Possible power outage- two questions

[RetiredGuy]

Hi All,

I am doing a DWC grow and I am in Week 4 of flowering. I left home yesterday for a four night camping trip, leaving 2 healthy plants home alone.

I just received a message from the power company saying they are working in my area Thursday and we might experience a brief outage.

I am assuming that a short outage will be ok as long as the lights and air pump come back on. My concern is that the surge protector will trip and not allow the pump and light to become operational. I have a camera in my grow cabinet so I will know if this happens. It would take at least 6 hrs for me to drive home. How long can plants survive with the air pump and lights down?

Thanks in advance, I have a lot of work into these babies and haven’t screwed up yet!

RetiredGuy

[ChadWestport]

Thats a tough one. I've read in the Jorge Cervantes, Cannabis Encyclopedia that you don't want to let roots sit in standing water for longer than 20 minutes. At that point they begin to drown. I have never experienced this, so my answer is really just a guess, but I don't imagine you would have ill effects directly after that 20 minutes. At least with the lights down, the plant should be using more of its stored food than pulling it up if the plant works in a similar manner to soil grows.

Over the years, I have had some disasters while I was away. Seems in those cases, if I caught the problem within 6-8 hours, things could be saved. But if it were 24 hours of the heater stuck on or something like that, it usually meant I was hosed. Without having a solid answer (sorry) I will go with the optimistic route of you'll be able to pull through if you get there ASAP and give them some love. If anything, the water in the reservoir may get cooler which will decrease the functions of the plant, meaning it will be more in a sleep state than an excited one.

[RetiredGuy]

Thanks for your response. To be safe I have decided to cut the trip short by one day and will head home early Thursday. That way if something does happen, I should arrive only 3-4 hrs later.

RetiredGuy

[growell]

next time take surge protector off i know doesnt help this time hope u catch in time mate

[RetiredGuy]

I once fried a computer by bypassing a surge protector. I would hate to ruin a 700 buck light due to not using a surge protector.