New Indoor Auto Grow

[pbaker1111]

Hey Pals! Life is good down in 8A (Virginia), and I hope you’re having a great autumn, too. I am a very new grower. Have just wrapped first outdoor season, and now I’m going to start learning about growing inside, in a tent. Here’s my setup.

Vivosun 4’ by 2’ tent
SF 2000 (cheaper than an ounce from my plug)
Vivosun 4” duct fan
Couple small fans
Vivosun carbon filter (huge)

I’m growing my plants in FFOF soil with a lot of extra perlite inside 3-gallon fabric pots. This time, I’m growing three autoflowering strains—Sour Kush (Growers Choice), Lemon (Seedsman), and Gorilla Cookies (Fast Buds). I germinated them all via a quick soak in water followed by a day in wet paper towel. They’ve all emerged above the soil. Right now, I have the light at 40%, just about 18” above the seedlings.

My tent is inside my garage, which is only minimally climate controlled. Right now, my temp is around 65f, and my relative humidity is around 60%.

I’m concerned that, as the winter gets colder, I may need to find solutions to raise the temp in the tent. For now, I’m running my duct fan at low speed so the air heated by the light can hang out in there as long as possible. Is that dumb? Lol!

I have enjoyed this community a ton as I’ve begun learning how to grow cannabis. Looking forward to learning from you all in this journal, too. Hope you all have a great day!

[happilyretired]

Nice. As you increase the intensity of your light your temperature is going to climb also. So if you were to want your temperature inside the tent to be higher now you could raise your light up a foot and turn it up to 50% or so maybe even 60. It kind of depends on how big your seedlings are. Could you throw a picture of them up?

[pbaker1111]

Thanks so much for this idea. Seems so obvious, but I’d have never thought of it. Temp is high right now, bc we are having a 75f, very warm November day. As you’ll see, the seedlings are BABY baby.

[happilyretired]

I would highly recommend getting an AC infinity 6 inch duct fan with a controller. This will more than likely take care of all your temperature issues, as long as it doesn’t get above like 80 outside. It automatically turns on and off. Go to their website and look it up. As far as I know they’re the quietest and best fan out there and with the controller it can really help a lot of issues depending on your situation. How cold is it going to get in the middle of winter. You might need a small heater if the temperatures get too low in your garage during the lights out period.
I think you can ask anybody who has an AC Infiniti fan and they’ll tell you how good they are. They do cost more but they’re worth it.

I looked back and see you have all 4 inch fan filter and ductwork. You could just get an AC infinity four-inch fan with a controller.

[pbaker1111]

I have the 4” AC Infiniti w controller in the trunk of my car. I knew my fan was the weak link! Hydro store owner is a good guy. I’m glad I found him (thanks to your recommendation, Happ).

It’s going to get down to 40f in the garage this winter. I will need to have a small heater on hand, in case I can’t finesse it with light/dark/fan controller. I’m seeing several for less than $50, and they seem safe.

My plants are growing quickly under the SF 2000. But two of the stems are turning awfully purple. I assume this is low temps, low RH, or some combo. What do you think? Will a bucket of water in the tent make a difference in terms of RH?

Hope it’s a happy Friday for all!

[treetrunks]

Yes at 40f I think your going to need some supplemental heat especially during light off. I also love ac inf fans I have 4 looking to get a 5th soon

[happilyretired]

I would think an oil filled radiating heater would be the safest. But there still fairly big.

Now me being me, I tend to multipurpose things and I think I have an idea that might work for you if your temperature is only getting down to 40 at night. I have this little tiny heater that I use to cure the Apoxsee on fishing rods that I build in the winter. It’s a fairly simple device. But for that space I think it would work. Here’s a picture of what it is and where to get it. It’s only 20 bucks.

It’s about the size of a cell phone but thicker.

[pbaker1111]

I am having a great time learning through my first indoor grow. Am keeping it super simple.

I had a couple autos out in the yard, and brought them inside due to a couple frosts. They are bigger, closer to the light, and flowering!

The original indoor plants are doing well, but the Lemon Seedsman freebie never grew true leaves. Cotyledons looked good for several weeks, and I took good care of it. Just never grew and eventually dried up at around the same time the successful plants’ cotyledons were drying up.

I have jacked my light up to 100%. Seems to be doing fine, I guess! Lol! Am running it 18/6. It’s closer to the bigger plants, obviously. Should I raise the light or move the plants around?

Have my duct fan set to run when the temp exceeds 68f. Seems to be ok. At night, during lights out, my temps have gotten into the 40’s. I tried a little ceramic heater, but it got too hot, so I am still just letting them get coolish at night.

Unsure how that plan will work through the next couple months. I’m tentatively planning on coping with this challenge by shifting lights-out to the middle of the day. Would skipping lights-out once in a while hurt the plants in any way?

I am feeding only rain water I collect, since this FFOF is supposed to be plenty hot. If you were me, what signs would you look for to suggest the plant would benefit from nutes?

Like I said, I’m doing this super simple. I haven’t done LST or defoliated at all. If I was to cut some leaves off the bigger plants, which would you think would be good candidates? As for LST, I think I’ll hang back and try that next time.

I hope you all are enjoying this holiday season. Take care, and happy growing!

[happilyretired]

Well if we focus on your non-auto flowers, if you have your light at 100% it’s gonna really hold your plants down close to the pot. I usually do all my vegging around 60% of light. Then I crank it up in flower with my hours lower.

[logix]

If you want to make sure your temperature never drops during lights out or even with lights on, you can get a simple Inkbird Temperature and Humidity Controller ITC-608T 1800W 12 Period Thermostat with Humidity Probe. Costs about $70 , I call it my advanced power bar
It controls a tiny space heater and humidifier. if the temperature gets low it simply turns on power outlet 1 which has the super tiny personal space heater on it and when it gets to your target temp, it simply turns off the outlet.

[pbaker1111]

Aww man! My nicest plant grew a million bananas. I am not sure if it was the move inside, changing the strength of my light, the daily temp swings, or what… The plant had been thriving, I thought!

So I moved the plant back outside. Is it worth keeping? I can’t chop those bananas off, can I? The plant is an auto. Will the seeds be worth keeping?

I hope the herm didn’t pollinate the other three plants in the tent. One is a few weeks into flower. Another is about one week into flower. The last one isn’t flowering yet. What do you think?

Happy New Year!

[happilyretired]

I personally would get rid of it before any of your bananas open. If all the plants were treated the same in this one plant did this I would say that it is probably just Poor genetics on that one seed.

[pbaker1111]

Thanks for that perspective, sir! The plant is suffering through the tough outdoor life right now. Despite the weather (and the bananas), the herm plant is looking healthy and happy.

The three remaining tent plants seem to be thriving and showing no signs of stress that are obvious to me.

[pbaker1111]

N Lights Auto freebie from Seedsman. About 6 weeks into flower. Very little frost. See how the new leaves are droopy? Can’t tell if that’s due to overwater or what. I did just go to a 24/0 light schedule a few days ago, and along with the plant’s growth, that’s caused the plant to need to drink more.

Sour Kush Auto from Growers Choice. Just started flowering last week. See how it’s a little leggy? Guess that’s bc it’s not the tallest in the tent, so it’s not close enough to light. Should I place it on a pedestal or let it catch up? Do the top of this plant’s pistols look burnt to you, or is this just the strain?

Strawberry Pie Auto from Fast Buds. Started flowering about three weeks ago. Looks pretty stunted to me! Unsure why it stayed so short, but the buds forming are frosty, and they smell really good. Maybe the plant will grow more during flower…

I’m general, should I be looking for any indicators suggesting my plants need nutes? They’re in OF, so I’m not sure if addl nutes would help or harm. Could do a tiny dose, I guess, and see what happens. What do you think?

I’m watering with the rain water I collect, and I’m watering slowly, to runoff, only when pots are light. Sound ok?

After buying a heater for the tent, I had to abandon it. Despite only 400w, that baby heated my tent way too high, way too fast. I am looking for other options. I’ve considered connecting the heater to a controller that’d shut it off after the environment reached target temp, but I think all the short cycling involved in that, especially on really cold nights, seems like a bad idea to me. As I search for viable options, I moved to 24/0 light schedule. Not sure if this is a good idea or not, but it kept the plants from getting too cold during the coldest nights. I think I should go back to 18/6 and move lights-out to the middle of the afternoon. That seems like a better plan to me.

What do you all think about all this?

Hope you’re having a wonderful January!

[happilyretired]

Are you changing the light schedule or should I say increasing the light schedule on flowering plants?

[chavez78]

I don’t think I’d leave the light on for 24 hrs unless they are all autos and you started them that way.

Keep 18/6 and lights out during the day. That’s what I do in the winter. Good luck!

. . .

[pbaker1111]

I quickly mended my ways and went back to 18/6 lights! Now, lights-out occurs from 11a-5p.

I have begun warming the tent a little bit with a small space heater outside the tent. It’s keeping everything in a good zone. I don’t think it’s an efficient long-term solution, though.

In the coming days, I plan to move the tent so it’s adjacent to an insulated wall. Likewise, I got an old pallet and a roll of insulation. With those, I’m going to make a little stand to keep the tent off the cold ground.

After removing the herm plant from the tent a few weeks ago, I’ve been anxiously looking for signs of seeds on the remaining plants. So far, they still look good.

Strawberry Pie is (still) stunted, but the buds are coming in frosty and stinky! Really interesting cookie/graham cracker scent. I am looking forward to growing another one of these in the future.

The sour Kush’s top bud is starting to plump up. The plant didn’t get bushy like some of my others. It got really tall compared to the others, too. The pistils look shorter, too. Will be interesting to see how these buds develop. They’ve been flowering several weeks now.

The N Lights plant is doing great! The leaves are yellowing, though. Not sure if that’s because I let it get too dry a couple weeks ago or if it’s approaching the end of its life. The sugar leaves and other new growth look healthy to me, so I’m not sweating it. Really enjoying watching these buds plump up! This is the fun part. lol!

Last night, I fed these babies for the first time. The straw pie and sour Kush are in 3-gal bags, and the N Lights is in a 5-gal bag. All are in FFOF and perlite. I added half-strength bloom nutes, kool bloom, cal-mag, and some mycorrhizal fungi.

Quick watering question—I’ve been routinely letting these pots get REALLY light before watering based on the notion that this benefits the plants in terms of root growth. Should I be letting these little cloth pots dry out completely before watering?

[chavez78]

I go by weight. When the pots fill light, water them. I water my 3 gal. pots every other day with 1.5 liters of water and that’s perfect for my environment.
I don’t think you want to dry out too much, its not good for the roots. Once you find that happy medium, your good to go.
Remember, your bigger plants will use more water then the smaller ones. Also, it takes longer for the soil way down in the pot to dry.
So, go by weight. How it feels when you pick it up.

[pbaker1111]

Thank you. My first grow was outside, and my garden seems to hold water forever. I’m finding myself needing to water these tent plants at least a couple times per week. But hey, I guess that’s why I added the perlite!

In my garden, the soil was never dry enough to need watering. Instead, I just watered to get nutes to the plants. I wonder if that’s why the outdoor plants’ roots never got really deep…

Lots to learn. This is a great hobby.

[TheMadFlascher]

Might want to add some perlite, vermiculite, organic matter to your outside soil. Also may want to take a soil saturation pH on that outside soil. Take a cup of soil from about 18" down in your soil profile…add a cup and half of water to that soil sample in a jar…let it set for 3-4 hours and then run it all through a coffee filter and test the pH …may surprise you !

Of course, a microbe innoculant and Humic acid added about every 2 weeks through the grow should stimulate some good root growth FWIW