Hi again, everyone! Since my last grow was a stinky success I decided to upgrade some things and go again. The cabinet is just under one sq.ft. with a little over 2 feet of actual vertical grow space with the UFO.
I figured out how to get rid of the smell and while I was at it I decided to hide the whole cabinet. There was a closet that fit the cabinet perfectly and had a lock on the door. A very old lock that shares the same key with a dozen more cabinets in the house but a lock nonetheless. Another big improvement are the high quality BioBizz soil and the air-pots. I could only fit either three 1l air-pots or a 1l and a 3l airpot. I figured I'd do the latter and draw conclusions from the results I get. I was supposed to get Light-Mix but I was accidentally sent All-Mix which might be a bit too hot as is. I think I'll flush some of it and use that to dilute the top layer. I've also upgraded the lighting. This time it's a small 175mm LED UFO straight from China. It has 50 3W diodes but it only draws 30W total with the fan excluded (I swapped the original, noisier fan to the silent one I had as an exhaust previously.) I'm pretty sure there's something wrong with the power supply box inside the housing since 30W is unreasonably low. The customer service stated that the chips are high quality Taiwanese 3W diodes whose manufacturer told them to run them on low power. I still don't believe 30W is normal so I'm trying to get a new power supply from the seller after I get them to check the power draw on their lights. It feels like a really nice product overall and I also had it customized so I'd hate to give up on it. I'll start by using the UFO and supplement it if I feel like it. Here are the wavelengths for the UFO: 10x Red 630nm 15x Red 660nm 5x IR 730nm 4x Blue 430nm 8x Blue 460nm 4x UV-B 280-315nm (probably just UV-A) 4x White 6500K For odor control I have a 4" S&P TD-Silent 160/100 sucking air through a 4" rhino filter. The configuration is really quiet but I'm still having trouble with resonance. There's a low hum that's almost inaudible but since the house doesn't have any humming air exchange equipment other than in the toilets, I'd better get rid of it. The cabinet is already standing on an old fleece hoodie and covered in a Garfield towel but I wonder if it's the contact between the fan bracket and the cabinet that's making the noise because I can still hear it. I'll also be doing most of my watering using Blumats. They're not those Tropf models but the original clay cones that use suction to take water from a reservoir. I'll still be giving nutrients manually at least weekly because algae is an issue. Why is algae an issue? Well, I switched to BioBizz organic nutrients (it'd prolly be a precip problem with mineral nutes so it's not really a con to organics). Still, it's not really an all organic grow what with the inorganic epsom salt. I'm hoping this'll produce those organically grown quality buds, though. At the moment my nute lineup is as follows: BioBizz Grow, Bloom and TopMax Organic seaweed extract Organic black treacle Epsom salts I'll plant an AutoWhite Widow in the 3 liter air-pot and an AutoDurban Poison in the smaller 1 liter air-pot around new year. I've put a fair amount of time and money into this and needless to say, I'm super stoked.
