1200w LED (SG602 x4) / large scale SWC System

So I'm definitely a newb here. This is my first time posting on RIU. Long time reader tho. I guess I"m just curious if anyone has done anything similar to this or any kind of SWC (Shallow Water Culture) system. In my experiences, and for simplicity sake, I like the thought of a plant tapping into a water source and doing what it wants from there. no over or under watering. Just keep up on your res changes, top offs and all the norm..

I love the results ive always seen with DWC but it was always on a small scale. Now i wanna kick it up a notch, but at the same time I'm trying to keep everything simplified. I spent a lot of time contemplating the best way to build a large scale DWC perpetual grow. I needed to get a large number of clones to tap into a water source, but without the use of 50 buckets or huge amounts of water with changes. So here's what i came up with...

Here's My 24 site Drip/Shallow Water Culture system. I have 3 of these running at all times. 1 veg station and 2 flower stations. This should allow me to harvest one tray up to 24 plants about every 4 to 5 weeks with ease. Each system can be used with as little as 10 gallons of water. I used a normal EBB tray with a 24 site lid. Each tray also has 4 large airstones inside. The reservoir is on a constant shallow cycle, keeping the nute solution mixed and evenly distributed. The drip system is on a timer and helps the roots grow until they tap into the shallow water. From there they drink and do as they please. Another plus to this system is that it is the easiest DWC Res change I've ever done. I just simply turn off the pump to let the tray drain back into the res. Then carry it over and dump it out. No need to disturb the roots or use pumps for changes.

For lighting I'm using 4x 300watt Stealth Grow SG602 LED panels with high output 2 watt chips. I defiantly did my share of research on LEDs before I bought them and I know the controversy that comes with them. I'm in no way trying to hype up LEDs or swade anyone. Just trying to see if they produce well with a D(S)WC system. So far I'm very happy with them. I got them for a great price so it was worth it for me to buy them. I know the company Claims fame to a 1000watt comparison, but im basing my estimations on more of a 600watt per basis. So with 3 of these lights in a 4x8x7 tent and one in a 4x4 veg tent, I'm hoping to pull about a LB every 4 weeks. I guess we'll soon find out. I can tell you tho that my electric bill was only 109$ last month and that's with running a full veg tent and half of my flower room. Can't complain there.

Aside from that, I have a good Scrubber, Exhaust and intake for each tent. in another month ill throw in a small AC unit in the main room and everything should be good for the summer.

I know Some of them don't look as good as they could but I'm a Newb. Its been a long couple months coming up with this system and i still don't have any actual input from ANYONE on it. I should have a Perpetual system that pulls a LB every four weeks. Easy water changes, large scale, less heat and my electric bill will be a 3rd of most. I think I have finally Dialed in and worked the kinks out of what i think will be a great SWC system. At least I'm hoping. I could be wrong tho, someone please tell me if I'm crazy haha. Any info, ideas or input would be very appreciated. Just trying to keep it simple!

Pullin' up a chair for this one LBBear! I personally love the look of LEDs along with the low(er) heat that comes with them, if only we could get them to have more intensity then HPS would be put in the dust!

I'm definitely excited to see what you can pull with all of these LEDs, but I do have a few questions. I did a little searching on your units and they appear to be from stealthgrow.com, correct? If not disregard this next bit. But I looked at all the units on there and it appears that the 300w unit is the only unit they offer that does not sell the 2w chips. Just wondering if you had yours custom made with the 2w chips or what's up there and I'm not tryin to rain on your parade cause I think those lights look great, but there are actually 3w/3 chip units being sold on the market right now, as far as I know those are the most bang for your buck, but those 2w panels should do well since you have 4 of them

Another question I have, with that 1200w of LEDs, how warm are your temperatures running? And what kind of ventilation you got goin in there?

Another bit I might wanna throw in as far as experience goes..my first plant was grown DWC in a 5 gallon bucket. I originally started my baby in soil and drilled huge holes in her pot and fitted it to the bucket lid, she started growing roots down into the bucket almost immediately. To fast forward a bit, in the later stages of flowering she was drinking literally 4 gallons a DAY of just plain water(didn't use nutes at all, due to flushing). My temps were anywhere between 78-84 dependin on the day outside and if I left my window open or not. I was only using I think like 250w of mixed CFL and she was a GIANT. Like I could barely lift her up with the 5 gallons of water underneath her.

Point being, you're going to need a lot of water in the later stages of flowering, just wondering if you're SWC units will be able to supply all of your babies once they really get budding. Just somethin ya may wanna think about. But in this field I know practice makes perfect and ya just gotta do what works for ya. Now I'm doing a 330w LED/CFL(mixed) soil scrog, and my ladies are doin pretty well.

All you have to do is let your plants tell you what they need, they are your best tutor, don't forget it

Here's a website you might find of interest too, ledgrow.eu, if you haven't already seen it. Lots of really good information on that site you may find use to.

Oh, and another couple questions I just thought of typing this. What strains are you running and what is your nutrient solution going to be once this gets rolling?

I hope you the best of luck!, I'm subscribed

*edit* After looking at the units again, I realized you have the 2w chip unit, my bad I do not like this companies method for advertising though. They're claiming the unit you have is a 600w unit that draws only 327w. That makes no sense at all to me, I know they're 2w chips but the 3w chips aren't advertised this way. It appears to me like it's just another way for them to hype up insanely expensive units. I surely hope you didn't pay $1600 for each of those units!

Cool I am always interested in finding out more about LED's.

im in on this one! what did it cost ya for the led light! i heard the dont push out alot of heat but iv heard there wicked expensive!

The one he has cos $1,599 but the savings in electricity and heat really save u money.

Hey thanks for all the input and info crunkyeah. I was really skeptical about buying these lights at first. I was doing a ton of research about LEDs when I happen to come across a craigslist add for some stealthgrow panels. I went to check it out and it was the reps for stealthgrow selling them. Pretty much they had about a dozen of last years models left over that they didnt want to put in storefronts. Its when they were going from the tri-band technology to the quad-band, at least thats what I got out of the conversation. The other bad-ish thing is that the lights are only for 110v unless you splice on a 220v and it voids the warranty. I didn't really care about that tho. They're still the 2 watt chip panels brand new from the manufacture all with warantys and he took 1000$ each each light. So 600$ each. I figure at that price they're worth buying. If they work, then awesome. If they don't produce as much as id like, Then they'll make probably the best additive lighting ever! And I'm sure I could always get my 600$ back for em if I really wanted. A lot of people did pay 1,599$ for the same SG602. So I think it was a great buy. I know the way they add up the wattage is weird but i know it makes since somehow. They explained it all to me when I picked up the lights. They even showed me some good ass DENSE nugs that they said were grown with the same lights. They were some cool dudes for sure.

I Threw 4 T5s in with the 3 SG602s in the flower room for some ease on my eyes and I think it gives the plants that little bit of extra spectrum for sure. since I don't have the quad-band when they added the bright white. Since I SCROG and I'm not going for depth, I figure some T5s will be good to get that light across the canopy. So far I think it works great. So in my 4x8 tent I have 7 lights running a total of 1,077wats ( The other 288 watts are in the Veg tent) with no air cooled lights. With 7 light running in a small tent and no A/C, my temps are at about 90-94 ( not bad for 7 lights but too hot). I only have a 350cfm fan and carbon filter exhausting tho. I'm going to replace the 350CFM with a 750CFM and the temps should drop dramatically. With a bigger fan, everything should be just fine with no aircooling. I will just have to keep the ambient temps outside of the tents cool throughout the summer. I have 2 tents and a clone station set up inside one small spare bedroom. In the summer I should just need one small A/C to keep all three stations cool. Still no air cooled lights.

I totally feel you on the water situation too. I'm still thinking about all that. I've never thought about the soil pot on top of the res, that's interesting. I'm starting to see you're right tho. 12 lady's drink 10 gallons of water pretty dam quick. I'm having to top off the res every other day. So I might swap em out for bigger ones soon. Trying to get away with a 10 gallon res might be pushing my luck haha.

I was running most of the GH line of Nutes at first but it was getting way to difficult with a perpetual system and I really wanna keep it a bit more simple. I just started using Botanicare's one part CNS17, Grow, Bloom and Ripe (use at seperate times). I'm using Roots Excelurator/Zone, Calmag, and soon I'll use a booster. Liquid light & Penatrator seem to work great with LEDs for a foliar spray. So far everything looks great and my Nute recipe is way less complicated.

In the first system I'm running BOGs Sourbubble, J1 (jack herer x Skunk1) and Mendocino Purps. They're all supposed 8 week strains, But I know its not ideal to run a bunch of different strains in D/SWC system. The second System is in veg now. It'll go into the flower tent in 2 weeks. Its all the J1 strain. In two weeks, when I rotate everything, I think I want to start the 3rd system up with a OG strain. I'm just gonna keep it to one strain for each system from now on. Out of those four strains I'm sure ill find something I wanna clone more and stick with.

Thanks for the input and support. Much much appreciated and ill def keep up with some updates. Thanks Guys

Wow, it definitely sounds like you know what you're doing, be sure to post pics of your scrog, they look so damn cool It really makes me think how smart some are...people are like LEDs don't penetrate blah blah blah, well if that's how they work then scrog them, don't need penetration for that! I think LED scrogs are awesome!

Sounds like you definitely got a good deal on those lights, and I'm sure you could sell those at 600 a pop even used. I'm in a med state and most people here are usin HPS of course but they seem sooo interested in the new LED tech.

Best of luck to your ladies

oh and one last thing if you didn't already know it.. It's best to start off the LST when they're young plants. My ladies are a little over 3 ft tall and lemme tell ya, it's a lot trickier to weave them through the netting or whatnot once they get a nice sturdy stem goin on. Topping and LST is your best friend for scrogging Been interested in supercropping just don't have the balls to do that to one of my ladies lol, plus my sativa dom wouldn't do much, she wants to grow straight up in the sky lol.

-crunk out

You're definitely right, I started Scroging yesterday. Here's a few updated, better pics. Everything is going goodat about week 2. everything seems to be doing better now that its dialed in and im not torturing everything. Round two is looking way better than round one. Gonna start flowering them in two weeks and then I'll start round 3.

Looking good, Cant believe you came across such a good deal. I will have to save for a year before I can afford the SG602 That seems like the smartest purchase. I am going to add it to my 400w HPS and make another cycle to cycle the plants through.

They are definitely looking good

I guess I didn't notice this before but your panels appear just solid red. You might find that the blue and white spectrums are needed for flowering, but I can't say that from my own experiences, so I'm definitely excited to see how they progress along their journey!

Just curious, do you know if those are 630nm red or 660nm? They appear to be 630 but I can't be certain. I know in your previous post you mentioned the company going from tri band to quad band, but these only look like there's red judging from the 3rd picture you posted. I see that one on the side there that looks like it could possible be blue, but I can't be too certain

-crunk

Any updates? would like to see how things are progressing!

View attachment 907533View attachment 907534View attachment 907535View attachment 907536View attachment 907537View attachment 907539View attachment 907542View attachment 907544Sorry for the delay. I lost all my privileges after the changes were made to the site. It wouldn't even let me post on my thread. After a few messages with the admin, I'm back! lol.

So things are looking good so far. To answer your question about the blue... yes, the lights have blue in them. I just turned the shutter speed way down on my camera when i took the pics. The lights appear purple because of the mix of red and blue diodes.

The only change Ive made to the system was eliminating the drip system in the flower tent. It seemed pretty unnecessary with the roots already in the water. That way the water could just be self contained in the tray. no more separate reservoir.

So now everything rotates. I moved the tray of J1s from veg into the 4x8 flower room and finally kicked on the 3rd SG602 and DAM, its like the sun is in that tent. Then the clones go from the cloner to the veg tent. rotate every 4 weeks.. So far so good.

The one thing I'm a little worried about is my Purps. When i got all 3 strains, the guy said they were all 8 weekers. I need them to all be around the same in time if they all go into the same DWC system. Unfortunately, after some more research, it seems that the REAL Mendo Purps have a huge stretch period and are definitely 10 weekers. And that's definitely what i have. They are enormous now and finally pushing out flowers in week 3 and 4. hopefully they will be ok going a little short and everything else going a little long. Hopefully i can meet in the middle on the time frame.

Here's some updated pics. Thanks for the support!

After looking at those pics, I immediately recognized you have some sativas in there. The long spindly looking leaves totally give it away. That sucks that it won't be at 8 week strain like you hoped, but at least you got really nice looking sativas! Personally, I love the sativa high over the indi's any day. I mean there's a lot to be said for the couchlock effect, but I like the up go-get-em high from the sativa.

Looking fantastic man

How much do those LEDs increase your temps by with all 3 SG602's? And my last question, are those purps plants showing any sort of bluish or purple hues in the stems and leaves? Just curious if it's possible to tell under those LEDs. Purps grown under purple lights, doesn't get much cooler than that

*edit* That last picture of the LST, wow that's intense! I wonder if you could get some sort of scrog that way *ponders*..

Did you supercrop it where it's at the 90 degree angle or was that just effects of the LST? Either way that's one crazy little plant!

Wow looking good Sorry about ur Purps and there surprise need for extended growing. It really looks like they are shootin out tons of pistles I cant wait to see how much u get of these LED's I am really intreasted in the Low Heat aspect and will purchase in the future as soon as I can save up enough.

nice setup, i will be following this

very nice grow your plants look great! quick question, do you this 2 x 225 led panels are enough for one plant? they're 14 watts each.

@purplecream, Those panels he's using are WAYY better than those 225 LED panels. They would be sufficient to veg 1 plant, but nowhere near close to flower them. You're going to need at least 90w, I say 90w because that's what UFOs are rated. They're pretty much the standard for LED lights even though, just personal opinion, they suck.

I'm using 4 of those 225 panels in my current grow, and they do help. If I didn't have my CFLs though they would be worthless.

Btw love the avatar

lol thanks. so do you think the 120 watt panel would do good? and how many plants could i grow under it? i was thinking maybe two.

If you did some sort of training or supercropping or something to keep the height down, I would say up to 4 if you have smaller plants. Personally, I like growing plants out to maturity before flowering. That way you know 100% for sure that you've got females. I've always been lucky though and my bag seed shows sex after 6 weeks of veg. Not all strains will show sex once they reach maturity in veg. But I'd say 2 semi decent plants(with the bottoms being popcorn buds) or 4 little plants that have been trained and have an even canopy.

yea i was thinking of doing a scrog to keep the canopy even.