First grow - Easy Ryders under CFLs in soil
- Thread starter enonumus
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Aspyre
Member
Haha, it's hard to get away from the LED bashers. Most people base their experience on early models which did crap for the flowering stage. I purchased a Pro-Grow 250, from a company called HydroponicsHut.com. It's pretty cool, because it has two settings, one for veg and another for flowering. This lets you use, just the wattage that you need by not having to run both spectrums. They too, offer a 90 day money-back guarantee, which was the deal breaker. They use CREE LED's, which from what i've been reading, seem to be the best and brightest. I looked at the Supernova as well, but i think they use the weaker Bridgelux LED's that arent as bright; It also costs a pretty penny. Hydroponics Hut sells the PG250 on their site for $409.00... however, they always put one on ebay, and the bidding wars begin. I ended up paying $373.00 shipped on ebay. So this week i bid on another one since trying to start a separate tent for my veg phase, that auction ended at $347 shipped.
So I removed my 2 ER's from the cabinet and they've been under in the tent and under the LEDs for 24 hours now. From what i can smell, they seem to be just happy
I got a 2x3x5 tent from Amazon for $90 shipped! Can't beat that. Trust me, if you have the closet space, it's def worth the small investment. I think even with cfl's, this tent can keep cooler than a box, since it has more vertical room for the heat to rise. Additionally, i bought a Carbon scrubber, and small inline fan, and a muffler that makes it 25 dB more quiet. i havent really been using it, since my temps and smell rent all that strong. In total, i spent about $650. But the lower temps are def worth it. My grow is also for fun, as i dont plan to sell. Hopefully this investment will provide for me in the long run.Your girls are looking great. I'm checking daily (sometimes multiple times a day), to see your progress.
sonar
Well-Known Member
You asked in my ER thread about how long mine went, but since it's dead I'd figured I answer you back here. I picked two at around 9 weeks and the 3rd around 10 weeks. Looks like Sarah and Tiffany are the "short" minty pheno and Jennifer is the "tall" fruity pheno. Two of mine were the "tall" pheno so I guess I lucked out because I liked that one much better. The short one was completely white with crystals by the time I picked it, but it was really leafy. The leaves are really thick too so There wasn't as much left as what it looked like it would be after I got done trimming.
Cool, thanks for all the info. I'm definitely going to check out the LED you're using, and could you hook me up with a link to their store on e-Bay, or to a current auction for one of those LEDs if there is one? If I could pick one up for $350 and if it has a 90 performance guarantee like you said, I'd definitely go with one of those rather than pay $299 for a 90W UFO that has the same guarantee. I just looked at their site and I also see that they have a 140W version for $249, which is supposed to be 100% equal to a 300W HID guaranteed, and would easily cover a 2'x2' or 2'x3' grow tent, so maybe I'll go with that. Do you know if they sell that model on e-Bay too occasionally?Haha, it's hard to get away from the LED bashers. Most people base their experience on early models which did crap for the flowering stage. I purchased a Pro-Grow 250, from a company called HydroponicsHut.com. It's pretty cool, because it has two settings, one for veg and another for flowering. This lets you use, just the wattage that you need by not having to run both spectrums. They too, offer a 90 day money-back guarantee, which was the deal breaker. They use CREE LED's, which from what i've been reading, seem to be the best and brightest. I looked at the Supernova as well, but i think they use the weaker Bridgelux LED's that arent as bright; It also costs a pretty penny. Hydroponics Hut sells the PG250 on their site for $409.00... however, they always put one on ebay, and the bidding wars begin. I ended up paying $373.00 shipped on ebay. So this week i bid on another one since trying to start a separate tent for my veg phase, that auction ended at $347 shipped.
So I removed my 2 ER's from the cabinet and they've been under in the tent and under the LEDs for 24 hours now. From what i can smell, they seem to be just happy
Your girls are looking great. I'm checking daily (sometimes multiple times a day), to see your progress.
I think the tent you got might be the same one I have on my short list that I'm considering. It's $90 on Amazon shipped, same as yours ($75 plus $15 for shipping), but it's 3' by 20" by 5'2", which is very close to what you said but not exactly. Is this the one you got, or is it just really close? If I could get 3' by 2' by 5' for the same price I'd prefer it, but the one I found would be fine. I just need enough room for at least 4 3-gallon pots, and 6 would be even better.
Thanks for following my thread. I took some pics of my little Onyx early this morning since I haven't taken any in a while. I'll post them later today.
Oh, and @Bobhamm: My Trichs are looking good on Sarah. Not a whole lot of Amber Trichs yet but there are definitely a small percentage. I'll check it again in 2 or 3 days and see how fast they're changing. I do think she'll be good and ready in about a week, putting her in week 9. Hardly saw any amber trichs on Tiffany yet but she's 5 days younger than Sarah so I think maybe 10 more days for her. I'm sure my other ERs which are the larger phenotype have at least 2 weeks left so they won't have much if any amber trichs yet.
Thanks for coming back and posting here, I forgot to check back in on your thread and see if you answered. You sound right on the money with how mine are looking and when I think they'll be ready. As you described, my two smaller pheno ERs are just completely coated in crystals and have been for weeks, which led me to believe they were going to be done sooner than things turned out. The smaller ERs are also a different color overall, more of a pale green as opposed to the larger phenos which are brighter green. Like yours, the leaves are very tight, thick, and stiff, totally different than the large pheno ERs. I'm not thrilled to hear that my yield is going to suffer quite a bit because of that, but I can't imagine pulling less than half an OZ off of each of my smaller ERs, which would be ok with me. I think some of them will yield more than that, but time will tell.
Aspyre
Member
Here's a link to an auction that ends soon: http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-2010-model-250w-HO-Cree-LED-7-Band-Grow-Light-UFO-/280577378832?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4153b70a10 . It's at $116, but it will surely end up in the $300-350 range.
As for the tent: Yes, I did in fact get the 3'x20"x62". It was $75 + $15 for shipping. I know there's one on ebay that gives the extra 2" of depth. Oddly, these extra 2" could really make a difference, since there are some bad ass square pots on Amazon that measure 10."x10", and these would give a few extra inches b/w pots. Luckly i bought some 9x9 pots and they fit nicely (tight, but it works). They say these 9x9 are 3 gallons, but my brain doesn't see how this could be true; guess I just have to take their word.
Here's my current (temporary) setup. Please ignore the Carbon filter/inline/muffler as these will be hanging once i get some ideas on placement. Also, ignore the CO2 tank as this will be outside the tent as soon as i find a permanent place for the tent. ("please pardon our mess")
As you can see, I have a seedling in there. Unfortutnatly, i couldn't fit it in my veg box, so I didn't have much choice. I guess it's kind of an experiment to see what the flowering spectrum will do to the seedling... here's my now dedicated, veg box. I can only fit 2 of these 10"x10" pots...
Thanks for the eBay link, I'll definitely follow that auction and see if I can snipe that one for under $350. I'm also going to see if I can find their 140W version on eBay too, if so maybe I can pick that one up for closer to $200 since they sell it for $249 retail. Looks like it's the exact same LED as yours, just a lower total wattage (fewer LEDs assumably). Well that's cool that you got the same tent that was at the top of my list. I was a little nervous about picking up such a cheap tent, but it sounds like you're happy with it. Any complaints at all with it so far?
BTW, really nice setups you have there, looks like you're taking this "hobby" pretty seriously lol. Curious to know how your LED does in Veg with your seedling in that tent. I plan on still using my current box for for Veg'ing my plants, whether I grow autos or photos. My next grow is definitely autos, but I think after that one I'm going to grow some of the great photo freebie seeds I've accumulated from my Attitude purchases.
Aspyre
Member
LOL, yeah, I have been taking it a bit too serious. It's hard to not want to try and perfect every little controllable aspect. I've changed aspects of my design at least a dozen times. I have yet to see the the 140W LED on ebay. There's another vendor on ebay, Gotham Products, that puts out a good set of Lighthouse LEDs, that supposedly won a GrowBoys award (not familiar with GB, but that's my fault). They even have the "make an offer" option, which basically gives you free shipping.
I don't have too many complaints of the tent, except that certain areas are hard to zip, such as the zippers that close the bottom. Also, the vents are in places that are a little inconvenient to me, but that's only because of where i placed the tent. However, that's all minor. Now that I have all this extra height, i'm considering some photo seeds next. Perhaps Super LEmon Haze. It seems to yeild a great deal of quality bud. So ill be going through Attitude for that, especially now that i know that Rollitup members get 10%, didn't know that last time. Can't wait to see your next grow. Hope you're able to journal it; I know this can be a very time consuming process. The main reason why I haven't jounaled myself. Good luck on you tent and LED hunt!
Yeah, I checked after I wrote that last entry and they only have their 250W on eBay, at least currently. I would think they would put the 140W and 250W there at least, maybe not the 550W, since only people that are serious about growing are going to buy that one, and if they're serious they'll pay serious money. I think I'll hold out for a good deal on the 250W one on eBay rather than buying the 140W for $259 +S. $259 for a quality 140W with a 90 day guarantee is a good deal imo, but $350 for the equivalent 250W is a much better return on investment. Even if I buy a tent and get it set up very soon, I'm going to veg my next plants in my box anyway, so I definitely don't need the LED for at least a month. That gives me plenty of time to get one at the price I want on eBay, just let me know if you're going to be bidding on one so we don't run each other up lol.
Funny that you mentioned the zipper, that's the one thing about a grow tent that I really want to make sure is top notch, so I might consider a different tent. If you can't properly zip or unzip your tent you're screwed, and who hasn't had a zipper get stuck or break in their lifetimes. That's one of the things that you pay a little more for on a quality tent, they use really top quality zippers, even though that might sound funny. I don't really care so much about the quality of the fabric since mine will be used indoors. As long as it has a waterproof base, a good zipper, good reflectivity, enough ports (preferably with a draw string), a structure for hanging your lights and fans, and it's the right dimensions, then I'm good.
Like you, I'm excited about having the extra height since that's been such a limiting factor for me with my current setup, and I'm looking forward to being able to grow almost any strain I want. When I set it up under a 27" desk I thought that would be perfect, but I forgot about the fact that the pots are 8 to 10" tall, so I really only ended up with about 13" of grow space after the space that my light fixtures take up. I really lucked out that that's EXACTLY how high my two larger pheno ERs grew to be. If they grew another inch I'd be in real trouble.
I'll definitely keep a grow journal for each of my grows. I'm going to scale it back though and not take nearly as many pictures as I took during the first 35 days of my grow. I was really excited in the beginning and wanted to track the progress of my plants daily, but now that I've been around the block I know what to expect and I think taking one or two pics of each plants every few days during the first month is sufficient. I'm going to cut back on the details too and just have bullet points of what nutes I added and when.
Good luck with your current grow, can't wait to see how the new setup works out for you.
Well, Sarah and Tiffany are basically ready to harvest at any time. Both have plenty of amber Trichs, at least 30-50% if not more. I'm definitely going for couchlock though, so I flushed them good and I'll wait a couple days, flush them again, and then put them in the dark for a day or two before harvesting. Not sure if it's ok to flush them just before putting them in the dark, I'll have to look into that. Harvest time is going to be just short of week 9 for Sarah, and just over week 8 for Tiffany. Jennifer, Scarlett, and Stella will continue on for another couple weeks probably. Not really sure about Amber, don't think I've checked her Trichs but she's getting relatively close.
Here are some pics of Amber, my stunted auto Onyx, currently measuring a whopping 7" tall with just the cola and a couple little buds on either side. Yeah I know, she's pretty pathetic, but I've seen people do WAY worse on their first grow
. At least all of my seeds germ'd and are going to produce!
Amber - Day 53
Here are some pics of Amber, my stunted auto Onyx, currently measuring a whopping 7" tall with just the cola and a couple little buds on either side. Yeah I know, she's pretty pathetic, but I've seen people do WAY worse on their first grow
. At least all of my seeds germ'd and are going to produce!10/21 Pics
Amber - Day 53
Thanks. Yeah, she's bounced back halfway decent considering she was frozen in time at about 2" tall for at least 2 weeks after suffering heat stroke. That was right when she should have started her explosive growth and flowering cycle, so she wound up just flowering without the growth, and this was the result. I love the look of her buds, it's a beautiful shade of green and orange, with sparkly crystals. Really wish she hadn't gotten so stunted, but I'm guessing she's going to produce around a 1/4, which will last a little while and be enough to tell me whether I'd want to grow her again. I'll take a look at her Trichs today and see how close she is.actually Amber is a pretty nice looking plant I think... everything is looking good, you lucky dog...9 weeks? 8 weeks? sigh. leave it to me to get the 85 day ryders
Really sucks about your ERs going so long. I feel your pain, but don't feel too bad because my 3 larger pheno ERs will probably go about as long as yours. I'll take a look at Scarlett's Trichs today since she's the most mature of the 3. Stella was exposed to the same temps that Amber was, which set her back a little while, as did dropping the light right on top of her cola and slicing off one of her top two branches just as she was starting to flower. She looks to me like she's running at least a week behind Scarlett as a result, maybe longer. Jennifer also looks like she's about a week behind, but she still has a lot of her fan leaves at least, Scarlett and Stella are looking pretty nekkid lol.
Be sure to take pics before and after your harvest, I really want to compare ours. Any rough estimation on your yield at this point?
well,total wet off one was 120 grams, figure itll dry out to maybe 1 oz? so not too bad considering aall the issues I had with tha one, the second one is drowning right now, that one I had many fewr issues(or not as bad anyway) and i didnt do anything to it(supercropped the other one in flower) will cut it today or in the morning, looking at it Id guess somewhere around the same as the other one? Ill take a pic of the drying one later today
ChroniCDooM
Active Member
What's up had to come back to do a little research, haven't been by in awhile. I just checked in on my easyryder and was shocked to see some of my big fan leaves changing color. Starting to turn pale green. I remember you posted on my thread talking about this problem. Mine are on day 48. I planned to give all a feeding. Actually my easyryder hAnt been fed nutes in awhile. I skipped on the nutes because my small leaf tips on top are curling down and yellow. Still not sure what the prob is on that. I quit using the molasses on her also. One thing I haven't checked so far during my grow is the ph off my runoff water. Not sure how to raise or lower the ph in the soil during the middle of a grow. Gonna have to do some research on that. Maybe right now she is just drawing the nitrogen from her bigger leaves naturally? Anyway like I said earlier gonna pull them out of the cabinet tomorrow morning and feed and take some pics and post on my thread.
Thanks for stopping by. Are the fan leaves that are starting to turn a pale green, then yellow, the lowest and largest on the plant, or are they located elsewhere? Which leaves are suffering plays a big role in being able to determine the nature of the problem. When you see the fan leaves that stick straight out of each of the colas begin to turn yellow at the ends, that's a good indicator it's the natural process of depleting N from the leaves. At 48 days you're approaching the point where you should start to see that, depending on which pheno of ERs you have. My smaller pheno ERs started that process around day 50 give or take, but my larger pheno ERs haven't started that yet. That process doesn't really turn the leaves a pale green first though, at least not in the same manner that my other problem did.
Of course all of my ERs have lost a ton of fan leaves (nearly all of them except on one plant), but that was from something completely different which I've written about in this thread and another one. That problem started around day 30 and attacked the largest, oldest fan leaves starting at the bottom of the plant and working its way upward, skipping the smaller fan leaves and the sugar leaves, at least until all of the large fan leaves were eventually gone, then it repeated the process from the bottom up, but going after the small fan leaves. I cut out the molasses around day 45 btw, after using it at least 3 times, several days apart. Don't think I'm going to use it on my next grow. I think Hygrozyme serves the same purpose basically, and I use that regularly.
I have some more pics from a few days ago of Sarah and Jennifer, maybe some of Tiffany too, but I have to clean them up in Photoshop first so I'll get around to it later today.
Well, Tiffany is definitely ready for harvest
! She has tons of amber, at least 50-75%, and only a few white hairs still growing on her, almost all of her hairs are amber at this point. I flushed her good with just PH'd water for the second time (first time was 6 days prior), and I put her in total darkness. I'm going to harvest her either Thursday night after about 20 hours of darkness, or I'll wait until Sunday afternoon after about 60 hours of darkness, haven't decided which yet.
I flushed Sarah tonight for the 2nd time too (first time was also 6 days ago), expecting that I would be harvesting her today as well. However although she's 5 days older and has at least 50% amber Trichs, she still has a measurable amount of white hairs growing new buds on her main cola, so I'm kind of unsure about chopping her. She'd definitely be fine to harvest now but I'm going for couchlock anyway, so I'm going to give her at least a few more days, maybe 5 or 6 before I harvest her. I'll keep an eye on the Trichs and make sure she doesn't get too ripe, but I'm sure she'll be fine. Should have a new digital gram scale arriving today, so I'll be able to weigh my girls wet and dry. I'll take pics before I chop, and through every major step of the harvesting process.
Oh, after tons of research and sitting on the fence, I finally broke down and bought a new LED grow light tonight
! After getting feedback from Aspyre (thanks!) on how his Pro-Grow 250W LED has been doing, and checking out the company that sells them, I decided it was the right light for me. They've guaranteed it to be 100% equal in results to a 600W HPS all day long. A lot of companies make similar performance claims with cheaply built products, but unlike those, this one comes with a 90-day satisfaction guarantee in (addition to a 3-year full warranty) which is plenty of time for a full grow (at least for autos). They actually encourage people to try out their lights and return them if they're not fully satisfied for any reason. When you think about it that's a pretty impressive guarantee, since there's really no risk whatsoever to the buyer and you've got a free light for an entire grow if you decide you don't want to keep it.
I'm going to pick up a grow tent between 2-3'x2-3' in the next few days as soon as I decide on one. The 140W Pro-Grow will handle 3'x3', so the 250W should really kick butt in that size tent. The great thing about this light is that I shouldn't have to spend a lot of money to cool the tent down. I keep my ambient temps at around 77-78 degrees in my house, and from what Aspyre said, the LED only raised the temps in his 20"x3' tent by about 4 degrees, so I should be able to run it and keep temps below 85 without any cooling whatsoever. I'll still use a fan of some sort for circulation, maybe I can rig up one of my 4" 80-120CFM cabinet fans with one of the duct ports somehow. I don't want to spend any more money on an inline fan, especially when I already have inexpensive cabinet fans that move plenty of air.
That's it for now, I'll post pics later and an update when I chop Tiffany.
Well, Tiffany is definitely ready for harvest
! She has tons of amber, at least 50-75%, and only a few white hairs still growing on her, almost all of her hairs are amber at this point. I flushed her good with just PH'd water for the second time (first time was 6 days prior), and I put her in total darkness. I'm going to harvest her either Thursday night after about 20 hours of darkness, or I'll wait until Sunday afternoon after about 60 hours of darkness, haven't decided which yet. I flushed Sarah tonight for the 2nd time too (first time was also 6 days ago), expecting that I would be harvesting her today as well. However although she's 5 days older and has at least 50% amber Trichs, she still has a measurable amount of white hairs growing new buds on her main cola, so I'm kind of unsure about chopping her. She'd definitely be fine to harvest now but I'm going for couchlock anyway, so I'm going to give her at least a few more days, maybe 5 or 6 before I harvest her. I'll keep an eye on the Trichs and make sure she doesn't get too ripe, but I'm sure she'll be fine. Should have a new digital gram scale arriving today, so I'll be able to weigh my girls wet and dry. I'll take pics before I chop, and through every major step of the harvesting process.
Oh, after tons of research and sitting on the fence, I finally broke down and bought a new LED grow light tonight
! After getting feedback from Aspyre (thanks!) on how his Pro-Grow 250W LED has been doing, and checking out the company that sells them, I decided it was the right light for me. They've guaranteed it to be 100% equal in results to a 600W HPS all day long. A lot of companies make similar performance claims with cheaply built products, but unlike those, this one comes with a 90-day satisfaction guarantee in (addition to a 3-year full warranty) which is plenty of time for a full grow (at least for autos). They actually encourage people to try out their lights and return them if they're not fully satisfied for any reason. When you think about it that's a pretty impressive guarantee, since there's really no risk whatsoever to the buyer and you've got a free light for an entire grow if you decide you don't want to keep it. I'm going to pick up a grow tent between 2-3'x2-3' in the next few days as soon as I decide on one. The 140W Pro-Grow will handle 3'x3', so the 250W should really kick butt in that size tent. The great thing about this light is that I shouldn't have to spend a lot of money to cool the tent down. I keep my ambient temps at around 77-78 degrees in my house, and from what Aspyre said, the LED only raised the temps in his 20"x3' tent by about 4 degrees, so I should be able to run it and keep temps below 85 without any cooling whatsoever. I'll still use a fan of some sort for circulation, maybe I can rig up one of my 4" 80-120CFM cabinet fans with one of the duct ports somehow. I don't want to spend any more money on an inline fan, especially when I already have inexpensive cabinet fans that move plenty of air.
That's it for now, I'll post pics later and an update when I chop Tiffany.
sonar
Well-Known Member
damn I was checking out those LED's and I must admit I'm tempted to buy one. I have a small grow space and was thinking about doing a small CFL grow because my 250w hps will get too hot, but I think I might have heat issues with the CFL's too. Says the 140w LED is equal to a 300w HID system and you can flip a switch to change spectrums when going from veg to flower. It's one of those things though I think if I'm gonna drop $259 on the 140w, I think why not spend the extra $150 for the 250w. Where are buying from Hydroponics Hut?
Yeah, CFLs are definitely way cooler than incandescents, but they still put off a fair amount of heat when you're talking about having several of them in a confined space. The 2700K bulbs seem to be notably hotter than the 6500K bulbs too I've noticed. Almost all my CFLs are 23Ws, and each of them raised my box temps by about 3+ degrees without any fans blowing. I wasn't expecting CFLs to raise temps that much when I started my grow, so I had to scramble when I discovered the problem.
This LED is supposed to run very cool and very quiet, so it's a huge advantage over HPS and even CFL setups. Not only reduces electricity costs from HPS systems that would be roughly 2x the wattage of the LED for equal results, but you also don't have those cooling costs that go along with keeping temps down with HPS systems, especially the higher wattage ones. As soon as I receive the light, I'm going to test it out in each of the selectable grow modes with my Kill-o-Watt tester, which will show exactly how many watts of electricity it draws. I think the Veg mode will be a great electricity saver over CFLs, and even if I run both modes simultaneously it's still substantially less power than I'm currently using to grow 6 plants with CFLs.
Like you said, the 140W is equal to 300W HPS so it would be suitable to replace most light setups for people doing small home grows of 1 to 6 plants, but to me it just made more sense to spend a little bit more and get the 250W so I can be sure to maximize my yield for my grow space and not have to upgrade in the future or supplement my grow with CFLs. If you buy their 250W on eBay instead of from their site (comes with the same guarantee), you can save yourself around $50 or so and get one for around $350 shipped. That definitely makes it worth choosing the 250W over the 140W. Let me know if you decide to pick one up.
Aspyre
Member
Congrats E, on your new purchase. I'm sure you'll be pleased. Mind you, I did switch from CFL to LED midway through flowering, the change was noticable almost immediately. The foliage green up and fluffed up much more. I have a cheap little light meter that I used to compare the intensity at different distances, and compared it to that of the CFLs. The LED smoked the CFLs in that regard. Also, I have my separate cfl box for my new seedlings, and didn't have room for all 3, so I got 2 under cfl (6500k) and one under the led at full spectrum. That one is thriving as much, if not more than the CFL seeding.
Sonar, if I can make a recommendation, go for the 250. Im using a tiny space as E mentioned, and I think any less power would sell me short. I've even considered a second 250 so that I can fill this tent to max capacity.
E. A tent suggestion, if you can get a 3x3, do it. That way you don't have to fill corner to corner as you will in a 2x3. I've got my next strain picked out. Super Lemon Hazee. This thing provides phenomenal yields, but since my tent is small, I may only be able to fit one. Im so psyched to see the future of LED. By us taking a chance on this technology, we're helping to fund a future in it. I think in 5-10 years, once they have LEDs properly dialed in, HPS may be a thing of the past.
Sonar, if I can make a recommendation, go for the 250. Im using a tiny space as E mentioned, and I think any less power would sell me short. I've even considered a second 250 so that I can fill this tent to max capacity.
E. A tent suggestion, if you can get a 3x3, do it. That way you don't have to fill corner to corner as you will in a 2x3. I've got my next strain picked out. Super Lemon Hazee. This thing provides phenomenal yields, but since my tent is small, I may only be able to fit one. Im so psyched to see the future of LED. By us taking a chance on this technology, we're helping to fund a future in it. I think in 5-10 years, once they have LEDs properly dialed in, HPS may be a thing of the past.
Keep the feedback coming on how that LED does in Veg as opposed to CFL with your little ones. I have to decide whether to continue using one of my boxes with a CFL setup for vegging my next auto grow, or whether to grow them entirely in the tent with the LED (or even in my current box with the LED if I don't get the tent right away). Want to make sure the LED is going to get the job done in Veg. BTW, are you using just veg mode?
Thanks for the tent input. Unfortunately 3'x3' is just a little too big for the space I'm going to put it in. I can physically fit it without any problems, but there are other issues that I'm considering. 3'x2' or maybe 2.5'x2.5' is the max I can go with (2.5'x2' would be perfect if they made one but they don't). I'm still sifting through the options trying to pick the right one at the right price. I followed an SLH grow thread and the guy was using a 2.5'x2.5' custom made box, and one plant definitely filled that whole space horizontally. The OP wished he'd had another 6" on each side actually. So yeah, you'll definitely need to limit it to one plant if you grow an SLH in your current tent.
Totally agree that HPS will go the way of the Do-Do in 5-10 years. Especially in this day and age when electricity is so expensive. LED is just so much more efficient in every way. Just a year or two ago people were completely dismissing LEDs after the poor results the early grow lights produced. Now even the most respected growers out there concede that LED is a viable option if you use the right product. It may or may not be as cost effective currently depending on the product you select, but there's no question that in just a few more years the prices aren't going to be anywhere remotely close to where they are today. I don't feel like I've spent so much that I'm going to be kicking myself in a year or two. A similar quality 250W might go for half of what I paid in 3 years, but by then I will have saved more than that in electricity.