Design Changes Coming

The summer heat continues to kill us, and our grows. The heat from the HID lighting in the grow room, even when exhausted from a well insulated HVAC controlled room outside, is more than the A/C can handle.

One of our Monster Ebb n Gro systems had a failure on its controller units in the Berry House, that went un-noticed for a few days and we lost a few plants. We had it repaired and it is now back for re-installation.

Since we now have the opportunity we are going to make some changes:

1. Move one Monster Ebb n Gro to the indoor grow room and remove the PowerGrower. We have enjoyed using the PowerGrower but like the Ebb n Gro systems a little better.

2. Remove the HID lights in the indoor grow room and replace them with new Stealth Grow 600 Watt systems. One will have Veg based focus and the other bloom. Since we use the AeroFlo36 mainly for finishing off seedlings prior to transplanting into Ebb n Gro and PowerGrower, as well as a lettuce growing system the lights over these two systems will be great (we think)

Cha Cha Cha Changes......

Many changes to the grow room occurred in the last two weeks.  Thought I would wait and post all at the same time.   With the EZ Clone, we needed more light above the unit.  We installed a new 4 bulb T5 to replace the single bulb unit; installed an expansion kit of 5 pots onto the Ebb n Gro system to handle some of our larger root based plants; installed another LED, this time a 540 Watt "Mother Ship" from SuperNova; lastly a dehumidifier was added to remove excess humidity in the room.  Doing so allowed us to turn the CO2 back on and wow what a difference.



General water changes continue with new nutrient mixes every two and a half weeks with plain water top-offs in between.  We check pH and balance as necessary every few days.  The CANNA nutrients are working so well for us we just can't imagine others would be better.  We are following CANNA recommended doses of base (Aqua Flores or Agua Veg) and additional nutrients (Cannazyme, Rhizotonic, Boost, and PK13/14) according to plant growth stage.

Wish I had doubled the size of the room now !

LED Survives Fall

Hats off to the SuperNova LED folks, the light survived a crash after the hook holding it to the suspended ceiling grid decided to break.  Lesson learned - not all hooks that look alike are created equal.  Certainly if this had been one of our HID lights, well, lets just say broken glass and dead plants would have been the outcome.  Only one pepper plant suffered a few leaf burns were the SuperNova had been sitting on it for a few hours - yes the light stayed on even after the fall.   Pepper plant is alive and well, only minor tattoos from its experience.

WE HAVE CHERRY TOMATOES !

The day has finally come, we now have cherry tomatoes, and even a few Roma's, popping out all over the place.  We noticed the first starts early this week and new ones coming out every day.  We did a nutrient change yesterday in the PowerGrower where the cherry tomatoes are growing.  Significant difference - higher concentration of Canna Boost and addition of Canna PK 13/14.  This nutrient shift is required, per Canna instructions, when first fruits start to bloom.  We were low on water in the PowerGrower so the timing was perfect.



The Ebb and Gro system has performed very well since installation.  The Grow 3 seedlings we transplanted from the AeroFlo36 (they had been in there only a few days) are keeping pace with the "like" plants from Grow 3 that stayed in the AeroFlo36.  One difference noted was in the Basil.  The AeroFlo36 seedling growth is beating the Ebb and Gro seedling hands down.

We took lumen measurements under the SuperNova LED this week.  We noticed a significant difference in lumen (from the same distance) between the HID HPS and MH lights compared to the LED.  Given the LED is only 270 watts, per the manufacturer it is supposed to put off as much light as a 1000 watt HID.  Not in lumen - that is for sure.  Not sure what the manufacturer means by their statements but clearly the lumen readings are significantly different.  Regardless, the plants under the SuperNova are doing well, either because of a more beneficial light spectrum (more "usable" light) or some other magic we don't know of yet.

Ebb and Gro has arrived

The Ebb and Gro system arrived and we were excited to get it up and running.  It is an Ebb and Flow system made by C.A.P.  We have 12 modules that we plan on using for our larger plants such as tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, etc.  The Power Grower is doing great as a drip system but we wanted to expand, and try a new system at the same time - with an LED light.

Although we don't have the SuperNova LED yet, we went ahead and installed the Ebb and Gro yesterday since we had all the electrical work finished.  The instructions were easy to understand, the system was easy to install, and our water test was successful - aka - no leaks !

The instructions indicate that the system was designed for Hydroton.  We are going to do another experiment.  Sure To Grow (STG) designed a product with their medium to work specifically with this Ebb and Gro system so we are going to try it.  We really believe in the concept that STG has for their Hydroponic medium even though the seed germination product just isn't working as well as the traditional mediums of Rapid Rooters or Rockwool (at least it isn't for us).

Our strategy is to plant one STG and one Hydroton module of each plant type from the same Grow to see how each medium works in the Ebb and Gro system.   More to come on this...

New System Experiment

We will add an Ebb and Flow system (Ebb n Gro) to our grow room in the newly reclaimed space.  We are also going to do an experiment with both Hydroton and STG Deluge which is designed specifically for the Ebb n Gro buckets.   It will be interesting to see which medium does better with our plants. We have an eye on the red and yellow pepper plants currently in the AeroFlo36 as potential transplants to the new system.

As heat is becoming an issue for us (or certainly will in summer), we have also chose an LED lighting system.  We selected the Super Nova Enhanced Spectrum light.  It sports a nice function of custom selecting blue and red spectrum mixes to support the cycle of your plant's growth.  The manufacturer also provides a three year warranty, first year 100%, second and third prorated.  Look for that warranty on LED lights you are considering and be careful of the knock-offs on EBAY.

The Super Nova we selected provides light output for a 3x3 area that is supposedly greater than a 600 watt HID.  It will be interesting to see if that is true.  I am really excited about little to no heat output from the light and 1/8th of the amount of energy usage in the grow room.