Mike's GrowLog - HomeGrow Mk.1!

[mike.c]

The time has come! I finally had the time to start to build out my hobbyist grow setup! This will be a forever work in progress as I plan to use this setup as a base for different test setups.

My setup is currently:
-Plant House 2.5x5ft tent

-Grower’s Choice ROI-E200. (fits perfect in that tent, runs cool enough for my plants to drop to 10" if needed, I like it)

-AutoPot 4.0 system (trying this out a couple of different ways for different cycles to see what works for me)

I put the res on a rack (pic coming)

-Media - 3 parts Mother earth Coco Perlite (which is 70/30) + 1 part washed Hydroton with a 2" hydroton layer at the bottom of the pots.

-Nutes/IPM - Trying out the VPS retail line - plants seem pretty happy but I def bumped up the rates. Using about 70% over the current feed chart in flower. Also using Grandevo, Regalia and some Kelp Powder

-Fans (4) - 4" 5v USB fans running off a USB hub connected to a 15W power supply. (so cheap, so quiet)

-CO2 - trying out one of these Exhale 365 bags from GH. I like that you can add the culture yourself. On a 3-4 week veg the bag has time to get to full production before flower so it ramps up with the plants. We will see what numbers we get halfway through its life.

-Exhaust - I bought one of those clip fans from Hurricane that GH sells and tied it into the tent roof. Anything bigger was too loud for being inside of the house. I had a 4" duct fan on there and it was like living in an airplane hanger. This clipfan pulls enough air to give my small tent negative pressure when zipped up. Good enough!

-Dehu - I found a tiny compressor dehu on amazon. its 11x8in and works amazingly. I threw in a 12v pump with switch into the condensate reservoir and plumbed it out of the tent using black tubing. (pic incoming) This way I can empty my dehu without opening the tent. Also gives me nice clean condensate water for nutrients/house plants.

-Sensing - So I basically made my own little TrolMaster system out of a couple of microcontrollers and sensors. Still learning/working on code for it; it should be a nice little dashboard GUI eventually. Parts lists and pastebin links for code coming soon.

I’m sure I forgot stuff but I’ll get all the details out when I have a bit more time. Feel free to ask too btw.

So my grow is running intermittently on Twitch right now until I can get my old server PC setup.

Please check it out! https://www.twitch.tv/growinaz

Thanks for checking this out, more to come!

*edit - I forgot to mention, plants are 3 Black Mamba and 1 Blue Dream that had a late start due to cat related incidents.

Mike

[happilyretired]

Great start. As far as exhaust fan when you’re ready to upgrade spend the money get an AC infinity with a controller. If you want it quiet you want it to run slow. So always go at least one size bigger than you think you need. For that little tent a 6 inch would probably do the trick on low and you would never hear it. And if you have the controller you can set it up outside the tent so you always know what the temperature and humidity is inside and when your lights are off the automatic controller will automatically speed up slow down or turn off the fan when temperature and humidity are in your set parameter. Anyways something to think about.

[mike.c]

word! I was actually just commenting on another thread about the AC infinity fans. Id be interested to hear them run! My temps are hovering in the 75-88 range for now being setup indoors in my AC. I’m hoping it stays that way as temps come down in the next couple of months even with the air volume reduced in the tent.
thanks!

[happilyretired]

I have one AC infinity and I have one of the ones that are supposed to be second-best can’t member the name and then I had an inexpensive one that fried. And that being said nothing comes even close to the AC infinity at least that I have seen as far as the balance of the fan. They are quiet because they don’t vibrate because they are well-balanced. You might be hearing noise from your fans just because the way you’re mounting them. That’s a discussion we can have when you’re ready to pull the trigger on something different than you have. Anyways, nice chat.

[mike.c]

Same! When I get there I will def reach out. Thanks!

[ultrapuff]

Cool troll master… Setting to watch this journal.

[joeb631]

recently got some blk mamba. from a dispensary.
4 over 65 y/o heavy heavy over 50 years hitters and those boys went home early !
Great setup good luck .Where did you get Black Mamba seeds ?

[mike.c]

I actually got my current genetics as cuts from a friend! I wanted good pheno’d genetics as good back pocket moms to start with and hope to pop some seeds on the next cycle.
thanks for checking this out!

[mike.c]

Hey all, Here’s some pics of the progress of the plants until now.
So I started with 4 Black Mamba clones ready for transplant.

I turned my back for a minute and my cat had ripped one out and was goating it down in the corner. So in my rage I made tons of snake noises while cutting a top off my Blue Dream mom and threw it into the pot with nothing but RO water.

It had a rough rough time, but if check out my stream you can see it’s coming back strong and ready to flower.

Here’s a shot before pruning and trellis netting.

And the Mom’s a week after I got them. First time using LEDs for mom plants, they seem to like it. I like the negligible heat off a 65W LED fixture.

More to come! I plan on making posts about the individual parts of my grow setup. stay tuned!

[mike.c]

Hey all!

Been a minute since I updated. Here’s a couple more pics of the grow during the veg month.

Here’s the Black Mambas 2 weeks into Veg. They had q bit of transplant shock going into the Autopot system. I feel like the always wet conditions are different enough from my standard drain to waste type grow style for me to have to adjust my feeding regimen.

Here’s that Blue Dream I was talking about that I just threw into this pot with no rooting hormones or anything, just rage. It was not happy. Transplant shock of all transplant shocks.
Check out the vid lower in this post so see how she’s doing!

Wk 3 I started seeing some myco cultures make it to the surface. Couldn’t ID which but fairly certain it was one of the beneficials I added during transplant. Plant seemed happier/better able to uptake P and K and in turn Mg at about wk 3. (The always wet pots were giving me Mg uptake problems, IMO. I amended my feed program with Epsom Salts until the symptoms went away in Wk 3)
Cultures used: Great White, 5 gm per pot under transplants.

Plant right before they got the trellis treatment. I should have gotten 3.5in squares but I was in the rush and grabbed the 6" square trellis. Nothing a little double laying cant fix. Here’s a quick vid of the setup after I added the trellis netting and did some HST on some stretching plants. The humming box is a dehu the microcontroller is my CO2 monitoring stuff.

Setup

*link should work now, cant embed cause of age restrictions
I should have my plants stream up 24/7 after this weekend. (I hope!) check it out!
Cheers!!
FYI RO water makes great ice for whiskies and coffee!

[mike.c]

Here’s probably the last veg post before I start putting up current grow pics/progress.

Here are the plants after some HST. I think HST is a great technique to even out canopy with the added benefit that the physical stress can increase trichome production! A little struggle makes us all better right?

Interactive Effects of Jasmonic Acid, Salicylic Acid, and Gibberellin on Induction of Trichomes in Arabidopsis - PMC

Here’s a week after the training, nice even canopy ready to flower.

So that Exhale 365 bag is really taking off! Its keeping the room at about an approximate 550-800PPM during the day cycles. It does spike to 1200-1400 during the nights sometime but that could be noise on my equipment at that point. I will keep monitoring it and maybe remove it from the room in late flower.

Here’s the Blue Dream trying to catch up! She’s doing really well and the other plants are actually acting kind of like shelter plants while it catches up.

Here’s a vid of how things are going right now:

9/13/21 Update!

The LED strips are there to give me more far red light, the RIO-E200 is a 4k fixture.
Still got plenty of canopy height to go! Im trying to basically end up with 12 inches of air above and below the light with everything underneath plant mass. (except for the Blue Dream spot.)

Thanks for checking this out!