My First Grow!

zonie

New Member
Ordered seeds from a far away land with high hopes to be on my way to cannabis freedom. I decided to go with a hydro setup, I also am building my own lights and power supplies. Here are some facts about the setup:

What strain is it?
Northern Storm AF
Is it Indica, Sativa or Hybrid? What percentages?
no Clue
Is it in Veg or Flower stage?
Veging for now
If in Veg... For how long?
first true leaves showed up 5 days ago
Indoor or outdoor?
Indoor
Soil or Hydro?
Hydro!
Size of light?
~30W LED
Is it aircooled?
Hell no
Temp of Room/cab?
Probably around 73 degrees F
RH of Room/cab?
Unsure, it is climate controlled
PH of media or res?
No clue
Any Pests ?
not yet
How often are you watering?
about 20oz/day
Type and strength of ferts used?
General Hydro, ~0.25 strength


Now that thats over with, my reason for posting here is not only to document, but to receive feedback on my plants. Considering the fact that I am using my own light designs, and this being my very first grow I dont have a lot of experience and almost no idea what to expect from this setup. I am however relatively fluent in electronics and should be able to tweak things in that department with confidence.

I have uploaded some pictures of my setup:
Currently I am using a 12VDC, 1A power supply that was stolen from some other device, I am gathering components to build a constant current PS so I can optimize the efficiency of my panel.

As far as whats going on below the panel, I have chosen to use a modified hempy design, 8 5/16" holes around the bucket 2" from the bottom for drainage. My medium is straight perlite...MIRACLE GROW PERLITE!, I have rinsed it thoroughly using a system that I believe removes all of those terrible(from what Ive read) ferts.

I have mixed one gallon of nutes, almost gone. I used a syringe to measure accordingly to the following ratio:


I use walmart spring water with a Ph of 8+ adjusted with lime juice to 5ish
1mL/gal Floramicro (5-0-1)
1mL/gal Floragro (2-1-6)
0.5mL/gal Florabloom (0-5-4)

I usually water with tap water every third time

I am concerned with slow leaf growth and stretching, my plants dont seem to be developing as fast as I expected.

Please take a look!

Thanks!
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Hi zonie and welcome to :420:

I don't grow hydro, but it looks like your girls are really stretching for light. My suggestion would be to get much more light on them at the proper spectrum. Will follow your grow for sure. :goodluck:
Can you give us more info on your diy lights please?
 
Thanks for the reply, at first I thought, Damn theyre getting tall fast, than I realized how weak the stems were. I might run one of my red dominant panels along with the big blue one and the three supplemental blues. that will result in a red dominant spectrum because that red panel is mostly red leds with only a few blues and fewer whites.

One thing that really makes it difficult to build these is that I only have constant voltage power, so I have to add a resistor for every three LEDs. I am planning on building a constant current power supply but parts need to be sourced still.

Heres a pic of all of the lights:
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As far as the panels go, the large blue dominant panel uses:
6 - 3W 460nm (blue)
4 - 3000-3500K 220LM (white)
4 - 1W 445nm (royal blue)
2 - 3W UV
2 - 3W 660nm (red)

I chose this configuration because I read that the red dominant lights promotes flower growth and often taller plants, where blue dominant lights will be better for vegging and stem growth.

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This is the light that I started with, way too red for seedlings/early growth Id believe:
15 - 3W 660nm (red)
6 - 1W 445nm (royal blue)

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The reason that the big panel has fewer LEDs is simply because I have run out of blues, and Id rather not screw up the red/blue ratio again. I suppose for now I will run both panels.

By the way, most of my motivation to build these lights is from the Hans panels. He has some super awesome info on his builds and many grows on his website. just google "growshow ledgrow" should be the first to click on.

My next panel will be very similar to his in setup #2 if i remember correctly, and if I can build this new power supply we should be golden!
 
If it were me, I would add a bit more of the blue spectrum for veg, and have the lights lower to reduce stretch. You may want to add more light as well.
My girls in veg right now are getting about 300 true watts (from the wall) full spectrum LED sitting about 17" from canopy on 16 day old clones, in a 2x4 tent. :high-five:

Edit: Couldn't find the site you suggested. Only found panels for sale, nothing about building.
 
If it were me, I would add a bit more of the blue spectrum for veg, and have the lights lower to reduce stretch. You may want to add more light as well.
My girls in veg right now are getting about 300 true watts (from the wall) full spectrum LED sitting about 17" from canopy on 16 day old clones, in a 2x4 tent. :high-five:

Edit: Couldn't find the site you suggested. Only found panels for sale, nothing about building.

I really like the idea of LED grow lights, i wonder if that panel is pulling 300 mostly from the LEDs of if theres a power hungry power supply. Still, they seem to be doing a great job with your grow. If you look into Hans' work he has some cool methods to test for optimal light quality/intensity/spectrum distribution in his panels

Hopefully my lights will make it here soon, for now I may use some "60watt" twin tube cfls that I have laying around to help. I think theyre 2700k/800LM. Just need ballasts. Ill keep you guys updated and thanks for the help!
 
I really like the idea of LED grow lights, i wonder if that panel is pulling 300 mostly from the LEDs of if theres a power hungry power supply. Still, they seem to be doing a great job with your grow. If you look into Hans' work he has some cool methods to test for optimal light quality/intensity/spectrum distribution in his panels
Yes, she's 300 true watts, there are 144 5 watt diodes in the panel, only driven to 300 watts. :)
 
Yes, she's 300 true watts, there are 144 5 watt diodes in the panel, only driven to 300 watts. :)

Interesting, Ill have to check out that panel.

I have set up two spiral cfls... kind of sad considering the purpose of this grow. Nevertheless, I do want to keep the girls alive and kicking. After last night, and im not sure if I can attribute this to the change of lighting or some insects, but I found a tiny hole in the taller of my two plants. Also there is a dead ant near the bucket. I have grown various herbs and flowers in my room under LED panels before I got my seeds, one was overrun by mites. However, none of the other plants had any problems at all. I have recently noticed more ants running around so I may need to put out some traps.

here are some pics of the crime scene:
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Snarley, you use the Mars LED panels right?

May use their recipe. Just have to figure out distribution of the different spectra.
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Yes, I actually have 3 different Mars panels. I love the lights, just not thrilled with the ethics of the company.
Really sucks about your insect issues. Hope it all clears up for you.
Tip for the cfl: They emit light from the sides, not the top, so have your light horizontal if above the plant. Also you should have it just inches away from the girls.
Keep us posted :)
 
Busy weekend, looking for a new house... hopefully I can keep this going and keep the girls healthy!

No ants have showed up since my last experience, id like to avoid the use of pesticides on or around the grow, for both financial and health reasons.

Per your advice snarley, I re-positioned one of the cfls. In the mean time I have been trying to drive some twin tube cfls with old spiral cfl ballasts. I have gotten it to work but im not sure id be comfortable leaving them alone for long.

The girls are looking good since I put those cfls above them though! Growth is definitely picking up along with some strong stems.
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I have to keep myself occupied somehow Snarley! I definitely need a more permanent fixture for the lights, Im just hanging them by the power cords. Using binder clips to adjust height. Definitely works though, just not very pretty/user friendly.

Welcome aboard Van, thanks for the kind wishes. Ive considered the kind soil, if that stuff works the way they say it does its definitely a bargain!

Left them for a long weekend, no water for 2.5 days, when I got back they were both much larger and slightly droopy. Nothing a good watering couldn't fix. I am super happy with progress now that I have the cfls on them. Hopefully my new leds will come in soon and Ill be able to build my Hans/Mars Hybrid panels. Also, im thinking about a watering system that will start out on a schedule but maybe in the future ill set up some sort of feedback system so the plants get water when the perlite is below a set conductivity(to measure moisture/how much water is being retained at a constant level). Since im moving in a month or so ill probably test the lights and watering system toward the end of this setup.

Stoked about the new growth!

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Well, havent done anything super cool lately. Plan on setting up a simple recirc watering system this week as i will be going out of town for a week or so.

I found a small creature in the perlite, not sure if its a serious problem yet. I have dome some research on it and I believe it to possibly be a type of fly larvae. I did get rid of him and am considering making a solution to sanitize the grow area this week.

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I figured I may as well show you guys the progress! Very happy with them so far!
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On the larva, beyond what you may be doing, maybe a little food grade diatomaceous earth dusting on the perlite (when it's dry) might help ax them if they do get in there, and help prevent anything else from hanging out. They'll get cut up to pieces on their way out of perlite or hanging around, so long as the dust is dry and it will not do anything bad to the plants. /just a thought.
 
On the larva, beyond what you may be doing, maybe a little food grade diatomaceous earth dusting on the perlite (when it's dry) might help ax them if they do get in there, and help prevent anything else from hanging out. They'll get cut up to pieces on their way out of perlite or hanging around, so long as the dust is dry and it will not do anything bad to the plants. /just a thought.

Is that stuff essentially silica? Im down to try it!


I also had to track down and off a large wolf spider yesterday, no shortage of critters hanging around!
 
Is that stuff essentially silica? Im down to try it!


I also had to track down and off a large wolf spider yesterday, no shortage of critters hanging around!

Yeah it's a silica sedimentary rock crushed into extremely fine power, will not damage roots or plant, but if it's dry and most small bugs walk on it, it'll slice into them and basically they die from dehydration, or really tiny cases it just cuts deep into them. It's not going to rid you of a full on major pest problem (say like spider mites etc), but it can help prevent one from developing in the first place and help manage\control an going situation as part of a multi front defense.

Down side... it's super fine, you need like a little 9$ duster thing to apply it and once it's wet it's mostly ineffective, even if drys out after getting wet, other thing is... well you'll have more minute white dust particles around your grow area... sometime you'll be looking at your plants and be like is that a tiny white bug...oh..nope..it's just a DE-particle. lol Also they say you don't want to use a typical vacuum to vacuum it up cause it'll destroy\clog filters pretty quick...(use shop vac if can instead) that said people mostly do so without issue, just give filter good banging\cleaning afterward outside.

Pretty effective though, friend of mine (totally unrelated to growing) use to use it against roaches and against bed bugs and was too paranoid to use heavy stuff around her cat. The dust shouldn't be intentionally inhaled into the lungs..., but generally speaking it's people and pet friendly, just don't do anything stupid that you might with say baby powder like blow a big cloud into someones face as they inhale.

This is the version I grabbed recently but you can get it most major retailers or garden shops or health shops (some people mix it in water to drink). Just make sure you get food grade version... there is version for like pool filter systems or something, though the two rarely get confused, but that pool version is not safe for consumption etc.

Root Naturally Food Grade Diatomaceous Earth - 2 Lb
 
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