900 watt LED on light mover in 4 x 8 Grow Tent in Air Pots with soil

xxxSYNxxx;1548089 said:

Hi Everyone,

So there is little to no information out there on the web on what I am doing. First of all, I haven't seen anyone giving reviews on these new high powered LED hoods, especially on a light mover. I figured I would start a conversation to share my experiences and hopefully learn from some of you other veterans out there!

I have a successful outdoor run (Santa Cruz Mountains, CA summer 2011) under my belt where I partnered with and was mentored by a 15 year expert. This is my first indoor experience and I am going through a small learning curve. I burned my leaves with too much nutes. Other than that however, things are looking good!

Plants:

Currently, I am in week 5 of flower with my number one strain (Urkulan) from last summer that I managed to keep going. This strain is about 70 / 30 Indica / Sativa mix (just guessing by how it grows) that is 20+ percent THC and a great yielder, both indoor and out. It smells great, tastes great, looks great and is easy to grow!! After a few generations, these 6 plants were allowed to veg for about 4 months where I let them get completely root bound. Also I have topped these girls 6-8 times in an effort to keep them small to allow for me to get my room built. Outdoor height at full maturity was about 5 feet. Indoor, they are staying around the 3 foot mark, but displaying their sativa branchiness.

Room:

I have converted a 12' x 16' master bedroom into my own gardener's paradise! The attached bathroom serves as my watering room where I keep my reservoir. My EZCloner 60 sits in the bathtub with a t8 hood and there is also a built-in towel, i mean nutrient closet. There are 2 of the Hydro Hut 4 x 8 tents (actually about 5x9) that will be up and running. Currently only one is going because I can't afford another light quite yet and my babies are still in veg. Also, in the back I have a 3x6 veg table with two t8 hoods (each hood has 4, 48" bulbs) tied together lengthwise to create a 2' x 8' hood. This table is a 3x6 ebb and flow hydro table that I am using just for water runoff when I'm watering my soil. It can drain into a 5 gal bucket and I can reuse or discard. I know that the table is an overkill, but I got it for $15! I works perfect for what I need and who knows, I might move into hydro once I get the hang of things.

Ventilation:

Since I am not using HPS, this allows for me to do a closed system without cutting holes or damaging the room. My two tents are ducted together by one 6" Hurricane fan (435 cfm), exhausting right onto my veg table. Each tent has its own Phresh filter rated at 400 cfm. The closet just so happens to have attic access so on the top shelf, I mounted an 8" fan and a huge filter that scrubs the room. There are a total of 6, 12" oscillating fans (2 per tent and 2 on veg table) that keeps the air moving. Temperature in the tent rarely gets higher than 85, but on these hot days, I'll open the bedroom door and the swamp cooler can drop the temp in a matter of 10 min. Also there is a base board heater with its own thermostat for the winter. I don't have any sort of intake filter, but haven't had any bug problems (hopefully won't since I live in the desert). Lastly, it will be easy to incorporate CO2 with my setup but I can't afford to right now.

LED Lights:

The LED hood is from DormGrow.com and is made by G8-LED. All I can find on this LED is that it is using the true 3 watt bulbs at 120 degree angle (I think). This hood puts out a hell of a lot of light, enough to temporarily blind you (everyone looks once). I have it suspended 36" from the top of the canopy and the mover is set to pause for 2 seconds on the sides. This is the fastest setting. Does anyone have any knowledge on the ideal distance from canopy for this light?? I'm just using an educated guess from the little information that's out there. Can it be placed closer since its moving? According to DormGrow's "marketing guru", this light covers a 5'x6' area and is equivalent to a 1500 watt HPS.

Pots:

My plants are in 5 gal pots and I was struggling to water them once every week. The best solution to my drainage problem right now however, was to drill a bunch of holes in my current pots (at this point, I'm not going to transplant) and it seems to have helped. I can now water about every 4 or so days and this makes it easier to feed. After doing some research and reading hours upon hours on these forums, I have decided to go with Superoots Air-Pots, which should be here any day.

Soil / Nutrients:
My soil is an undiluted Fox Farm Ocean Forest. I love this stuff! The plants thrive and it drains well (in the right pot). Now my mentor was adamant about feeding with both chemical and organics. He would say that chemicals are like steroids and organics were perfume and lipstick. He also preached that I should never spend a lot of money on the veg cycle. That is why I am using t8 hoods instead of t5 and for my chemical nutes, I use miracle grow all purpose. (I know I will catch some flack from some of you on this.) The organic food for veg is Fox Farm Grow Big. Now for flower, I use Super Natural Bloom Terra for chemical and Fox Farm Big Bloom for organic. I am also adding a potash supplement, Maxi Crop Seaweed for organic and Snow Storm Ultra for chemical (to aid in the production of trichomes). For the finishing nutes that I will apply once about 3 weeks from finish, I use MOAB (mother of all bloom) for chemical and Fox Farm's Tiger Bloom for organic.

I hope to be able to water 2-3 times per week once I start using my new pots. This would allow for me to get into a regular feeding schedule. I am currently feeding chemical, then feed organic, then just water and repeating the cycle (sometimes I flush on my "just water" day). I hope to be able to get into a chemical, water, organic, water cycle. Also what are the rules about mixing different nutes?? I have been told to be very careful with this. When I chemical feed, i will mix in the organic maxicrop. When I organic feed, I will mix in the Snow Storm. My logic is that I am never mixing together any synthetic chemicals. How bad am I screwing up? Granted I did burn my plants on my last veg (nitrogen) feeding and had to really flush them, but I think I am just making the mix too strong.

Anyways, that's my story. I have quite a bit of money wrapped into my new hobby and would like any and all advice to help me better what I'm doing. Also if you have any questions for me, I'd be happy to share what I have learned. I'm sure there will be a lot of discussion on feeding technique and I would love to become more educated on the science behind it. I know I have to buy one of those expensive pens where I can measure ppm levels. I am however more interested in conversing about LED experiences since there aren't a lot of us out there working with this new technology. The current 3 and 5 watt bulbs are a whole new animal compared to the lights just a couple of years ago. Also my new favorite strain, Urkulan doesn't have a whole lot of information available on it as well. I will try to keep this forum updated and post current pics. I look forward to this ride!

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