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**ellz** · 05-01-2020, 05:25 AM

Wanted to update with some pictures of the grow room I built in my garage.

First the outside. Left it unfinished because I don't plan on selling the house for a while and there's no point in wasting money on paint when I don't need to. I did change the door knob to one that locks.

Next are the interior shots.

The reservoir isn't completed yet so I will update the pictures when that is done. I have to buy some air stones and a vent duct for the window tomorrow and I should be starting my seeds as well. The carbon filter is from my first indoor grow a few years back and will be swapped with a new one when it arrives. Also, the bungee cord holding the carbon filter up is temporary while I wait for more adjustable hangers to arrive. The clip light was added only to work on the room and won't be there for the grow. I also plan on buying an oscillating fan to pun in the room to replace the clip fan. Until next time, happy growing!

Attached Files

**ellz** · 05-01-2020, 10:26 PM

Finished setting up my reservoir and grow room this afternoon then I pre-soaked the rapid rooters and clay pebbles for about 10 minutes with a mixture of water and Hydroguard that was set to a pH of ~6.0 using the old fashioned tester (sample with drops). Once the rapid rooters were soaked thoroughly, I dropped in my seeds at about 8:30pm. I chose to go with Peyote Cookies for both pots. I set my water pump on a timer to run for 15 minutes every 4 hours starting at 11pm tonight.

Now for some pictures of everything!
First, my reservoir. I built it using a 27 gallon tote. I cut two holes for my net pots and one hole for my fill/drain/maintenance port. Inside is a bottom-draw water pump, 4 large air stones and a temperature probe. Temporarily, I have my pump running out and then back to my 6-port drip but I plan on inserting a water chiller once it arrives. Since I want it to stay kind of warm for the seeds to sprout, I turned off all my fans except for the vent fan (just for circulation) but I turned it to the lowest setting. My light will be left off for a few days until the tap roots are established.

Completed reservoir:

This is my water level indicator. The top zip tie is 10 gallons and the bottom is 5 gallons. Makes it easier to monitor if I need to add or not.

My 6-port drip (not connected in picture):

Fill/Drain/Maintenance Port:

Here's what it looks like inside the reservoir (without water):

And this is a photo of the completed grow room as it sits now:

Thanks for reading. Until next time, happy growing!

**ellz** · 05-02-2020, 12:31 AM

Just went out to check and make sure the water pump kicked on at 11:00pm and went off at 11:15pm and it did but I did notice a small leak in my system on the 6 port drip. The threaded barb fitting was dripping about once per minute on the floor so when the pump shut off I disconnected the threaded barb and applied two layers of Teflon tape. Looks like that fixed it. I will go back out later this evening to make sure but I didn't feel any water after the tape was applied. The reason I initially didn't use any was because on my last grow I never needed it. However, the drip manifold was located inside the actual reservoir so I guess I wouldn't have noticed if it was leaking.

**ellz** · 05-02-2020, 05:56 PM

My barb fitting is no longer leaking thanks to the Teflon tape! YAY! Also, humidity and temps have been lower than average here. Humidity levels are often in the teens and sometimes can get up to maybe 60% if there is rain in the area but I'm basically sitting in the low 30% range which is much too dry for seeds to pop. Nighttime temps can get down into the low 50s where as daytime temps are only around 80ºF so I turned off my inline fan so that the room would warm up a bit and hopefully become more humid. The only thing running constantly right now is my air pump. The water pump is still on a timer and the 15 minutes every 4 hours schedule is keeping my Rapid Rooters damp but not overly moist which is good.

I will monitor the temps and humidity throughout the evening. If I need to, I have my swamp cooler from my first grow (which adds a lot of humidity to a room) and an small convection heater I could put in with it to keep it from getting too cold. That would be worst case scenario and I would never be able to run all of that with my system running at 100% due to the amount of amperage that would draw. One good thing about humidity is you really don't need power to add water to a room. I could always just hang some wet towels in there and let nature do what it does. Hopefully though, once I'm running my light and have my water on 24 hours a day I won't have to worry about temps or humidity being too low.

**ellz** · 05-02-2020, 08:56 PM

So after turning off the inline vent fan and adding a mop bucket filled with water with a rag halfway submerged while the other half hangs over I saw my humidity go up by over 5%. I'm now at 42%. I added my small heater and it's set on a timer to come on at 8pm and go off at 9am (when temps will be below 70ºF). I'm going to check on it after about an hour of being on and see how much hotter it makes the room. It was 72.1ºF about 10 minutes ago. I want to try to keep the room around 80ºF while the seeds are still opening and I'm hoping the humidity will rise to at least 60%. We shall see. I will update later. Thanks for reading and happy growing!

**Brandon** · 05-03-2020, 01:03 AM

What is your water temp? I don't see a chiller.

**ellz** · 05-03-2020, 02:28 AM

Originally posted by Brandon View Post

What is your water temp? I don't see a chiller.

It's around 65ºF right now. My chiller will be here next week. Fortunately the temps aren't too high during the day so the res temp stays pretty low.

**ellz** · 05-03-2020, 08:28 PM

Just an update on the temp/humidity: I set my oil filled radiant heater on the lowest setting and left it on a timer from 8pm until 9am and the temps stayed over 72ºF even though the temps outside dropped all the way down to the upper 40s. I checked on the room during the afternoon heat (today it got up to the mid 80s) and the room was only in the low 70s so I turned my heater back on and now I've got the room up to 77.5ºF. The only issue is that the heat tends to drop the humidity. I have been able to manage at least 42% or higher. My highest was 48% when I was running my swamp cooler. The only issue was that inside my garage, the humidity was up to 58% and I really don't want it to get much higher because we also use the garage for storing old pictures and electronics. I did find a few battery powered humidifiers that might work for the room itself. I've got to do some more research on those though. Until then, I'm going to just try to balance the swamp cooler with the heater to keep the room ideal for my seeds to pop. Until next time, happy growing!

**ellz** · 05-03-2020, 09:18 PM

Okay, I finally got my room temp up to 82ºF so I turned my heater's thermostat back from half to about 1/3 heat. My goal is to keep it between 80ºF and 82ºF until my seeds open then I can drop it back down for the veg stage. My humidity dropped down to about 37% when the room was at 82ºF so I turned my swamp cooler back on to try to raise that a bit. I'll probably have to increase the thermostat to half heat or higher during the night. Will update if I do.

**ellz** · 05-06-2020, 05:32 PM

Went out yesterday afternoon and noticed both seeds had cracked open and I could see what looked like sprouts coming up so I upped the watering schedule to run every 2 hours for 15 minutes. Previously, the pump came on every 4 hours for 15 minutes. Once the seeds have breached the surface, I will likely change to a 30 minute every 2 hours schedule just to get them started. I also plan on adding nutrients soon but only a half strength mixture for the first week as sprouts. I'm hoping they will breach the surface by Friday which is when I'm due to change the water.

I also turned on my light and let it run for about an hour this afternoon and I plan on running it 18 hours a day starting tonight at 8pm. The schedule is to be off from 2pm to 8pm each day, then run for the remaining 18 hours. I had previously kept the seeds in the dark until they popped open but I think having some light will encourage them to come to the surface. My inline cooling fan is also on the same timer so it will only come on when the light is on (to avoid the room getting too cool). Eventually, when we start seeing triple digit temps, I will likely leave the cooling fan on 24/7 but for now, it's not needed.

I have also turned off my space heater to see how the light does as a heat source. My temps have ranged from 75ºF to 82ºF and the humidity has ranged from 33% to 48%. Typically, the humidity is lowest during the heat of the day and highest overnight. Not too concerned about that at this point. I'd like to get it between 45% and 65% but I'm waiting until the plant has started growing a little while to see how much humidity it generates.

Below is a picture of my room with the light on. I haven't lowered the light yet because I'd rather not flood the seeds with too much right now.

**ellz** · 05-06-2020, 09:46 PM

Once the lights came back on around 8pm, I went and checked on the seeds. The one on the right was actually upside down meaning the taproot was growing toward the light. I used a pick to gently pull the seed out of the Rapid Rooter and flip it over so the taproot was facing down. I also checked on the seed on the left and I may have accidentally broke the taproot on that one because it was facing the right way and when I pulled it up, I saw a small white piece still left in the soil. Fortunately it's a brand new root so it should just grow from the break but we will see. The light is set to run until 2pm tomorrow and then repeat daily until I change it. Until next time, happy growing!

**ellz** · 05-07-2020, 04:08 PM

I ended up lowering my light about half way down to keep the temps up. Basically stayed above 72F by doing that. The light and fan both shut off at 2pm so my timer is working. Hasn't been much change in the seeds. They're open but still under the surface of the Rapid Rooters. Until next time, happy growing.

**ellz** · 05-07-2020, 09:53 PM

Wanted to add a couple of pictures since I finally got my water chiller in and installed. First is of the light after I lowered it and the second is the chiller next to my reservoir. I haven't needed to actually run the chiller since my water temps have stayed between 64ºF and 69ºF due to the cooler outside temps. Once the summer heat arrives, I will need to run the chiller to ensure my water temp stays around 68ºF.

One other note on my carbon filter...Amazon never shipped the thing and they finally asked me if I wanted to cancel the order so I did. I'm going to just reuse the old one. It only got used for one grow and I'm not too worried about the smell. I'm going to update my equipment list in the original post to reflect what I'm using since it didn't come in. Until next time, happy growing!

**ellz** · 05-10-2020, 12:15 AM

I went ahead and put my heater back in the room and bought a small humidifier as well. The temp/humidity were too low.

I also wanted to add a couple of pics of the seeds as they sit right now. The first one is the one on the right, and it seems to be doing better than the one on the left, which is the second picture.

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Grow Journal - Second Indoor Grow: 600W HPS/MH, strain TBD...

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