Any idea what is causing this?

Grobo Support
#1

Everything was going really well and overall my plant is still growing but has greenish brown spots on the edge of some leaves. Only on the bottom leaves, but I have never had this happen before. I only open my grobo when I need to change/fill water. Otherwise it is always closed to prevent other light, etc.

I reached out to @Stephen already, but does anyone have ideas on what it is/what to do.

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#2

I should also note that the plant appears to be more droopy.

#3

Hey @Heep101,

I’m lurking on AG this morning and just about to dive into support tickets, so I’ll respond over there once I’ve looked at your data more closely. Just off the top of my head though, how are your bubbles looking? Getting good action to break that surface tension and provide lots of oxygen to your roots?

Stephen

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Grand Daddy Purps ILGM second grow!
#4

I looked yesterday when I drained/refilled. After the refill tons of bubbles were breaking the surface and it looked good!

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#5

@Heep101,

((#LoadingPicsWithSpaces)): I see one of three pics… :thinking:

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Any idea

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:crossed_fingers::crossed_fingers:

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#6

The upload was weird when posting. @Stephen has been great with helping me. Looks like my unit is overheating. Not sure why yet, but at least we seem to have figured our what is stunting plant growth and causing the spotting. Moved my unit to a cooler spot of house, hoping that will be good.

Time will tell.

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#7

Hello @Heep101

Stephen and the grobo team are really helpful and pretty quick to respond to questions, but it seems to be a pretty common complaint for some grobo owners (Heat). I live in the Midwest where temps in the summer can get hot, but it’s been a mild summer.

My Grobo is in a spare bedroom sitting on snapnin wood flooring which was not warm (not carpet), but cool to the touch both underneath and all around the grobo.

Water temp in my unit is 76.7/76.8 degrees (tested with two devices). This won’t work or will be a poor yield at that temp. Oxygen is dissolving (DO) to fast at these temps. It’s only 81 degrees today where I live and my AC is on 74 degrees. A large fan in the room pushing cool air around as well. The spare bedroom feels colder than the rest of my home. I have some other options for relocating my grobo, but those areas won’t be much cooler if at all.

Is the Grobo utilizing evaporating cooling? Any water cooling technology? A lot of questions here on how the grobo designers intention or lack of to keep the water cool…

Doesn’t make much sense to me that the water temp is warmer than the temp in the grow space. The distilled water I used was pre-chilled to 64 degrees before entering the grobo.

Other data
32 ppm, 6.0 ph :+1:. Inside temps are 74.4 degrees, RH of 72.2, Ambient room temp of 74 degrees.

Having to buy a pump, water chiller and tubing is not ideal. Cost combined for a decent unit is roughly 400$. I made sure to to check if everything was sealed up properly like the lid being firmly in place and not lifting. The plastic guard in the back right is not flush and was one of the reasons for the rattling in my unit. It pushes the lid up ever so slightly allowing heat to enter the water storage.

I intend to wait for 48 hours after my next drain and fill before having to buy the aforementioned. Really unimpressed with lack of water temp controls in place for an automated system. After almost 3k device w/ add-ons, warranty, nutrients I kind of expected more.

Might this work without a chiller? Sure some folks have had success. However the odds are definitely stacked against a grow at that water temp which will likely only get warmer as the seed grows into a plant.

Just my two cents. I went into detail on a lot of this in my grow diary and will make it public at some point

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#8

Yeah I was reading that this seems to a be a common problem for many growers. I just remind myself that Grobo is a relatively young, small company and they are figuring everything out. In my opinion, the system is amazing for the price. It looks way better than the others, has amazing customer service and tutorials, videos and guides for your grow along the way. I would love to see more videos of how to care for your plant throughout the grow, but that’s minor. I just keep telling myself that I know there will be some glitches along the way, but from what I can tell @Stephen and Grobo won’t stop till they make things right and figure out the issues.

Have you brought this heat issue up to him and what were his thoughts? I do think it would suck to have to spend $400 on a chiller. It sounds very weird that your water is hotter than the internal temp when water takes time to heat up. Given that the light should be on going on and off and your temp with AC being at 74 that is interesting. I wonder what the problem could be. Even if the lid had a little space I wouldn’t think your water would heat up that much. I’m sorry you are going through that though.

Because we all chose to get a Grobo as they are developing and growing I think these are just some of the kinks we have to deal with. As long as things are made right and I have support the whole way then I’m just gunna ride this train till Grobo is huge and then I can say I was with them from the beginning lol.

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#9

@Heep101

I agree with your statement. I have zero complaints in regards to the Grobo team and their efforts, none.

I’m only entering day 3 here shortly; I will engage support at some point, but many on the forums have just bought the bullet and forked our the extra coin to stablize their grobo environment. I too am on the train for the long haul. My indoor space for growth is limited, outdoors I have a short window for successful grows which is why I made the investment in the Grobo. If space was not an issue…

A couple of thoughts moving forward that the grobo team should consider for the Glass version of the Grobo

Blackout glass - even with the lights on the ability to flip a switch (app or button) to black out the glass would be very popular amongst younger folks and anyone with a grobo in their bedrooms.

Water cooling tech. This may require redesign of the shell and make the unit bigger which In turn would allow for more grow space, but this is likely wishful thinking. Could be difficult to engineer a pump and chiller inside the unit and just another priece of hardware that would require troubleshooting and or replacement.

Allowing end users to access relative data being sent to HQ from our units. This in the long run may eliminate a lot of the end user frustration and requirement to engage support. In the future, it only makes sense that one of the start-ups uses an inexpensive video screen interface for access to relative info. This tech along w/ programming and time would be expensive so instead of the screen providing this data access via the app would not only cut these costs, but provide a better experience for us customers. Would also be nice to see temps for both water and grow space from the app. A sensor to do so would not be that costly and would save end users money on meters which tend to be inaccurate unless you buy the better models. So far I’m pleased with my decision to become a consumer of Grobo. Are there issues? Yes. Can we work past them to successful grows? Yup!

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#10

Thanks so much for the awesome detailed feedback @Heep101 & @James.

There were several wish list items I had when we were designing the Grobo Premium that didn’t make it into this iteration. Environment controls, water cooling, CO2, Web cam, more nutes, larger size, multi plant unit, perpetual harvest, etc. but the engineers and business team just kept playing me the same song. “You can’t always get what you want” by the Rolling Stones. :wink:

After years of hard work, we feel we’ve produced a pretty good balance of tech and grow power. We are not done yet by any stretch of the imagination, just getting started!

Keep the feedback coming by all means!!!

Cheers,
Stephen

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((#Harvesting)): :older_woman: :herb: :green_thumb:
#11

A “wish list” item for keeping the water at widely accepted temps shouldn’t be a “wish” it’s a “fundamental requirement” for successful grows. It’s not debatable imo.

It’s been my experience working for Dell and now another Fortune 500 company that Business/Finance people are good with numbers and budgets, but often lack knowledge of the fundamentals or how things actually work outside of their wheelhouse. I am not suggesting this is the case at Grobo and I can’t speak for the others here, but I would have spent the extra 400$ or w/e markup for a fully operational Grobo with a water cooling system “inside” the unit rather than purchasing my own and having an eye sore next to or behind the unit. Doing so defeats the purpose of having a sleek modern looking grow box. Most of us are clever enough to manage temps inside the grow box. For me, this is not a deal breaker as I’ll just limp along or purchase a chilling unit.

@Stephen I appreciate your kind words and your perpetual positivity. It’s pretty remarkable considering the roadblocks in place and people like me voicing concerns regularly.

I have no desire to request an RMA or anything like that and while I understand the delicate balancing act of keeping units cost down to encourage humanity to get on board and growing w/ grobo as well as profit margins high, but “as is” the Grobo is not fully functional without the water cooling system (for me). My guesstimate would be most unsuccessful grows in the unit are directly related to the lack of water cooling tech.

One last thing, I’d like to take this moment to thank scientist and engineers for extending human lives and making them infinity better each day. These are the people humanity should elevate.

Thanks

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#12

Hey @James,

I totally understand your frustration, but I do see Stephens point about “wish list” items. I think when we order a Grobo we understand what it comes with and what it doesn’t. Many of the things Stephen listed as “wish list” items I would love to see, but understand that at this point in development they aren’t possible and perhaps they won’t ever be a part of the Grobo, unless we buy aftermarket.

I chose Grobo because to me it was the most practical, sharpest looking and “for the most part” fully automated. There are competitors that offer more fully automated or offer you the opportunity to add cooling systems, etc. and maybe in the future that could be something Grobo offers. Like let’s say the Grobo Premium is $2000, but we could add at our order a chiller to the order for $400 and a webcam for an additional amount, etc.

When deciding on a grow box I contacted or attempted to contact almost all competitors out there to figure out what the best option was for me personally. Grobo promptly responded, was professional, upfront about any concern I had. Other companies either didn’t respond, weren’t prompt or weren’t up front and seemed secretive.

I guess I just feel that if someone wanted a feature that the Grobo didn’t offer I would ask them was the Grobo the right purchase for them. I think it stinks that you might purchase a $400 add on bc of your water over heating and that is something you couldn’t really predict. But maybe try putting in a ticket or see what @Stephen has to say. He is very knowledgeable and I’m sure he has some ideas you could try before spending all that extra money. I’m just of the mentality and think the Grobo comes with what it comes with. Obviously people need to give feedback about the Grobo, but it appears that @Stephen and his team are constantly improving the software for the Grobo to give us more control and I think I’m time we might see some of these “wish list” items pop up. Personally I’m more interested in increased user control and access to more of the data from my grow, rather than additional features like webcam, etc. I think in time we are going to see more of this data in the app.

Sorry for the rant lol. I just think the Grobo has what it has and we have to figure out how to make what we have in the Grobo work right before we add other parts on to an already complicated system.

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#13

I don’t know about anyone else but I’m happy to have the opportunity to learn on the grobo one, at least I will know the ends and outs of how to really grow and what some of the mechanics are. I won’t lie though I’m already starting a savings for @Stephen, wish list unit! Maybe by the time it exist I can afford my second grobo that I need anyway to keep up with needs!

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#14

That’s cool, always a good idea to tinker with your toys if you know how to fix them if you “oops”

I think you’ll be waiting a long long time for the introduction of co2 systems into the grobo. These systems are not cheap and the risk/liability for grobo would be very high as too much co2 can easily Kill a person.

You can create your own webcam or purchase one. Wireless surveillance equipment is really inexpensive and getting smaller and smaller, Or you can get hands on with audrino :wink:

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#15

Im looking forward to more nutes, water cooling, environmental controls, multi plant. I’ve been working on finding the right webcam already! Too scared to deal with the CO2 though and I wouldn’t want a real bulky unit.

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