First Grow - ILGM White Widow Auto

7/24 - All 4 plants have now broken the surface of the dirt. So I’ll call this Day 1 from here on out. I placed a humidifier in the tent today on the absolute lowest setting. We will have to monitor it. I also setup some old wifi enabled outlets that I intend to use to automate some settings. I placed my bluetooth hygrometer/thermometer in the tent today as well. Temp: 79 Fahrenheit average Humidity: 65% average 7/25 - Woke up this morning and checked on my tent and found that one of the 6” fans had fallen and the humidity in the tent had hit 99%. I found out later that these things were unrelated. It was a humid day here and I just couldn’t run the humidifier even on it’s lowest setting. I need to find a way to automate the humidifier and I’m working on that with some wireless tags and with either IFTTT or Home Assistant - more to come on this. Temperature has stayed the same and humidity has been around 65% even with the humidifier off today. 7/26 - Normal growth on day 3, keep truckin’! Used a sprayer to keep the soil moist 3 times yesterday. 7/27 - Today I switched the lights from 24/0 to an 18/6 schedule. I also increased the intensity of the VS1000 led lights from 50% - 75%. I’ll need to monitor this closely for light burn. The change was made halfway through the day though, so it may have a little time to get used to the increased intensity before lights out. With the additional light, I had to open the bottom vent to the tent. I’m going to have to figure out a light trap for that vent during flowering. Light schedule: 18/6 On - 5 AM, Off - 11 PM Light Intensity: 75% Light Height: 24” Temp: Avg 79.1 Humidity: Avg 59.2 7/28 - Well last night was the first night the lights went off. The temp dropped to 71 for about 4 hours and the humidity spiked up to 84 during that time. I’m going to take the humidifier out of the tent when I leave the workshop for the day or try to get it on a timer. Well I’m a newbie and I’m experimenting. I disconnected the fan from the outside vent. I just felt I was blowing money out the window. I’m directly venting my tent into the room now. It’s a decent size room and there’s a window unit for A/C. We’re experiencing really hot outdoor temps (98 today) so the A/C is bringing fresh air in. I put the humidifier back in the tent and put it on the lowest setting. I also lowered the temp for the fan down to 74. This more or less keeps the fan on. Humidity and temp look good today. Temp: 77.2 Avg Humidity: 65% Avg 7/29 - Last night I put the humidifier on a timer. It is scheduled to turn on at 7:30 AM and turn off at 10:00 PM. I’m changing this to more closely follow the light schedule are looking at the data this morning. Today I changed this to turn on at 3:15 AM and turn off at 10:40 PM. Temp: Avg 77 Humidity: Avg 63.6 7/30 - Day 7 - One week above dirt!!!! So my experiment is working so far. Yesterday was a good day and I was able to setup Home Assistant system on my old RPI3. I’ve integrated my electrical outlets into it and today I hope to get the Wireless Sensor Tags integrated. After that I’ll setup automations to fully control my humidifier. I’ve been close to where I should be, but I can do better. Next week is supposed to be cooler and I’ll start hardening the two plants in the larger (5 gallon) grow bags. It will be interesting to see if the outdoor plants out-perform the plants in the grow tent. Temp: Avg 76.7 Humidity: Avg 68 Height: 2” Water pH: 6.2-6.3 Watering method: Sprayer Light intensity: 75% Light height: 24”