Icemud's Advanced LED XTE Grow - Harlequin - Ogiesel - Black Cherry Cola - Big Pots!

[Icemud]

Re: Icemud's Advanced LED XTE Grow - Harlequin - Ogiesel - Black Cherry Cola - Big Po

Made me smile, IceMud. Fungi or Bact. based....empty unknowing stares. That's great. Thanks I needed that.



EDIT: That's tantamount to saying 'we found this great media to grow in. The hydro store called it soil'.

You are going to laugh, but dude asked me... have you ever heard of coco? and then went to show me how he takes a brick of it and breaks it up... and says.. "i can't believe this little brick can fill a whole pot"... at this point i was dying inside but still I was entertaining it all... and then hes like... we even have perlite... and shows me a huge 25 lb bag of it... I couldn't take it, it was just cracking up at these dudes who were just so noob it was funny thinking basic growing materials were so awesome...and then he says.... "yea man, we want to be like those strain hunter guys" hahahahahah wow that trip made my day...

 

[Heirloom]

Re: Icemud's Advanced LED XTE Grow - Harlequin - Ogiesel - Black Cherry Cola - Big Po

Oh man. That is too much. The wonders never cease.

But seriously. Who doesn't want to be Franco?

 

[Duggan]

Re: Icemud's Advanced LED XTE Grow - Harlequin - Ogiesel - Black Cherry Cola - Big Po

Mornin Ice.....those guys.....how could they run a business in SC with so little knowledge? SC is such a competitive and ground breaking place...I don't get it. Anyhow ,cheers Ice and have an awesome day!

 

[Icemud]

Re: Icemud's Advanced LED XTE Grow - Harlequin - Ogiesel - Black Cherry Cola - Big Po

Oh man. That is too much. The wonders never cease.

But seriously. Who doesn't want to be Franco?

Yea, I definitely was very entertained yesterday...

 

[Icemud]

Re: Icemud's Advanced LED XTE Grow - Harlequin - Ogiesel - Black Cherry Cola - Big Po

Mornin Ice.....those guys.....how could they run a business in SC with so little knowledge? SC is such a competitive and ground breaking place...I don't get it. Anyhow ,cheers Ice and have an awesome day!

Good question.... Its hard to say it was really a legit business, they didn't have a website and only way I found them was on Craigsl!st. In all honestly when I walked in the front office it looked like a mix between a hoarders bedroom/man cave and a garage sale...haha

My guess would be they won't be in business for long... I mean when I buy 70$ worth of clones and you cant even give me change... not legit in my eyes...haha

 

[CronicHempHog]

Re: Icemud's Advanced LED XTE Grow - Harlequin - Ogiesel - Black Cherry Cola - Big Po

 

[Icemud]

Re: Icemud's Advanced LED XTE Grow - Harlequin - Ogiesel - Black Cherry Cola - Big Po

So I wanted to share another bit of info I put together for a question that was asked to me via PM. For the sake of keeping the other end user private, I wont mention names or quote him directly but his question was this...

He has a 4x4 tent, a 1000w HID and having issue with keeping the heat down. His question was if he was to dim his HPS ballast and buy a LED, would his heat go down....and here is my reply.

I felt it was quite informational, and actually made me have to do a little research which was fun, as I enjoy lighting a ton I felt by posting it here, maybe more can learn or add to the question with their own info.

I will try to give you the best info I can. As far as your heat issue, i see you have a vented hood, are going to be venting it with a blower/fan? Or are you already using a blower/fan and still having issues? The reason I ask is I didn't see you mentioning it and so if you were NOT venting and having heat issues then I would suggest first looking into a fan for heat extraction.

Now if you already have a fan hooked up, where does it leave the tent and where does the air go? Meaning, does the hot air exit the tent and then blow directly into the room that the tent is in? or do you have the ducting pushing the hot air outside the room your tent is in? the reason I ask this is because I have my tents venting into the room the tents are in, and over time as the lights are on, the heat of the room raises, therefore also raising the temperature of the tent. For me since I was unable to directly vent outside, to minimize heat I have to keep a box fan running in my window blowing outwards 24/7.

The reason I am mentioning the venting first as it would be the first "link in the chain" of addressing for cooling your grow area.

Now as far as adding extra light and reducing the wattage of the HID lights by dimming them and would it help... thats a tricky question..

Color shift:
With HPS, when you dim a bulb lower than the max rating, not only does the intensity obviously change, but so does the spectrum, and with HPS the more you dim it, the more it shifts from orange/red to yellow. Now as far as plants needs and how they take in light, yellow light is used, but not as efficiently as orange/red light, therefore you would be dimming your ballast to reduce power, but also reducing the actual efficiency of the spectrum by shifting it towards a lower absorbing color. This is not a huge shift but it is something worth mentioning.

Efficiency
Now I am definitely not as knowledgeable about the technical details of HID as I am with LED, but from what I have read, by dimming the HPS bulbs down, not only are you changing the spectrum, but also lower the electrical efficiency in converting watts to light. Now, like I said, I have not heavily researched HID for this specific question, but the general consensus I have gathered says if its a 1000w, run it at 1000w, if you want it run lower, you would be better off getting a 600w ballast and 600w bulb or 400w ballast and 400w bulb as from what I read this is where HID lighting runs most efficient (at max power). For example lets say that at 100% power draw the HPS puts out 100% of its lumens, when dimmed to 75% power, the HPS is only putting out 65-75% of its total output, and at 50% power draw, HPS is only putting out 35-45% of its lumens. (information based of Osram/sylvania data sheets).
Therefore the efficiency does go down, not drastically but its something to also take note.

Another example would be:
a 1000w HPS puts out roughly 140,000 lumens at full 140lm/watt (1000W)
a 1000w HPS puts out roughly 91,000-105,000 lumens at 75% (750W) or 121lm/w - 140lm/w
a 1000w HPS puts out roughly 49,000-63,000 lumens at 50% (500w) or 98lm/w - 126lm/w
A 600w HPS running at 100% puts out roughly 92,000 lumens. or 153lm/watt
*these numbers are base line data for example purpose but each bulb would have slightly different values, but the trend would be roughly similar.


Bulb Life/Lumen Maintenance
From everything I read, by dimming the HID bulbs down it also has a great potential to lower the life of the bulb much sooner than the projected lifetime which can range from 12,000 hrs to 24,000 before replacement. I couldn't find the actual difference data quickly searching but I would just take this into consideration as well.

So, by what I just said, basically if you decide to dim your HPS, you are losing efficiency, bulb life and slightly altering your spectrum. Now will this help you cool your grow area..

Heat
Ive done quite a bit of reading on this topic and the general statement "LED's run cooler" is only half true. According to physics laws, any electric lighting system in a closed environment despite its electrical efficiency at equal wattage will produce the same heat load to the closed environment. What this means is if you had 10x 100w bulbs, 1x 1000 bulb, 1x 600wHPS + 1x 400w LED would all add exactly the same heat load to a sealed environment. (not considering air venting and heat extraction fans). How this breaks down is 1w=3.41 BTU/hour. Now many would say, but wait, isn't a light that is more efficient going to put out less heat...and the answer is no... because when light hits a surface it is reflected and/or absorbed. Eventually all light particles (photons) will become absorbed which is why when you turn off a lightswitch, the room goes immediately dark, because the photon energy is absorbed into the surroundings. When a photon is absorbed, it puts off heat, so despite having 2 lamps with different efficiency, the total heat added to the closed area will still be the same regardless of the light source as heat load is constant with draw wattage as the formula above points out.

Now why did I mention this? Well if you were to lets say dim your ballast down to 75% and then add 250W of LED, the wattage draw would be the same, therefore the heat load would be the same. Yes LED light is absorbed into the plant much more efficiently than HPS so the (250w of energy) would be used by the plant more efficiently so yes you might get a slightly better yield by adding LED, and the buds definitely would gain quality as LED is more targeted to the specific wavelengths plants absorb and utilize, however in the topic of "will this cool my tent" the answer would be no...

I've found that HID with air cooled hoods vs LED of same wattage actually can be slightly cooler than LED due to air cooled HID having a way to evacuate the heat directly out of the grow area, where LED actually vents the warm air right into your grow area....

So all in all, I would say if getting a Mars II is within your budget, give it a try and I definitely think your quality may go up a little, as well as from other comparison tests usually led does produce more THC and better flavor as well. In terms of heat, I don't think it really would help much as far as reduction. By dimming your ballast to 75% as the example above shows, the efficiency loss isn't that much, so by adding a Light with more efficiency in photons being absorbed (led) I think you may even see a tiny yield increase.

I hope this helps, answering it was actually quite fun for me because I don't study HID lighting much anymore so it was not only refreshing to re research it, but also learned a little myself

If you need anything else, feel free to ask.

 

[SweetSue]

Re: Icemud's Advanced LED XTE Grow - Harlequin - Ogiesel - Black Cherry Cola - Big Po

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Icemud again."

Your brilliance is showing Icemud. It thrills me to find someone who gets the same rush from sharing research as I do.

 

[Heirloom]

Re: Icemud's Advanced LED XTE Grow - Harlequin - Ogiesel - Black Cherry Cola - Big Po

I don't have a sledgehammer of Rep like SweetSue, but I hit him with my jewlers hammer (by comparison) of Rep.

 

[Icemud]

Re: Icemud's Advanced LED XTE Grow - Harlequin - Ogiesel - Black Cherry Cola - Big Po

Alright Ladies and Gents....

Update time..

Day 56 of flowering:

Well first off, I want to say I am overall not pleased with how this grow is turning out and I can't wait to be done with it so that I can start fresh and really focus on my soil health again. The Ogiesel is still giving me pride when I look in the tent, but the black cherry cola, even though smelling amazing, is just ugly to look at...LOL. Overall I still will get some amazing smoke from them, but the success of this grow didn't go as planned but I have so many new genetics to play with, I am excited to get some new flavors going

The last 2 feedings I have gave the girls were pretty much just plain water with a spoonful of azomite, spoonful of tea starter, and a spoonful of calcium carbonate. Since I am getting close to the end I probably will give them one more full earthjuice tea but after that it will be just plain water for the remainder of the grow.

I have to say as far as fragarence though, both plants are very very stinky, and the Ogiesel acutually seems to have a slight sweeter smell to her than in past grows.

The Veg Tent:

The veg tent is coming along nicely. Currently in the tent I have 1x Harlequin, 1x Ogiesel, 1x GSC (purple version), 1x GSC (thin mint), 2x Black cherry sodas, 3x Tangies....

So This tent is looking great and I love how these all blue ExVEG lights make the plants respond. They always have a good "praying" posture and the leafs seem to take on a lighter green than under other lights. I noticed today that the girls definitely were getting very tall so I decided to trim them down quite a bit to be able to bring the lights closer to the tangies, and also branch out the plants to prep them for flowering soon. I haven't completely decided what I am going to do for flowering next, but time will tell when all said and done.

The 3rd Tent:

In this tent I have 5 of my tangies, as well as all the new clones that I picked up yesterday (Black diamond OG, blue dream, 3x GDP, area 51 and Fire OG. They are on a 24/0 cycle currently until the GDP roots and shows growth and then they will be turned down to 18/6. I mixed up a foliar spray for the clones today that I will be giving them for the next couple day to help with them getting used to the new soil, as well as I mixed in some spinosad and SNS which will help get rid of any mites

 

[Duggan]

Re: Icemud's Advanced LED XTE Grow - Harlequin - Ogiesel - Black Cherry Cola - Big Po

Holy crap Ice....you gotta lot goin on over there eh! All's lookin proper pal....have ya thought about giving those bushy lil ones a squeeze (supercropping) to get all those side branches going ,or are you pressed for the space they will ,then need? Cheers eh!

 

[SweetSue]

Re: Icemud's Advanced LED XTE Grow - Harlequin - Ogiesel - Black Cherry Cola - Big Po

As someone who has yet to figure out how to get maximum usage out of my tent real estate, may I applaud your control of your own space. I bow to your talent in spacial control.

Maybe between you and Graytail I'll learn a thing or two. I've spent so much time studying his journals I'm beginning to see it in my sleep.

He uses those square pots too.

How much do yours hold?

 

[SweetSue]

Re: Icemud's Advanced LED XTE Grow - Harlequin - Ogiesel - Black Cherry Cola - Big Po

Icemud....it's about quality, not pretty plants. Tsk, tsk. You know that. ' I snapped the main stem of that gorgeous Cheese Candy one day because I was so pissed that I let her get so lanky I just reached over and did it. While she was in full bloom. I wanted her to be pretty, so I know where you come from.

Now, I may not be a good example here, because that plant I tried to kill is banging out those foxtails and spitting out pistils with frostiness galore, so once again I broke the rules and still took the prize. Not everyone has my guardian angel riding shotgun.

 

[Icemud]

Re: Icemud's Advanced LED XTE Grow - Harlequin - Ogiesel - Black Cherry Cola - Big Po

Holy crap Ice....you gotta lot goin on over there eh! All's lookin proper pal....have ya thought about giving those bushy lil ones a squeeze (supercropping) to get all those side branches going ,or are you pressed for the space they will ,then need? Cheers eh!

Hey Duggan,

Yeah I'm a little pressed for space so haven't been doing any training at the moment. With the tangies I wont be because I want to compare plant structure for when I pick the pheno I like, the others I probably will just flower out 1x with a little training later in the cycle to see if I like them, and if I do then they will be cloned and vegged out again

 

[Icemud]

Re: Icemud's Advanced LED XTE Grow - Harlequin - Ogiesel - Black Cherry Cola - Big Po

As someone who has yet to figure out how to get maximum usage out of my tent real estate, may I applaud your control of your own space. I bow to your talent in spacial control.

Maybe between you and Graytail I'll learn a thing or two. I've spent so much time studying his journals I'm beginning to see it in my sleep.

He uses those square pots too.

How much do yours hold?

The square pots are 5 gallons each. I used them because the seemed to fit slightly better in my grow area, however I also am trying out the larger smartpots too. Always trying something new

 

[Icemud]

Re: Icemud's Advanced LED XTE Grow - Harlequin - Ogiesel - Black Cherry Cola - Big Po

Icemud....it's about quality, not pretty plants. Tsk, tsk. You know that. ' I snapped the main stem of that gorgeous Cheese Candy one day because I was so pissed that I let her get so lanky I just reached over and did it. While she was in full bloom. I wanted her to be pretty, so I know where you come from.

Now, I may not be a good example here, because that plant I tried to kill is banging out those foxtails and spitting out pistils with frostiness galore, so once again I broke the rules and still took the prize. Not everyone has my guardian angel riding shotgun.

Yea, I just want the best of both worlds lol... I've had some really ugly plants come out amazingly good so yea its all about the genetics and overall the grow

 

[Icemud]

Re: Icemud's Advanced LED XTE Grow - Harlequin - Ogiesel - Black Cherry Cola - Big Po

A quick little grow video update

 

[Heirloom]

Re: Icemud's Advanced LED XTE Grow - Harlequin - Ogiesel - Black Cherry Cola - Big Po

Nice!

 

[Icemud]

Re: Icemud's Advanced LED XTE Grow - Harlequin - Ogiesel - Black Cherry Cola - Big Po

Nice!

Thanks Heirloom!!!

 

[SweetSue]

Re: Icemud's Advanced LED XTE Grow - Harlequin - Ogiesel - Black Cherry Cola - Big Po

Well, the run is almost behind you and some good possibilities coming up to fill the space. May the next installment bring you more joy.