Ponica

Just Tripart coco and perlite.

My wife got me some Purple Power CBD seeds (Femenized Auto) from the Green Smoke Room. I totally messed it up though, I got over confident and sloppy, I think I added too much perlite , over watered and too much nutrients. she's a bit stunned. The perlite started making thick layers of pond scum, So I replaced the grow medium but from the pic as you can see it came back a little but. But at least it recovered and looks like its growing again. I'm not familiar with auto flowers but the below plant started making pistils right away. Not sure if its because it was stressed or if it is just how they are. In the same tent I have 2 other plants. When I realized i stuffed up on the Purple Power CBD's I went and bought a different CBD plant but this time a clone Dont kow the name. On the pot when I bough it it read "NARC" Try find NARC when searching relating to weed ,Narcotic this narcotic that so I'm now sure what CBD plant it is. And this clone growing like MAD! CBD clone in the back and just normal regular unknown seed in the front also doing quite well. (With the little CBD Purple power in the back for reference) Why is it that all of my grows have a light "Green" leaf colour yet no sign of stress or nutrient burn or any sort of deficiency. When I got the clone the leafs were a very dark green and had some nutrient burn but as I do as I always do the plant is growing happily and the dark green leaf colour became a lighter green . When ever I look at other growers plantd they are also a darker green. I'm tempted to add nitrogen, but not sure if I should. ?

Thanks for the offer. I'm unfortunately far away. I will source something from a local shop.

Last update, These bag seeds came out OK not too shabby And i'm happy with the lights, the PSU i'm using has some extra capacity to add more. Next time I will try and keep it in control by trimming and training better and will log the progress in a more appropriate section of this forum. Thanks for all the advice. Chapter closed. BTW I may have trimmed it early in fear of running into bud rot issues , because the lower flowers started to develop some fluffy white stuff which came off when i lightly rub it with my fingers.on the sugar leafs.After reading up it wasn't bud rot it was powdery mildew. Seeing 50% of the pistils were amber. Based on that I thought I may as well just take the plunge and start harvesting because I don't own a magnifier. Will be donating the plant to a friend who also recently got into growing, maybe he can re veg it (Practice) with it now to get my hands on a good strain.

Exactly the type of input I need sensei I feel like I may now remove my white belt and replace it a yellow belt and i'm now worthy of proper seeds. On a serious note thanks for the input, it makes encouragement and what you said makes totally sense. Any recommendation on some seeds ? Being the zombie apocalypse type of guy I prefer to buy regular seeds with the possibility of getting a male which can be used to pollinate to make more.

So Here's an update. From the previous photo's you can see I planted 4, one of which was a male. Out of the 3 that was left one of them got overshadowed by these massive fan leafs and got stunted. Pulled her out and gave it to a friend. Not sure if its going to survive. Then I had 2 left. 1 of the 2 that was left was growing in a mixture of organic and coco/perlite medium. and the other just pure Coco/perlite. Never knew how much to feed the plant in organic mix, so I just kept feeding the same as the pure coco/perlite plant. It never shown any burns or deficiencies but neither did it bud propperly. Not sure why flowers were all over the show but didnt show any progress. So I moved her to the greenhouse outside. Now I only have this one in the tent. Not sure if its doing well but it isnt exactly doing poorly either (To my untrained eye) any comments ? I feel like the bud can be denser. I dont know the strain its just bunch of left over seeds which came from a very seedy bud.

Update: Things got a bit out of hand not complaining. Stems are nice and thick, not a single deficiency! and buds are coming along nicely. Some minor light burns here and there. I probably should have trained it better. Best I can do now is to try and pull the branches down with some rope. Below is 2 trees (Technically 3 but the 3rd one is not getting much of a chance) Went to the china shop and bought more warm Led panels for a life changing R200.00 Will be adding 2 more if it make decent buds.

Hey I only see this thread now! Ive been growing mushrooms for quite some time now, but nothing serious just normal small scale PF Tek style. Lions Mane, Kings, Blue oysters . Although PF tek is not quite the most efficient way to mushrooms, its a great an easy way to start off with. For what its worth, Noob to Noob, If you are going to take the PF tek route. Dont stuff around just get a steam pot. You can steralize using other methods but a steam pot and some consol jars makes it so much easier and almost fail proof. And start with oysters they are very resilient and grow fast. I use the same steam pot to decarb sugar leafs using the same method used to sterilize grow medium. Chuck the leafs or buds into a consol jar (AKA Mason Jar / Jam Jar) Instead of making a breather with stuffing just punch some holes and cover the lid with alu foil to keep the moisture out. I cook it for 90mins just like you would cook PF Tek.

Should I in the name of science flip the schedule to 12/12 and get the plants to flower so we can see if the the lights will make some buds ? If it works out I will dub them "Bud Makers" Maybe I should start an Open source project that will allow people to build their own on the cheap. I can make them modular so you can snap more together.

Update. Wow I dont recall the leafs growing this big in my previous grow, they're gigantic! everyday when I check in to feed them there is a clear difference. I had to raise the lights for a second time already.

I wanted to make sure I calculated the wattage correctly. The amount of heat these panels put out made me doubt my measurements done with the multi meter. So I got a Sonoff Powr2 and its reading a total of 130watts I think its because I measured them with the tips if the multi meter leads and not making proper contact allowing all the current to flow. Without the light panels the Sonoff reads 7.5 watts (Small AC fan and a USB powered hub + 250watt PC PSU) , when connecting only one panel it goes up to 68.5 watts. So both of them draw around 62watts. I'm thinking to just buy an LED driver to test it out on a grow, will soon see what happens. The plants seem to be happy for now. Except for the little bit of leaf curl. Not sure if its because the light are too close or if I have over watered them. My first time growing with coco. On the left is a premex which I bought from the store and on the right my own Perlite , coco buffered mix. They have been on a 24 hour schedule for almost 2 weeks now. I have now set the Powr2 on a 18/6 schedule.

Bookmarked! Do you think its worth mixing them with some LEDs in the blue spectrum and IR LEDs ?

I'm still procrastinating , Haven't yet decided if I want to build or buy In the meantime I designed the below. I took the QBs I already had , some alu flatbar offcuts and some 3d printed components. I also realized out of the panels I have they have different types of LED's The below looks like they are around 3000K but cant say for sure. I think it came out quite nice. So If I had to buy the samsung LEDs I will do the same. They draw only 27watt not sure if its usefull. the panels come in 1m strips so I could make another 3 of them, if I have enough Alu offcuts. The above version has mounting holes for a 80mm fan. PM me if you are interested in the STLs, Sharing is caring I think if you can find the correct panels it will make for a very nice grow light.

Regarding the earthing issue. Those cobs are supposed to go into an enclosure and is covered with a lens. But in my case the terminals were covered with high heat silicone. But when one of them short circuited I imagine the short is on the inside of the cob somewhere. I took the cob off of the frame and the back of the cob which is alu has conductivity with the live. So maybe the Vslot alu profile didn't dissipate enough heat leaving the cob to cook it self on the inside.

No its a used unit so I would not be able to choose, the guy is selling it on FB market place, he said that he has a grow shop and from time to time have grow lights. I also think the one he has may be an older version or something because the picture how has shown me does not quite match the pictures in the link I sent but very similar and did say its a 240watt. But if I could choose It would be the lower spectrum. Vegging seems easy and can easily be supplemented with most lights. But flowering seems a bit more specific to the lower range.?, what you say ?

Thanks dude! I will take a look at those, do you think communica or RS will stock those ? BTW I live eat, sleep and grew up on electronics so not a big deal for me to build my own. Will wait for @greenkush hopefully he can give some guidance. I also found a used light on fb market place. https://www.phoenixskysa.com/product-page/budmaster-240-square For R2800.00 What about a Mars Hydro TS600 100Watt ? They retail for about 3K Side note. You made me laugh when you said i'm going to pay unnecessary school fees. Its too late. In the past I already spent a enough money on lights to buy something decent I built the below, unfortunately it did not turn out very well. It lasted for about a week, one of the cobs somehow shorted its self out causing the DB to trip. After checking conductivity the live made contact with the frame. At closer inspection I cannot see where it made contact. I assume it burned its way through the resin painted coating. Fortunately I had it earthed properly. Wont be using these again they are down right dangerous. They are the blurple ones.

Yesss please I can stretch it another 2K if I must (Now my cheapskateness is showing)

Thanks for all the info. I may be wrong that I don't doubt . When I say flood lights i'm just trying to explain what I have as a light source. As in making it clear I'm not using proper grow lights. The 120W QBs have 4014 SMD leds, the "floods" dont have any markings. The reason why I doubt that they will be better is because visually the LEDs look the same as the 120W QB and yes i'm aware 2 x 50watt is less than 120 watt (Usually these Chinese things make use of the same cheap components) both is the very common FOYU brand , the 120w QB is also not designed for growing plants neither does it claim to be for growing. , I got them from my local China store. I'm sure it would cost more than R200 if they were proper LEDs that put out the right amount of light for growing. I'm willing to give it a shot. But I think I should rather settle for something more fit for purpose. Be it a QB for growing or whatever is available. Market seems to be flooded with fake overstated output which is making it bit hard to find the right stuff. I have recently been to a shop in Pta and dont want to name / shame them because the honestly give good customer service. But they are selling a used 1000watt grow light and swear that it's 1000watt. After some research it actually has a 70w PSU on the inside. Regarding the deficiency Would you say its a Mg/Ca deficiency, or maybe nitrogen. All sources that I have checked points to nitrogen which seems to be common issue when the plant goes into flowering? By the way these plants are growing in white 4l hydro buckets, the light penetration also caused pond scum. Also changed the res many times to try and compensate for deficiencies. I have since bought grow bags per ite and calmag and some other things. When I'm ready I will start from scratch maybe start a thread then I grow purely based on input i get from this forum without altering any thing by my own. Will be interesting. But I think I need to fix the lights first. I can afford something in the line of 2K for lights. Any recommendations ?

Thanks for the link will check it out. Seems like a nice light. I have my doubts. Technically the flood lights are QBs aswell, Some of them come with cobs and other QBs just smaller with higher wattage LEDs but with the same color temp. We can argue the "QB" that i have will be better in the sense that they will distribute light over a bigger area compared to the flood lights. I initially bought them to light up a work area and I was going to mount them against wood. In a tent they wont be touching anything.

The below is my first sucessfull-ish grow. The below 2 plants started at the same time and the one on the right chilling under the Bluple light which also gets a good amount of LED flood light seems to be flowering much denser than the one that only gets light from the LED flood lights. Which makes me think 4000k is ok for veging but once you get to flowering things go south.

I have 2 50w LED flood lights and a single 50w Blurple light. When I put my phone underneath it the light source, the sensor kind of gives the expected color temps. On the left the LED flood light and on the right the Blurple 50watt Cob LED. And for interest sake the PPFD app gives the below at about 30cm from the light source. (Flood lights) . I have a cheap 120watt QB which I never ended up using. It was meant to light my work space but didnt like the fact that they get so hot. It has a bunch of 4014 SMD leds on it, and they measure just over 4000K. Will 4000K work for Veg and flowering ?

Just a tip. A trick I learned from an expert , Easiest is to always convert every thing to to WATTS, W = I (Amps) x V (Voltage) if a battery is 12V and rated 102Ah its 1224 Watt Hours, meaning for 1 hour you can draw 1224 watts. From here you can work out for how long. I.e if you have a device that draw 500wats 1224Wh/500wats = 2.4 hours. However there are some caveats. Usually when it comes to lithium batteries, they already display the specifications in Wh. So if you have a 5Kwh battery it means you can draw 5000 watts from it for one hour before its depleted. And Lithium batteries usually are OK with 100% DOD (Depth of discharge) where as other batteries such as Lead acid and AGM don't like being discharged too much. 50% is considered max anything beyond this point does not make sense and causes major damage. So essentially a 12V 102Ah is realistically a 51Ah battery as far as usage goes.. Its rated 102Ah because that's how they test it in the lab and in the Lab try get the most AH out of it for marketing purposes which basically became a standard way of measuring SLA/AGM batteries. With Lithium they don't have to tell white lies and just give it to you as it is. The reason you want a 48V system over 12V is because Current and Voltage is on a scale. The higher the voltage the lower the current draw. Current=Heat. Which also means you dont need extra thick cables. And just because a battery is capable of its spec, it doesn't mean you should draw max current from it because they will get hot and heat kills batteries in not time. They can also put up quite a show if you abuse them , this goes for all types of batteries. Things to bear in mind Type of inverter Pure sine VS Square wave. If you are running expensive lights making use of expensive LED drivers they will become hot and may reduce its life span. you want pur sine wave , Square wave inverters are cheap nasty stuff.

Plants are doing much better now. After changing out the water it seem to have helped a little bit but not much. So I added a 1/4 tsp of robertson epsom salt. 3 days later and they look better. Not 100% but at least there is a positive change., The plant on the left still has some "Rust" spots on the leafs. I'm tempted to add another dose of epsom salts. But I will wait a little more before doing so.

Merry Christmas you bunch of helpfull people Happy growing!