WW's 2nd Grow - Borderliner XTRM - 2x2 - Single Plant- LED - Reveg?

[wwhateley]

Hi everyone and welcome to my second journal, growing for the second time the Borderliner XTRM strain!
​

My setup :

Lights : 200W HID equivalent LED panel

Tent : Secret Jardin 60cmx60cmx190cm

Extraction/intake/filter : RAM fan 100mm 277m3/h for extraction and a VENTS 150mm 200m3/h fan. Filter is Bull filter 125mm 400m3/h.

Pot and medium : 26L Dirt Pot (supposed to be square) filled with Gold Label Special Mix (about 15L), then some rinsed perlite (8L) and the rest with old soil.

Nutrients : BioCanna

Heating : 2x45W tubular heaters controlled by a device so there's a constant temp.

Miscellaneous : 5W 15cm Clip fan (really awesome), humidifier, dehumidifier, Lumii hangers for the panel, pH pen, soil pH pen & EC pen. I also got a GSE fan controller but I'm getting a bit annoyed by it because it's working in a non logical way. I'm just going to get a good hygrometer instead and set the fans manually with some dimmers.

Alright so I went for soil germination, the seed sprouted on the 8th of this month. I put my lights 120cm from the plant but it went quite lanky so now I moved them slowly to 70cm. Once it's a tad more developed I'll set the panel to 60cm from the plant (thanks for the tip PGR).

The growth of the leaves went a bit slow at first because it had trouble getting rid of the seed so I had to give it a bit of help! Other than that it's going pretty okay.

Here's some pictures :

The goal is to have a solid plant and to regenerate it but I'll first see how it's going!

Cheers

 

[PurpleGunRack]

I'm in

What training do you have planned for this one?

 

[Nova808]

Looks good! Im subbed to see where she goes

 

[weenmeoff]

I'm in WW! I'm interested in more info on those heaters, the controller and the hangers. What are the brands, any info you can provide. Do those heaters put off any light?

Rock on!

 

[wwhateley]

I'm in

What training do you have planned for this one?

Thanks man! Always great to have you around!
I thought about mainlining because it looks pretty good but since I'm trying a second time to have a solid plant for reveg I need a more normal looking plant since I need to leave out some buds and lower growths.
I kinda liked what I ended up doing on my previous grow but this time I'm going to try to use the potential of the 60x60cm tent as much as possible!

I'm in WW! I'm interested in more info on those heaters, the controller and the hangers. What are the brands, any info you can provide. Do those heaters put off any light?

Rock on!

Thank you!

The heaters are from Lighthouse (Ecoheat) but I don't think that you absolutely need that brand because it's a quite standard product. They are sometimes white. They do not emit any light! The controller is a Romberg HortiSwitch and you also got a timer with it. I like it because you can set a day and night temperature and a lot of other things!

The hangers are from Lumii. I used to have the other black ones but they couldn't handle the weight of my lights (even with 4 of them). Then I got ratchet hangers but they were pretty annoying to work with.

 

[wwhateley]

Little update, two weeks after the seed sprouted :

It was a slow growth at first but in the last few days it's going pretty well. Very different looking plant compared to my previous grow, it might be because I got my lights a little farther!

 

[wwhateley]

One week later :

Growing wide and strong! Right after taking the picture I topped it between the 4th pair of leaves.

 

[wwhateley]

Last huge investment on my grow, a new LED panel (I'm going to keep the other one as backup in case something goes wrong with this one) :

It's got a boost switch for 8x CREE LEDs so I can take pictures under a white kind of light! Here's the plant today :

That new panel has a core coverage of 3x3 so it's sort of overkill for my setup but I'm probably going to go bigger in the future.

 

[wwhateley]

It's growing strong! Yesterday I noticed that my tent seemed blown up and I checked my extraction fan and it was like it wasn't pushing any air out. Well the anti-dust sleeve from my carbon filter was so full of gunk that it wasn't able to extract anything... I switched to another sleeve and I'm going to wash that one. Crazy how much fine dust there was, worse than a vacuum cleaner!

 

[dauzer]

Ill jump in too Looking into the LEDs myself so im interested to see how these go. By the looks of her shes really enjoying the new panel. Are you noticing much improvement over the old LEDs ? I see this one is giving off a white spectrum compared to the purple on the other one.

 

[wwhateley]

Hi dauzer! Thanks for passing by, I'll make sure to have a look at your grow.

Alright so here's what I can tell you about the first LED panel :

LED quantity : 63x3w

Pros : Italy made (Swiss based company), very well conceived, low price & good customer care. You can even remove one of the 4 units if it fails so you can still have your panel running while you wait for the unit to be repaired/replaced.

Cons : power performances on the low side.

Second LED panel :

LED quantity :

100x3w + 8x10w CREE XM-L2

Pros : Insanely well made, powerful as hell (like I said even overkill for a 2x2 tent), great customer service and the CREE LEDs are great for pictures

Cons : Pricey

It's going to be hard for me to truly notice an increase in performances because my two grows so far are very different. It probably has to do with the genetics from one seed to another & rookie mistakes on my first grow. One major rookie mistake was that I didn't have my lights close enough to the plant to utilize the full potential of it. I still pulled a decent yield from it but I could have done better. If not in yield at least in quality.

Right now I'm still in vegetative state so it's hard to judge. I was on full spectrum with the first panel and now the new one with veg switch only. The picture you saw was taken on the day I switched panels so it was too early to have an impact.

The 100 3w LEDs are the same spectrum as before, only the 8x CREE 10w LEDs have a white spectrum and they are supposed to be used as a boost on this panel (it's handy to take pictures too).
Some brands like Amare use only white spectrum LEDs but everything that I've read about it isn't that convincing. Plants use a certain spectrum for photosynthesis and white spectrum is just wasteful as most of it isn't assimilated by the plant.
Cheers!

 

[wwhateley]

2 weeks after I topped it (1 week since last picture) :

I'm going to let it grow a bit more and then I'll start LST.

 

[PurpleGunRack]

Looks really good, at what node did you top it?

 

[dauzer]

Hi dauzer! Thanks for passing by, I'll make sure to have a look at your grow.

Alright so here's what I can tell you about the first LED panel :

LED quantity : 63x3w

Pros : Italy made (Swiss based company), very well conceived, low price & good customer care. You can even remove one of the 4 units if it fails so you can still have your panel running while you wait for the unit to be repaired/replaced.

Cons : power performances on the low side.

Second LED panel :

LED quantity :

100x3w + 8x10w CREE XM-L2

Pros : Insanely well made, powerful as hell (like I said even overkill for a 2x2 tent), great customer service and the CREE LEDs are great for pictures

Cons : Pricey

It's going to be hard for me to truly notice an increase in performances because my two grows so far are very different. It probably has to do with the genetics from one seed to another & rookie mistakes on my first grow. One major rookie mistake was that I didn't have my lights close enough to the plant to utilize the full potential of it. I still pulled a decent yield from it but I could have done better. If not in yield at least in quality.

Right now I'm still in vegetative state so it's hard to judge. I was on full spectrum with the first panel and now the new one with veg switch only. The picture you saw was taken on the day I switched panels so it was too early to have an impact.

The 100 3w LEDs are the same spectrum as before, only the 8x CREE 10w LEDs have a white spectrum and they are supposed to be used as a boost on this panel (it's handy to take pictures too).
Some brands like Amare use only white spectrum LEDs but everything that I've read about it isn't that convincing. Plants use a certain spectrum for photosynthesis and white spectrum is just wasteful as most of it isn't assimilated by the plant.
Cheers!

Hey WW. Thanks you for the write up that really helps. I was looking into the blackdog and BML. They look to be designed and priced for commercial grows but a mate off mine is selling his Spydr LED so I might grab it off him for a cheaper price. I would nearly prefer a bit of overkill so at least I'd have the flexibility to upgrade the tent or move to a bigger grow without investing in another light. The BML site does go into full details on the spectrums it offers and has info about UV rays but it all goes over my head. I need to sit down and really study these panels before making the leap. Some of the best grows iv seen were done under the LEDs and it will also aid with my heat and humidity. Temps are petty high in my tent most days.

Best of luck anyway. Can't wait to see the end result


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[wwhateley]

Looks really good, at what node did you top it?

Thanks! I topped it between the 4th node like I did on the previous plant but it grew funny now. It's like instead of having two main colas I already have four. I think it'll be harder to LST that one...

Hey WW. Thanks you for the write up that really helps. I was looking into the blackdog and BML. They look to be designed and priced for commercial grows but a mate off mine is selling his Spydr LED so I might grab it off him for a cheaper price. I would nearly prefer a bit of overkill so at least I'd have the flexibility to upgrade the tent or move to a bigger grow without investing in another light. The BML site does go into full details on the spectrums it offers and has info about UV rays but it all goes over my head. I need to sit down and really study these panels before making the leap. Some of the best grows iv seen were done under the LEDs and it will also aid with my heat and humidity. Temps are petty high in my tent most days.

Best of luck anyway. Can't wait to see the end result

LED panels are very complicated to choose because all of these brands pretend to have the best product on the market. Some claim their stuff is US made and other people debunk it by saying a lot of things come from China and then you get these Chinese brands saying they own fancy brands by offering the same quality for much cheaper...

I try to choose them by how they compete overall. I don't want the best quality if the customer service is garbage and I don't want good customer service if the panel will catch on fire and my house with it

But if you got a friend selling something at a good price that's definitely not a bad idea. Perhaps you should just check how long it has been running because they usually work well for 50k-100k hours.

 

[PurpleGunRack]

Ill jump in too Looking into the LEDs myself so im interested to see how these go.

Why?

It looks like you have a brand new HID setup, and just started growing?

 

[dauzer]

Thanks! I topped it between the 4th node like I did on the previous plant but it grew funny now. It's like instead of having two main colas I already have four. I think it'll be harder to LST that one...



LED panels are very complicated to choose because all of these brands pretend to have the best product on the market. Some claim their stuff is US made and other people debunk it by saying a lot of things come from China and then you get these Chinese brands saying they own fancy brands by offering the same quality for much cheaper...

I try to choose them by how they compete overall. I don't want the best quality if the customer service is garbage and I don't want good customer service if the panel will catch on fire and my house with it

But if you got a friend selling something at a good price that's definitely not a bad idea. Perhaps you should just check how long it has been running because they usually work well for 50k-100k hours.

Yeah looking through the different sites and sellers I can definitely see what you mean. There was a good review I was following. A guy basically spent a few days going through all the brands and rating them mainly on how honest the brand was, he rated the customer service and aftercare and of course the quality of the LED panels them selfs. I'll try and find the link.

I was just looking at your setup again and seen you have the two tubular heaters. I have actually just order one the very same for my tent for use with lights off. Temps can drop to 15 degree C at night so I want to try and bring that up. Iv only ordered one though as I thought that would be enough but I see you have two for your space.

Do you think I'll need a second ? My tent is 2.4x2.4x2m.


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[wwhateley]

Yeah and also make sure you got enough coverage and everything. But like PGR said, why do you want to change for LED already? I personally preferred to invest in LEDs because of the electrical consumption. Electricity is expensive as hell where I live...

For the tubular heaters that can be tricky because they give a huge amount of heat but their contact surface is quite small. Mine are 30cm long and for your tent I'd buy 4 of them for sure. You also got 1m long ones that would maybe be more suitable!

 

[dauzer]

Why?

It looks like you have a brand new HID setup, and just started growing?

Iv seen some side by side grows LED 1000w HID equivalent vs 1000w DE HID and the LEDs always come out on top. Some more so than other as it depended on the strains that were grown.

The bulbs I'm buying for the HIDs are pretty costly and they need to be changed every second grow. It's about €250 - €300 every 6 to 8 months with HPS and Mh. The main reason is heat issues though. Those HIDs are hot!! Most days my room is at 29C with a 1500m2 extraction. It's over kill for my room and still can't keep the heat down. I could get rid of a lot of equipment and KWs by swapping the HIDs for LEDs. I have a friend who is starting a grow soon and he is willing to buy most of the gear I can get rid of so won't be at too much of a loss.


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[dauzer]

Yeah and also make sure you got enough coverage and everything. But like PGR said, why do you want to change for LED already? I personally preferred to invest in LEDs because of the electrical consumption. Electricity is expensive as hell where I live...

For the tubular heaters that can be tricky because they give a huge amount of heat but their contact surface is quite small. Mine are 30cm long and for your tent I'd buy 4 of them for sure. You also got 1m long ones that would maybe be more suitable!

Im not too bad at the min as the heat from the lights keep the room warm enough after light out but if I get the LED I reckon I'll need more. I just received the one I ordered today, I'm planning on installing it vertically similar to your setup but iv read they need to be installed horizontally. Do you know if this is right ? Maybe different brands might be done differently.

Yeah the SPYDRx plus has a coverage of 1.2m x 1.2m so it's the same as the 600w HID or maybe more, iv heard they can penetrate the canopy better. I will investing in a second LED panel for veg as iv heard the SPYDRx on full intensity can put the plants into shock. I emailed the company about the same model my mate has. They reckon the white spectrum is the way to go. Here's a snippet from the response - "We actually use a broad spectrum which appears as "white light" to the eye. While the previous generation of SPYDR fixtures used a predominantly red/blue spectrum, extensive in house and third party research lead to the switch over with the new line. In addition to improving plant growth and morphology, white light is also more pleasant to work under!"

I do like the idea of having the white light to work under. Those HID can mess with your vision after a while. Especially if you need to get work done after a bowl .


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