Naughty.Psychonaut

That is a valid point. I might know someone that can tell me more about this, will get back on this thread with the info once I have it!

Yeah, I was kicking my own ass when I saw that light. I might still return for a refund then pick up the same one you have! On the other hand, I'm im the process of building a proper 300W LED for the tent then will upgrade all my propagation stuff and move my 300W blurple to the propagation space and will no longer need the floods. So might even be worthless, might just return for refund and done.

Aaah, the light I should've gotten for my propagation area! I got a LED flood light too, literally days before I saw the recommendation from crex for the same one you got!

I know about the wood ash, never tried it... how about dumping a scoop in the vortex? Will be able to test and regulate the ph of the water before I give it. I got dolomite lime mixed in, will look into the Ecobuz multigrow! Thanks man!

@afternoon blazer Nice, like they say you miss 100% of the chances you don't take and 100% success rate is still achievable without all the fancy gear, all you need to do is try! What light you using? I've seen so many different "make-shift" humidity domes, I would say the best ones are just bottoms of plastic bottles cut to fit over only the seed and as soon as life appears, remove the domes, individually, and drop RH to around 40% and increase airflow as there was none in the dome. Another rule of thumb is absolutely no light during germination. No roots ever want any kinda light on them whatsoever. Many people feel like they'll be able to see the roots so why not plant in a see through pot or something, but trust me "seeing your roots" is never a good thing unless you're transplanting or doing a DWC inspection.

@afternoon blazer What's good my dude! I have made quite some changes to my method of popping seeds, only because what I had before was stuff laying around the house! I will look at a few points, first answer your questions and tell you what I did with these seeds, then give my suggestions and recommendations based on what I did to avoid the same mistakes! I am learning as I go still, also very new to all this so wouldn't go around telling people to do what I do for great success!! I popped these seeds on a heat mat between 30 and 35°C. Under a 85W 4000K (cool white) CFL bulb hung literally 5cm above the dome. Around 85%RH inside the dome but as soon as they open their cotyledons remove the dome or you'll be risking a lot!! Get them used to heat and direct light and all that as soon as possible. As soon as you remove the dome you have to take the light up atleast 20cm away from the seedling or the heat will cause stress or even worse, burn the plant, while there's really not even enough light coming from those CFLs to make the plant grow. My suggestion would be to never waste your time and money on CFLs. When popping seeds you wana go for the same kelvin as for veg (between 4000k and 6500k, a nice cool white). You really don't need much Wattage because you're not vegging under this light and if it's only for propagation seeds as low as 10W will do. Also don't need much in terms of Lumens as this only becomes important when you're in full veg and the plant is taking up nutes and all that. Also a handy tip for people like me who are still learning, keep away from any biological matter when popping seeds. A seed will pop with nothing but moisture and in a high RH environment with a lot of biological matter you'll encourage all kinds of life to sprout and you risk a lot by doing this! This is where Jiffy pellets (any kinda sterile medium) and distilled water comes in!! Also, going over 35°C will cook your seeds and anything under 25°C will slow things down drastically, so grab a heat mat and thermometer, will help a lot with these cold winter nights!! Happy Growing!!

@Bospatrollie2 I rent where I stay and there is nowhere to keep the setup outside without it being exposed to the elements. We get super harsh winds making it virtually impossible to keep a nice garden outside without a decent wind screens and I'm not allowed to put up any roofs or walls. At the moment the vortex is about 4m from where I sleep and the tent and all not far from that, so the noise is real. Any specific things you know of that one can add to increase P? Have a few ladies in flower that I'm sure will appreciate it!

@Batista Thanks man! I am in the process of building a new light for the tent, then will use my 300w blurple for this space. Probably will pick up a new tent aswell when the new light is running then just keep this as is with that 50w in there just to pop seeds or make some clones. Not really looking to spend more money on it as it's only 1m high I can't really let the plants stay in there for too long. Once new light and tent is up I will use my current setup for a proper veg room.

This is my second one I'm doing like this, seems to work, only thing I put in a seperate container is the teabag with some FF premium and local soil from a healthy patch. I also scoop 1L from the vortex and add my molasses to that and stir till that's dissolved and pour it back. Luckily I have liquid vermi pure so add that directly to the vortex. Then I have a bunch of microbial addatives, but decided to go with "eco-T" as it dissolves in the water itself where as the mycorrizhae will just float and I already got it mixed in the soil aswell as the mycoroot from hortishop, but those are small stones so I will keep them out for now. Anyway, here is my pooptea

Fresh fruit smells when I open the tent, canopy very uneven because of the Super Lemon Haze just being almost 2 or 3 weeks behind the others, but also just seems like a smaller plant? Flower Day 21 Super Lemon Haze Cheese Blueberry Banana Hammock Peep from outside

Just an update on these ladies. Topped a few tops, the long ones aswell as the one short cheese clone in front. Treated them with Bioneem so they look all shiney. Cooking up some tea for them that will be ready tomorrow night!

Looks like it will do for now. The hooks have not budged a bit and when I tug on them they feel firm. Will only upgrade when I switch lights, got some brackets with hooks already. Girls are looking perky so I am feeling good about this, they only gona be in here till the tent is empty then gona use it for clones in future. As I mentioned I had a "clone dome conversion situation" and this is what came of it. At the time I had probably 10 to 12 clones, with a couple that got root bound and some that where not worth it. I only got space for 4 plants indoors, planted few in random potting soil in pots outside. These are the 4 that got material pots and prepped to go into the "flower tent" after I harvest what's in there now. These are: 3 x Banana Hammock 1 x Cheese (front left) -small one in the corner is a Super Lemon Haze cut. I've topped all the tops, except for the one plant in front right, but I think I took this photo before or during.

Flower Day 15. For now most of my work is done here. Tent filled out corner to corner, did the last hard defoliation, hopefully. They got their last BioNeem and BioPhyta foliage treatments. Top dressed with DE, Tricho, Myco and some Dolomite Lime. Covered the pots to the tops with some more FF premium classic. Giving AACT as often as possible, at least once a week and just 7.0ph water inbetween. Recipe for AACT is FF premium classic, Liquid Vermipure, Molasses, Tricho. (Playing it safe till I get to know the ropes) Here they are pre-defo:(30 June) Post-defo:(6 July)

Just a here, roots should not have any kinda light on them. Absolute darkness. Get the poor little lady out that harmfull pot.

Justice for Stobbs!!!

@Prom I know one should not envy, but god damn man you're doing some crazy stuff here!! I think a bunch of us will be acquire some autos for future grows, I know I sure am!

Yeah I did think about that, but can't get around the poles as they are the corners of the panels with the panels mounted directly onto them. I also used some alu tape to seal the edges in case of light leaks. There's also wood glue and screws between the wood poles and panels. If I tied something around the poles I'd have to make more holes in the sides and that's not necessary. I'll find a hook with a bracket that allows me to screw in more than one place. I can add more hooks and do a 4 way spread with a chain from hook to hook and hang the light from there, distributing the 2kg of weight between all the hooks. Think I'll just grab bigger hooks. Also then much easier for me to adjust light distance by just adding or removing one chain link. Got 3mm chain for R8 a meter. Super cheap so I got 10m for future purpose aswell, builders asked R25/m for the same chain.

I'll definitly try that, before the rebuild. I might even attach the bubbler I made to the pump and bubble the water with the tea bag in it for a few hours before then do the strain and pour that into the vortex. Thanks for the tip!

@PsyCLown One thing I forgot to mention is the L-brackets I put in every corner where the wood frame meets. It's quite sturdy, before I put the panels on I was able to sit on top of the frame and I weigh around 70kg. So there's wood glue, long ass screws at wood on wood sites plus brackets with screws to keep the whole frame stable. I think the wood poles would snap in half before the corners come loose, but even for that to happen it would have to be carrying some real heavy weight for real long time or experience one hell of an impact. I believe this thing is much stronger than a normal tent, I also only have the one flood light which weighs like 2kg hanging from the wood. My concern rather lies with the hooks that screw into the wood where the light hangs from. I'm sure if anything was gona give in it would probably be those hooks. I just grabbed the ones I thought would work, but they're real small so I might replace them.

Well, I got her sealed all around and no more leaks. Bought a tub of "stag" from Agrimark. We use it on metal to metal water pipe connections for them to not get leaky over long time. It's like the "if all else fails" solution. She made her first brew and got poured off today, will feed the plants tonight. Didn't wana do anything too fancy since I'm still learning and only had few ingredients. I used ff premium classic mixed with some local soil from the earth, 1tbsp of trichcoderma, 100ml liquid vermipure and 30ml molasses. It really smells nice, must be the molasses. Got some bacterial build up inside the bucket, poured it off into another bucket and cleaned the vortex bucket and pipes and all. One problem, I noticed when I put the tea bag with all the goodies inside it breaks the vortex stream. So it just kinda moves around, but no vortex. I think I'm gona do a rebuild, using just one stream instead of two, hoping to increase the flow. I'm not sure if it will work, but I'll see.

Hope everyones doing great! I have a few things on my plate right now and too many things keeping me from reaching that desired budget to buy everything I want. Taking things slow, step by step and trying not to do anything by force, will get where I wana be sooner or later! For the time being, since my first DIY grow cupboard, I've always been collecting all sorts of parts and materials to use for a grow, as they happen upon my way. Just for in case, you know? I took cuttings from the plants I'm running in the tent at the moment, had them sitting in some jiffies in a humidity dome on a heat mat under a CFL. Did manage to get some roots within 15 days!!! Was quite happy about it, but the fucking heat of the CFLs burnt the leaves crispy brown. My mind and money is set on my DIY 300w QB with some samsung strips, then gona use the Apollo 8 blurple I have now for veg only. Didn't wana spend much, or anything really, but the CFLs had to go!!! Just to replace them I got one of those flood lights I'm reading about on the forum, checked out all the places around me that sells any kinda light, best I could find was a 50w, 3200Lumens, 6500Kelvin. For R530 with a 2 year warrenty and it's literally built for outdoors so can hose them down if I ever felt like it. I was lucky enough to happen upon a huge lump of reflective material. a Few pallet loads of chemicals that needed to be kept cool was shipped wrapped in diamond mylar. Literally feels the same as the material of the mars tents with the little square patterns. Thick, almost stays in the shape you bend it. I even have a hard time cutting it as it seems to have a bit of wire in it too, to make the square pattern. I obviously took all of it, because it was free and was going to get recycled anyway. On the farm we have quite a few "scrap materials" laying around. I asked boss man if I could have 2 x 5m wooden battons that are 2cmx2cm square. They cost like R60 a pole I think, but I got them free. I bought softwood cupboard panels, you get the one that's smooth matte white one side and rough wood brown on the other side then there's a smooth wood and rough wood sided ones. I already had my reflective material I went with the both sides wooden, because it was a little cheaper, but I'm sure you could use the white ones and skip on the reflective material and get the same results. I payed R155 for a 2m x 3m "sheet". Picked up the bigger version of the Hydor bathroom extractor for R400 quite a while ago. Had a small desk fan laying around, also a thermometer and hygrometer so didn't have to buy those. Odds - roll of ducktape, wood glue, pack of screws, 1 x ladies stockings, 2 of the smallest door hinges, pack of smallest screw-in hooks, 3mm x 2m chain, 5m wire and plug for light. Started with the 10m wood, cut 8 x 70cm pieces and 4 x 100cm pieces. Using my handy dandy wood glue and screws, I made 2 x 70cm squares with the 8 pieces and used the 4 x 100cm to mount the squares onto. So the space is 70x70x100. Quite alright for veg. Using the ductape I covered the softwood board with the reflective and stuck them to the wood frame, again using the glue then some screws. (The glue alsp helps fill gaps for light leaks) I used the blade from a metal saw with the fine teeth to cut squares in the bottom of the wood pannel for passive air intakes and I made a circle where the extractor fan is fitted. Extractor aswell as the passive intakes are covered with the ladies stockings, again using the ductape. Inside the passive intakes I cut an extra piece of mylar just to hang over the stockings to help with light leaking in there during lights off. I screwed 2 of the hooks in the top wood beams, hooked the chain from side to side, hung the light and plugged the whole bitch up! Basically a glorified propagation box. Here she is: Top right corner black circle is the stockings covered mouth of the extractor fitted with a ducting that links into the ducting from my other tent, this box thing stands next to my tent. Here is one of the passive intakes, to understand "the flap" a bit better. Also a close up of the reflective material. I planted the best 4 cuttings into their first pots. This is their home now untill flower time. I believe once I do get another tent I'll still keep this bad boy for further seed pops and maybe build a nice bubble cloner to fit. Happy growing!

Definitly a valid point, if you're anything like me you'll still keep growing bag seed even after you got proper gear and all that shit hahah! Cannabis plants also make great compost too, just make sure you don't put a plant with seeds in your compost!! When freshly cut they add tons of nitrogen to the compost and when dried they're good source of carbon.

Lets see, They got day one of flip was Monday, 22nd. They got a lime top dressing also some more DE, Trichoderma and mycoroot. Gave them a tea, first tea I brewed myself in my new DIY vortex brewer! In the tea there was FF premium mix as a base and a hand full of indiginous soil from under the healthy bush here, some molasses, some liquid vermipure and also a scoop of trichoderma. Didn't wana do anything crazy just yet. They have also had 2 good MKP feeds at the recommended 7 weeks dosage. Been getting bi-weekly Bioneem and Phyta treatments which will now stop, because we have pistils!!!!!! Let's boogy!

@afternoon blazer Hi bud, Just something qto concider when growing out a bag seed, don't hold your breath for the best results here. I grow plenty of bag seed and don't even go as far as to get proper soil for it, because it will make you lose trust in the soil. I am not telling you to not grow bag seed, like most others would suggest. Bag seed are unknown genetics and therefore unstable. You'd think you're doing something wrong when it's actually just "wild" genetics. Getting some proper soil will enhance the grow experience, won't have to deal with deficiencies and that stuff as much, but don't blame the soil when comes harvest time. Just a friendly heads up!

Yeah hahah I'm not an expert in anything, infact this thread goes to show just how clueless I am. Trying to find the right answers, though. I'm talking to some people, but trying to find the right people to have the right kinda convo with. I believe some synthetics might have reactions with eachother and even so with some of the organic matter and this might be a problem in some cases. I don't see any problem doing full ass, would you say that using synthetic nutes in soil is going half ass? I guess that is another big part of the question, using synthetics in soil, do the plants still get fed? I just can't think why it would be acceptable for big production farms to do it, but for us in pots with a plant for 3/4 months it's frowned upon. At the end of the day I am the FULL ASS organic kinda guy hahahah!