Building a setup - Test trials and learning

Hello fellow growers!

This will be the thread of my grow tent build up.
Before anything else i want to say that my cash is near to non existant and i will have to be imaginative and adapt. Judgment on what is really needed and work my best with less.
Every year i plant 2-3 seeds in February. and just let go until October to cut and cure. Results have been mixed as only care is to water them and let the plants near my office window. Yes it gets pretty tropical sunny in summer and it shows. Average 200g of bulbs every year and when seeds are good it's quite nice weed.

But this year i decided, after getting unemployed, to do it myself. So there i go to some friends and salvage every bit of crap i can or they let me leave their house with it . So this is what i got so far:

- 1 SecretGarden DR240W Huge
- 1 Tent 1,50mx2,50mx,1,50m
- 1 Smaller Tent
- 1 Ballast 400W HID/MH
- 2 Electronic Ballast 600W
- 2 400W HPS Philips lamps
- 1 65W CFL Dayron Coolwhite
- 1 Dedicated circuit breaker
- Full BioBizz product line
- 1 Co2 Reactor
- DIY fan system (temporary) with temp control
- Lots of will

So now for the mess! The nice dr240 i got is uncomplete, this means i dont have any metal bar or corners to assemble it. So what i did was build a temprary wood frame to put it up and test. Then i cant use 600w lamps for now due to energy cost (unemployed) so i can only use 1 400w hps. The CFL is vegging in the small tent 1 plant. All is assembled as temporary so that i planned a way to build a decent frame for the 240.
As this is 1st attempt and cash is very limited i'm taking my time to tackle each issue to improove and give it time to use best approach money wise.

The plants flowering are all messed up as they had quite a bad time. All sorts of accidents hapened from hps light falling on them to go by 3 diferent vases...
I was a litle shamed for showing the crap setup i have but well... as said before it's a baseline to be able to learn and improove.

I am taking the oportunity to learn with them, make mistakes and test fertilization effects. Poor litle fellows will suffer a bit but in the name of science.
The setup is passive air-cooled; meaning i am testing only using the side and top openings to keep a decent airflow into it.
Temp is average 24,6º and humidity is 52%.
Hps 12/12 and CFL 16/8.

I dont know the strains i have but seeds were taken from very good weed i had. The plants main problem was like 1 month ago they had too much N so some leaves started clawing and get a dark green. Grow stalled. Thats the main reason for the 3rd vase/soil change.
This time i have selected low level nitrogen soil and been giving them water only. As a lot of damage was done, i started to test cutting some leaves from 1 plant to see what happens with time - too bad this plant was going very promising 1,5 month ago...

Fire hazard wood in a tent.

I agree with you and as said it's very very temporary this solution, saturday it will be changed.
But... if i get a fire in the tent i'm pretty sure the wood in there is one of the least problems, the tent itself will make a pretty decent job igniting i think.
The only thing there that can make that kind of problem is the balast or power cords; both i'm putting outside saturday.
Here are some pics of this crappy setup (as said pretty initial).

Looks pretty damn good to me.

What kind of plant is that though, strain wise and Indica or Sativa wise. The leafs look ultra thorny, sharp, and skinny.

If you mean the bigger one i have no clue. Was some seed i got like 5 months ago, sorry cant help on that.
And she has been unlucky... when the hps lamp fell on it it broke almost 25cm from top. Burned a lot of the top also. And until 2 days ago it had a LOT more leaves, i just decided to cut most of them to see what happens.

Ok. So i have made a frame design to replace the wooden one.
I found a shop that costum bulild a frame in high temp resistance pvc with fire insulation. This way i get some more peace of mind and willl be able to put about 35Kg in weight on it of lights and stuff on top.

When i get the frame (should be within this week) i let ya all see it.
Now i have some pics from today that i find nice:

Tomorrow i pick my new frame for tent!
Meanwile i´d a bit confused about how to control humidity...

Been reading a lot and seems most people need more humidity, but my problem is that i have perfect readings during day (50-60% hm) and at night they go as high as 77%..
Please can someone help me understand what to do about it?

PS: 10 WW seeds + 8 SS both free \o/
(from whitelabelseeds)

stonerix said:

Tomorrow i pick my new frame for tent!
Meanwile i´d a bit confused about how to control humidity...

Been reading a lot and seems most people need more humidity, but my problem is that i have perfect readings during day (50-60% hm) and at night they go as high as 77%..
Please can someone help me understand what to do about it?

PS: 10 WW seeds + 8 SS both free \o/
(from whitelabelseeds)

Click to expand...

Dehumidifier with adjustable humidity setting.

-spek

That little ballast with the wires exposed is not in the tent right since it will get drenched in the night time temp drop with the moisture that will come.You can order the tent plastic corners at worms way in couple sizes then just use either metal pipe or pvc pipe from like hoe depot. think the corners are like $3-$4 each depending on size then the pvc pipe is cheap at Home depot hopefulle you didnt spend too much money on a custom metal frame. Tents are cheap online to like 4x8 tents that are good solid tents delivered for under $175

Thanks for the kind replies!

That online shop has some nice stuff! TY
The problem of balast placement is right and its beeing adress right now with the new frame. I am going to assemble it and then take some pics.
This secret garden tent is (opinion of noob) very good. Good materials and well made. Plenty of room (2,40mx2mx1,2m), light reflection seems very good and plenty of intakes/exhausts and entrances.
As for my girls, it's really amazing what a setup like this can make. My plants spent a bad time before tent (4 in same vase so 1 big and 3 small and like 4 months near window+water in a 3rd time use soil. Eversince i got the hps and tent the jump from anemic problematic grow and look/smell is gone. Now i realise if that they started from day 1 in present conditions, i'd have amazing awsome smoke incoming!
Been 2 weeks in tent under 400w hps and in the last week i have been encresing the ammount of ferts i give them. Trying to learn how they react.
What i find interesting is that they seem to want more and more. (or maybe i'm just ignorant)
I delute the biobiz stuff according to their chart but 50% weaker. Every 2 days i give the 4 plants 2 liters of water with 50% fert dosage.
So far i dont see any sign of strees from them.
In 1st day after 1 hour the leaves showed a litle yellow in tips but next day was gone.
I assume my plants are confortable with their food so far, but how much is too much?
Also just bout 75L of All Mix soil from BB and 9 tall square vases.
This will be for the upcoming final tent and 1st real serious attempt.
Just need to buy the EC meter cause all the rest is here and ready.

This is 1,5 weeks under that CFL; does it look good? Comparing to others how it's doing?

Snowing in my plants?!?

CFL box

Unfortunatly the costum frame was with wrong mesurements so went back to fix ...
Argh! I failed and now have to wait some more days..

After a long time away i'm back and with more problems than ever!

Well i got a new job that kept me heavelly ocupied so i haven't had time to do anything else.
As for my tent things are going, 1st grow is drying and looking good, now new babies are on the way! \o/
I have ordered online the plastic bits and bought inox pipes to make the frame. It's quite strong and now i have that solved.
To hang the light i used steel cables properly secured so they can slide if needed and adjust to hang the light as low as i want with a inox chain.
The 3 cfl's i use seem to make a pretty decent job, as can be seen in the pic where the grow plant is; i had almost 4 weeks with only 1 of them and i think grew quite weel considering. Now i use 1 light for each plant.
This is 1st time they getting hps love and will only use it for about 5 hours a day together with the cfl's to make the other 13h.
I didnt have much hope for the 1st grow as a lot of thigs bad happened and the grew just last month inside the tent but i think i was very lucky as buds smell and look verry nice!



Now my next goal is to make the ventilation system and carbon filter.
According to the tent manufacturer intake is 130 m3/h and exhaust is 425 m3/h but this is for a 2x600w setup. As i will not go over a 1x600w is safe to use half of the recomended specs?
Or the price of the fans is not worth the diference? Also i have to look for a good reflector with air cooling so i can do it the right way. So i have to cool light and air the space.
The plants in the vases are haze and the 5 small suckers are ww.