Dave's First LED Grow Using Area 51

[daveroller]

Nics pics, Dave. What camera are you using? The auto exposure is perfect. What strains are you growing there, PetFlora?

It's a Panasonic Lumix LX3, an older model that works great in low light. I just ordered an updated model at Amazon for a super price:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00728ZBA2/ref=col_PCxjifWomw_GgCKcH_dx5x2rg

This is actually a 2012 model I believe (which is why it's so cheap), but I read that it's better and has more features than a newer model selling for $200. The newer model only has 2 more megapixels, but that difference is usually not noticeable. If you need a new camera, this is a great deal!

Edit: I guess the LX7 is the successor of the LX3, not this one. But I like Panasonic cameras overall and this new ZS20 model has great features for taking vacation photos. (For example, the LX7, while excellent in low light, only has a 3.8x optical zoom. ZS20 has 20x.)

 

[daveroller]

You consider getting in there and defoliating a bit, its a bit late now-(i.e. stunt) but you may be concerned about stagnant air and budrot later on, keep air moving. Have you been taking care of undergrowth to avoid popcorn? <<that and fan leaves underneath the screen are the primary concern- above the screen our lights tend to keep the humidity lower.

Tuck some more of those fan leaves, it is looking great Dave!

Keep in mind, that there is no one variable that determines your feeding regime. Co2, humidity, PPFD (intensity), system, strain, nutes... Find what works for you. You dont have any tip burn @1200ppm, yes I dont like seeing over 900, ever.. but if YOU think its helping with no ill side effects, who am I to say it is not working?

I.e.- In the first week of flower I am ~500ppm, Homebrewer, using the same Dyna Gro nutes, is feeding closer to 800-1200ppm, depending on his case. I dont like speaking for him but it is a mild example.

Thanks, Scotch. I'll be checking for popcorn next time I get a chance, now that I'm seeing flowers galore. Pretty soon I'll be trimming off some lower leaves, too.

For some reason, I've been getting away with high tds for a few weeks (1500 ppm at water change). It's actually what Advanced Nutrients recommends. But I noticed that this last week growth slowed down, so thought I'd try lowering tds a little. I also noticed a growth spurt when I flushed the roots, so that tells me that she probably likes lower nute levels than 1300 ppm, which is where the water was before changing it.

 

[daveroller]

Raised the light panel up as high as it can go tonight:

I'd say that's pretty close to the top of the cabinet.


So here's what it looks like now:

I noticed that the top of the screen was only about 16" from the light, which is way too close. Now the light's 21" above it. So I hope she doesn't get TOO much taller. Next grow I'll start training the plant much earlier. I made a mistake with that this time around. And I'll either have to make the SCROG frame a little shorter or raise the ceiling of the cabinet, which I think I can do, but it'll take me a while.

I also watered down the res a little today. The pH dropped from 5.80 to 5.45 since yesterday and tds went up slightly. That means too much nute, right? Now tds is around 1100 ppm. She did drink a lot of water at least.

SCROGging exposed a lot of little buds that I didn't notice before! They were hiding under those huge fan leaves. So she's growing lots of those suckers right now. Still the healthiest plant I've grown by far. Take a look:

 

[Edge7]

Where is your exhaust fan and charcoal filter?

 

[daveroller]

Where is your exhaust fan and charcoal filter?

See that big hole in the ceiling? There's a bathroom ceiling fan above it blowing the unfiltered exhaust up into my attic. So far my neighbors haven't complained! ha ha.

That's actually just the cabinet ceiling. The ceiling to my room is a couple feet higher. So I think I can raise up this cabinet's ceiling by about a foot. That would be good enough for me! Big project before my next grow, but after this one's dried and jarred.

 

[Thecouchlock]

Nice thick leathery leaves!

 

[Edge7]

See that big hole in the ceiling? There's a bathroom ceiling fan above it blowing the unfiltered exhaust up into my attic. So far my neighbors haven't complained! ha ha.

That's actually just the cabinet ceiling. The ceiling to my room is a couple feet higher. So I think I can raise up this cabinet's ceiling by about a foot. That would be good enough for me! Big project before my next grow, but after this one's dried and jarred.

They're not complaining because it's winter and no one is lingering outside. It's best to get a filter on the exhaust. When it's hot and sticky out that smell will linger and is not good if you have nosey neighbors.

 

[Scotch089]

Honestly brother I would bring that light down a fuzz... the inverse square law is not doing you any favors, it would only help bringing it down.

Id would say no more than 16" with all the mass under the panel, still. But the difference in intensity and penetration between just a couple inches is significant,

With how lush things are, and how much salts they are in, they should be WELL able to take anything from that panel up to 12-14"

Personally- I love 16-18 with my sgs

 

[daveroller]

Honestly brother I would bring that light down a fuzz... the inverse square law is not doing you any favors, it would only help bringing it down.

Id would say no more than 16" with all the mass under the panel, still. But the difference in intensity and penetration between just a couple inches is significant,

With how lush things are, and how much salts they are in, they should be WELL able to take anything from that panel up to 12-14"

Personally- I love 16-18 with my sgs

Scotch, you're right that 16" isn't too close like I thought. It's just slightly closer than the recommended minimum 17", though, so I thought I should get ready for when the plant starts growing up through the screen. And Area 51's web site says it's all about how the beams are focused. Closer isn't always better when light is focused:

"Q: What height should I use the SGS-160 at?​

A: For seedlings, we recommend to use only the veg setting at 22-24" above the seedling. For vegging plants we recommend to have your light in veg mode and 18-20" above your plants. And for flowering, in flowering mode, we recommend that the light be 17-20" above the plants. Actually these are not recommendations, we're telling you that these heights are best (+/- 1-2") as we've tested and tested, and tested some more, and this is what works best, and it maintains a good footprint too, with plenty of penetration to spare."
​

So 21" is farther than ideal right now, so I might have jumped the gun moving it up, but as the branches grow up through the screen it'll be better to have the light up there where it is now. I just wanted to get the move out of the way and be done with it. Thanks.

 

[daveroller]

They're not complaining because it's winter and no one is lingering outside. It's best to get a filter on the exhaust. When it's hot and sticky out that smell will linger and is not good if you have nosey neighbors.

The smell isn't really bad unless I do some trimming. Otherwise I keep the air moving and it doesn't hang around. I can never smell it and I have friends who tell me when they can, which is almost never. I've been doing this for 3 years all year round without any problems. People have even been up in the attic (when I wasn't exhausting grow room air up there) and didn't seem to notice. And we do get skunks in our neighborhood, so that smell isn't completely unnatural.

 

[blowincherrypie]

Looking good brother Dave.

 

[daveroller]

She's growing again, slowly. Branches are getting longer and I keep tucking them under the string.

I'm also seeing more and more buds and they're getting bigger:

Edit: These pictures were taken with my new camera, a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS20. Takes really nice hi-res photos. One helpful feature is that I can touch a point on the viewing screen that I want in focus and the camera focuses on that and snaps a picture automatically. That solves a big problem I've had focusing on a particular bud when there are a lot of branches and stuff around it.

 

[greatbranch]

Props, dave...! This is a heck of a setup you've got going here. I especially like your tailoring it to your needs. Teach me, Obi-Wan...lol. I am still hefting around five gallon buckets (spine injury and I'm power tool impaired ) Lots of people here missed their engineering calling!

 

[daveroller]

Props, dave...! This is a heck of a setup you've got going here. I especially like your tailoring it to your needs. Teach me, Obi-Wan...lol. I am still hefting around five gallon buckets (spine injury and I'm power tool impaired ) Lots of people here missed their engineering calling!

Thanks man. Good to meet another person with a SCI. Do you have paralysis too? That and nerve pain can make simple tasks a lot harder. But I like to do things that other people don't expect me to. For the one year anniversary of my SCI, I skydived from 10,000 feet. I even use a snowblower sitting in a wheelchair to clear off my whole driveway & sidewalk. It's kind of fun.

I used to grow using DWC in big, heavy totes full of water, too. One thing that helps is putting your tote/bucket on a furniture dolly like this: <here>

The secret is figuring out how to make a task easier so that you can do it.

 

[greatbranch]

You just can't explain nerve pain to someone who hasn't experienced it.

 

[Bad Karma]

Props, dave...! This is a heck of a setup you've got going here. I especially like your tailoring it to your needs. Teach me, Obi-Wan...lol. I am still hefting around five gallon buckets (spine injury and I'm power tool impaired )

Thanks man. Good to meet another person with a SCI. Do you have paralysis too? That and nerve pain can make simple tasks a lot harder. But I like to do things that other people don't expect me to. For the one year anniversary of my SCI, I skydived from 10,000 feet. I even use a snowblower sitting in a wheelchair to clear off my whole driveway & sidewalk. It's kind of fun.

The secret is figuring out how to make a task easier so that you can do it.

You just can't explain nerve pain to someone who hasn't experienced it.

Dave, we've got even more in common than our A51 LED's, as I am the survivor of a shattered neck.
Yeah, shattered an entire disc into my spinal cord, I wouldn't recommend it.
A full discectomy, with a cadaver bone insert, 4 titanium screws, and a metal plate later, here I am.
Cannabis helps keep my pain level tolerable (most of the time) so I can function and live.
Greatbranch, I agree with you, nerve pain is a whole other level of hell, that most people, luckily, will never have to experience much of.

 

[daveroller]

Dave, we've got even more in common than our A51 LED's, as I am the survivor of a shattered neck.
Yeah, shattered an entire disc into my spinal cord, I wouldn't recommend it.
A full discectomy, with a cadaver bone insert, 4 titanium screws, and a metal plate later, here I am.
Cannabis helps keep my pain level tolerable (most of the time) so I can function and live.
Greatbranch, I agree with you, nerve pain is a whole other level of hell, that most people, luckily, will never have to experience much of.

Karma, I didn't know that about you. I would guess that you, Greatbranch & I were probably drawn to pot for the same reason: to treat our nerve pain! I didn't toke at all for 30 years, after I quit when I was 20. Then after suffering with horrible nerve pain flare ups for 9 years, I got a hold of some pot from a friend. It numbed the pain for a while and I got a full night's sleep uninterrupted for the first time in years. That was after trying EVERY legal treatment there is, from acupuncture to a chiropractor, a TENS machine, cortisone injections, massage therapy, you name it! The only other thing that relieves the pain for me is Oxycodone, which I only discovered shortly after trying pot. But I've read that even Oxycodone doesn't relieve nerve pain for some people. And of course it's addictive, so I try to avoid taking it (down to about twice a month now).

That x-ray of yours looks a lot like one of my back. I also have a metal plate on one side with screws going into my vertebrae. What caused my SCI was a mountain biking accident where I did a hard face plant after flying over my handlebars. Lucky for me, my neck didn't break, but instead my upper back did around the T5 level. But I also had the blood supply to the spine cut off for a while, so my entire spinal cord below T3 was pretty much destroyed. I take the maximum dosage of Neurontin (4000 mg), but without toking every night I still would get horrible flare ups about 2-3 nights per week. Sometimes they get so bad I start moaning and groaning uncontrollably. Thankfully, that hasn't happened too much anymore since I started toking.

 

[Kinslayer17]

following this thread for awhile...looks great!

 

[greatbranch]

I avoided the framing and spackle...lol. I first started having trouble in 1995, and have seen technology come and go. I have been avoiding fusion like the plague. Nothing that can't be undone unless it has at least 70% probability of working. The stimulator helps. Think of it like an internal TENS unit on steroids. I can control distribution via wireless remote and I'm rechargeable...lol. Leads directly into the spinal column, so where a TENS is only effective between electrodes, I can contol from my lower back down. With all of the pain management crapola these days, and the cost...dear god, the cost...HERE WE ARE! I have always liked my weed, but it is multipurpose now...lol
So glad to run into you guys!

 

[greatbranch]

Do you have paralysis too?

...And yes, but not too horrible. I have to resort to a cane if I am up longer than 20 or 30 minutes. Drag my left leg. I gots a pimp walk...lol