Tropicanna's in da house! (plus intruders lol)

[Rorschach]

Growing outside I notice my cannabis plants stop growing above 33c ..... they just freeze especially if there's no wind and temps keep rising.

That's exactly what happened to my babies, they had a few days stop (training, defoliation, heat stress) but this morning I confirm yesterday's impression, they restarted growing. Maybe a CO2 bag could help me?

Missed the dome but Im guessing theres a couple of new beans in there, what you got cooking @Rorschach lol ?

Hehehe :) I tried to pop the 2 Tropicannas, 3 Sweet Cheese and 2 Buddha Critical I had into the drawer... And I confirm my bad luck with seeds: only 2 Cheese are born. I was expecting something similar could happen, but was hoping for 5 plants out of 7 seeds - not the opposite!! :(
Anyway these were strains I don't particularly care of (but an interesting pland should always happen, so my cloning compulsion can be satisfied lol), these seeds were bought at the local growshop just because I needed something to start with (only recently I made a wide search about the strains evolution of the last 10 years) I ordered 10 of those seeds from that old Humboldt's strain (Blueberry Muffin), probably Grower's Choice guys will send me some seeds to make a grow diary, and there are a lot of other strains I want to try - from Phat Panda, Cali Connection, Zamnesia, Barney's, Seed Stockers... Maybe I should test their autoflower version first, it should be wise ;) I have to learn to grow autoflowers too!! Definitely have to increase my grow rooms... Maybe I should organize a grow closet with 1 or 2 100W lamps (dimmable quantum board, 100W, 60€ on Amazon).
Oh yes, I need a drying tent too (for the future, the only thing I have to dry now is a 5-10 grams autoflower loool)
My objective is to find 3-5 mother plants to make different types of extracts. I believe the future of the cannabis will be vaporization.

[420mFuk]

Your not alone :) I don't like starting from seed ether, takes too long, I normally always overwater them & because I worry I almost always underfeed them, I'm never sure when to move them to flower, what sort of training etc etc I much prefer clones, there more reliable, predictable & dependable but of course from time to time I have to do a bean hunt, learn how to grow it & select what's worth keeping, honestly that's why I avoid autoflowers too for all the above reasons + no way to clone & keep.
Don't get me wrong it can be fun but if your disorganised like me it can take many months, my GCP diaries are a good example, I popped the beans October 2021, I have made my selection now but I've yet to monocrop the GCP5, 9 months so far with 3 harvest. lol that was just a 5 pack. Even if Id been organised its still a 5 or 6 month project running beans. I will say though providing your starting with quality seeds from a quality breeder it is 100% worth the effort/cost.

Before increasing grow space make sure you have goals and targets in mind, you can add over time or recycle like current flower space could become future veg space, don't buy anything less than 5'/125mm for air input/output etc, there's plenty you can do now planning for the future. Give me a idea of what you want to achieve & I can help you zero in on your target.

CO2 in your space won't be worth it, you'll be venting a lot during summer so you would just be dumping it outside, in the winter however you could switch off your output to retain heat & add co2. I think I read your pulling in fresh air from the outside & exchausting the hot air outside.

Peace out dude

[Rorschach]

I think I read your pulling in fresh air from the outside & exchausting the hot air outside.

I pull fresh air from the base floor of my house (stable 20-22°C in the most fresh point) with a 5" carbon filter, 9 meters circa of 5" tube and a 4" centrifugal duct fan who pushs the fresh air into the grow room, then a 5" pulls hot air from the grow room and pushes it outside. I have a project too (150€ to buy the pieces I need) to cool that air more: a 100W Peltier cell, with an air cpu dissipator on the cold side of the cell and a watercooling A.I.O. for the hot side (with the radiator outside the grow room). This SHOULD ensure me cooling the intake air of the whole room at 20°C. That fresh air intake should be divided by 3: 1/3 on every grow tent (2 in total atm), 1/3 directly into the room. This is the best I can do at the moment

I much prefer clones, there more reliable, predictable & dependable

Same for me, cloning is the most productive way to make big yields constantly! Long time ago I learned how to grow weed from older guys, it was their... "stable income" you know what I mean, do you? ;) they teached me how to clone and how to make a SOG.
Btw I'd like to thank you for your attention, I see this grow diary is not on the top of the list for participation... Maybe 'cause I'm a newbie, maybe 'cause my English is not perfect... But don't worry and just wait: I'll make you proud of me ;)
Now the only thing is: I have to make those 2 Tropicannas able to flower decently!! I messed up with the branches, now those plants have the shape of a spherical bush; I have to give them an artichoke shape (flat on top) in the next two weeks! As I said, next times I will follow a more orthodox main-lining.
So much to learn... I hope this is the right place ;)

[420mFuk]

I pull fresh air from the base floor of my house (stable 20-22°C in the most fresh point) with a 5" carbon filter, 9 meters circa of 5" tube and a 4" centrifugal duct fan who pushs the fresh air into the grow room, then a 5" pulls hot air from the grow room and pushes it outside.

Good, IMO your air input/output is setup correctly, if your basement/basefloor is below ground level you'll get similar temps in the winter saving money on heating BUT as/if you expand your grow and demand more air... the space will become less efficient. In our world we call that a lung room, all though strictly speaking its not but its close.

I have a project too (150€ to buy the pieces I need) to cool that air more: a 100W Peltier cell, with an air cpu dissipator on the cold side of the cell and a watercooling A.I.O. for the hot side (with the radiator outside the grow room). This SHOULD ensure me cooling the intake air of the whole room at 20°C. That fresh air intake should be divided by 3: 1/3 on every grow tent (2 in total atm), 1/3 directly into the room. This is the best I can do at the moment

Now I have to be careful here as I don't know your climate like I know mine here in southern Portugal but in my experience I could run 2x600w single ended HPS in air cooled hoods at night dragging in cold air from the outside without any serious heat worries, those nights during crazy heatwaves id just knock my lights down to 400w & I was ok. I think you could probably go as high as 1000w in LEDs before you'd have serious heat related problems BUT like I say I don't know your space like you do.
As for peltier, I'm familiar with the technology and have researched it in the past when working/advising friends with DWC & other res based hydro systems..... I must admit your proposal has me thinking, normally id advise against using a peltier but that's always been proposed as a water chiller, your planning to use it as AC with water carrying the heat away into a seperate space, that's a clever idea. For what it's worth I dont think it will be efficient, there's too many moving parts/points of failure BUT will it work ? Yes I believe it will... question is how well will it work, how many degrees will it drop your space & how will you trigger it on/off ? My 12,000 BTU (or it might be 11,000 BTU) portable AC was 350 euro 3rd year running it, used to handle 4x600 no probs compressor running half the time, its not too loud either. Again you know your space so if your sure, go for it......

Btw I'd like to thank you for your attention, I see this grow diary is not on the top of the list for participation... Maybe 'cause I'm a newbie, maybe 'cause my English is not perfect... But don't worry and just wait: I'll make you proud of me ;)

We don't like foreigners around here, especially ones that cant speak the queen's english & hail from the land of the OG dictator ....... Nahhhhh of course not .... just joking.. I don't know? I seen your new & personally I thought cool your not yet contaminated with all the bad knowledge out there, I remember what it's like to be where ya are now & see a good opportunity to help nudge you in the right direction, I can see your putting in the time & effort & I think you can be helped because your not full of yourself & seem like a nice chap worth helping.
LOL English ... you know I wasn't sure if you were Italian or infact English living in italy, your english is fine dude & not far from perfect.

Now the only thing is: I have to make those 2 Tropicannas able to flower decently!! I messed up with the branches, now those plants have the shape of a spherical bush; I have to give them an artichoke shape (flat on top) in the next two weeks! As I said, next times I will follow a more orthodox main-lining. So much to learn... I hope this is the right place ;)

My advice : Look down at your tropicanas & think 'life preserver'.. you know those round things on ships they throw into the water when somebody falls in. You need to cut away the middle & release the outside branches a little so they can all grow evenly together, don't worry they will fill in the middle.
Mainlining I'm not fan of because it's a long long veg, I dont tie plants down either, other training techniques get you that nice level top without bondage or mainlining but ultimately experience gets you there as techniques change depending what you want and how the plant grows.

Should say I only know a little about soil grows ..... My strong areas are hydro/equipment/room designs & general horticulture & I'm completely self educated, not been in a school since 16 yrs old. I grew in soil over a decade ago, my uncle runs gardening company here so i still get my hands dirty from time to time but I am not soil guy but know a fair bit about gardening, I'm sure you will find me very useful now you have my eyes and ears. Pleasure my friend, look forward to your next crazy idea and plant updates ...... BTW less food, your girls are to dark for me. Hope I'm not a boring read. Peace out Gro-Fo

[Rorschach]

as/if you expand your grow and demand more air... the space will become less efficient.

Got it :) thanks! For this system I did a simple and rough calculation to equalize the inlet and outlet air flow: if X fresh air comes in, then X warm air has to go out. BTW this is a temp room, the real one is under upgrading: thermal insulation and tight sealing. The air intake from the lower floor will pull fresh air in the summer, and warm one in the winter so I'll have a "conditioning base" to work on.

For what it's worth I dont think it will be efficient, there's too many moving parts/points of failure BUT will it work ? Yes I believe it will...

You're right, Peltier Cells are not efficient at all: with a 100W cell like I'd use, cooling power would be 20W while heat generated should be the remnant 80W. They are definitely NOT efficient at all, if compared to a classic AC system. The only advantage they have are the dimension and the fact they're cheap as hell - for a little and cheap thing like a portable economic fridge, they're just perfect. Their range is between 50 to 200W max, for higher powers the canonic AC cooling is faaaar more efficient.

question is how well will it work, how many degrees will it drop your space & how will you trigger it on/off ?

Interesting questions, you hit the point. This should be just an experiment, the goal is to cool the whole ait intake flux from 24-26°C to stable 20°, feeding the room AND the grow tents, regardless night or daytime in the "real world", and look how:
1)the room temperature buffers during real weather day/nightime natural cycles;
2)the grow tents temperatures fluctuates during their own day/night artificial cycle (which are inverted from the natural one).
How to trig on/off, and how to regulate it during his job? Hee hee hee... Arduino, of course ;) the project of the renewed grow room (not this one I'm using this time) involves a quite invasive automation, it will be made with Arduino. The first step will be to automatize heating/cooling and humidity of the entire room, tents included. The second step will involve PC and EC monitoring of soil (+moisture level in this case) and hydro cultivations. The third and fourth step will involve the magic CO2 implementation. This is the project... We will see where it takes us.

My 12,000 BTU (or it might be 11,000 BTU) portable AC was 350 euro 3rd year running it, used to handle 4x600 no probs compressor running half the time, its not too loud either. Again you know your space so if your sure, go for it......

you've got another point, like before... I will make a search to look for a low power AC unit (around 400W max should be perfect). I had previous experience with grow room AC cooling during summer months... I had to sell a kidney to pay the bills :D

your not yet contaminated with all the bad knowledge out there

That knowledge is what I came for, lol. But I like to keep my mind opened as much as I can, always considering the "reasonable doubt" position. My old Physics teacher always used to say "every theory NEVER represents the truth: it's just an approximation we use to explain most of the effects of the phenom."

I wasn't sure if you were Italian or infact English living in italy

I'm Italian, born from Italian parents, always lived in Italy (from the far South, to the far North). I'm 100% Italian indigenous

You need to cut away the middle & release the outside branches a little so they can all grow evenly together, don't worry they will fill in the middle.

Good, this morning I was thinking the same thing. I will cut some clones from the central zone cloning compulsion mode ON!!

Mainlining I'm not fan of because it's a long long veg, I dont tie plants down either, other training techniques get you that nice level top without bondage or mainlining but ultimately experience gets you there as techniques change depending what you want and how the plant grows.

of course it's a manipulation that leads to a complete innatural development of the plant, it brings uneases, traumas, lots of pain to the plants. If you ask me, then I'll answer is quite immoral. Just how is immoral to eat the meat of a dead animal... You get the point? Truth is that we are not free, we have to deal and make compromises. So training, defoliation, topping, mainlining and so on are "acceptable" ways to train the plant to the shape I want to fit the best condition into the artificial enviroment I created, even if I try to do it as painless as I can...

Should say I only know a little about soil grows

Well... This "soil" run I'm making is not real "soil cultivation" for me. It's more similar to the slowest (but simplest) hydroponic system you can create. I'm saying that "real soil coltivation" is a more complex thing than to water a pot with liquid salt-based nutrients: I'm talking about "living soil" culture. If you take care of the soil and feed him good, then the soil will take care and feed well your plants. It's about taking care of the bacteria and fungus population into the soil, for what I understand at this level (I'm an autodidact too, just like you). Well, for what I saw on the Tube, it gives ASTONISHING results in terms of plant health, growth, fruiting and final product yield and quality (terphene explosion). You can use coco like main substrate too, so the aeration would be at max level...

My strong areas are hydro/equipment/room designs

I'd like to try hydroponics in the future, I think I'll start from the basic DWC pot. The target should be: reutilize my old Lybra pot, transforming them into clone flowering aeroponic pots. I have 20 of them, have to do something with lol

BTW less food, your girls are to dark for me.

You got me in the "growth block" days I panicked a little, and the leaves seemed light green to me; so I gave a double nutrient dose (2x the Canna Grow dose). But after that, 2 only water waterings - today will be the third (tap water bubbled 48h, plus saponine and PH adjusted to 6.0). The auto dwarf seems dark to me, but I didn't give her that much feeding... Will water with "plain" water her too.

Hope I'm not a boring read

It is a honor to me, bro as I said, I'm looking for knowledge!

[420mFuk]

Italian stallion oi oi ! lolz

Arduino ain't a bad idea but you'll need relay switches for 240V, GOOD you just proved to me your doing your research & seriously thinking about your space, well done mate... later I expect you'll add to home assistant or another automation software suite. whats your wifi signal like in your grow space ? there's lots of Tuya smart devices or others that can trigger your Peltier on/off by temperature. I recommend TH16 or TH10 from Sonoff, chinese sites have them for 10-20 euro but make sure it comes with the temp and humidity sensor. They're the same device TH16 can handle 16 amps & 10 amps for TH10.... further down the road, if you want to, you can flash the sonoff firmware &/or run it local via homeassistant or similar. Flash or not it will work with home assistant. Definitely a 'control brain' is the right path.
I'm not 100% sure but I think those sonoffs will run without internet but only after they are initially setup using internet. I have Pi4/sonoff/tuya stuff i bought couple years ago for home assistant garden automation project, I've just not got around to it yet he he. I really should start that project as I come from IT background. Anyways when I see you moving in that direction I will drop you loads of links to projects/code base/other gardens already using etc but for now keep your focus on the plants because no amount of equipment or automation will make you a good grower, after your a good grower... one will pay for the other & you'll make better decisions regarding designs and equipment choices ;) (less failure points the better).

the project of the renewed grow room (not this one I'm using this time) involves a quite invasive automation, it will be made with Arduino. The first step will be to automatize heating/cooling and humidity of the entire room, tents included. The second step will involve PC and EC monitoring of soil (+moisture level in this case) and hydro cultivations. The third and fourth step will involve the magic CO2 implementation. This is the project... We will see where it takes us.

:) happy days, what size is your future grow space that your fitting out now, room dimensions ? & how many amps do you have available in your space ?

Don't know if you know the calculation for room BTU but it's easy, add together the watts from all electrical devices in the room, the AC/lights/fans/chillers every electrical device in the room... then add 25%, then X 3.41. For example :
Total room power/watts = 1000 + 25% = 1250 X 3.41 = 4262 BTU
+25% is so you dont stress the compressor, don't want it turning on/off too often else it wear out the compressor in 12-24 months of use. Might want to consider the AC/heating all in one but be warned it can be tricky getting some brands to work with automation, looking at companies like TrollMaster helps when looking for compatible equipment.

So many things going down the automation path, maybe that's why I didn't start the project, experience has taught me to keep things as simple as possible and minimize the failure points.

Here's something to study & make you smile, I follow a chap who started a automation project, arduino based using all the very best sensors, this chap has sensors for everything ! I'm not joking, you may already follow him but anyways he has had the system up and running for a good while now, I think you will enjoy going though his channel & learn alot for your space.
https://www.youtube.com/c/SolventlessBakenVape

I should've said I've not grown soil 'indoors' for over ten years but I've done 3 seasons outdoors with the last grow in 2017, I have studied, compost making, soil food web, KNF, Notill .... spent hundreds of hours in lectures learning from some of the best & most qualified professors on the planet...... thing with me though is I smoke far too much so I've forgotten more than I know :( I can tell you this though, I've seen far too many cannabis competitions where the weed was unknown to the judges, organic or salts they didn't know, salts win .... sometimes the organic wins .... these are public people too with loads experience, many are growers & they cant tell the difference... of course many say organics are best but in a blind test they cant tell the difference & often vote the salt buds to a win.

My conclusion is salts or organic will produce competition winning buds you or I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. however it's much more difficult in soil, true organic living soil grows require a lot of knowledge and understanding and you will never get the same growth speed/cycles per year & slightly less yield. I see living soil as the next step up in growing & knowledge. If I had a jardim Id be growing fruits and veg living soil all year round but I only have a small tiled backyard.

caught me on wake and bake, stoned typing damm this is long, am i talking shit... hmmmm lol
peace out, let my know those dimensions & total amps. Got a favour to ask next time too regarding your spider 6'' fan. Cheers

[Rorschach]

Why complicating your life when Arduino can PWM control normal 12VDC PC fans? ;) there are some 120mm PC fans who spins at 3000RPM max (normal ones go max 1400RPM), if I use a 2 towers CPU dissipator 120mm sized with 3 of them in series, I'm quite confident I'll have no great bottleneck in that part of the aspiration system. Btw I was thinking, I shoult increase the max power of the experiment to 200W. The "hardware" I need is:
1) 150/200W max Peltier cell; (10/15€)
2) a two tower, 3 120mm fan CPU dissipator (30/40€)
3) an AIO liquid cpu cooler with 2x120 or 2x140mm radiator, they easily handle 200W of heat (50-60€)
4) Arduino - i think Nano or Uno can handle this project.
5) a 200W 12VDC psu (20€, even free if I use a PC psu I have)
Truth is - I never worked with Arduino. I never did automation before. I come from 15 years of IT, but never touched programming!! But I'm confident - I found an interesting "Arduino GrowBox Controller" project, made several years ago - I feel I'm gonna end just fine.
Btw this has been a hot day here (35°C peak), this evening at 18.30 I checked temperatures in the room: 27°C the room, 31°C into the tent. I just need 3 to 4 degrees less - 5 should be just perfect.

Other truth is: tomorrow morning, finally, a new "ultimate cooling secret technique" will be introduced: The Night.
I'm quite imbarassed to admit, but it's from the beginning of this grow diary that the light is set on a cycle of 24h!! But now that the heat is kicking in really hard, I believe having the lights turned off from 14 to 20 will help keeping tent temperature down.
Atm I'm giving 40-45 DLI spammed on 24h of light. But the main problem is to limit the heat, so I'm gonna raise the lamp a bit (now it's 40cm from the canopy, I'm going to raise to 50cm) and regulate the power to have 30-35 DLI spammed on 18h. Hope I won't have to go full power lol!

what size is your future grow space that your fitting out now, room dimensions ? & how many amps do you have available in your space ?

The room is roughly a 5x3 meters, the roof is (roughly) 30° inclined, highest wall I think is 3.5m, the lowest wall 0.5m circa. Never measured it, going by memory!
Wattage... For this beginning I'd like to stay under 1Kw max. A sqmt tent with a 320W lamp, a 2x4ft tent with a 240W lamp, 4 extractors running (let's call 50W each, so 200W total). Total is 760W peak power, roughly 12-13KWh a day... Ok after doing calculations I admit I'm passing out. Luckily these calculations are the most pessimistic - lamps doesn't go full power all the time, same for the extractors. Let's call 10KWh a day (maybe gotta do some compromises on the DLI table)

Got a favour to ask next time too regarding your spider 6'' fan.

You're welcome bro - that thing is amazing, that controller it has is the key! You can link up to 2 extractors to react to the same controller, who has a simple programming interface to set parameters of the "auto" mode. Same as the AC Infinity, I believe they're just rebranding AC Infinity ones. Unic downside: they're not so quiet as they say. Motor is quiet, but the ducted fans are definitely NOT. Older technology, centrifugal (?) extractors, was waaaaaaaaay quieter while giving huge air pressure/depressure. These newer ducted fan extractors are more for the airflow, but as result the noise is higher. Solution: buy a bigger one (da bigga, da betta lol)!! For a sqmt or a 2x4ft tent a 4" extractor should be fine; but with a 6" I can set the max speed at 50-60%, keeping the noise quiet while having enough air circulation. More than enough, in fact! Having it at 60% max makes my grow tent virtually unable to build up humidity: RH is always between 30 and 40 percent. The last two days, knowing that the heat wave was coming, I raised max power to 80%: the water into the pots evaporated 50% faster! Normally I water every other day, if I wait one more day then all plants are in dryout. With that extractor up to 80% I had dryouts after 48 hours (24h faster), with plants suffering for thirst.

[420mFuk]

Still think a used AC for 100-150 euro would be a far better solution, If your up in the roof your really going to need it but prove me wrong. 5x3m is a nice footprint but that sloping ceiling at one end 0.5m .. Sounds like a good 4x3m flower space.

Arduino can do many things but a Pi can do more with smart devices. I mean't you can add 240/10a switches to the arduino and then it can control high current devices like lighting/heating/cooling as well as 12v & 0-10v for light dimming or EC fan control etc.... :) its a rabbit hole so much is possible.

ref spider fan :
I was wondering if you could take some decibel readings with your phone.

is it possible to run the spider fan on its own? with no other noise.
download a decibel meter app for your phone (free)

turn the spider fan to maximum power
please take a reading from 10cm
please take another reading from 100cm
and if you can, take a reading from 300cm

turn the spider fan to 50% power
please take a reading from 10cm
please take another reading from 100cm
and if you can, take a reading from 300cm

Noise levels are important to me, spider claims 50 db I wondering how far away, anyways dude those 6 readings will give us all a good idea how noisy it is really. thanks much appreciated. cheers

[Rorschach]

I was wondering if you could take some decibel readings with your phone.

No problem, as soon as I can I'll do the measurements you want
About integration with home assistant... No, thanks. I want to make a standalone system, not connected to any network. Only way to connect to it will be a network cable with a laptop to see these cool graphs we want to see

[Rorschach]

Weekly update!
(sorry I'm in a hurry, will post images with little comments, will explain better next posts)

Family portrait:


T1 and T2: as recommended, I dug a hole in the middle, will wait for the external canopy to grow and fill the middle (ext. 2 weeks of veg to go)


T1 and T2 clones; repotted in 10l pots. They loved it!


Auto +Speed A.K.A. Hand Grenade: on her way, looking great to me. Buds are baking :)


New intrusion in the grow tent: two nice domes, containing all the cuts I did yesterday from T1 and T2 (35 cuts m/l), waiting to (hopefully) root and become clones.


Yesterdey another 35°C peak! Plants stressed again... Maybe an AC unit is the way
Feel free to comment/ask!