Help Please w/ LED Lighting: Veg vs Bloom Switch vs Increase in Temperature

OK so My advice would be to not add anything to your soil. that's is just my preference as I can control exactly what is being used by the plants at certain times in growth. you do not want to add ph buffers like acids as they will mess with the bactiria in the soil. Most organic liquid ferts which I personally like to use are very acidic so if you add some potassium silicate every other or few waters your ph should be spot on! plus silicate is great stuff should be using anyway!

You should definatly be keeping an eye on ph even though you are organic, you are more likely to be acidic, so if so just add more silicate, problem solved!

My own personal preference with organic is start with soming like pro mix or sunshine mix with nothing in and create your own . I like liquid ferts as they are used constantly thru the grow as you need them. I add wormcasting extract for your humic and fulvic acids and microbes, seaweed extract for a multitude of benefits, fish ferts for the majority of your macros and micro nutes, a veg specific one and a flower specific, add suger every few waters to feed bacteria, potassium silicate throughout to strengthen and up ph and your plants will be BOMB

Gooeyhoney said:

OK so My advice would be to not add anything to your soil. that's is just my preference as I can control exactly what is being used by the plants at certain times in growth. you do not want to add ph buffers like acids as they will mess with the bactiria in the soil. Most organic liquid ferts which I personally like to use are very acidic so if you add some potassium silicate every other or few waters your ph should be spot on! plus silicate is great stuff should be using anyway!

You should definatly be keeping an eye on ph even though you are organic, you are more likely to be acidic, so if so just add more silicate, problem solved!

My own personal preference with organic is start with soming like pro mix or sunshine mix with nothing in and create your own . I like liquid ferts as they are used constantly thru the grow as you need them. I add wormcasting extract for your humic and fulvic acids and microbes, seaweed extract for a multitude of benefits, fish ferts for the majority of your macros and micro nutes, a veg specific one and a flower specific, add suger every few waters to feed bacteria, potassium silicate throughout to strengthen and up ph and your plants will be BOMB

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Thanks much...Ill look for some potassium silicate - do you think its better to use that vs baking soda for a pH up? Ive only been using a little baking soda to bring the pH up to around 6.3-6.5. What potassium silicate product do you use?

Yeah I definitely keep an eye out on the pH even tho I read so many people say don't worry about it, your organic. But I test the water after I boil it and it coils and then after I add the aloe vera, coconut water and molasses and a little epsom salt here and there. I am trying this on a couple of the plants and just plain water with the others to see how things turn out.

The thing is after I add the above to the water, the pH is around 4.8-5.0 which I definitely think is too low. So what would you do in that scenario? Would you pH up the water or just use the 4.8-5.0pH water as it is? Same thing goes when I give the soil some organic plant food, the pH is lowered around 5.0. I have been using baking soda to pH up the water to over 6.0 but not sure if that is the best thing to do or just feed the plants that low pH water since they are supposed to buffer it anyways.

Another issue I am having in two of the pots is the runoff pH is about 7.40-7.50. The other pots are around 7.0-7.15. That is where it was at when I first started with the soil (7.0-7.15). Do you check your runoff pH and if so what are your pH values for some of your plants?

KrazyG said:

Whats the reading?
Yes remove the HEPA and see if that improves things.
Where are you exhausting to? If it's back into the room this will raise the ambient temperature and have a knock on effect.

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Wanted to let you know that my temps are NOW steady during the lights on - 74-76 average and RH is averaging 45-53%. My lights off temps slowly decrease (from 4am to 10am) from 75 to 64/65ish, then start climbing around 1015am. My lights off RH last two days has stayed between 40-46%. Do you think these temps and RHs are ok to work with? I would hate to deal with more equipment in the box as its getting somewhat tight spaced now.

I think the lights off temp might be lower than what I would want ideally for this stage of life but I can deal with it and wont have to worry about adding more equipment in the box (I do have a warm air humidifier now) which is helping keep the room temps higher since I have fresh (outside) air coming into the box. I originally had a cool mist humidifier but once I started bringing in fresh outside cold air, the box was getting just way too cold (lights on and off).

I may have went overboard with the filters in the outside air ducting but I didnt want bugs and other shit coming into the box (I have bug mesh upon entry from the exterior wall, bug mesh at the end of the ducting exit hole and bug mesh upon on the intake hole. I also have a HEPA and carbon filter on the intake duct hole and a HEPA and two carbon filters on the exterior of the duct hole). I was paranoid about smell leaking back up the intake to the outside so my neighbors would smell it. This should keep all bugs/and 99.9% of mold/etc out and keep the smell from traveling up the intake ducting to the outside.

The best advice I can give is keep it simple, don't overthink everything. Get a couple of runs under your belt then everything will start to dial in. Overthinking will cause you more problems. Good luck.

KrazyG said:

The best advice I can give is keep it simple, don't overthink everything. Get a couple of runs under your belt then everything will start to dial in. Overthinking will cause you more problems. Good luck.

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Totally agree. The last thing I needed to get done was the box dialed in (temps and RH). I think I can deal with the current readings.

IYO are the temps and RH ok for lights on/off?

RayRay747 said:

IYO are the temps and RH ok for lights on/off?

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Them numbers seem fine to me. My lights off temp is 10°c and on is 26°c this has caused me no issues.

KrazyG said:

Them numbers seem fine to me. My lights off temp is 10°c and on is 26°c this has caused me no issues.

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Perf...

KrazyG said:

Them numbers seem fine to me. My lights off temp is 10°c and on is 26°c this has caused me no issues.

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Hey KG.

So I’m considering giving up on this Meph vs Alien Auto and just taking it out and putting it into a smaller pot and using that bigger pot for another dark devil plant. This is one of the ones I think I nutrient burned it and of course stunted it from what it looks like compared to its counterparts born around same time.

The large seedling is one that i recently fimmed as an experiment. It seems like it didn’t skip a beat. Just not sure how big she should be at this point.

Also I think I somehow messed up the newly germinated sour diesel and Meph vs Alien (2nd seed) seeds. The seed top just seems to be staying on and not popping off. Is this normal - pops soil but doesn’t pop seed top off? Disclaimer: I kind of disturbed the soil where I placed the seeds. Well basically knocked over the two pots with the two new seeds and the soil and seeds spilt all over the ground. I picked seeds by seed top and placed them back into soil. Not sure if they will make it and continue to come out of soil. I always plant newly germinated seeds in coco to start. Will the two germinated seeds survive? Taproot was still intact btw.

87F lights on is fine.

Lucky Luke said:

87F lights on is fine.

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?is this in response to my post?

RayRay747 said:

?is this in response to my post?

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if you were asking at any point if 87F is a problem..then yes it was. If not then no.

I think this is you

"Just checked my SensorPush app and temps is steady at 80. But that is just with VEG light on. The issue is when I turn on BLOOM and VEG the temps jump to 85-87F "

Lucky Luke said:

if you were asking at any point if 87F is a problem..then yes it was. If not then no.

I think this is you

"Just checked my SensorPush app and temps is steady at 80. But that is just with VEG light on. The issue is when I turn on BLOOM and VEG the temps jump to 85-87F "

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Hey Lucky: yep that was me sorry didn’t see the past wording.

Yeah it was the HEPA filter I had inside the exhaust flange. It’s was seriously impeding air flow. Once i removed the filter and sealed the ducting back up temps drastically dropped to around 70F with light on. Since I have fresh outside air coming into the box and it’s so cold here the temps with lights on kept dropping to around 67-68. I was fighting one extreme to another. I also had a cool air humidifier which added to the coldness.

So for my fresh outside air intake i added two HEPA filters and four carbon filters (very thin) and i have bug mesh at 3 points from where the air enters and goes into box. I also swapped out the cool air for a warm air humidifier. = Room dialed in - temps during lights on steady at 74-77F. RH steady at 45-55%.

With lights off (from 4am to 10am), the temps slowly drop from 74-77F range to 64-66F. I keep the warm air humidifier running until lights out. I also beteeen 4am to 10am have the vortex fan intermittently on/off 3 times during that span to help keep some of the warmth in the box while lights are off. Lowest it has gotten was 63F.

During flower I’ll just remove the warm air humidifier to keep the RH low.

Thanks for the help.

RayRay747 said:

Thanks much...Ill look for some potassium silicate - do you think its better to use that vs baking soda for a pH up? Ive only been using a little baking soda to bring the pH up to around 6.3-6.5. What potassium silicate product do you use?

Yeah I definitely keep an eye out on the pH even tho I read so many people say don't worry about it, your organic. But I test the water after I boil it and it coils and then after I add the aloe vera, coconut water and molasses and a little epsom salt here and there. I am trying this on a couple of the plants and just plain water with the others to see how things turn out.

The thing is after I add the above to the water, the pH is around 4.8-5.0 which I definitely think is too low. So what would you do in that scenario? Would you pH up the water or just use the 4.8-5.0pH water as it is? Same thing goes when I give the soil some organic plant food, the pH is lowered around 5.0. I have been using baking soda to pH up the water to over 6.0 but not sure if that is the best thing to do or just feed the plants that low pH water since they are supposed to buffer it anyways.

Another issue I am having in two of the pots is the runoff pH is about 7.40-7.50. The other pots are around 7.0-7.15. That is where it was at when I first started with the soil (7.0-7.15). Do you check your runoff pH and if so what are your pH values for some of your plants?

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Like i said Pottasium silicate is a great ph up anyway. you might as well ph the water it really doesnt take much effort and its just 1 less variable if somthing does go wrong... i would never water my plants with 5.0 that is very acidic the plants are going to be slightly shocked for a bit after that i presume for sure! even if they do buffer it right away i cant see it happening in 1 min