Stevehman's Advanced LED 360 vs. 180 - Multiple Strains - NFT Grow 4.0

Re: Stevehman's Advanced LED 360 vs. 180, multiple strains, NFT Grow 4.0

Do you use superthrive? I was thinking of putting bioballs in my reservoir to maintain benes between res changes. I was planning on changing 50% every 2 weeks, that is what you did last run right?
 
Re: Stevehman's Advanced LED 360 vs. 180, multiple strains, NFT Grow 4.0

Yeah I admire the ease of use that cloner seems to bring to the table. I can see a real nice "garden-flow" from something like this. Being an unemployed, under weight, college student has influenced me ever more and more that getting a constant perpetual cycle down is a must for me if I plan on having continued sustained success with hydroponics, and very possibly make it a perfect source of income for a student looking to become full time.
I just get so excited thinking about how great it would be to come home and not have to worry about how I am going to fix my car, or pay for grocery's, or for pot or any of that bull shit that brings me daily stress. To just be able to come home and hit the books but also monitor my plants PH PPM and what not on study breaks would just be....the life.
I can see an EZ cloner plus the adoption of flowering smaller plants aiding in realizing my dream, though for now I will be continuing with the style I am working with at the moment-larger plants with a one month veg period rotating plants every 30 days.
For example on 6/19 Cycle 2 hits its one month of flower so all four plants in cycle 3 will be moved in to the flowr room on 6/19 so that when cycle 2 gets harvested on 7/19 Cycle 3 will be hitting its one month and cycle 4 (will be created tomorrow via cuttings) will be moved into the veg room as the cycle continues...
The only crazy thing is that once I get cycle 3 in there that will mean i'll have to keep two independant chillers in that small room. Kinda shitty, but no real way to get around it...all while cycle 4 will be propogated into non-chiller buckets and will remain that way until cycle 2's chiller becomes available.
See...shit gets crazy when you try to get perpetual. But if I plan to survive...comfortably...and if I want to get done with school faster....this will be the way.

Pray for my grow and i'll pray for yours!
lol.
Thanks for reading the ramble...of confused...worried thoughts.

Hydrologist out :Namaste:
 
Re: Stevehman's Advanced LED 360 vs. 180, multiple strains, NFT Grow 4.0

@Maer,
I followed the directions on the EZ Cloner. Just used tap water (filtered out chlorine) and dipped the clones in the rooting gel that came with the cloner. I did add a few drops of superthrive in the water at the start but that was it.

Once they had some nice roots showing I gave them 1/4 strength vegging nutes (CES feeding chart). I will have them in the NFT this morning and will post pics and all of the relevant numbers this afternoon.

@GodsTrichome,
Thanks for stopping in!

@hydro,
If you could create a closed loop cooling coil system with your chiller (using copper or stainless tubing) and place a coil in each of your feed reservoirs it would allow you to chill multiple res's with a single chiller. It would be more cost effective than buying and running multiple chillers. you could put 20-25 feet of tubing in each bucket and connect all of the coils together and then run that through your chiller. If you wanted to even go one step further, you could have a chill reservoir with glycol that will really keep the efficiency going. Do a Google search for "wort chiller" and you'll see what I am talking about. I have one for my brewing system and they work awesome.

My goal is to be doing a harvest twice a month by the end of summer. Once I have my plans figured out on a way to have a continuous harvest in a recirc type system done I will let you know.

For everyone else,
I will have a full photo update this afternoon. Stay tuned!
 
Re: Stevehman's Advanced LED 360 vs. 180, multiple strains, NFT Grow 4.0

@Maer,
Didn't answer your second question (coffee hasn't kicked in yet), I did not have bio balls in res but that was my thought for giving the benies a place to live. They need someplace to colonize so that would be a good choice. I have changed things up a bit on this grow so they will have a place to grow.

On the res change, 50% every two weeks was the method last time. The res always looked clean and clear, never had an issue with smell. It is important to have a method of topping of the res so that you don't get wild swings in ppm and pH. I also like this way of feeding since I start off going straight 12/12 from clone. I start with the CES recommend "transition feeding" and then at two weeks switch to the "flowering" schedule, but the 50% change gives the plants a gradual change in nutes. I don't know how necessary it is to do that, but in my mind it is less shock than a complete res- change and nute schedule. Plus, from what I've read, the plants still require some nitrogen while flowering, so the gradual changes will keep some residual nitrogen in the system while they flower. Seemed to work last time.
 
Re: Stevehman's Advanced LED 360 vs. 180, multiple strains, NFT Grow 4.0

i dont know much about growin like this but me and somebody else was talkin about coolin the res and usin them little ball things from back in the day that were filled with water and you put them in the freezer untill frozen then you put'em in you drink instead of usin icecubes, because somebody said use frozen water bottles and put'em in your res., but yea their just some suggestions... :tokin:
 
Re: Stevehman's Advanced LED 360 vs. 180, multiple strains, NFT Grow 4.0

i dont know much about growin like this but me and somebody else was talkin about coolin the res and usin them little ball things from back in the day that were filled with water and you put them in the freezer untill frozen then you put'em in you drink instead of usin icecubes, because somebody said use frozen water bottles and put'em in your res., but yea their just some suggestions... :tokin:

I'm not a big proponent of using the frozen water bottles or plastic ice cubes in the res. I want to ensure a constant temp 24/7. When you put the frozen water bottles in there you have no control over the temperature and you are going to have some wide temp swings throughout the day. I can only imagine that causes some degree of stress to the root zone. Maybe not a lot, but a little stress here, a little stress there--it all adds up. I want to minimize the variables and frozen bottles is not my preference.

However, if you have no other options I guess it is better than letting your res get into the 70+ range. I tried water bottles and freezer packs on my first grow, it made very little difference, unless you can change them several times a day, and I have better things to do than keep changing out bottles all day.
 
Re: Stevehman's Advanced LED 360 vs. 180, multiple strains, NFT Grow 4.0

Moved the clones into the bloom-box today. Roots were very healthy, this is an average example. Some were almost twice as big. A few extra days in the cloner really made a difference.
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The system they went in is a GH Aeroflo system that I had in my garage gathering dust. I replaced all of the grommets and the spray lines. All parts are available through a hydro store and are very reasonably priced (spray lines were $10 each). You could easily build the system yourself.

I labeled the clones T1-6 for the Twilights. PC1-7 for the Pineapple Chunk and G1-7. Each of the lights will get 2 each of the clones and the extra P-Chunk and Gigabud will go under the middle light. Those two will not go towards the comparison weight of the grow, just didn't want to waste 2 healthy clones. A few of the girls look a little "shocked" from the transplant, they should perk up in a little while. I they don't, I have two extra clones of each waiting in the wings.
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Here is a shot of the end of one of the NFT chambers. It has a 4 inch hole with a plug-cap. The Aerflow is designed to empty straight into a res, I don't have the space to do that, so I used 1-1/4 inch PVC and made a manifold for the drains. The original has an adjustable drain height (by raising or lowering the drain tube). I added a PVC coupler to raise the height, once the roots hit the bottom of the tube I will replace these with a 1 inch spacer.
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I will be putting the girls into 24 hours of darkness starting tonight. I've heard that it will jump-start the flowering process. The real reason is that I am going to run the lights from 10:30 PM to 10:30 AM. Since heat is an issue I will run them at night when it is quite a bit cooler. During daylight hours it will be about 8o deg in there and I don't need to add extra heat with the lights. So that means no pics until Wednesday when the lights are back on.

I've also added an attic fan to draw the extra heat out. It is thermostatically controlled and kicks on when the temp in the are hits 90 (the apex of the roof). Since the grow space is semi-airtight and fed from air form the living space of the house it stays a few degrees above my office temp during the day. The attic fan helps keep it from heating up from the outside. The fan only comes on for a few minutes and then it's done its thing.

I'll get more pics and information up Wednesday morning.
 
Re: Stevehman's Advanced LED 360 vs. 180, multiple strains, NFT Grow 4.0

damn you got some bad ass equipment over there, shit i wish i had the room let alone the shit you got.. but definitely lookin good brotha, good job!!! :thumb:
 
Re: Stevehman's Advanced LED 360 vs. 180, multiple strains, NFT Grow 4.0

Hey Steve, I see you've completely changed the system for Grow 4. Looks awesome. I can't wait to see how this one goes, but after the last couple, I can only imagine it will rock solid!!!!

I finally got my stuff going. Outdoors though... Don't have the time/space to get the indoor happening yet, but at least i am knocking the rust off. TTYL!!
 
Re: Stevehman's Advanced LED 360 vs. 180, multiple strains, NFT Grow 4.0

@Cryo,
Long time... Good to hear you got things rolling.

Yeah, I changed a few things up on this grow. I am on a constant improvement plan until I find something that will yield a gram-per-watt and let me harvest every 7-10 days. I am getting closer. My ultimate goal is a lb a week. If I can swing that, my hobby will become my day job and my day job will become my hobby.

Thanks for checking in, glad to have you along for another grow.:Namaste:
 
Re: Stevehman's Advanced LED 360 vs. 180, multiple strains, NFT Grow 4.0

Ok, Time for an update. The girls had a few days of transition going into the bloom-box. I put them in there on the 6th so this is day 4 of 12/12. They went into total darkness for 24 hours before going to the new light schedule. Lights are on from 9:00pm-9:00am. This does two things:
1) Takes advantage of cooler night time temps (remember from Grow 3.0, this is an attic space and can get pretty warm during the day. Don't need the extra heat of the lights during the day)
2) It makes me more productive during the normal work day. Since the lights go out at 9:00 am, I can't keep looking at them through the day--which can be a distraction when you work from a home office.

I can't think of any downside to running them at night, I think the electric is even cheaper during night hours, but not 100% positive on that.

I have a total of three lights in the box. Going from left to right:
Advanced LED 180 (draws 201 watts of power)
Advanced LED 360 (draws 392 watts of power)
Mystery LED (can't divulge specs, draws 207 watts of power)

All lights are currently 30 inches above canopy. Each has 2 clones of each of the three strains. I have one extra PC and Gigabud under the 360, but those are marked as PC7 and G7 and will not be included in the final weigh in. Each light is covering an area that is 2x2, I will place barriers between the plants to minimize any spill over of light from the adjacent light. The area will be open top and bottom to allow air circulation and to keep temps constant throughout the box. I will start them on CO2 enrichment tomorrow (have to exchange bottle for a full one).

OK, here are the numbers and pics:
9 June 2011
Day 4 in 12/12
pH: 5.65
PPM: 1290
Temp: 83
RH: 45
Res Temp: 66

From what I can see, the Pineapple Chunk is more sensitive to nutrient burn. I am going to drop the ppm's down to about 900 today to see how they do. The Gigabud is looking like she is enjoying the all-you-can-eat buffet and doesn't mind the heavy diet. The Twilight is in the middle. The PC is definitely going to be taller than the rest. I'm hoping that she doesn't try to crowd out the Gigabud in a few weeks.

I've used the white-balance tool in Picasa to color correct them a bit, otherwise they are very pink.
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You can see how the Gigabuds are going to be bushy little girls in a few weeks. I will go through them in 3 weeks and trim away the lower growth on all of the plants to keep the comparison fair.
 
Re: Stevehman's Advanced LED 360 vs. 180, multiple strains, NFT Grow 4.0

Your going to trim them in flower? How long in do you trim? Also you say 30 inches above, the recommended for Advanced is 18-24, why so far?

I'll just trim off the lower branches that don't produce much, I want to reduce any air restrictions and improve air flow.

I have the lights at 30 inches for a couple reasons. They just came out from under a T5 in the cloner and I don't want them to get shocked too much. Also, my lights are "rack mounted" so they are more or less at a fixed height. If I put 6 inch clones in, they should stretch to 24 inches total height and will then be 12 inches below the lights in full flower. Same concept as last grown, just this time the lights are a few inches higher, since I did get some bleaching under the Advance 180 at 6 inches (I didn't have the room to raise them any higher).

Next grow should be in a different space with more height (3x6x6 or 4x8x6 tents--two of them)
 
Re: Stevehman's Advanced LED 360 vs. 180, multiple strains, NFT Grow 4.0

Your going to trim them in flower? How long in do you trim? Also you say 30 inches above, the recommended for Advanced is 18-24, why so far?

For a good example of trimming up in flower, you should check out 420fied's grow, He trims the heck out of them twice in flower and his plants look awesome, although he is doing a SOG type grow with single colas. I think his schedule is day 21 and day 45, but don't remember off the top of my head.
 
Re: Stevehman's Advanced LED 360 vs. 180, multiple strains, NFT Grow 4.0

I had my adolescents in veg under an advanced all blue, in a couple days they had stretched to touch the light, burned the crap out of the leaves.

I built a rack for 3x 180 plus my 28ft of T5HO 2x 1X6 and some 2x3 cross braces, ill post a pic, but inspired by your posts in the begging of grow 3.0
 
Re: Stevehman's Advanced LED 360 vs. 180, multiple strains, NFT Grow 4.0

Subbed my friend late as usual but still here :D
 
Re: Stevehman's Advanced LED 360 vs. 180, multiple strains, NFT Grow 4.0

@Cryo,
Long time... Good to hear you got things rolling.

Yeah, I changed a few things up on this grow. I am on a constant improvement plan until I find something that will yield a gram-per-watt and let me harvest every 7-10 days. I am getting closer. My ultimate goal is a lb a week. If I can swing that, my hobby will become my day job and my day job will become my hobby.

Thanks for checking in, glad to have you along for another grow.:Namaste:

The plants are looking great so far, so if I understand you correctly you said each light has 6 plants for the comparison? Was it a typo or did you really mean harvest every 7-10 days?!?!?!? That would be amazing, is that why you are getting 2 grow tents so you can have the attic and the 2 tents going at the same time? Since you have the lights off during the day are you worried that any light will get in and mess with the photo period? If you could adjust the height of the lights do you think you would yield a little more? Sorry about all the questions just ripped a J1 bowl (sativa) and I'm hella a hyper right now!!!
 
Re: Stevehman's Advanced LED 360 vs. 180, multiple strains, NFT Grow 4.0

@NW, welcome back my friend, good to have you onboard.

@Surfin, I won't get the tents up and running until later this summer. The end-goal is to have a lb a week by the end of September, I will be putting the tents into either my garage or spare room once we move to a larger place. I will keep this place either as a rental, or just keep the girls here and have them pay rent (if you get my drift). Once I have the two tents for bloom I will pick up a mother/clone setup as well and then run a continual harvest in an undercurrent DWC setup, 8-12 plants per tent depending on whether it will be SCROG or LST. Each tent would have 2 systems in it so that I can vary nutes. That would be a harvest every two weeks, a total of 4 systems, each with 4-6 plants. Each plant producing 3-6 ounces.

On the height of the lights, it would be optimal to keep them in the 18-24 inch range above canopy, just keep an eye on the tips, the plants will let you know if they are too close. Look for the internodal spacing, if they are spread out too much, move the lights closer. They will stretch, so you'll get some space between them, but you don't want too much.

No worries on the photo period, the bloom box is pretty tight, and I've sealed up every area that could possibly have a light leak.
 
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