Stealth Dresser Grow - 1st Grow Attempt

[incade]

Hello everyone,

I'm nearly completed with my dresser build (should be finished tonight), and I have already started germinating my seeds on January 19th.

As of today, they have all sprouted their taproots, and I am going to put them in the soil and turn the lights on for the first time tomorrow at 3pm.

For the record, I do not know the specific strain of these seeds. They are bagseeds from a batch that a friend and I enjoyed and figured would be a good test run.

Soil Used: Fox Farms - Ocean Forest
Avg Temp: 82F
Humidity: 45%

If anyone has any suggestions for me this early in the process, feel free to suggest. I think mostly I've read that with this soil I should just water for 3 weeks. Do I still have to leave the water sitting out for a certain period of time during the first few weeks?



Also, you can see pictures of the dresser build here: https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/400640-stealth-dresser.html

Oh, and it will be closed up on the bottom tonight. No worries. =P

 

[incade]

Got the bottom installed, and some more lightproofing done.

Now I have to paint the bottom, and let it air out.

But first, more importantly... Smoke break!

 

[REALSTYLES]

Clean set up man gonna sub this thread

 

[tje22]

Lookin good man+rep, the only thing i can think of is to try and get your temp to about 75 if possible imo. If not then they still should be alright.

 

[incade]

I was thinking I'm gonna go ahead and install an intake fan as well, but not tonight since it's late.. I'll have an intake fan first thing in the morning though. =)

That, should help with the temps.

Realstyles: Thanks, it's gonna be a fun ride.

 

[incade]

Installed the intake fan, and made another anti-light box.

Painted the bottom, and the aluminum tape everywhere to prevent hotspots.

And we're off! At exactly 3PM today, I have started the timer and the seeds are now in soil!

Jan 19th - Seeds started germinating
Jan 23rd - Seeds in soil

 

[incade]

I put about a 1/2" to 1" of water in the cups to start.. Can someone let me know if I should be putting more/less?

 

[REALSTYLES]

just put enough to keep the soil moist not wet and you'll be ok

 

[BamaHigh]

Yeah looks like its really coming together.+rep.

 

[incade]

Slight issue, after everything has been painted it seems my temps have gone up, and my humidity down. =(

Right now, I'm seeing about 90F, and 16% humidity. I guess I'm going to be investing in new fans and a humidifier sooner than I thought.

 

[gumball]

Try removing your intake fan and see if temps and humidity fall inline with where they were before. Trust, intake fans are not as useful as you may think

 

[incade]

I've disabled the intake fan for the moment, and we'll see what happens.

There is also another 120mm fan inside the case just blowing around the ambient air / bulbs.. Should that be disabled as well?

Meanwhile, what do I win? Another smoke break!

 

[gumball]

Yeah, I have found in small grow spaces you only need active exhaust. As long as your passive intake are in a position that will cause the exhaust to pull air across the cab you will be good.

But in larger grow spaces, circulation fans may help out.

Enjoy the smoke break

 

[incade]

I just saw temps shoot up to 94F in there, so I've enabled the intake fan again.

I think the issue is my exhaust fan, honestly. It's a 120mm only pulling 74CFM without the light shroud.
The intake is only a 40CFM 120mm fan..

These are just fans I had around, so I figured why not use them to get up and running. Lol.

I figured I would have to upgrade eventually, but didn't know it'd get so hot already. =(

 

[gumball]

are you running them on a computer power supply, or on a power block like a cell phone uses? if you are running them on a cell phone power block or something similar, what voltage and amperage does it say for Power Output? if you already know about this thats cool. but a lot of first timers dont know that fans are rated on a certain voltage and watts. they will work on less voltage and watts, but they will be slower. They will also work on more power, dont know how much may be too much, but their life will be shortened by this.

a bunch of growers i follow on here, and myself, all tried removing any circulation fans and/or intake fans to improve performance. it helped every single one of us. i think what was happening is these fans were mixing the hot air up and not giving the exhaust a chance to remove it, causing the cab heat to build. sorry it didnt help you, but it may give you some thoughts to work with.

 

[incade]

I turned off the (4) 5000k lights and left on the (4) 2700k lights for now. That's brought the temps down to 82F, a little on the high side, but much more acceptable.

Humidity is at about 25% right now.

 

[gumball]

can you put up some pics of the full cab in its current state, and exhaust and intake location('s)? you should be able to run all those bulbs with no issue. you could put a 150-250 HID light in there with the correct ventilation. My cab of more than half that size has a 100 watt CMH and a 26 watt CFL, and i dont go over 86.

 

[incade]

Sorry, hadn't seen your request til this morning.

Here's some pics I took before I have to run into work.



Right now, I have the (4) x 5000k lights on, and (2) x 2700k lights on. Both the intake and exhaust are 120mm fans, the intake 40CFM and exhaust 74CFM. Intake is on the bottom, exhaust on the top.

By the way, I forgot to mention that I live in Colorado so it's low humidity here to start with. Putting some water inside the cab to evaporate seems to have helped a little this morning, but I've been seeing an avg of 16% humidity. For this reason, it seems my soil is drying out pretty fast too.

Definitely have some tweaking to do to this environment.

 

[incade]

Today the first plant sprouted! I'm excited to see life already after only 30 hours!

 

[gumball]

find you a clear plastic cup or use a baggy and cover the cups to keep humidity in. it will help for the first week or so of their lives