First Indoor 200-250W CFL With Auto Dark Devils

Ignotus · Mar 1, 2018

Quick update.

Plants are looking slightly healthier tonight, I'm convinced it was over watering.

I picked up my new light today, and hooked it up. I'm loving the extra room in the tent! Not so many cables and crap in the way now. This beauty is putting out 40000 lumens at 16" while my cfl was around 20000 at 5". I know lumens isnt a great unit of measure, but it's a comparison. It also only draws 135w!

Im guessing the plants are going to be tiny, definitely not what i was expecting but we'll see. Ill leave it a few days before my next update, sorry all for the barrage of pics! Good day all!

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Smeegol · Mar 1, 2018

Neat and tidy looking light that, I'm sure the girls are going to love it...

Troy01 · Mar 1, 2018

Wahoo... love the looks of the new light. Don't worry about the size. Mine started taking off in size at about day 30 and in stretch are adding about 1 inch per day.

Ignotus · Mar 1, 2018

Plants have gotten significantly worse. Im not sure if they'll make it.
My shitty ph meter is a bit over the place but i put it down to root level (instead of shallow like i was doing) and it was reading 8.5 or so.

Went to the hydro shop and discussed, ended up getting ph down and a basic ph drop kit.
I ph'ed down to 5 and added 1/2 nutes and flushed them through. Ph is now reading 6.7 or so.

Leaves are looking dried up and droopy, they feel like fine sandpaper. Im hoping this might be it, because if it isn't I'm afraid it might be too late to try anything else. Its so disappointing and disheartening!

Will update tomorrow!

b.real · Mar 2, 2018

Switching to a high powered LED grow light can be stressful on plants, make sure you have the plants at least 24” away from the light for now.

Ignotus · Mar 2, 2018

Thanks for the tip b.real. I've got the light at its highest position now and have moved them to the corners of the tent. I think I can see an improvement in the leaves since their flush a few hours ago, they look less droopy. Will know by the morning if I'm on the right path.

Troy01 · Mar 2, 2018

I've been noticing with my plants that they get droopy after their daily feeding but after their nap 3 hours after feeding they perk back up.

Does the driver for your LED have a dimmer switch on them? MIne have a dimmer and I control their light both by height and by intensity of the light. The girls should be able to handle the light but may have to adjust to it.... kinda like going to the beach the first time of the year and burning in the sun.

Ignotus · Mar 2, 2018

Troy01 said:
I've been noticing with my plants that they get droopy after their daily feeding but after their nap 3 hours after feeding they perk back up.

Does the driver for your LED have a dimmer switch on them? MIne have a dimmer and I control their light both by height and by intensity of the light. The girls should be able to handle the light but may have to adjust to it.... kinda like going to the beach the first time of the year and burning in the sun.

Yea there's a voltage adjustment on them, after seeing how they looked this morning I've dimmed it to 65w which is about half strength.

Funny i did notice they seemed to pick up when i raised the cfl, and then dropped when i put the led in. Then they appeared a bit better last night after raising the led, but this morning they look sad and droopy again. I'm at a bit of a loss but not much i can do now but wait and see. They have adequate ph'ed water, low light to help them recover, and plenty of air movement. If it's root rot I'm guessing i can't do anything about it. The leaves don't really have any visual cues other than severely dry and droopy looking. The smell has almost gone too as I'm guessing they're in survival mode.

Ive put a couple of regular seeds in to soak as a backup. Either way ill be getting a proper ph pen and be more cautious with my watering next time!

Troy01 · Mar 2, 2018

Will be anxious to hear how they do over night. I think they will recover and make papa proud.

Ignotus · Mar 2, 2018

Troy01 said:
Will be anxious to hear how they do over night. I think they will recover and make papa proud.

Man i dont get it. This morning they looked horrible... so with nothing to lose i put one of them outside in the sun to try and dry it out quicker. It picked up immediately. Now i have both outside and they are mostly leaves out catching rays.

Environmental? Too much direct fan? Not enough oxygen? Who the hell knows! Haha.

Just after taking out of the tent

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Mar 2, 2018

About 2 hours later

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Troy01 · Mar 2, 2018

They are looking nice. Now to find what they like. Mine were really droopy after their afternoon feeding but picked up after their evening rest. I decided to dilute their mixture down from 990 ppm to 600 ppm. I may even skip their watering tomorrow and let them dry out a bit.

I'm growing in CoCo so almost impossible to overwater.

Ignotus · Mar 2, 2018

I'll probably try that route once I have a few soil grows under my belt. A ppm meter is just another cost at the moment I can't yet justify

Troy01 · Mar 3, 2018

For me the PPM meter is probably my most important tool. They are relatively inexpensive at about $10-15. If you are doing your nutrients at about 1/2 the label recommendation you could safely do without.

Ignotus · Mar 3, 2018

Day 31 from seed

We're back baby!
It's a freakin miracle, I've somehow nursed these babies back to health. Thanks for the help and suggestions.

I can only speculate what happened, but I'm guessing it was multiple things. Overwater, wrong ph, undernute, and then chucking the led in the mix at full ball...
What still baffles me is how going out in the natural hot sun seemed to kick start them again within hours. I'm assuming the warmth had more to do with it than actual sunlight, as the sun is way brighter than the led. Anyhow... onwards and upwards.

Lefty (who is now on the right, hah) has started showing her colours. Purple hues can be seen in the flowers and the tiny leaves that are coming out. Righty hasn't shown any yet, but I've heard they don't all turn purple.

I have the light on 24/0 now as I pulled them out and left them in the sun all day with no dark period, so I don't want to go back to 18/6 again. Pots are slowly drying out but still very heavy. LED is at 16" which is as high as it can go, so power is at 80w. This has been brought up from 60w since yesterday and will slowly continue until it looks too much. At 135w and 12" this light does 1400 par in the centre (independent tests, not manufacture claim) so I probably won't need it cranked all the way at any point.

Here's some pics for the day

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Troy01 · Mar 4, 2018

They look amazing. Just look at how much you learned in the last couple of weeks. One of the beauties is you have it documented in a Journal and can come back and reference it in the future.

Ignotus · Mar 7, 2018

Day 34

Coming along ok. Pots still quite heavy, but I needed to add a feeding as they are both loosing colour fast. Gave the both 500ml of ph6 water is 3ms of Canna Bio Flores.
Lefty looks good, getting nice purple flowers. Righty is almost all lime green... I was starting to worry but the new growth is quite dark green, so I'm guessing it was running out of nitrogen since I fed so lightly. The canna soil probably kept it going most of the way.
Not sure if I should remove the yellowish leaves or let them be.
My next grow I will follow the feeding schedule to a tee and see how that goes, rather than thinking I know better than a massive nutrient company.

Which brings me to my next point. I have two new additions! GG1 and GG2.
These are both GG Allin strains from Sothern Star Seeds. Strong 100% indica varieties. They were my backups and now I have 4 going.. hahah.
They will both get the full Canna Bio line and I'll follow the schedule and see what happens. Both photos and regular seeds, so hopefully females.

My light is also now at 125w, which is nearly full strength. I haven't noticed any detriment to the plants yet... unless that's what's causing the colour loss... but I'm not sure.

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Troy01 · Mar 7, 2018

They are looking fantastic. You did a great job of nursing them back to health.

b.real · Mar 7, 2018

They look good. I wouldn't remove those leaves because they're not past the point of no return. A feeding should do them good. They may be adjusted to the light by now, just keep following the hanging distance recommendations. Nice work.

Ignotus · Mar 9, 2018

Day 37

Gave both girls around 1 Litre each at full strength Bio Flora (7ml for 2 Litres) on Friday afternoon and they've reacted well. Started to notice some slight burning on the tips due to the light intensity, so i found the limit. Back off to 115W now as Righty has stretched to within 14 Inches of the light. Both still loosing colour, but not much i can do about it and not sure if it really matters.

Can't believe its only been 37 days and they're already mid flower!