LED Grow Journal

[notreallyhere]

welcome to midway through my first grow!
These two plants have grown entirely under LED's, and have been in my care since late june.
For a long time, they each had one panel of Blue LED's above them. I added one red when I got them, and recently had the resources to build my panel hanger- so now they have 4 red and 2 blue panels shining 18/6.
They are in 3gal buckets of potting soil, and I fed them miracle grow for a while, mostly because they needed N and I needed $. Lately I've weaned them off of that in favor of Alaska Fish Emulsion.
They live in my closet, which unfortunately is closed much of the time for security reasons. I'm sure my ladies love air, so when I am home I leave the door open. their circulation fan runs constantly. Still, I worry that ventilation is my weakest link.
Both of these plants are ready to flower, but I would like to maintain one (likely Plant A) as a mother and take clones, which would involve creating chambers and an additional times and etc etc... so for the next short while they are vegging, getting as healthy as possible.
all that said, here are pics. enjoy- and thanks in advance for all feedback.

My lights and my canopy!


Plant A



Plant B

[hawkster7]

I think I agree But I never grew with lites,the thing I can tell you is the plants are stretchin and the tops dont look like they are forming right,although they look real good other than that,RLMCHATCH I think is probly right it needs A little more light.
Pretty Bad Ass grow.GOOD LUCK

[DoopSther]

Hmm, Leds are not that powerful atm, but you will get some smokeable budz, but not as big and it will take much longer time. Maybe get in an Flurocent light, 120w or something, that would help allot.

[notreallyhere]

They have been doing a lot better since I added the last 3 panels, but if I added two CFL's to either side of the 3x2 LED grid, would the plants stretch toward that light? should I worry about adding them to the middle? I have been considering this, and that (and nutes) are the next step.

I am fascinated by the LED's, part of the reason I am obsessed with these plants. The place where these came from now has panels much like these, but with much brighter bulbs, which I would be curious to use with a hanger like the one I built.

[notreallyhere]

Had the day off today... went and found the local hydro store. spent too much money, but whatever, I'm now basically obsessed with these girls I keep locked in my closet.

Got a rapid rooter tray with 50 natural plant starters, some cloning gel, some shears, some superthrive, and a 4 way soil tester probe thingy (ph, wetness, fertility, and light). Fuck yeah, except that I now KNOW that my closet has mad fewer lumens than the sunlight by my window. s'ok, we're developing the technique.

I also went to the hardware store, FINALLY found the little socket to lightbulb converter thing, got 2 of those and 2 short extension cords, 1 CFL (I had one at home already) and a spray bottle.

so I added 2 cfls to my closet, as seen below. may add more in time.
plants are still doing well, probably going to cut first clones in the next few days.

[notreallyhere]

does anyone have any sagely advice for making clones?
Ive been reading through the archives here, in my jorge cervantes grow bible, and etc on the internet, so I'm pretty sure I've got it, in concept. just gotta make it actually happen.

thing that scares me the most is taking the cutting. Plant A is my prime mother candidate, a few weeks ago she did a Y-type split thing by herself, so there are two major side branches and a strong top going straight up. the side branches are cloneable, right?

do I give cuttings nutrient solution? (5-1-1 fish & superthrive is my typical regimen. Have some high N Miracle Gro.... but hate that. need to get more nutes...)

I do not have a humidity dome or a heating mat. Though this lack will probably lower my success rate, there will still likely be success, right?

[Medical Marijuana]

I will be following this journal. This may help re clones. http://www.420magazine.com/forums/ge...-tutorial.html

[notreallyhere]

Glad to have you on board *****- I've been lurking for a while and I have nothing but respect for you man.

I went ahead and took two cutting from plant A and one from plant B earlier this afternoon. pictures to follow.
side note: I found

this

video helpful, and also found the narrator dude hilarious.

So I got my new 4 tester thing, and I'm at ph of about 5 or 6, moisture middle of the road, light lowish but inconclusive (its a dial thing... pic below). the thing that worries me is that it says that I have low fertility.
I admit that I was using miracle gro nutes (24-8-16) for a while, dilluted half teaspoon per gallon etc because my plants needed N. I recently switched to Alaska Fish Shit, which is 5-1-1. I've been using one teaspoon/gal, and just earlier today started adding superthrive. I was holding fox farm nutes in my hand, but my wallet math didn't like them as much as the father in me did.

so the point of this ramble is this: I fear my plants are slightly malnourished. I noticed some of the black patches on some smaller, lower leaves on plant B- trimmed them off whatever but thats P deficiency, right?
what is an ideal ratio of the nutes that I currently have to properly feed my plants?

I'm glad I talked myself into signing up. good place here.

[notreallyhere]

A few more tidbits: the cloning gel I ended up going with is the Dutch Master 'Replicator' cut stem gel and root promoter. bottle says .015-.070-.020. hydro store guy recommended it right after clonex, and my 2oz bottle was like, a third of the clonex price.

all three cuttings are from side branches. didn't want to take a top, plus, they both have weird angles.

are 11 holes in my little stupid homemade humidity dome enough for proper ventilation? plan is to mist it and the plants several times a day.

when do I give my clone nutes, and at what strength?
this is assuming, of course, that I have not fucked it up and that they root....
haha peace guys.

[notreallyhere]

Ok, so bored, stoned, and insomniac- so I took pictures of my clones and their mothers. Here is 24 hours-ish post-cloneage.

gave all the plants some squirts with soda (carbonated) water earlier.
still giving the clones lots of mist and keeping their lid on mostly.
Gave them really cool names too....

This is Clone A



This is Clone B



This is Clone C. The leaf facing the right side of the frame was weak, big, and heavy. I cut it off shortly after the first picture. The following picture is of Clone C'




And now the tops of (Mother) Plants A and B (in that order). All clones are from branches.

[StonerGrower]

Looking good!

[MayorGreenBud]

i like that 4 prong tester, never see it before. it seems like it could help out a lot.

yes, the number of wholes in fine. remember, the reason for the dome is to allow moisture to enter the plant through the leaves, since there are no roots to drink the water. so, as long as the dome stays humid you should be fine.

[notreallyhere]

Got paid today. got 2x42W CFL's. packaging says 2700 lumens each, and light tester is reading much higher now. Probably more clone pictures tonight. yeah.

[Medical Marijuana]

Keep an eye on your watering. In the first image above, you are seeing the leaf curling down and the foliage does not look turgid. This is a sure sign the roots need more air.

[notreallyhere]

Time has passed and much has changed.

I have unfortunately lost confidence in the LED panels I was using, and have retired them in favor of a 2' 4bulb Sun Systems High Output T5 lamp along with 4 42watt (2700lumen) CFL's.

In short, the plants have loved this, as you will see shortly.

The large ladies will be moving to an off-site 12/12 place, likely within the week. I recently got some herb that was decent, but either slightly pollinated or slightly hermie, as I got some seeds. This has been a good thing, however, as I germinated 9 or 12 of them by presoaking and then using the paper towel method to get a root tip before placing them in rapid rooter plugs. 3 are still in paper towels, 2 are waiting to pop above ground, and 7 have popped, of which 4 are doing very well. no visible roots yet, but these are fewer than 4 days old across the board.

My clones have finally started growing little stubby roots! the best one had some inch long roots hugging the surface of the plug, so I got it into a pot of fox farms OF soil. Other 2 should show me roots soon....

finally got my fox farms nutrients- but only the grow big. not flowering any plants yet, so no need to drop money on other nutes yet. using 3tsp/gal every few days, supplemented with a little superthrive.

finally got an oscillating fan, plus the other one was starting to crap out on me. got a computer fan wired up to exhaust air via my ceiling as well. got a thermometer humidity thingy. you'll see it all in the pics. here we go:

the Closet



Plant A


Plant B



Transplanted Clone


Clones and popping seedlings


Young Blood!


Stuff