Been trying to figure out some extra grow space then a deal came up on the local FB Buy & Sell page for a bunch of stuff only an hour away. Got myself a near new 2x4x5’h Vivosun grow tent, no-name 1500W last generation COB LED, 4" Vivo exhaust fan and a 240gal/hr air pump for $175Can.
Finally got the tent set up in the spare bedroom for now along with my wife’s veggies she’s starting. She took over my 8 tube bank of T-12s and some other lights for her peppers, tomatoes etc.
I have 9 small plants in 3" nursery pots in desperate need of up-potting and the 9 pots should fit perfectly in the tent with more than half the floor space left over for other shit like a small fan or clones.
There will be 4 Sebring’s Revenge, Patch Adams S1s going in the black pots and 5 Nepali Temple plants in the white ones. The plants are from 3 - 5" tall now with up to 6 nodes and suffering in their tiny pots. All those pots are just over 2L. Pics of the plants later along with credits and strain info.
The idea is to train and veg these plants for up to two months under that light whilst I flower out a couple of plants in the main grow room that are getting way too big. I may end up moving a few of these smaller ones in there to see how they do. Down there I have a lot more options with lots of HID lights up to 1000W and a light mover to spread the love around.
About the tent. Has 7 vents with the pinch-off cords and each is doubled so you can squeeze the vent hose on each side for a good seal. Two large intake vents with a fine mesh screen tho I’ll add a double layer of cheesecloth over any intake vent I need. For now the tent will just be left open. Need to find a small oscillating fan for air circulation and preferably a clip on if they make those and I can get them on amazon . ca.
Has a nice velcro window in the front so if you’re running it closed you can sneak a peek.
I kinda wish I’d found a deal on a 4x4 or even a 3x3 tent if they make such a thing but this one will be handy for a lot of stuff and the price was right for it all. The dude gave me almost an oz of three different strains to try out and I only brought him 2 - 8ths. Nice youngish guy from Ontario a few years ago moving to Powell River, BC with his wife to where my wife grew up. Small world.
On the top it has one 4’ cross bar for hanging stuff and just one short one tho I’d like more. I have some steel conduit about the same diameter and mad DIY skills so I can make a couple more then have a piece of plywood on to cover the top and store stuff up there as it’s only 5’ tall.
PS: The zipper on this thing goes all around the tent so once unzipped it was easy to set up the frame first then with a little help from my step-daughter fit it all together and zip it up. Easy-Peasy!
I’ve got the same tent, it works well for me it’s in the dark part of my basement, I’ve had mine for exactly 1 year and the zipper has some really bad light leaks so keep an eye on that if the area it’s in could cause issue’s.
The guy had it in the ad as 4’ tall and on the drive up I was hoping he had others wanting it as I was thinking it would be too short but 5’ should be good enough and maybe train me to stop letting my plants get so tall in veg.
When I was cleaning out the tent and took the floor cover thing out I found one of those 3-in-1 probes under it so now I have another cheap light meter to play with. If the dude wants it back he can come and get it. lol
Thanks I’ll watch out for that. For the near future I’ll be using it with the door open so that will save wear and tear on the zipper.
A few months ago I got an 8" Vivosun exhaust fan plus an 8" - 6" plastic adaptor to hook it up to my current exhaust vent. The outer ends of the fan are only 7 5/8" so the adaptor won’t fit without some McGyvering to make it fit. Like WTF?
Shouldn’t be a issue then. I’ve only been running a 4" AC infinity so never ran into that problem but you should be able to use that silver tape that looks like tin foil I think its actually for metal duct work but that’s what I’ve been using to join ducting without any issues its strong and it seals really well.
Definitely need some colour in here so set up the new LED with the small plants downstairs for now until I flip the big ones to flower. The tall Monkey Banana Kush is to be repotted into a 7gal pot at a 45° angle so I can sit a ScroG net on it and get the height down. I’ll likely cut back the tallest tops from the other which is a clone from the Earth Lover fem auto I grew outside last summer that grew as a fem regular and gave me almost a pound of hi-CBD bud still in my freezer. Once that one flowers out indoors I’ll send samples to a lab to find out exactly the CBD:THC ratio but after smoking some there is almost no THC as advertised so I’d like to know the CBD levels. It could have used another 2 weeks to finish outside but the weather went to shit so I had to crop even tho it was in a small DIY greenhouse with a heater at night.
This was her just before cropping. The heater circuit blew when the wife plugged a couple of heated watering things for her chickens into the same plug but didn’t notice. Poor girl near froze to death at -15C but actually survived. Just the leaves froze up a bit. She’s 5’ tall and grew huge colas.
She’s the shorter plant on the left. The big plants are under a 400W Philips CMH light that runs off an old magnetic HPS ballast and you can see how white the light is by how white the wall looks up top. This new LED light has a pink tinge to it’s output in comparison.
I have the LED 16" above the tops of the babies and the light meter reads 1500 which is exactly the same reading as I get from the 400w CMH at the tops of the bigger plants so should be good. The last pic also shows the nice clean pots and trays they are soon to be moved into then it all goes into the tent so I can flower the big girls under a 600W Hortilux SHPS light.
See the pinkish hue on the wall which is pure white in reality. My digi-cam has a white balance feature so I can re-calibrate it to get rid of the pink but it’s not a big deal for now.
This is the only labels/markings on the LED light so can’t tell from that how much power it draws for that 1500w output it claims but I found some batteries for my energy meter and it draws 207W @ 1.81A so maybe somebody more knowledgeable about LEDs can tell me what the light output is really at. My only other option is using that 400W CMH or or a crappy PlantMax 400W MH light. I do have a 400W Hortilux conversion bulb that runs off an HPS ballast to give MH light too.
I’m going to see if I can buy a 3ft rail for my light mover then that LED would work great to cover the whole 4x2ft space in that tent. The rail I have is 6’6" and I don’t really want to cut it down as I still plan to build an 8x4’ grow space downstairs and use the mover to light it up with 2 - 600W HPS lights mounted back to back for a flowering room. Then the current grow room can become the veg room.
I have a roll of that and it is the actual duct tape that the pros use for ducts. Duck tape is crap that breaks down in a couple of years. That silver duct tape has super glue or something for it’s adhesive and lasts forever. Good stuff but not cheap.
I bought a big roll of that black Gorilla duct tape and it is way better than even the 3M grey duct tape. Used it outside in the cold to hold my DIY greenhouse plastic on where the 3M stuff let go too easy.
This tent will probably only ever be used as a veg/clone unit so any leaks will probably never be a problem. At my age the tent will probably last longer than me!
Got the babies set up in the new tent and they seem to like it. Getting higher readings on the little light meter at 16" from the tops that I figure is due to the reflection from the walls so that’s good.
My DIY LED fixture fits nicely on the other side so will be starting clones or seedlings there. Couple days ago I ordered a tower fan from the local Home Hardware and the wife heard me. Turns out a friend gave her one months ago and it got left out in the carport so I went and got it. Worked fine but needed a good cleaning and a few drops of 3-in-1 oil. Tore it down and washed the fan stack good in the sink so it’s just like new but $70 cheaper. I cancelled the order of course.
I can see it will take up a chunk of floor space so already have a plan to build a little shelf that can clamp onto one of the uprights to get it up off the floor. I’ll also cut the base down so it can sit on a small shelf with the help of a couple screws to anchor it. You may notice a lump along the floor beside the plants. I cut a 1" piece of dowel to go under the catch tray and then runoff will stay on that side when I water. Catch trays under each pot would take up too much space so doing without them. After watering I’ll let them sit in the runoff for a while to make sure they are saturated then soak up any excess with a towel and leave the towel in there to dry and bump up the RH which is sitting around 25% with temps from 75 - 80F and no exhaust fan hooked up yet. I have a little fan hung in the 6" vent at the top. Barely moves any air but enough to cool the tent down to 72 when I checked it this morning after the light on all night.
That Nepali Triploid in in the back center. Bushy plant, more to come about that. Front left is one Nepali I’m sure is a male and the scrawniest/sickliest plant of the bunch.
This triploid is weird. Early on it branched off like it had been topped but it wasn’t. One branch, left side, looks like a normal plant with alternating nodes. On the right it still has 3 nodes around the main stem so I definitely need to top that one and get a cutting rooted. I’ve had triploids before but they have always just reverted to normal paired growth after a while so this is a bit different.
I sure got no complaints about this LED. It seems to veg the plants just fine and now they have their new roots going well they are growing too fast for that space to last me two months.
Compare this pic from today to the one above just 2 days before and they are noticeably bushier. Tallest one is 10" at the top bud and tiny pre-flowers are beginning to emerge so hopefully they start showing sex soon.
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