PsyCLown

I still don't understand the reasoning and logic behind soil being less work as some people claim and I certainly disagree that soil / organic tastes different or better. In my experience and comparisons, the difference is that the plants grew a bit slower in soil than they did in coco. The soil can be more forgiving in the sense that the plant can draw nutes from the soil if you are not providing enough via feeds such as BioBizz and that would not be the case for a hydro or coco grow. You can certainly grow in coco with a proper set and forget method, I have just completed a grow as such. A big res for automatic watering. Mix nutes in the res and that is it - I literally take a visual look at the plants to make sure all looks good and do not touch anything unless I need to trim / train which you do in soil too. In terms of mixing nutes, piss easy depending on the nutes you use. Measure out the nutes x amount of ml per L (same as BioBizz), add to the big res, maybe drop a little bit of ph down in and that is it. You follow the feeding chart on the nute bottle, like with BioBizz and that is it done. No need to over complicate things. It works. I am certainly not against soil and organic grows, however I do feel a lot of the info and reasoning behind them is purely for marketing and placebo such as organic weed tastes better or is smoother or some shit like that. Based in my experience, that is certainly not the case. Growing in soil was also far more expensive and I feel that is why the companies are pushing people towards soil. I could probably get nutes and medium for 2 plants (20l pots each) for an entire grow for under R250 in terms of coco. A bottle of BioBizz alone is around or over that and 30L of soil is close to that. You can grow great plants in soil, you can do so in hydro and coco as well. Equipment costs aside, hydro is probably the most cost effective growing method, followed by coco and then soil last. If you can get a soil where you do not need to add any amendments or nutes and you can grow plants with the same vigor, yield and speed of coco or hydro. Then I would be interested and would consider soil again. I believe in the states there are some amazing and true living soils, although in SA we are lacking in that department. Perhaps if you were to make your own soil, but that is really tedious and time consuming and certainly far more difficult than going the coco or hydro route I feel. Gotta wait 6 months or longer before you can even start using the soil I believe?

Hmm, do you have issues with RH if you turn your extraction fan off or is it really just to get some fresh air in? If its due to RH, I'd get a sensor which will turn the fan on/off based on the RH. If its just to get fresh air in, I'd say put it on a timer and turn it on every now and then only - a digital timer is easy enough to find and not that expensive - cheaper than electricity with a heater running 24/7 You should also have fans inside your tent circulating the air around, it should not be the extraction fans job to do that IMO. If it were my setup, that is what I would do if I was growing in a shed.

Congratulations to the winners! Well done. This really was not an easy decision at all, very close indeed. Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

So@Ill_Evan I guess the question is. You going full on microbes or going to be using nutes? Or no nutes, I'd be curious to see a comparison of cuttings - one in soil and one in dwc. See how they grow and then end yield. Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

I say oh your water and use normal pH up / pH down. Add microbes if you want with something like em pro soil or environoc, take note that it can drop your pH a lot and you may need to pH your feed upwards then. Also add nutes. My 2c Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

Nice, so you finally have another tent going. Pretty decent size too! Keen to see the new thread, question is what seedlings are those? I also see 5 where only 4 are going into the larger tent? Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

Congrats and welcome@CreX Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

It wasn't a big plant though and you're used to a scrog. If you don't scrog next time, I suggest a slight change in defol and training etc. Not bad though, what sort of yield do you think you'll get from other plant? Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

So I do not feel using autos is a great way to test out soil, I would rather use clones from the same plant. Auto's can be iffy, you can get some which will flower sooner than others and that can affect their end size and the yield etc. So they can be quite inconsistent, would make it hard to judge which soil may be better. Looking good though, I assume no training? They just need to fatten up now!

I have kept it simple. There is a window in the room which is a bit open for some fresh air and then the door leading to the rest of the house is also open a bit. I draw air in from the room the tent is in and then the exhaust is also just into the room (out the top of the tent). You can exhaust the air outside if you'd like and able to. Too much effort for me and it'll look odd with the ducting by the window and would draw unwanted attention.

I don't draw air from outside, just from within my room and I use the light blocking baffles from Secret Jardin - this is actually more for better passive air in take as without these the tent goes into some serious negative pressure and I feel the airflow suffers. @Budwizer has a really awesome and clever solution though!

Welcome, grow is looking good! Why not start a grow diary to keep us updated on the progress? You can also ask questions if need be

Your medium looks a bit dry, the edges are pulling away from the sides from what I can see - unless its just uneven levels of your soil / coco, Also PH sounds a bit high for my liking. I'd drop it to around 6.1 to 6.3. What are you using as nutrients or what are your plans?

@Prom I also dislike running my QB's very high, even 90W is a bit on the high side although they're capable of it. People just thumbsuck power figures now to help make the product appear more powerful. Also with additional diodes they can handle a bit more power. If running passive cooling, you may want to monitor the heatsinks though and considering moving your air circulation fan to blow over the top of the heatsinks a bit - keeping them cool will help prolong the lifespan of the diodes. As for multiple drivers, well, it also depends how many QB's you are running... I am running 2x drivers at the moment, so even if one driver does die (very unlikely to happen anytime soon after purchasing a new unit), I still have light going so not the end of the world until I get to take a look. I do have spare drivers so I could do a swap out and get at least some of the lights up and running again. With their 3 to 7 year warranties, I really don't think one needs to worry much about a Meanwell driver dieing within its warranty. Not saying it is not impossible and I have not actually used one for that long, although they have been making power supplies for years and I imagine they'd use quality components and caps etc. to ensure the drivers last at least for the warranty period. Otherwise you just get it swapped out under the warranty I guess. Curious to get some figures from you of how a QB with LM301B/h diodes compares against a TS3000 in terms of PAR and such. 6x QB288's at 450W vs a TS3000 which is 450W if I recall correctly? Spacing of the QB's would need to be optimized to ensure a nice even spread. That puts the QB's at 75W per QB, could try 5x QB288's vs a TS3000 as well but I personally dislike running the QB's higher than 90W each. They're more efficient when run a bit lower, although if you have access to a quantum sensor, you can do the tests and see what the sweet spot is I guess. Will be curious to find out

Oooh! I see more than 2 plants there.

Ahh man, sounds like bad luck. I personally like to soak in water for 12 hours or so, then I put them into paper towel and into a zip lock bag to ensure it stays moist. Then I put it into my grow area to keep it warm, after a few days when the tap root is showing I then plant into soil / coco.

How though? I am not aware of any gas heaters which can be hooked up to a thermostat to maintain temperatures. Having to turn it on / off the whole time is going to be such a pain.

I feel the bud looks better after a wash! I am curious who uses Hydrogen Peroxide when washing their bud and what strength do you use? Heard Hydrogen Peroxide is a good idea if you have PM or pests. Also do you guys keep your lemon and bicarb separate or mix them in the same bucket?

I personally use Blumats, the tropf (dripper) system. Although you can build your own dripper system.

I don't see that working very well or being very efficient. Those cheap fan heaters with a motor work well and even have a thermostat built into them!

Coco really isn't difficult to grow in or work with. A good soil will be forgiving as it has amendments to help buffer the PH and there are nutes in the soil and preferably some microbes which will break down the organic matter and continue producing more nutes etc. With a coco & perlite mix, you cannot over water your plants. If you do coco with fertigation then growth could be quicker than with soil. @Prom yeah, if you can get a quality pen which does it all then go for it. I think I paid like R250 for my PPM pen and then R850 I think for my PH pen, I have an HM Digital one and its' awesome. Certainly get proper storage solution and take car of your pen, rinse it off after taking measurements in high EC solutions etc. etc. I have never considered rain water, so have not looked into it. I have also never considered growing indoors in soil without nutes and if you are using soil inoculations you certainly do want to have a PH pen as that drops the PH quickly! Depending on what nutes you are using, EC / PPM is not needed although something like Hortimix I would recommend it as there isn't a proper chart provided. If the nutes and dosage you are using brings the PH down to the right level, then its easy and quicker - but the process for me has always been the same regardless of whether its for soil or coco. I have never had any loss at all, regardless of my medium. I do not understand how you guys find soil less work than coco... The experience has been about the same for me. Mix nutes, PH and feed to plants. Regardless of whether it is for coco or soil - what has saved me a looot of time is moving over to an automatic watering system as watering by hand is a ball ache and takes quite a lot of time. I now just mix my nutes in a tub, and it gets fed to the plants automatically - takes me around 10 minutes maybe as my tape is a bit slow to fill and I have to put the water into a bucket and then pour it into my res but still lot quicker than when I was watering by hand which would easily take me 45min.

Not really... There are soo many nutes out there. That Atami chart seems as if they just want you to buy more of their products. Something as simple as Hortimix would work and that is pretty cheap. I have been using GHE for my current grow and it's so simple to use and I have had zero issues so far. It's just 3 bottles and you mix them in a ratio according to the chart they provide on the bottle. EC / PPM pen, the cheaper ones are accurate enough. PH pen, not so much. The cheaper ones can be quite inaccurate and lose their calibration after testing one or two liquids of different PH. Coco vs soil, in terms of what is needed does not really differ much. You have the medium and then you use nutes, depending on the type of nutes you are using for both coco and soil you may need an EC / PPM pen or you may be able to get away with it just following the dosage charts provided by the nute manufacturer. PH I recommend you check and adjust for both soil and coco, some who grow in soil do not feel the need to check or adjust their PH though so you could maybe get away without a PH pen then. Coco typically does not have anything to help buffer the PH so checking and adjusting your PH is quite vital to ensure no lockout occurs.

Ahh, fair enough. I didn't really look into mixing my own soil and imagine that could help reduce the cost heavily. If one were to reuse soil or coco, it does help reduce the cost quite a bit but I think majority of people on this forum don't reuse their soil or coco - outdoor is a bit different of course. I did reuse soil once and didn't have any issues, but I feed with every watering so I didn't expect issues to appear due to the constant nutes. Mixing your own soil isn't a quick thing either as far as I understand, not like hydrating a brick of coco and buffering it which could be done in a day or two. Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

Quattro / all wheel drive is amazing! Makes such a big difference in a car with lots of power, or even moderate amounts of power. A friend use to have an S3 with some mods, so not a ton of power but above average and the lack of wheel spin is a game changer in terms of 0 - 100 and quarter mile etc. Depending on the type of person you are, some still prefer RWD although AWD is fun in a different way. Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

Well for me it's remove the dpf and do a tune. Some call it stage 1, others call it stage 2. I have a ZF gearbox in my car, they're pretty decent! Not dual clutch or anything but performs well and can only imagine how much better it'll be after a software flash. Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk