Anonnymooses CFL & LED DIY (On The Cheap) Grow

[Anonnymoose]

Hi all,

I have browsed through many forums over the years and learnt alot, and decided I should really give something back. So I signed up, and I present to you my first grow journal! Not my first grow though of course so I know roughly what I am doing.

First I would like to say, where I am from I cannot find alot of the fittings and equipment that I see online alot, I would love some of those clamp fittings for CFLs that USA seems to have but they are just not available here without going to a specialist shop. I will not go into one of those shops, I am too paranoid and won't order items that are obviously used for this online either. So I try to make do with stuff I can get that doesn't look too dodgy.

I did however recently order some seeds online after having difficulty germinating mine which are quite old and of unknown genetics. It was nerve wrecking but arrived without issue. Later today I plan to start germinating one of them, and am going to try take 2 cuttings off the established plant too. I have attempted to clone before without success, but that was in a cold environment that I struggled to heat and it is now summer and warm so hopefully by following some guides it will work this time.

I'll fill out the suggested details below:

What strain is it? - unknown
Is it Indica, Sativa or Hybrid? What percentages? - unknown, very bushy and has a thicker stalk than previous plants though. Also very vigorous growth, the quickest I've seen yet
Is it in Veg or Flower stage? - Just flicked over to 12/12 a few days ago
If in Veg... For how long? - Was vegged for about 4 weeks, seed was planted 21/12/14
If in Flower stage... For how long? - 3 days now but can't tell sex yet
Indoor or outdoor? - indoor
Soil or Hydro? - soil
If soil... what is in your mix? - dunno, "premium potting mix". nothing special, seems to contain bark but the plant is doing well and you cant argue with results. Previous plant was done in the same soil and went well
If soil... What size pot? - 10 liter bucket
Size of light? - Lol. 8 x 24 watt CFLs. (24 watt seems to be best efficiency) Was mostly cool daylight (4200k) and bright daylight (6500k) in veg with 2 warm whites (2700k), now has 1 cool daylight, 1 bright daylight and 6 warm white. 7 of these are in desk lamps situated around the plant, the other is directly above the plant suspended. Also have 4x 11 watt LED downlights, 3000k color temp. Have only added these for this grow and I suspect it is why this plant and has grown so much faster and with thicker stalk. Genetics will still play a part though and I have no idea what strain it is. I have a lux meter, measured from about 3 inches down from the top of the plant I get nearly 20,000 lux
Is it aircooled? - yes 3 fans, 2 computer fans running off a 1amp 12v power supply. and a USB fan. The USB fan blows air from the floor towards the setup. One pc fan blows air over the top lights, the other blows air up to draw air from around the plant. I've tried to get a general air flow going from the ground up.
Temp of Room/cab? - reaching around 28 degreesat peak. Not much I can do about this as that is the outside temperature
RH of Room/cab? - usually around 30-40%
PH of media or res? - untested but have never had any issues
Any Pests ? no
How often are you watering? pretty much every second day.
Type and strength of ferts used? generic brand, one with high nitrogen for veg, and then a lower nitrogen once the sex becomes obvious. I use lower amounts than the label recommends, I'm not too strict on it though so I can't really give much detail sorry.

Everything has been bought at hardware stores, and so far it seems to just work. Last grow had the same setup but without the LED lights and I got about 2 ounces dried, average quality though because I dont think I cured it well. I will be much more careful about that this time. The LED lights seem good so far, they are much brighter then the wattage suggests because the light is almost completely directed at the plant. Also they last 50,000 hours apparently so should get a fair few grows out of them, without changing bulbs each grow like I do with the CFLs (they are noticeably dimmer than a new bulb after a while)

If everything goes well with this dutch seed I am going to germinate, I want to use it as a mother plant to supply cuttings. The 2 cuttings that I will take later today off the established plant, I am assuming they wont both live but if they do I will keep them small and flower them quick as I dont want that many plants. This is assuming the parent turns out to be female!

For anyone that is wondering about CFL - I used to have some metal halide lights and honestly the CFL are just as good because you can get them closer. You just need plenty of wattage. i.e 200 at least per plant (real watts not the incandescent equivalent). They produce less heat and I think having them surround the plant also helps as you can get light under the top leaves better

All advice and questions appreciated! I will update weekly for you all

 

[Anonnymoose]

re: Anonnymooses CFL & LED DIY (On The Cheap) Grow

Grabbed the details of my seeds, I have White Widow x Big Bud and Special Kush #1 from Royal Queen Seeds. I think I'll do the White Widow x Big Bud first. I chose them based on the pictures and details given by the seed company, any comments on this? Are any strains known to be good or bad with CFLs? Do you get variation in the strains on the type of light they like? Thats something I haven't actually researched

 

[Anonnymoose]

re: Anonnymooses CFL & LED DIY (On The Cheap) Grow

85 people have viewed this and not a single reply. Maybe I wont bother with updates then

 

[smithy8806]

re: Anonnymooses CFL & LED DIY (On The Cheap) Grow

the replies will come friend dont worry. man that thing is quite large to not even be a month old lol. but looks good man, perhaps i need to swap out my leds for those. do you have a picture of the box they came in? just trying to get the specifics of the led as well aswhat it looks like. Although mine is an auto< mine were planted 24 dec 2014m it doesnt seem to be that tall. they llok good. they seem to like whatever youre doing

 

[Anonnymoose]

re: Anonnymooses CFL & LED DIY (On The Cheap) Grow

the replies will come friend dont worry. man that thing is quite large to not even be a month old lol. but looks good man, perhaps i need to swap out my leds for those. do you have a picture of the box they came in? just trying to get the specifics of the led as well aswhat it looks like. Although mine is an auto< mine were planted 24 dec 2014m it doesnt seem to be that tall. they llok good. they seem to like whatever youre doing

Thank you! They are Philips Downlights model DN101B. Google it will bring up the info, this seems to be the Australian model number but I'm sure they will have a US or European version of it. They are designed to be mounted in a roof, but because I already have bookcases around my plant to allow me to adjust the height of the lamps easily, I put another shelf going across 2 book cases so it forms a sort of roof over the plant. I got a 90mm downlight holesaw and cut 4 holes in it, plus a 5th smaller hole in the middle for the cfl to go through. This particular model of downlight came with plugs attached so I could just plug them into a multiboard, I think most downlights wont have plugs though and need to be hardwired, so be wary of this if you want to do the same thing. The good thing about the downlights is that they have a narrow 60 degree beam and the light is aimed straight down. They are extremely bright for only 11 watts, its surprising. They carry a warning about heat which is why I put the pc fan blowing air over them, but they produce very little heat and aren't hot at all - the warning is probably because they are normally surrounded by insulation.

The only thing I am unsure of is if the plastic lens is blocking UV, because I understand the LEDs should produce some. I am thinking of trying to remove them? However the plant is doing well as it is so maybe not necessary, and yeah its the quickest grower I've had yet. It was the only seed out of about 12 to germinate, so I think it must have some tough genes. Hopefully its female!

 

[Anonnymoose]

re: Anonnymooses CFL & LED DIY (On The Cheap) Grow

I have added a soil moisture system, logs both volumetric water content and temperature in the soil (this graph is showing VWC from 2 probes, temps are on separate graph). Because I put this in with the adult plant, the probes are quite shallow which is why it reads lower. When I put another one in I will put 2 probes in at different depths to get better data. Logging every 15 minutes, I cut off the time scale sorry but the taller peaks are exactly 1 day apart, I give it 2 waterings a day now. It is growing rapidly, and has shown the first signs of being a female (yay!)

I can now measure light, temperature, humidity and soil moisture. All I really need is a PH kit although I have never had issues with this that I know of, maybe I wouldn't know but they have always grown well. I also have more 6500k bulbs arriving tomorrow, I had to order them online because no local shops stock them any more, only 4000k and 2700k.

I took 3 cuttings the other day, doing 1 in water and the other 2 with rooting hormones and straight into soil. They have been in the dark for a couple of days and now put under weak light on 18/6. Seed shows no signs of life but it was much smaller than other seeds I've used so not sure what to think about my first "real genetics" seed. I was doing it with the paper towel method and kept moist. I didn't soak it first but I have put it in some water now and will put back under the paper towels tomorrow. I haven't opened the white widow x big bud seeds yet and they are a different brand so hoping they are better.

 

[Gazzatron]

re: Anonnymooses CFL & LED DIY (On The Cheap) Grow

Don't quit the updates mate. It's good seeing grows from my Aussie cousins!! I probably won't have much advice to offer you but I'll be reading!!

 

[Anonnymoose]

I'll post some pics tomorrow, the lights are out right now, but the main plant is doing extremely well. Growing over an inch per day, I'm having to adjust the lights everyday. Signs of flowering beginning all over. Have added 3 more lamps, I dont think the room can handle much more heat until I get cooler weather.

Clones - No sign of roots on the one in water, and of the 2 that were put into soil 1 has drooped but still showing promising signs at its tip and the other one is doing well.

Seeds - The Special Kush #1 as I mentioned was extremely small and had not sprouted after being soaked and put back under the paper towels for a few days. Instead of throwing it out I decided to chuck it in a pot anyway and give it a week and lo and behold it has sprouted. Hasn't quite broken the surface but I could see today that its about to. I soaked one of the White Widow x Big Bud seeds because I thought the first was dud, and that is now straight into soil after the soaking.

The seeds and clones are kept separately with 3 lamps currently on 18/6 cycle. My 6500K bulbs arrived, so the veg area has 1 of those with 2 4000k and I also added one of the 6500k bulbs to the flowering plant to help give it some spectrum it may have been missing (although growing like a weed anyway)

I am looking at possibly making my own watering system, and I have an idea for a system that couldn't possibly flood. I will get a large rectanglular plastic bin, and fill it part way with water. I will put in 2 bricks or something and the plants will sit on these, up out of the water. I will put a small pond pump in that feeds into some 4mm irrigation hose, and this will feed either drippers or very small sprinklers in each plant. Any excess water will go back into the container. This can then either be connected to a timer, or ultimately I would like some sort of relay that I can control from my phone to turn it on and off. I would then like to put in a web camera so I can check on them remotely but I am worried about the security around this because if someone accessed the camera and saw it, they might dob me in or track me down. The only problem with relying on this system if I am away is moving the lights.

 

[paul keating]

Good stuff Anonnymoose.

Looks like you have everything under control. I don't really have anything to add.

Except for the self watering system. In my opinion, for a standard soil grow, it's really unnecessary. Unless of course you're frequently away from home and unable to water. In which case, go for it. Otherwise, seems like a lot of work, and another thing that can cause hassles, though your idea of the plastic tub and pump is a good one.
However, just had a thought. The first watering from your pump would be fine, but then after that, keep in mind all the water that is getting flushed through your soil is going straight back to the resevoir, and would be used again, like a recirculating hydroponic kind of setup. That's not something i would want to try, using old water again and again. And if you fertilize, and it ends up in the tank and keeps getting pump again, you may end up with a bit of nute burn, or a build up of one particular nutrient/chemical that may start problems.
I have a bit of experience with hydro, and i know you're not supposed to have your water exposed to the light, causes bacteria to grow, and any nutes in the water just feed the bacteria, and if the water is warm, bacteria will explode, and you may end up with root rot, which can be fatal to a plant.

It's just my personal opinion, but i wouldn't risk it.

I have a couple of 3ft tall girls at the moment, and i only water them once every 3-4 days. Even with the high temps Ive got in the cupboard. I usually wait until the bottom half of the pots soil starts to dry out. I have a probe to stick down into the soil to check moisture content. Its good to let them dry out every now and then.

Anyways, keep the journal going, I'm interested to see how things go.


And to

 

[Anonnymoose]

Good stuff Anonnymoose.

The first watering from your pump would be fine, but then after that, keep in mind all the water that is getting flushed through your soil is going straight back to the resevoir, and would be used again, like a recirculating hydroponic kind of setup. That's not something i would want to try, using old water again and again. And if you fertilize, and it ends up in the tank and keeps getting pump again, you may end up with a bit of nute burn, or a build up of one particular nutrient/chemical that may start problems.
I have a bit of experience with hydro, and i know you're not supposed to have your water exposed to the light, causes bacteria to grow, and any nutes in the water just feed the bacteria, and if the water is warm, bacteria will explode, and you may end up with root rot, which can be fatal to a plant.

It's just my personal opinion, but i wouldn't risk it.

I have a couple of 3ft tall girls at the moment, and i only water them once every 3-4 days. Even with the high temps Ive got in the cupboard. I usually wait until the bottom half of the pots soil starts to dry out. I have a probe to stick down into the soil to check moisture content. Its good to let them dry out every now and then.

Anyways, keep the journal going, I'm interested to see how things go.


And to

Hi thanks for looking!

Yes sorry I should have been clearer about my purpose there, my partner and I want to go away on Holiday in late March which is extremely bad timing for this, the plant will be about ready about then. This happened last year and what I did was before we went away I covered the tops of soil with thick layers of newspaper and inserted some glass watering bulbs, 2 into each one. I knew it wasn't optimum but wanted to prevent them dying. We were able to plan the trip in a way that we passed near home halfway through the trip so I could check on them and rewater them. It ended up working ok although of course affected the growth of the buds so I wanted a better setup ready for next time. I also thought it would be interesting to have setup anyway

I see what you mean about it nutes ending up back in the water, I planned to basically give it the bare minimum watering so that there was little to no run-off, with the container underneath being mostly a safeguard against flooding. Perhaps I will set it up for when I am away and stick with manual watering when I am home. Having the soil moisture would have helped with tweaking such a system. I could always set it up as described except with the plants in a dry container, and pump the water over from another sealed reservoir.

What sort of probe are you using? My line of work involves having knowledge of this gear - I would strongly recommend burying the probe and leaving it there for the life of the plant, and dont use a cheap resistivity sensor because these are affected by soil type and mineral levels (a real probe should cost more than $100). My probe measures dielectric constant which is then put through a complicated equation to turn into volumetric water content. The calculation needs to be adjusted for different soil types, I am using the default equation but because I have experience with these I know how to read the graph well and don't really take the number into account. Unless you can really rely on it and know your soil, percentage means nothing, you just need to know the capacity and stress points. The blue line in my graph above is the capacity point, you can see that when it goes above this point it drops really quickly because it cant hold any more water, the water just drains through. There is no point watering above that point except to flush the plants. You can also see the difference in evaporation when the lights come on. I am watering twice a day, but the probe is 6 inches down and you can see it is getting through that water very quickly.

Lights should be on now, will put up some fresh pics soon.

 

[HappyInside]

Haha I like the simple lamp set up. CFL's are so awesome, if kept super close to the plants, the effect is that of a high powered super hot grow light. Keep us updated!

 

[Anonnymoose]

^^ You can see on the left of this one the leaf with the burn from touching the lights. That same leaf can be seen in the first photo of my first post towards the back of the plant, to give an idea of how much its grown in the last week

^^
Reaching for the light!

^^ Can make out some lady bits

^^ In all its glory

 

[Dank420Girl]

That is a beautiful plant, I love the 11 leaf structure. Looks super healthy and happy keep it up
Looks like an indica dominant hybrid to me. May I ask where you got the seed from and is it feminized?

 

[Anonnymoose]

That is a beautiful plant, I love the 11 leaf structure. Looks super healthy and happy keep it up
Looks like an indica dominant hybrid to me. May I ask where you got the seed from and is it feminized?

Thank you! Yes I agree it is indica dominant, it is much bushier than previous plants. Details are up in the first post, this was just a bag seed of unknown origin - I put them away whenever I find them and also have some given to me by mates when they find them and all mixed together. All of my plants have been bagseed, and I have been extremely lucky not to have any males! I once read that they are more likely to be female if they have plenty of room to grow the taproot, so I have always put this down to the fact that I plant seeds in large containers and dont transplant them. I recently ordered some brand name seeds and have the first 2 hopefully sprouting in the next couple of days.

 

[Anonnymoose]

Haha I like the simple lamp set up. CFL's are so awesome, if kept super close to the plants, the effect is that of a high powered super hot grow light. Keep us updated!

Thank you, I agree about CFLs, they are great! I had an old flatmate years ago that also grew, he had a 600w HPS while I used a similar setup to what I have now (And had some huge 150w CFLS back then too but I disliked those). He used to brag about how much better his setup was but he had so many issues with heat and light distances (despite having huge fans while I used PC fans) that overall my plants were healthier and did better. Other people will of course do better than me in the same situation but my point is that the lights are only part of the equation and plants can certainly do well under CFLs.

Any bets on what my yield will be from this one?

 

[paul keating]

You beat me to it... That's a good idea. Do the tank setup you were going to do, but pump the water from a clean resevoir. Only problem you may encounter with a setup like that, which you would of had with your previous setup, is excess humidity in your grow area. So you may need some decent air circulation.

As for checking soil moisture, i sometimes use probes. One digital, one analogue. ($10 each at bunnings)
They probably aren't as accurate as a $100 one, but they give me a rough idea. The digital one would be based on resistivity i imagine, but i don't really use that one much, but thanks for the advice about mineral levels potentially affecting the reading, hadn't occurred to me.
Not sure how the analogue one works, probably something similar.

But my preferred method of checking the soil, is just sticking a finger into it, about an inch or two, and if it's bone dry, i usually give it a water. Not a very scientific way of doing things, but i like to keep things simple.
Although, something you just said has me pondering.

"The blue line in my graph above is the capacity point, you can see that when it goes above this point it drops really quickly because it cant hold any more water, the water just drains through."

I think I've heard something like that before, that once the soil reaches a certain dryness, it loses its water holding capacity, and the water will just drain through. Like i said, i let my soil dry right out, but i usually give a thorough watering, but i do notice the water comes out of the bottom of the pot very quickly, so obviously the soil isn't soaking it up.

Do you think i am doing more harm than good?
I've never had a problem with under-watering though.
At the moment, I'm just using premium soil. I usually throw in some perlite, vermiculite, peat moss and coir peat, but didn't this time.


Your plants are looking nice and healthy, so keep doing what you're doing.

 

[Anonnymoose]

"The blue line in my graph above is the capacity point, you can see that when it goes above this point it drops really quickly because it cant hold any more water, the water just drains through."

I think I've heard something like that before, that once the soil reaches a certain dryness, it loses its water holding capacity, and the water will just drain through. Like i said, i let my soil dry right out, but i usually give a thorough watering, but i do notice the water comes out of the bottom of the pot very quickly, so obviously the soil isn't soaking it up.

Do you think i am doing more harm than good?
I've never had a problem with under-watering though.
At the moment, I'm just using premium soil. I usually throw in some perlite, vermiculite, peat moss and coir peat, but didn't this time.


Your plants are looking nice and healthy, so keep doing what you're doing.

Hey mate cheers for the comments. I think you have misunderstood me, I was referring to the saturation point of the soil i.e the wettest it can be. It will soak up water to a certain point and then it cant hold any more. However I do know what you are referring to and I don't think it would happen with most potting mixes, its more a problem with clay type soils found naturally in the ground. With those soils when they become dry they resist soaking up water, kind of like a dry sponge does. But once they are a bit damp they will start to soak it up easily. With those sorts of soils when they become dry you need to water them slowly to make sure they start to soak it up. But not many people would find that with potting mixes bought from stores.

I think you'll be doing fine, do you have a grow journal? Its the results that count. That said though I wouldn't rely on those cheap soil moisture meters above, I think your finger test would be more reliable. Ideally you want to measure the moisture at multiple levels, this will give you the best idea of what is going on.

 

[paul keating]

Yeh, i must of misunderstood. You were getting a bit too technical for me, with all the dielectric constant, complicated equations and volumetric water content talk, and i think my mind started to wander.. Sorry.

My method is; if it's dry, water it, if it's wet, don't.
But thanks for the advice with the moisture retention.

I'm of the opinion, that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. So i just keep things simple. I've tried the technical approach with everything, and the constant scrutinizing of every little thing, and i always over did it, and made things worse. So i just keep things simple nowadays.
After all, these are just weeds.

I'm yet to start a grow journal. I have 2 girls finishing up in a few weeks, and i have a couple of seedlings sprouting now, so i may just start one. It'll be an LED grow. Last week i got a Mars II 700W (320w-360w draw).
Eager to get that going, as I've seen some harvests from this light, and they look pretty good.

I'm interested to see how your grow goes. My last grow i used some CFLS and a dodgy home made LED light, and it was an abysmal failure. I'm still learning. But having the new commercial LED light, i can see where i went wrong.
Not enough intensity.
You mentioned you had a lux meter. Me too, very handy little things. Holding it up against the commercial light, and against my DIY light, i can see why it failed.
12 inches away from my DIY light, i got about 10,000 lux, at the top of the plants.
Same distance from my commercial light, about 65,000 lux, and down lower near the base of the plants, i still get about 20,000 lux.
If you have used the meter out in the sun, you can get anywhere from 70,000 to 110,000 lux.

And if you're getting 20,000, 3 inches down, you should do well.

 

[Gazzatron]

Looking good moose!! I have one question... how big is your grow cab?

 

[Anonnymoose]

Looking good moose!! I have one question... how big is your grow cab?

Thank you, its as big as I want it to be. It has its own room pretty much and is surrounded on 3 sides by bookcases which the lamps sit on. It also supports the board for the lights above the plant.

I am looking at carbon filters, will get a filter and fan next payday