White widow 16 cola manifold. U.K. Grower

Hi all. Bit late in starting this so here goes.
It's as the title says and is only my second ever grow, so why not try something different eh?
Seed was germinated by covering with wet paper towel and putting in a plastic box with the lid ON. This was then put on the roof of my tent allowing the hot air to aid the process. Opened the lid every 12 hours and wiped away condensation. As you can see the results 24 hours later were impressive

I have only recently joined the site so didn't consider a journal until yesterday. So as some background I am growing in a 1.2 X 1.2 X 2m black orchid tent. As I have now got several strains going, the tent is used 24/7 with light changes from MH to HPS in the evening (I currently have a white widow in late bloom so she needs the HPS).
The lights are 600W and are cooled using a cool tube with the air being blown, not sucked. I found sucking hot air actually distorts the fan impellers, so with a bit or tweaking I have managed to get good negative pressure doing it my way. The fan is rated at 380 metres and as for the filter, I removed the carbon and placed it with new irregular shaped materials. The irregular shape ensures better surface contact, but also prevents the filter carbon from packing itself too tight. This then gives improved airflow, and less fan noise
I then covered the inside of a cardboard box with carpet tiles, put the fan inside on bungees, suspending it from the bottom of the box to give a quieter setup. 14dB from 3 metres away. No vibration either.
The air intake is passive. I use one of the 7" vents, but have cut up my dog's frisbee and covered it in fine net to stop insects. Now I have less trips to the beach and my dog sleeps more
I then take the exhaust ducting and place it outside the tent, into a bucket filled with the carbon I took from the filter. This gives me a 100% closed loop system with zero smell. I know this info should go on the setup forum and I will do that, putting it here might help others with theirs

To create the manifold there are lots of guides on line but I used the one found on growweedeasy (the modified one). Not sure of the politics involved in linking to other sites, so I won't. Needless to say it is easy to find.

We are now four weeks in and the manifold is created and tied down. I decided to go big and create 16 colas. The idea behind a manifold is to evenly distribute energy to each site but with mine, some sites are three nodes from the manifold stem, whilst others are two. In theory this should give different sized colas. Let's see shall we?

Week 6
To date I have only used perlite, general purpose compost and water pH'd to 6.5
When I pH my water I do it this way

Measure ph of water to be used and adjust to 6.5
Water plants then measure the pH of the run off water. This is necessary as it's the pH at the root that is important, not the pH being used.
If the pH is in the 6 - 7 range all is good.
If the pH is below 6 when watering next time, increase the pHby the values needed

Example
Water is at pH 6.5
Water plants and the run off is 5.5
Adjust next water to pH 7.5
Run off should now be ok. Doesn't need to be exact, slight changes are beneficial and aid certain nutes in the soil. As long as it's 6-7 for soil, I'm happy

I know this is obvious to some, but maybe useful

As I am using my tent for two other grows, the manifold gets 12 hours of 600W MH and 12 of 600W HPS

Nice looking manifold! I just made the first cuts to mine today. I'll be happy if she turns out looking anywhere near as good as yours!

Buy your dog another frisbee!