LED 100W Bagseed Grow!

[honkonitpopo]

Hey everyone, long time grower, first time journal.

I am using 100w of cob led, and have a total of 10 plants so far. My grow container is an ex-water softener barrel that has been through one grow already, but this is the first time with just led's.

I have one 50w cob led in a cool spectrum, and one 50w cob led in a warm spectrum. Both of them just pound, and are combined in the same reflector with 2(sortof) heatsinks and one 12v pc fan on top running 12v 0.6A.

I currently have 10 unsexed plants started, all bagseed from random weed, mostly good. My government expects me to buy feminized seed from them to be legal, but whatever. I want to preserve some old genetics moving forward. What I know is that there is God Bud and Pink Kush in there somewhere, with some mexican seed, and some classic homegrown strains from around the area. The mexican was surprisingly good(hadn't seen it in over a decade), at least it had good bud formation and a decent buzz considering the shitty cure and lots of abiotic stresses in mexican grown weed.

I prefer to sex a few weeks in based on node formation(internode length) and growth of speed. I have 2 plants a few days older than the rest that I selected from 5 plants that I am pretty sure are female. I may of chopped some females in my selection process but have never kept a male.

I like my ghetto cob led setup. I have always grown with cfls and bulb led's, have never used HPS or MH. Now that I have LED's that pound, I want to seed (a little) the ones that do best under the LED's at the end with some collodial silver. Except for the two plants that are 7 days ahead, I'm calling it day one right now.

Im a poor man and some of my seedlings are going to tap into some reused dirt's fertilizer(50% fresh, %50 reused), but they will adjust with only minor complaints. I want to keep my rootzone for each plant at 2L, I have the option to water as need be, and keeping the rootzone smallish will help speed maturity during flowering. I use shultz liquid fertilizer(sparingly) which was enough for my entire grow previously.

I look forward to joining this community and welcome all to comment. Here are a few pics, will do updates once a week. The first picture really shows the intensity of this setup well.

 

[StoneOtter]

Nice

 

[Pennywise]

Look forward to your grow Honkonit!

 

[I'mOne]

There really is no reason to spend tons of money on this hobby that i can see. Its more about spending wisely when necessary and figuring out when its necessary. For instance i wound up buying foxfarm soil when i found a deal instead of reinventing the wheel. I woukd prefer creating my own soil if my shoulders and arm allowed me to work a mulch pile as it would need. Good luck and good plants.

 

[honkonitpopo]

Im really hoping to find some weird genetics(even if not immediately favorable) for breeding purposes and to preserve what I fear will one day be non-existent. Govt wants to sell me feminized seeds. Which I like, dont get me wrong, but I dont feel is a favor to the species at all to narrow its' varieties. I'd rather go for a walk and find it growing wild. Just my two cents, but over the last decade I've had high thc strains, high cbd, high cbn, but I feel nothing, especially high thc. There are plenty of cannabinoids I feel in my two cents are being bred out by selective breeding for just thc or cbd alone. Im just going to keep popping seeds

 

[Tomuk17]

Good start so far good use of the barrell

 

[honkonitpopo]

There really is no reason to spend tons of money on this hobby that i can see. Its more about spending wisely when necessary and figuring out when its necessary. For instance i wound up buying foxfarm soil when i found a deal instead of reinventing the wheel. I woukd prefer creating my own soil if my shoulders and arm allowed me to work a mulch pile as it would need. Good luck and good plants.

Agreed. Like last grow when I started seedlings in clear water bottles. Didnt want algae, and had a bunch of holey black socks. Chop off the stretchy top and you got yourself a solution. Worked great. The cob led's I got off wish were el cheapos(free for a pair with $8 shipping) with decent specs amd spectrums. Before that I got a meager 1.5 oz from 20w of 4w led bulbs. Thats 5 bulbs, and I cut the plant way early to smoke it and start another grow with my upgrade.

 

[honkonitpopo]

Oh and further deets:

Heatsinks were ripped out of a pc power supply
The fan is a CoolerMaster from a cpu

Im waiting on reflective film, tank was painstakingly covered in aluminum foil for previous grow.
Oh and I just found the edit button so my bad. Im not endorsing it in any way but the permatex gasket sealer(red) I used works great for the thermal conductivity to the heatsink too.

 

[honkonitpopo]

Good start so far good use of the barrell

Thanks! Im thinking of some upgrades along the way which I will post too. "The Weed Barrel". Sounds like a good post for around here

 

[irie lion]

Cool setup @honkonitpopo, best of luck for the grow!

 

[Jdeck]

That is an awesome reuse of something that would have ended up in a landfill. I’m in for the show!!

 

[SgtKiLLx]

Ahh, I've stumbled upon your grow journal.

 

[honkonitpopo]

Thanks everyone. Here are some pictures of the lights. The fins on the heatsinks run at a 45° angle relative to the plates. The plates are slid through slits in this serving tray and attached via screws, secure but leaving a gap between the plate at the heatsink (tension from the slit holds it nicely) so it doesnt trap much heat, just forces it up to the fins.

I flushed the heads of the screws then applied permatex to both the chip and heatsink plates, attached and let cure for 24 hours. Then I drilled 2x attachment holes per chip and the perfect little bolts were actually childhood meccano. I made a makeshift reflector from an "I cant believe its not butter" container, lots of weldbond(takes forever to dry but works well) and fresh aluminum foil I was careful not to crease inside. Also careful to watch my electrical contacts. Runs stable and the heatsinks are easy to grab after a full 12-18 hours and only gets hotter after about 30 hours of continual use and actually is around the temp the manufacturer recommends it be at or below (70°C).

Here are the pics, it reminds me of a V8 engine

 

[Carcass]

I saw this link on your other thread,so while I'm here I'll say Welcome to 420
Interesting setup-I'm all about low budget, and growing in a somewhat small space,
so I'll be following along with this one....
How far from floor to light in your barrel?
And what do you do for ventilation in there?

 

[honkonitpopo]

I saw this link on your other thread,so while I'm here I'll say Welcome to 420
Interesting setup-I'm all about low budget, and growing in a somewhat small space,
so I'll be following along with this one....
How far from floor to light in your barrel?
And what do you do for ventilation in there?

The tanks dimensions are 21" diameter, 38" high. Right now the lights are set at 20 inches, and the 2L rise about 9 inches, so the lights are 11" away right now. I use bolts (4) to rest the hood on, and any heat on the plantside passively rises between the gap that the 18" hood and 21" tank creates. The holes used for the bolts is enough when unused to allow enough airflow in the top even with the lid on, which also has a 3/4 inch hole in the top center. As I go up holes in the flowering area get covered with black electrical tape to stop light leaks.Tank has no humidity really, and stays between 21-23°C. I was thinking of sliding lock rails I could fashion and then just use darkout vents where the holes were....upgrades to come... you can feel this fan clearly at 10ft away...it's running on a 1A inverter which does seem to scale itself down a fair bit, so cfm actually works out almost... 267" volume/ golden ventilation number 3= 89cfm requirement and this fan has got to be hitting 65cfm itself, good brand meant for cpu that I have personally greased for max efficiency.

 

[honkonitpopo]

Update! Man I hope the oldest one in the back is female. I might be disappointed. It started it's life under a 4w led bulb in my other box and what was left after a damn cat simply chewed the whole top off others. I pulled three stretchers(very excessive stretching after prolonged darkness) and got the rest all in their own pots. Will top off the soil level again in a few days after they adjust to being buried deeper. They got a little stretchy when I slept through most of a cycle and didn't turn them on thanks to nerve pain keeping me up after shutting them off. I have a timer I just haven't utilized it yet, it's not like I'm in flower and its crucial, the plants just rise and fall with me for now. So a total of 7 left, all looking pretty good now and adjusting to the ferty soil. If roots become an issue in the long run I was thinking of filling the bottom of the tank with some organics and run a drip tray underneath the whole tank. I dont care if I have to clean it out, I just want to apply my reflective film first, whenever that gets here, but eh, its china stuff and I have time yet.

Anyways, I'm rambling, heres some fresh pics. Total of 7 left.

I was watching them dance today from the vaccum the fan creates in the bottom of the chamber. My lights could be a bit closer but I'm just not going to move them until the top of things are too close, I dont mind a little node space for now. I may in the long run use some 4w led bulbs on the sides, i have plenty of fixtures. Fyi, those little 4watt sealed led's work great with decent reflection. I don't have a meter but I'd love to see someone get a reading on one.

^5x4w led's a week before I chopped it. ^ No bloom nutrients, no real ventilation, green as balls, no shits given just watered every two days and tied where I wanted it. But it got me high. Jar cured it. 1.5 oz dry, everything except fan leaves/stalk kept on. Done in the same tank. Total of rated bulbs was 2000 lumens...so for side lighting on the current grow I know it will do it....heres the style bulb I'm talking about:

 

[honkonitpopo]

Topped up and looking better 21h later. Have some random flower seeds in the black pot, was thinking of putting a lactuca canadensis(wild lettuce) in there.

 

[irie lion]

Younglings are looking healthy @honkonitpopo

 

[honkonitpopo]

Its all getting bigger. Everything is going to get a nice soak now I've been starving them a bit to force roots, they got a little of my "special water" last night(an all natural experiment I will reveal at end of grow) and now they get the rest! The watering last night before lights out made some flower seeds germinate overnight. seems promising.

Flower seeds^^

The one in the back that you cant see i dropped too far in the hole during transplant, so its reverse volcanoed in there lol. Its coming out slowly. When I do more work in the tank(and stuff grows some more) I will take better pictures, in about a week. That tall mexican sativa in the back is going to get ferted soon.

Cheers

 

[honkonitpopo]

everything is looking good today, a little grief still from the reused dirt but fems are going to get stuck in some way better soil when they show. All of them got fertilized once 2 days ago. Wish my reflective film would show up....I guess thats why they call the app "Wish". You order it and for 2 months you wish it would arrive already.

Anyways, been running long light cycles, and since that sexy sativa in the back is ready, they are going on 12/12 very soon. Happy toking all