems you had to begin with. the led system is very impressive, its totally put me off considering buying a premade led, if and when i make the switch i'll be going with something very similar.
may having to trim a ton of buds be your biggest problem.


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## shrigpiece (Aug 1, 2016)

subbed. This is a fantastic grow lofty. From another brit grower in the loft!


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## ScaryGaryLed (Aug 1, 2016)

GO CHINA COBS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO yeah buddy!


haters


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## Boomy (Aug 1, 2016)

I remember looking at this back in February when you started posting and thinking how great it would be. Now looking at your progress it's amazing! I want to replicate this and am looking at buying a new house in the coming months and part of the criteria is a dedicated room at least 20x20 just for growing. Your doing an awesome job and the investment will pay for itself in a very short time by the looks of things!


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## coughphee.connoiseur (Aug 2, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Took some Viper Cookies pics.
> 
> 3/4 of the plants have started foxtailing everywhere. New growth coming out of the mid level buds too. That may be a reflection of the temp in my tents... (which I'm purposefully running at 31C lights on and 25C lights off) or maybe the fact the lights are 6-8 inches from the top of the canopy. Anyway the plants are massive and buds are huge!
> 
> ...



A source i know out in the bay tells me foxtails usually happen from light & spectrum, the plants love the light supposedly and are reaching for it, i guess kinda like the praying leaves ( which i love to see my leaves prayed up) 

Whats your amber- to milky white ratio on the trichs?


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## shrigpiece (Aug 2, 2016)

coughphee.connoiseur said:


> A source i know out in the bay tells me foxtails usually happen from light & spectrum, the plants love the light supposedly and are reaching for it, i guess kinda like the praying leaves ( which i love to see my leaves prayed up)
> 
> Whats your amber- to milky white ratio on the trichs?


Iv found over the years that sativas love to foxtail. i grew thai landrace that took 20 weeks to flower. Thet were fucking huge colas i mean as big as a microwave but weighed no more than 1.5 ozs. Lol ramble ramble


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## coughphee.connoiseur (Aug 2, 2016)

true shit i don't see much fox tailing on indica dominant strains.... has seen it a little but on sativas doms most def


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## loftygoals (Aug 10, 2016)

So I have some final dry weights for Purple Afghan Kush and Pineapple Express... drumroll...

PAK 352g (+8 seeds)
PE 617g (+3 seeds)

PAK was 4 plants in a 4x4 area under 600w
PE was 4 plants in a 4x6 area under approx 8-900w (had them spread into space next to my Blueberry plants as there were only 2 of those)

Considering the root rot I had in veg and the fact this is my first grow I'm reasonably happy.

I didn't run my lights at full power (2100w per 8x4) due to the heat it created in the loft. It was managable until ambient temps hit 18C outside and then all hell broke loose as my small portable AC tipped over the edge and couldn't keep up. As we're in summer now, it would have been fine on some cooler days but others not so much. Since I don't want to micro manage lighting every day based on the weather forecast I just decided to go with 1200w per 8x4 until the weather is consistently cool.

Blueberry came down yesterday at 69 days and Viper Cookies is coming down today/tomorrow. Viper Cookies looks like it's going to give a monster yield... possibly around 700g in a 4x4 under 600w (but they were stealing a lot of light from the PAK plants which were a lot shorter).

Trimming is driving me insane! Seriously we need some trimmigrants in the UK. I would happily pay someone to trim for me! Am considering buying a tumbling trimmer like the Twister T4 but I've told myself I need at least 2 grows and over 6 lbs per crop before it would be sensible...

I've also setup one of my tents for Round 2 and made some "adjustments" to my growing method this time...

Previously I wanted to just let the plants grow out naturally as this is my first grow. Some supercropping where absolutely necessary, a little LST and tying to hold things up. No defoliation unless the leaves were dead. This time round I'm going to the other extreme, LST'd in veg, mass defoliation at flip (removing every single fan leaf), SCROG net for support which will be lowered to canopy level after 1 week of flower.

Also the oscillating floor fan took up quite a bit of canopy space and has caused serious wind burn to one of my Viper Cookies. I've ditched it and suspended 2x 9" floor fans from the tent's ceiling. Air flow seems pretty good so hopefully that's a winner.

They say a pic is worth a thousand words?

Here's 6x Pineapple Express + 2x Purple Afghan Kush...

Extreme defoliation at flip:


Bare naked ladies:


3 days later:


I haven't defoliated the PAK this time round as I don't think they'll respond well. They are slow vegging short plants which flowered very quickly and didn't stretch much so I'll just leave them be for now.


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## Roger A. Shrubber (Aug 10, 2016)

nice harvest. pretty extreme defoliation, hope it works out for you


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## loftygoals (Aug 10, 2016)

It is indeed extreme! 

Based on three a light:






I'm hoping for the same yield with more manageable plants and easier trimming as all the buds should develop to roughly the same size... That's the theory anyway!

If it works great, if not I can always try something else on the next run


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## TigerSquad (Aug 10, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> I've been planning my new loft grow room for about 3 months and been working on it for about 6 weeks. I was aiming to get growing at the start of Feb but am a couple weeks behind as it's been a lot more work than I thought.
> 
> ...


I am extremely jellious. That place looked like a dungeon in a castle great job. I'm a carpenter myself and it right work.


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## TigerSquad (Aug 10, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> This afternoon I've spent a couple of hours working on the floor. I had to fit in new boards around 2 large 2.4mx0.6m boards which had been placed up there previously and had been hammered in with nails (prone to squeaks). Well the joins between the new and old boards were really squeaky and the old boards were coming loose in places. I had considered ripping up that section of floor and just replacing it with new but it seemed quite a waste of time and effort just to eliminate some squeaks. So... I bought some steel mending plates:View attachment 3606743
> After an hour with my impact driver, 19 mending plates and 300 screws... the floor is completely squeak free  The old nails have been reinforced with screws too so it should stay squeak free for good
> 
> I also had another look at the layout and hit a stumbling block! I hadn't considered the space the loft ladder takes when it's up in the loft (as I'm never up there with it fully up). So I climbed up while the ladder was still up in the loft and checked out how much space it takes... Luckily with some juggling I can still fit my tents in  But the tent nearest the ladder needs to move over so it's in the recess in the party wall. That means the veg cabinet on that side gets bigger and the one on the other side gets squashed to make it pretty worthless. So it looks like I'm having 1 larger 8x8 veg room now rather than smaller ones on each side... will make my life easier in the long run too
> ...


Nawww should sprayed some dw40 in der suuun lol that's a lot of work for a say my floor.


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## TigerSquad (Aug 10, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Thanks
> 
> Never done a grow before so a little apprehensive about it and defo don't want to get caught!
> 
> ...


Is the cam to check the thermal temp out of the space


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## Roger A. Shrubber (Aug 10, 2016)

"trimmigrants"....i like that...i see wondering tribes of gypsies that trim all day and roll finger hash all night


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## Cornishi (Aug 11, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> So I have some final dry weights for Purple Afghan Kush and Pineapple Express... drumroll...
> 
> PAK 352g (+8 seeds)
> PE 617g (+3 seeds)
> ...


What's your hourly pay for trimming? Haha


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## loftygoals (Aug 11, 2016)

Cornishi said:


> What's your hourly pay for trimming? Haha


10% of the weed you trim, cup of coffee and a biscuit? Any takers?! 

I joke but it's getting *really* tedious!


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## resinhead (Aug 11, 2016)

Pretty ballzy with that defoliation! It will be interesting to see the results! Thank you! And nice work! Really nice!


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## loftygoals (Aug 11, 2016)

resinhead said:


> Pretty ballzy with that defoliation! It will be interesting to see the results! Thank you! And nice work! Really nice!


If the guy is selling his book for $500 a pop he must think there's something in it. Only way to find out is to give it a go 

I've seen some talk about it but no real results. Worst case is I get a smaller yield and use it as a learning experience. Best case I have a load of massive colas! I'm willing to take the risk


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## Moflow (Aug 20, 2016)

Roger A. Shrubber said:


> "trimmigrants"....i like that...i see wondering tribes of gypsies that trim all day and roll finger hash all night


My mate gets £200, as much as he wants to smoke and a 1/4 O for 5 hours constant trimming! Lol lol


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## Roger A. Shrubber (Sep 17, 2016)

so whats up? how did the harvest turn out? what are we growing next? what are you going to do to modify those cobs?.....i told you, we aint used to 6 episodes a year


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## loftygoals (Sep 17, 2016)

Roger A. Shrubber said:


> so whats up? how did the harvest turn out? what are we growing next? what are you going to do to modify those cobs?.....i told you, we aint used to 6 episodes a year


Hi  Lol!

All is well here 

First grow totals were:
Purple Afghan Kush 352g (4 plants)
Pineapple Express 617g (4 plants)
Blueberry 359g (2 plants)
Viper Cookies 751g (6 plants)
Total: 2079g from 2400w = 0.87gpw

I had thought it was only roughly 1800g, but I had counted the total up wrong in my head. Not actually too shabby from cheapo chinese COBs and a first grow.

The PAK is by far the stand out high quality bud. Anyone who's had a try has been in love. I've had very experienced people telling me it's the best smoke they've ever had. Bit of a shame it yields half the other strains I've been running.

Anyway since then I started my second grow pretty much straight away. I did some extreme defoliation and also upgraded my lights in the first 2-3 weeks.

 

I ended up removing the SCROG net to upgrade the lighting more easily and never put it back up again. Grow #3 will definitely be a SCROG with minimal defoliation to compare to previous grows.

Here's a pic of the lighting setup currently with 30 COBs at 600w per 4x4. I will be adding another 600w per 8x4 tent over the next couple of weeks as the weather should allow 2kW per tent from now on.

 

I have the tents running on a strict 12/12 via a homemade flip box (https://www.rollitup.org/t/cheap-diy-flip-box.913197/) which has worked really well.

I guess I'll go take some pics tonight... but in my 2 tents I currently have:

Tent #1 (8x4) (all 55 day phenos currently on day 37)
Pineapple Express x6
Purple Afghan Kush x2

Tent #2 (8x4) (all 10 week phenos currently on day 30)
Viper Cookies x7
Blueberry x1

Veg room (currently 30 days of veg - topped once)
Pineapple Express x8
Blueberry x8

Not sure what I'm going to go with on round 4. I'm thinking of adding Kosher Kush or Super Lemon Haze?

I also have an appointment with an engineering firm next week to make up heated plates for a hydraulic Rosin press. I have all the parts together but need some holes drilled more precisely than I can manage by hand. The total should come to around £150 (already have a suitable hydraulic press) which is orders of magnitude cheaper than anything I could buy retail.


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## loftygoals (Sep 17, 2016)

I just went and took some pics... damn peer pressure!

Here's a shot of Purple Afghan Kush at 37 days:

 

Here's a trichome shot with my new macro lens... I've been lusting over a proper macro lens for about 4 years, finally caved in last week! Gotta love new toys 

 

Here's the Viper Cookies / Blueberry tent at 30 days, considering the defoliation they went through at flip they recovered well:

 

And finally the veg room (8 plants at the back are 30 days old, 8 at the front are 23 days old; all topped yesterday):


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## cindysid (Sep 17, 2016)

Hi Lofty. Just got thru reading the whole thread! What a project! I have learned so much. I'm currently growing in soil, and I'm on my 4th round indoors. I just built a new 9x9 grow room and I was thinking of trying non passive hydro.. Now I'm glad I didn't! I did a hempy sog my first grow and had a good harvest, but with 49 plants in a 4 x 4 tent, it was a nightmare! I'm sold on hempy buckets though....just fewer plants! How do you feel the defoliation has worked out for you? Does it seem as if it might have set them back any?


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## Roger A. Shrubber (Sep 17, 2016)

everything looks really good.
i was curious about the defoliation experiment myself. hows that going? seems like every time i strip any sun leaves off a plant it takes its sweet time getting over it.


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## loftygoals (Sep 18, 2016)

cindysid said:


> Hi Lofty. Just got thru reading the whole thread! What a project! I have learned so much. I'm currently growing in soil, and I'm on my 4th round indoors. I just built a new 9x9 grow room and I was thinking of trying non passive hydro.. Now I'm glad I didn't! I did a hempy sog my first grow and had a good harvest, but with 49 plants in a 4 x 4 tent, it was a nightmare! I'm sold on hempy buckets though....just fewer plants! How do you feel the defoliation has worked out for you? Does it seem as if it might have set them back any?


Defoliation definitely got rid of any smaller undeveloped bud sites. Everything has come up the same size all over the plants which will help hand trimming massively.

Defoliation definitely set the plants back significantly in terms of overall plant size. If you can veg for 6-8 weeks and you have strains which finish in 10 weeks they have the size and time to recover. But if you can only veg for 4 weeks or less and the strain finishes in 7-8 weeks then I'm certain yields will suffer as the plants just can't catch up compared to an untouched plant.

I'll not be defoliating any quick flowering strains in the future but Viper Cookies and Blueberry have both responded perfectly.


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## loftygoals (Sep 18, 2016)

Roger A. Shrubber said:


> everything looks really good.
> i was curious about the defoliation experiment myself. hows that going? seems like every time i strip any sun leaves off a plant it takes its sweet time getting over it.


I'd say the plants get set back 3-5 days in early flower. We all know early flower is when they stretch so you end up with significantly smaller plants if they're quick flowering (strains that only stretch for 18-21 days). Longer flowering strains that stretch for 28 days can still recover size well and fill out the available space with the advantage of being all big buds.

I can see why some people are for it and some people against it.

For comparison the back 4 plants here are Viper Cookies at 4 weeks with no defoliation:



Compared to this run there is not much difference in overall plant size but there are more/bigger bud sites this time round.


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## PDX Joe (Sep 24, 2016)

loftygoals said:


> Autopot system just needs the reservoir filling. The 6 plants drink about 3L per day max so I just add 20L per week to keep it ticking over. Takes literally 10 mins to mix and top up. I also supercrop anything that's getting too close to the lights. For 6 plants it takes less than 20 mins per week. Insanely simple to maintain.
> 
> 16 vegging hempies get trained once a week and I add also 1L of nutes to each bucket twice a week. I probably spend around 2h per week on them.
> 
> ...


Hi Loftygoals,

I'm a huge fan of SIPS for my outdoor vegetable garden. So, I'm going to try the Autopots for my cannabis grow closet because the system seems similar. How do you fill your reservoir? Do you let it get to almost the bottom and then fill it up again with water/ nutrient mix or do you top it off frequently? What's your overall system for managing the reservoir and nutrients? I think I'm going to try the Jack's 321 system with coco that Greengenes likes to use... seems simple and inexpensive. Thanks!


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## loftygoals (Sep 24, 2016)

PDX Joe said:


> Hi Loftygoals,
> 
> I'm a huge fan of SIPS for my outdoor vegetable garden. So, I'm going to try the Autopots for my cannabis grow closet because the system seems similar. How do you fill your reservoir? Do you let it get to almost the bottom and then fill it up again with water/ nutrient mix or do you top it off frequently? What's your overall system for managing the reservoir and nutrients? I think I'm going to try the Jack's 321 system with coco that Greengenes likes to use... seems simple and inexpensive. Thanks!


I have a schedule which includes checking on the autopot reservoir once a week. If it's under 1/3 full I add 20L.

I probably only need to fill it twice a month. These are not flowering plants though.

My reservoir is 47L and I have found my plants drink about 2L per day in flower. So 6 plants would drink the res dry every 4 days (2L x 6plants = 12L per day). You could use this rough calculation to add a bigger res and get more time between filling the system or feed more plants.


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## AtterStiga (Sep 30, 2016)

Totally impressed with your grow and how systematic you are
I've tried to research water cooling cobs before, but came up with little else than a YouTube video of a single cob on a water block and lots of negativity to the idea. Thank you for proving the concept and reminding me that I'm nowhere near being structured enough to do it. Yet. You're an inspiration to us all. It's an accomplishment to make so many of us look so bad, and to do it with such grace. Will reread this whole thread later.

Peace


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## Roger A. Shrubber (Sep 30, 2016)

AtterStiga said:


> It's an accomplishment to make so many of us look so bad, and to do it with such grace.


while i agree you do it with grace, i don't need any help to make myself look bad, been doing that just fine for a long time now


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## loftygoals (Sep 30, 2016)

Awww thanks guys 

When I was a kid I had all sorts of engineering plans. I would think up ways to make things. I remember drawing up plans to make a working Dalek suit aged 9. Then life just sorta took over... university, work, general day to day crap. With this grow room I kinda feel I've just been able to do my own thing again... just like being 10 except with the means to make things happen 

I've started chopping down some of this grow today.

Hopefully by the end of the weekend I'll have taken the plants in one tent down. I'll try and have run #3 flowering and run #4 vegging by Sunday too.


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## Moflow (Oct 2, 2016)

Kill the Doctor..... Exterminate EXTERMINATE!


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## loftygoals (Oct 10, 2016)

I'm getting there slowly...

Added another 600w per tent today and did some fiddling with ventilation.

Here's a tent in flower mode:

 

And veg mode (I'm only planning on vegging for 1 week max once plants are moved into these tents from the dedicated veg area):

 

I now have 1800w of water cooled Citizen COBs per 8x4 tent operational. That's 3600w running through 180 COBs 

I've also installed a timelapse camera in the corner of one of the tents... If I can manage to keep it running for the whole grow I'll post up a vid


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## coreywebster (Aug 26, 2017)

@loftygoals How are you doing ? Haven't seen you about for a while. Is everything going well? How has the insulated loft been this summer? I hope you haven't done a @Will Thayer and vanished.


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## Roger A. Shrubber (Aug 26, 2017)

yeah, it has been a while, check in and let us know whats up, i'm interested how everything turned out


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## BMWEATER (Sep 4, 2017)

loftygoals said:


> I'm getting there slowly...
> 
> Added another 600w per tent today and did some fiddling with ventilation.
> 
> ...



That is the coolest and most high tech setup I've seen!! Hell yah! No snicklefritz for you!


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## Mazoz (Feb 14, 2018)

This is awesome and inspiring.

I am subbing


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## Roger A. Shrubber (Feb 14, 2018)

you're subbing to a dead thread, unless lofty decides to resurrect it, she hasn't posted in months


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## Mazoz (Feb 14, 2018)

Roger A. Shrubber said:


> you're subbing to a dead thread, unless lofty decides to resurrect it, she hasn't posted in months


Eish I didn't notice this. Never the less this is an awesome demonstration of DIY


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## coreywebster (Feb 21, 2018)

Mazoz said:


> Eish I didn't notice this. Never the less this is an awesome demonstration of DIY


Yeah she's a good egg. Shame she's not been on in a while.


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## Mazoz (Feb 22, 2018)

coreywebster said:


> Yeah she's a good egg. Shame she's not been on in a while.


Can't be good. But then I notice alot of PPL vanish after awhile


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## coreywebster (Feb 22, 2018)

Mazoz said:


> Can't be good. But then I notice alot of PPL vanish after awhile


Yeah folks come and go, some really good folks too. Hopefully she just got bored of the site and is still growing steady and safely.


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## Mazoz (Feb 22, 2018)

Su


coreywebster said:


> Yeah folks come and go, some really good folks too. Hopefully she just got bored of the site and is still growing steady and safely.


 Indeed Bru. Prohibition sucks.dont get it alcohol is more dangerous


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## 2cent (Dec 10, 2020)

Awsome never grownbefore.. Ha.. I think u got amnesia lol ur a pro


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## Mistp65 (Feb 15, 2021)

nicougrik said:


> There's only one last thing to try Lofty..
> 
> Introducing the Siamese Algae Eater... a fish that eats algea
> "It is a voracious eater and will consume not only algae from plants, glass and decorations, but leftover pellets, parboiled vegetables, flake food and live food...They require a large amount of living plants and plenty of room to explore and feed which makes a longer tank more desirable. Owners should keep the tank lid on since they can easily jump out."
> ...


I was so tempted to try that 100%but I got through my problem before I did 
Couldn't imagine the fish would stay alive


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