A Little Bit Of Everything - Chemical - Organic - With COB Lights & UV

[Kriaze]

Hello once again

After a break from journalling for awhile I have decided to start another after being talked into it by MrAm4zin, it wasn't a hard thing for him to do as I had missed this aspect of my Cannabis related hobby, but hey if it makes you feel better looking at my terrible gardening MrA who am I to spoil your fun?

This won't be a steady journal as I'm not a steady type of person, there will be ups and downs both with the grow area and myself but I will always try to remain factual and if anything is theoretical I will hopefully be able to make that clear to everyone. There will also be a little bit of everything so maybe there will be something of interest to each and everyone of you that reads this. Feel free to skip through my walls of text and photographs and ask questions at the end of the thread. I'm a great believer in the fact that the silliest question is the one that remains unasked. I'm a noob that's not quite a noob and I am unafraid to admit it and ask questions myself, in turn I would encourage everybody else to do so too.

OK so where to start?

First of all let's take a look at the grow areas and then we can go into more detail as to what is what.

These photographs were taken yesterday during lights on so they're about as current as we can get, here goes:


Veg tent (4'x4'x 7') :

Flowering tent (8'x4'x7') :

I live in an area where stealth is essential so tents are a must as I do not have the freedom to dedicate full rooms to my hobby, one day in the future maybe.


Nutrients that I use for the chemical part of the grow:

Advanced Nutrients PH Perfect range of base nutrients. I was very impressed with these the last time I purchased some so I have recently acquired some more. No PH pen is needed so long as your tap water is within reasonable limits for nutrient uptake due to the nutrients being bonded to salts making them more available to the plants.

Bear in mind that with a chemical grow you are in essence killing off the microlife in your soil and force feeding your plants. Salts will inevitably build up in both the plants and the soil so a 'mini flush' of sorts is recommended in between feeds. I would recommend a minimum of one flush per three feeds and sometimes one per two feeds is necessary. So it would go something like this: Feed water/nutrients - Feed water/nutrients - Feed water only (1 in 3) and Feed water/nutrients - Feed water only (1 in 2).

AN CalMag. I find this is a must under LED growing, whether they are Blurple LED's or the new white light COB's I still have CalMag deficiencies as you will see on some of my plants.

Great White Mycorrhizae, need I say anymore? Good bud growth comes from a strong root system and this is essential in my opinion. I'm new to this but the evidence that I see online is overwhelming so this will be an ongoing part of my feeding regime.

Fish Mix is used throughout veg and Humboldt's Secret Golden Tree is used in flower. These are organic too and you will note that I also use them in my organic(ish) feeding regime.


Soils used for my Chemical Grows:

I feel that quality soil is essential to any grow whether it will be chemical or organic(ish) but not fully organic. The soils that I use are always on trial, and I have used quite a few different ones ranging from abysmal (usually a store's own) to average (Canna Terra Pro, Biobizz AllMix/LightMix) and also some that I rate highly (Plant Magic Soil Supreme and Alpha Mix (quite a hot soil)).

That said I have been paying £16.99 per 50 litres (around 2 cubic feet) of Alpha Mix lately but I will currently be testing some cheaper soil that has been tried and tested elsewhere with good to great results. They will be mixed with Perlite for both the Chemical and organic(ish) grows. I will show the soils and their respective prices below.


Clover John Innes Multi Purpose Compost. £15 for 225 litres (around 8 cubic feet) :

Westland John Innes Multi Purpose Compost. £10 for 150 litres (around 6 cubic feet) :

Perlite for aeration:

That pretty much concludes the chemical side of things so I will now show what I use for my organic(ish) grows.

By organic(ish) what I mean is that instead of using fully organic products I will instead use organically sourced bottle nutrients. Although using these is not great for the microherd the end resulting smoke tends to have a better flavour and smoother smoke than a non flushed/improperly flushed chemical grow. Also as the nutrients are chelated in organic acids instead of salts there is not so much a need for a 'mini flush' in between feeds. In fact I have done a grow where I have not even used water only and there was no salt build up and the flavour was there at the end. You may or may not have to use a PH pen on an organic(ish) grow as the chelation isn't as effective with bottled organic feed (so far as I am aware through my experiences) as it is with chelated chemical feed. Also please bear in mind that although you may not be killing off all the microherd in your soil you will still be pissing them off greatly when using chelated acids due to the PH swings that will occur with each feed.

Nutrients that I use for the organic(ish) part of the grow:

As above I will use Fish Mix in veg and Humboldt's SGT in flower along with Great White Mycorrhizae. I will also use some base nutrients such as:

These nutrients I find reasonable. They are slightly chelated but PH sometimes needs adjustment and you will notice this pretty soon into your feeding regime if this is the case. As with any type of grow you will want to keep a close eye on your plants and rectify any problems as soon as you see them...unless you're a lazy gardener like me, my plants are strong or die

As a CalMag supplement I use Black Treacle (the UK equivalent of Blackstrap Molasses). It has a 4:1/5:1 ratio of Calcium to Magnesium which is just how Cannabis likes it. Without Calcium the plants find it hard to uptake the magnesium which in turn can in effect lock the magnesium out causing people to add more magnesium than necessary making matters worse. Too much magnesium in the soil/plant makes for a very harsh smoke so don't forget to keep your feed ratios as accurate as possible. I use 1 tsp of Black Treacle melted into a cup of boiled then slightly cooled water and added to 4 litres of water (around a gallon of water/feed). I will use this whenever a plant shows signs of deficiency for one or two weeks or if the particular strain is a heavy feeder I may use it to encourage growth as my heavy feeders tend to be calcium hungry whores. Whilst the plant is in veg I will usually just topdress with EWC (EarthWorm Castings or Vermicompost) and water in. An inch or two usually lasts for a good two weeks of outstanding healthy growth. It is also very hard to burn a plant using organic ingredients for those of us that can be a little too heavy handed when it comes to feeding.


Soils used for my organic(ish) part of the grow:

For these types of grow the soils that I use tend to be Cannabis specific soils that I mentioned above although as I get more confident I will use either my own compost mix with Perlite or the above mentioned Clover and Westland products. Not a lot really to be said about these soils as they will be close to either my chemical soil listed above or my organic soil which will be listed below.


Nutrients used in my organic part of the grow:

OK this is where it gets tricky. There are many different recipes and types of organic soils for growing Cannabis. We have Subcool's SuperSoil, Moonshineman's Organic Soil Mix, The Rev's True Living Organic Soil, Doc Bud's Hi-Brix and Recycled Living Organic Soil to name but a few. There is also another one used by a lot of people but it slips my mind at the moment so apologies if anyone is offended that I have not mentioned their particular soil, feel free to come and contribute here as I'm sure that people would love to hear your contribution, as would I Along with these particular named soils there are plenty of others that give great results, one in particular that I remember is UncleCannabis' home made soil.

The problem with most of these recipes for me personally is that a lot of the ingredients are unavailable in the UK so after reading upon reading and learning how to use a spade I have worked out my own recipe which I am still working on. My recipe needs additional Calcium and Magnesium added to water currently as the plant matures in the flowering stage so please don't take my recipe as gospel, it's far from it although it is improving with time. You will see an example of plants grown in my own recipe and you will see that they are deficient in CalMag. At least these are deficiencies nowadays and not lockout which again can be caused by a recipe gone wrong, but what I would say is if you have the option of growing (and killing) extra plants whilst testing out your mix go ahead and do it! It's fun and it's a great learning curve watching the plants grow in the soil that you yourself have created, with a little help from dry organic ingredients.

First and foremost you will want to create a compost pile. Not only is this good for your plants and vegetable/fruit garden but you are also cutting down on greenhouse emissions by recycling your waste instead of it going to a landfill where it becomes anaerobic (aerobic is oxygenated or turned so to speak allowing aerobic microbes to breed (good thing) whereas anaerobic is without oxygen allowing a lot of bad microbes to breed) and releases methane gas into the atmosphere. So in effect you are helping to save the world little by little

These are my compost tumblers and a lot of my kitchen waste will go in here along with recyclable cardboard, paper (be careful of anything with print on that uses chemical dyes), grass cuttings, decomposing leaves, organically grown Cannabis roots and leaves are excellent for going in here, I tend to split mine between my composters and my worm farm which I will show below. What we are looking for here is a good mix of nutrients, micro nutrients and macro nutrients that will break down in the best possible way. To achieve this we are looking for around a 25/30:1 Carbon to Nitrogen ratio. Carbon are 'brown' goods such as cardboard, decomposing leaves, paper, straw etc or what I would call 'dead' materials whereas Nitrogen materials would be your kitchen waste or any green grass cuttings etc or what I would consider 'live' materials. I won't go into too much detail here but if anyone has any questions or interest then feel free to let me know and I can go into further detail.

In a perfect world I would be able to cover every nutrient, micro nutrient and macro nutrient purely with what I have to hand, as this is rarely the case I will tend to amend my compost whilst it is cooking and for that I use dry organic (to the best of my knowledge) ingredients such as those shown below:

When the compost has broken down, smells nicely earthy and isn't too wet or dry it can be used along with something such as Peat Moss and Perlite to create a stable soil mixture. Unfortunately the gathering of Peat Moss has begun to eat into nature's wildlife habitats and is now frowned upon as a green option. There are other options such as Coco Coir and Fytocell but each will have a downside (retains salts, causes PH imbalance or breaks down too quickly etc) or you could just go and grab a spadeful of soil from your own garden, be careful though as you will be introducing unknown qualities to your soil and that's not always a good thing. In fact I tested this theory out in one of my previous grows with my own garden soil/clay and had no end of problems. Much better if you can designate your compost to it's primary use, or even have two composts going, one for higher Nitrogen levels and one for higher Phosphate for instance (veg and bloom). Some other amendments that can be added you would find surprisingly easy to find. Here are a couple that I save and use whenever I have had a meal containing them:

This is how my compost looks when I consider it to be viable:

If you are only able to have one thing for your organic garden due to lack of space/waste/funds etc then I would suggest that you would have it be this:

This truly is the black gold of gardening! Worm farms are a lot easier to maintain than most people consider them to be. Their Vermicompost or EWC (EarthWorm Castings) are not only valuable for your garden they are also PH neutral which means there will be no PH swings affecting your plants uptake of their nutrients, and the microherd loves them! I seriously cannot stress enough how wonderful EWC is for our beloved plants, we can use it in the base mix as a nutrient and also topdress with it as a nutrient booster. Don't try to grow in EWC alone though (I've tried), it will become a muddy mess when wet and compacted like rock when dry, but as an addition to the substrate or as a top dressing it will ensure your plants and microlife remain healthy.

Here are my worms hard at work creating another tub load of Black Gold for me (this worm farm has 4 tiers but I usually have one or two in the garden ready for use) :

In an ideal world with the right base soil substrate we would be able to water our plants only with rainwater (again usually PH neutral but be careful if you live in an industrial zone or are collecting from a water butt attached to a roof guttering painted with lead paint as this may make it acidic or containing lead particles etc), unfortunately as I have found myself (as have most others) this is often not the case and some form of amendments may be required. These can be in the form of aerated (again we want aerobic not anaerobic) compost teas, top dressings or as I read in The Rev's - True Living Organics book by spiking (adding dry nutrients into holes outside the transplant area whilst transplanting). As I have a lot of dry nutrients this would be the best method for me. I will use this method once I give up on trying to make a pure water only soil, if ever I do give up that is

This concludes the first part of my journal, apologies for the long post but I feel as I have been away quite awhile and there is plenty that I would like to share. Next up: Lights and environment!

May your buds be forever bountiful

 

[Kriaze]

re: A Little Bit Of Everything - Chemical - Organic - With COB Lights & UV

So for a little bit more of everything I will now continue to my lighting and environment.

As many people on know I have tried numerous lights in the past with varying degrees of success. Sometimes that has been down to the lights themselves (in my opinion) and sometimes I have had what I would consider great success (got myself a nice smoke out of the grow). The old favourite HPS is a winner for most people and it was for me except for heat issues, I have a cold blooded wife that insist on keeping the house like a tropical country so HPS just pushed the heat too high for both the plants and home safety and this is what got me into LED's. I've used CFL too, I find it great for vegging but again if I wanted to flower with CFL I would need plenty of it and again it would push the temperatures much higher than I could find acceptable, that too is a no no in my particular situation.

I've tried 'Blurple' LED's from various manufacturers with varying quality. My best ranging from the Mars II 1600w down to what I considered my worst ever lights the Mars 3w diode Reflector series, although I have seen people grow with these that are happy with their harvest. The main problems that I have with any Blurple light are heat dissipation and blown diodes, there's nothing worse than walking into my tent to feel a blast of heat and notice blown diodes all over my light board, this even happened on my favourite blurple light that I mentioned above. Luckily I was in time for the 'new era' of LED lighting and I have to say that sofar as I have used them I have been VERY impressed with their ability to not only grow good dense potent buds, but also their penetration too. Kind of like a HPS penetration without the heat, so currently until something new comes along that catches my eye I will be continuing to use COB lights for the foreseeable future. The only problem I find with them is the initial outlay as new technology rarely comes cheap, and this is indeed the case with COB lights too, although that is changing if you are prepared to go two or three generations back with your lights.

The lights that I use on my grow are a mixture of prebuilt COB's, DIY kit COB's and my own sourced DIY builds. I will show you them all and I will also try and give a little walkthrough of how I completed my own DIY single driven 50 watt COBs for the measly price of only £25 per light, that price is in fact rounded up to include minor things such as solder, screws, kapton tape and any other miscellaneous items that people may forget to include when budgeting for their build.

The first ever set of COB lights that I purchased are unfortunately not a sponsor of the magazine so I am unable to name them, I can however show you them and I will state categorically that I was impressed by these lights from the first day that I got them. The big downfall was the shipping costs to the UK as they were made in Canada. Shipping expenses are a killer for the majority of products over here but I still went ahead and purchased four of them. The total cost of these lights shipped to the UK made them work out around £220 apiece, but for the price I was happy and they still continue to perform well:

I grew plants under these against the recommendation of the manufacturer who would have preferred me to add one extra light for my space, yet although this bud looks airy it was actually quite dense and the size speaks for itself:

Considering my actual growing skills/patience for gardening are minimal I was pretty impressed, it was just a shame that I had to chop it up for the jar.

Next I decided to take the manufacturers advice and add some extra COB lights to the 4'x4' area that I use for flowering (in an 8'x4' tent but only using half the space for lighting, the rest is fans, exhaust and ducting). After looking around online I found these COB kits utilising the newer Cree CXB3590 CD bin chip. Again shipping was a killer (this time from Australia) but it still worked out much cheaper than if I had bought more of the original COB lights that I had first bought. The total this time worked out at around £140 per single driven engine. By now I had become a great fan of individually driven lights as I like the maneuverability of them and the fact that if one goes down I still have the other lights on to at least make it through to the end of the grow:

I was also mightily impressed with these COB lights too, slowly but surely I started replacing all my older style blurple lights and the plants were responding nicely. Oh ho I thought, I'm on to a winner here, just a shame about those bloody shipping costs killing everything for me, plus the fact that as there were legitimate companies selling these they had to use tried and tested power supplies, which meant extra costs for me the consumer. So I started looking for a way around that.

After plenty of reading and trying to learn the what most people would probably consider basics of electrical engineering I worked out the basics that I needed. A COB, something to power that COB, and something to cool that COB. My budget was limited so I decided to buy COBs that were a few generations old, that way if I had miscalculated I would not be out of pocket too much.

I purchased five Citizen CLU048 1212 COBs (£8 apiece at the time, currently £9 apiece), five server passive cooling CPU heatsinks (between £4 and £5.50 apiece) along with five generic chinese manufactured LED drivers at both the right Amperage and Voltage to power the lights at around 50 watts each (£4.40 apiece at 48.1w to be precise) and the tools were brought out. The results were positive on my test builds apart from a few hiccoughs along the way which included but not exclusive to one wasted heatsink due to snapped drill bits and/or taps, one driver that blew which may or may not have been down to my dodgy soldering technique, a couple of burns due to my own stupidity. At least I know my mistakes are not confined to only my garden

Here are some of the parts and tools required:

COBs and holders for attaching them to the heatsinks.

The heatsinks and a tapping set for making the the holes threaded so screws can go in and stay in.

The drivers themselves.

So out came the bench drill/press drill depending on what you would call it:

With the help of some strong tape I held the COB holder onto my heatsink and drilled the guide holes then proceeded to tap them:

then it was a case of soldering the wires from the driver to the COB itself and attaching them to the heatsink:

Testing phase was basically plugging it in and leaving it to run for a few hours, this is where one of my drivers failed as I moved the heatsink slightly as I touched it to test the temperature, could have been my dodgy soldering and things could have been worse, ie. electrocution lol.

Hey presto! We have a light.

Next up was finding a way that I could keep the driver and wires static enough to not cause stress on any of my dodgy soldering, after a little cogitation I came up with this:

All that remained was to hang them in the tents after their burn in test and here we go:

I replaced the 300w CFL that remained in the veg tent with two of these so around a 100w of LED.

I also placed another two in my flowering tent as a booster for the other lights in there. At a cost of around £25 per single driven 50w light I am happy to use these, and if ever I want to upgrade then it would only be a case of buying newer COBs, maybe some drivers depending on which COB I chose.

Here we are getting up to date and we can take a look at how those plants are in the veg and flower tent as of yesterday:

The veg tent is still going strong, the plants are happy with the lights at least, although they did shun them and shy away for awhile until I raised them higher.

The flowering tent has since had a UV strip light added to increase the resin production of the plants. I tried it over to one side at first and could actually see the difference so it has since been moved to the centre for maximum coverage.

The tents themselves are maintained at a steady(ish) lights on temperature of 82F to 84.7F max lights on and a low of 74.8F at lights off. I expect that gap to lessen as summer approaches and the nights get warmer and it is something I'm not really concerned about.

The veg tent has two 6" fans internally blowing cool air not only over the plants but also over the passive heatsinks to aid cooling, those heatsinks are barely warm to the touch, which is what I would expect due to the heatsinks being rated at 100w and 120w dissipation. Intake is passive through a length of ducting coming into the bottom of the tent at the right hand side and exhausted into the room itself via a 5" exhaust fan in the top left hand side of the tent. There is barely any heat generated in that tent so it doesn't affect the overall ambient temperature which is a great thing for me.

The flowering tent has an 18" floor fan blowing against the far wall and reflecting back through the plants and again cooling the passive heatsinks, the scenario is similar to the veg tent in that these lights too can be held indefinitely without getting warm. Intake is passive through some ducting at the bottom right hand side of the tent and exhausted via a 6" exhaust fan (Phresh Hyper Fan) and carbon filter in the top left hand side of the tent through an air vent which leads outside.

This concludes my second part of the journal, next is the good stuff, or the bad stuff depending on how finicky you are about healthy plants lol.

May your buds be forever bountiful

 

[Kriaze]

re: A Little Bit Of Everything - Chemical - Organic - With COB Lights & UV

This will be the final part of my update for now, if I get a chance at lights on I will take some pictures of the different strains singularly, that is only an 'if' at the moment though. Cannabis o'clock is approaching fast here after all I will point out first of all that anything with a green peg or tie is chemical, anything with a pink peg or tie is organic(ish) and anything without is my own organic recipe.

In the veg tent I currently have some clones of Killer Skunk along with two Incredible Bulk crossed with White Strawberry Skunk (created by myself using the Colloidal Silver method of creating feminised pollen on an Incredible Bulk then pollinating a White Strawberry Skunk in one of my previous journals). Readers that saw my last journal may remember my getting them awhile back as I was having problems with germination, that issue has since been addressed (humidity which I will delve into later) with the successful germination of the two seeds that I planted but due to the fact that I had 17 clones (16 Killer Skunk and 1 Sweet Cheese) in there already I had no room or desire to plant any more.

Here is an old picture of those clones back when I got them:

Some of those clones have since been put into flower but this is how the veg tent is looking as of yesterday:

Top view:

Starting from the one at the front bottom of the picture we have Killer Skunk, to it's left in the bottom left corner is my IBxWSS untopped and above it in the centre of the pic is my IBxWWS topped. Hopefully I will be able to get some shots of those two crossed plants side by side as it will show how much this particular strain dislikes topping. The rest of the plants in there are Killer Skunk clones either being chemically grown, organic(ish) grown or fully organic.

As for the humidity issues it was simply a case of putting a clear plastic bag over both seedlings and clones alike to keep the humidity higher than the rest of the tent. Thanks to a friend of mine for this advice, not only did he save 3 out of 5 cuttings that I took, but he also saved my germinating seeds too.

Here is a closer look at the untopped IBxWSS:

Here in comparison is the topped IBxWSS:

Here is a Killer Skunk clone:

During the veg stage I don't tend to see much difference between any of the plants, however the differences do tend to show in the flower tent. In fact I can be pretty sure that MrA will be happy to see that my plants will be the same steady straggling along selves that he is used to. I like to make him feel better about his garden when he looks at mine, I hope it has the same effect on you the reader too

Here is the flowering tent as of yesterday. The same applies regarding the green, pink and no markings, a shot of the full area:

The plant at the front of picture in the bottom left is the Sweet Cheese, as far as I remember everything else in there is Killer Skunk but I'll need to double check that to confirm.

Let's take a close look at my organic plants:

As you can see they are showing signs of deficiency as they flower. They have also been overwatered which of course is down to me but the deficiencies are now getting to the point where I am considering supplementing their nutrients, I may or may not, depending on whether I think they will make it through to harvest. I am not a cash cropper so I consider myself lucky in the fact that I can play around with these things, so long as I have some smoke in the jars I'm happy to let nature run its course mainly.

I'm looking to buy another worm farm in the future and this way I will not only have more EWC available, I will also be able to separate my waste so as to have one EWC better for veg and one EWC better for flower, that is in the future though as funds for my hobby are low to say the least,

Moving around to the left side of the flowering area we can see the chemically fed plants and their difference in health is startling, but again it's all about the fun and hopefully the taste test at the end of harvest. Yield is of course a bonus but luckily it is not an essential part of my hobby, still these plants should at least give some yield so long as I don't get tempted to do something silly, although I am tempted top try some form of booster additive. I'll have to think on that one as my first grow was almost ruined by my overdosing the plants on PK 13/14. It was rather a bonus though as it brought me to this community seeking help, and with some help from the great growers here I managed to gain a yield of around 4 and a half ounces, along with meeting a great bunch of people and a wealth of knowledge:

If I can get my organically grown plants looking as healthy as those throughout the grow I will be a very happy man indeed.

I'll finish this with some gratuitous bud shots taken yesterday. All these plants were flipped to 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness on the 3rd of March, with the buds first appearing around 10 to 12 days after flip. Now, about those bud shots:

Top view.

Side view.

That pretty much concludes my update until I get in there and grab more pictures. I don't know when I will post my next update but no doubt I will be around for my usual late night ramblings. If you have any questions or anything at all that you would like to say please feel free to do so. I have no issues with language or banter so long as it is friendly or constructive but if you do feel a need to pull me up on anything I have written then that too is also appreciated so long as you have something to back up your point of view with.

Until the next time may your buds be forever bountiful

 

[HiddenGrow]

re: A Little Bit Of Everything - Chemical - Organic - With COB Lights & UV

Hi there Kriaze I'm happy to have found your journal. I am currently using my Mars 1600 after repairing some burnt diodes and I am looking to make a conversion to the COB lifestyle.

You have surely done your research and know what your looking for. How quickly do COB lights get improved? I want to convert my Mars 1600 into a COB beast but don't currently have the budget for it. I will use your method to help me find the best lights.

 

[Kriaze]

re: A Little Bit Of Everything - Chemical - Organic - With COB Lights & UV

Hi there Kriaze I'm happy to have found your journal. I am currently using my Mars 1600 after repairing some burnt diodes and I am looking to make a conversion to the COB lifestyle.

You have surely done your research and know what your looking for. How quickly do COB lights get improved? I want to convert my Mars 1600 into a COB beast but don't currently have the budget for it. I will use your method to help me find the best lights.

Hey HiddenGrow I'm happy that you made it to my journal. The upgrade path of COB lights is something that seems to be changeable currently as new technology is discovered. Unlike established products such as mobile phones etc we cannot expect a particular date of release for newer technology but what I would suggest is that you step back one generation at least purely due to the savings that can be made, the newest technology does unfortunately come at a premium. There is a YouTube video available that shows a Mars light conversion to COB, posted by Growmau5 and well worth a look if you haven't already

 

[Weaselcracker]

re: A Little Bit Of Everything - Chemical - Organic - With COB Lights & UV

Subbed. back to read up later on.

 

[Kriaze]

re: A Little Bit Of Everything - Chemical - Organic - With COB Lights & UV

Hey Weasel, thanks for coming over! I'd have hated to have rambled on with all those posts and been alone lol. Welcome aboard!

 

[Amadeus Forzin]

re: A Little Bit Of Everything - Chemical - Organic - With COB Lights & UV

You knew I'd be here

 

[Kriaze]

re: A Little Bit Of Everything - Chemical - Organic - With COB Lights & UV

Haha welcome aboard mate! Enjoying your dab rig?

 

[Kriaze]

re: A Little Bit Of Everything - Chemical - Organic - With COB Lights & UV

As I mentioned earlier I wanted to take a picture to show the difference in growth between my Incredible Bulk x White Strawberry Skunk untopped and topped. I put them side by side and took a picture so that the difference in size would be easier to see. Here they are:

Although the untopped plant is a tiny little bit stretchy it does go to show the difference that the topping made in dramatic fashion. If you want a small plant that takes forever to grow then I would recommend topping, if you want a big beast of a plant then just let this strain be free

 

[Advocate420]

re: A Little Bit Of Everything - Chemical - Organic - With COB Lights & UV

I'm very interested in the COB setup. I'll be honest, I don't understand what they are or how to build.

 

[Kriaze]

re: A Little Bit Of Everything - Chemical - Organic - With COB Lights & UV

I'm very interested in the COB setup. I'll be honest, I don't understand what they are or how to build.

Hello Advocate420. Basically COB is the abbreviation for Circuit OnBoard and is a group of diodes clustered together in a tight formation to create a high output source of light with great penetration. They are some of the latest technology (without deviating into Quantum boards which are similar but also set in arrays like SMD'S (Single Mode Diodes which are single 'bulbs' arranged together on a board)). I hope this helps and if there is anything else that you would like to know feel free to ask

 

[Advocate420]

re: A Little Bit Of Everything - Chemical - Organic - With COB Lights & UV

Hello Advocate420. Basically COB is the abbreviation for Circuit OnBoard and is a group of diodes clustered together in a tight formation to create a high output source of light with great penetration. They are some of the latest technology (without deviating into Quantum boards which are similar but also set in arrays like SMD'S (Single Mode Diodes which are single 'bulbs' arranged together on a board)). I hope this helps and if there is anything else that you would like to know feel free to ask

I have many lol
Thank you that explanation gets me started.

Do you choose the spectrum or anything or is it just standardized

3 of those little lights would compare to what for HID like could replace a 400w HID?

My electric went up 100$ with a 600w
I'm not trusting the LED lights and sizes available.

How many might it take to form a replacement for a 600 ?

 

[Kriaze]

re: A Little Bit Of Everything - Chemical - Organic - With COB Lights & UV

I have many lol
Thank you that explanation gets me started.

Do you choose the spectrum or anything or is it just standardized

3 of those little lights would compare to what for HID like could replace a 400w HID?

My electric went up 100$ with a 600w
I'm not trusting the LED lights and sizes available.

How many might it take to form a replacement for a 600 ?

They come in different spectrums although not necessarily standardised throughout the industry, for instance a 3500k (Kelvin light scale where 2700k is a more red colour which is better for flowering and say 5000k which is a bluer spectrum better for vegging and tight internodal growth. 3500k is usually the sweet spot for me) Cree may have a different amount of red and blue spectrum in than a Vero or Bridgelux. I tend to stick around the 3500k or 4000k for veg but 3500k would be my go to if I wanted to use the same lights for both.

3 of these lights would not compare with a 400w HID in my opinion, I would lean more towards them being on a par with a 250w maybe 300w HID at a push. A lot of people go for the 1 COB per square foot for their grows but it goes a little deeper than that as we want both PAR (Photo Active Radiation) and PPFD (Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density) and different lights driven at different wattages will offer different outputs for both of those. Without getting too technical I would suggest that running 6 to 8 of these COB's (around 300w to 400w) would be equivalent to a 600w HID which I have used myself in the past. Personally I would go 8 to be on the safe side, a little more outlay initially but a much longer lifespan than a HID and obviously savings to be made not only on electricity but also on heat dissipation plus less risk of fire.

If you are in the US you may be interested in contacting one of sponsors Timber Grow Lights and they will offer you advice for your particular area, I believe that they will also offer you the PPFD output of each of their lights too which is pretty unique when it comes to light manufacturers.

I hope this helps, if there's anything that you are unsure of again feel free to ask and I will get back to you as soon as possible. Apologies for the slow reply but my Chrome was playing up so I had to switch browser and start again

 

[Advocate420]

A little bit of everything, Chemical, Organic with COB lights and UV

They come in different spectrums although not necessarily standardised throughout the industry, for instance a 3500k (Kelvin light scale where 2700k is a more red colour which is better for flowering and say 5000k which is a bluer spectrum better for vegging and tight internodal growth. 3500k is usually the sweet spot for me) Cree may have a different amount of red and blue spectrum in than a Vero or Bridgelux. I tend to stick around the 3500k or 4000k for veg but 3500k would be my go to if I wanted to use the same lights for both.

3 of these lights would not compare with a 400w HID in my opinion, I would lean more towards them being on a par with a 250w maybe 300w HID at a push. A lot of people go for the 1 COB per square foot for their grows but it goes a little deeper than that as we want both PAR (Photo Active Radiation and PPFD photosynthetic Photon Flux Density) and different lights driven at different wattages will offer different outputs for both of those. Without getting too technical I would suggest that running 6 to 8 of these COB's (around 300w to 400w) would be equivalent to a 600w HID which I have used myself in the past. Personally I would go 8 to be on the safe side, a little more outlay initially but a much longer lifespan than a HID and obviously savings to be made not only on electricity but also on heat dissipation plus no risk of fire.

If you are in the US you may be interested in contacting one of sponsors Timber Grow Lights and they will offer you advice for your particular area, I believe that they will also offer you the PPFD output of each of their lights too which is pretty unique when it comes to light manufacturers.

I hope this helps, if there's anything that you are unsure of again feel free to ask and I will get back to you as soon as possible. Apologies for the slow reply but my Chrome was playing up so I had to switch browser and start again

Far from a slow reply

Thank you for your time and energy. It's very appreciated.
I think you have given more than enough for me to get started. As I'm not currently ready to pull the trigger I don't want to dig in with a rep yet. Thank you for directing me. Your plants are gorgeous and I'm envious at your technical abilities. All the way down to making your own soil. Your a great example of some goals to be had. Consider me sitting in.

 

[Kriaze]

re: A Little Bit Of Everything - Chemical - Organic - With COB Lights & UV

Thank you for your kind words but don't overestimate my plants please, I'll end up killing half of these off before harvest one way or another if I can, I mean probably lol. All the best and I'm always available if you have any questions in the future

 

[Advocate420]

re: A Little Bit Of Everything - Chemical - Organic - With COB Lights & UV

While I have you. You mention UV ? If it's already explained just let me know I will go on reading. You are very thorough.

 

[Kriaze]

re: A Little Bit Of Everything - Chemical - Organic - With COB Lights & UV

While I have you. You mention UV ? If it's already explained just let me know I will go on reading. You are very thorough.

UVB is something that COB LED lights unfortunately do not give currently. Basically because it is harmful to both humans and plants alike, but because it is natural from the sun as well as being harmful we all have a natural defence to some degree and the same applies to plants. If you incorporate some UVB (don't overdo it) into your grow the plants will respond by creating more resin (oil like substance) and trichomes to combat that particular form of radiation, which in turn increases the potency of THC in the bud we harvest.

When you pick up a nice sticky bud that has been grown well this is why, and we all love sticky potent bud

 

[Keir Stama]

re: A Little Bit Of Everything - Chemical - Organic - With COB Lights & UV

Kriaze. That is some knowledge your dropping. Enjoying the reading. Subbed.

 

[Advocate420]

re: A Little Bit Of Everything - Chemical - Organic - With COB Lights & UV

UVB is something that COB LED lights unfortunately do not give currently. Basically because it is harmful to both humans and plants alike, but because it is natural from the sun as well as being harmful we all have a natural defence to some degree and the same applies to plants. If you incorporate some UVB (don't overdo it) into your grow the plants will respond by creating more resin (oil like substance) and trichomes to combat that particular form of radiation, which in turn increases the potency of THC in the bud we harvest.

When you pick up a nice sticky bud that has been grown well this is why, and we all love sticky potent bud

Makes sense. I wish I could afford a UV light to sterilize my room. I have a pet bird and want to stay away from bombs and sulfur. I want things clean and sterile before I get the seeds though. Hmmmm so many possibilities. Do you know anyone running UV ? This is a new concept for me.