20"x36"x60" Tent - 150W LED.

Hi,

I came back yesterday after a long period without posting anywhere.

I recently moved from CLFs to LEDs, been reading about LEDs and it seems everyone has bigger LED than mine, everyone seems to start with 180w+ and in general with more watts per square foot than me, this makes it difficult for me to get an idea of what I could expect, so I thought of sharing my low-mid budget setup here so others could find it.

Lights: 150w at full power draw. 50x3w LEDs. 3 Cooling Fans. It is probably 120w-130w of LEDs and 20w-30w of fans. Hanging at the recommended height of 18" inches. I think if I put it closer, the coverage area of the light will decrease and I need it to cover the entire area. It is supposed to be equivalent to a 250w HPS when running at 100w ( flowering mode ). Based on that it should be equivalent to a bit more than 250w HPS when running at full-dual mode (120w-150w), veg+bloom switches on.

"The Advanced Platinum Series P150 effectively replaces a conventional 250 watt HPS Grow Light while only consuming 100 watts of actual power.."

Anyway, I will consider this as 120w-130w draw LED setup.

Light Coverage: Manufacturer states: 4.5ft x 3.5ft coverage at 18" height

Light Cycle: 18/6 From 2:30 pm to 9:30 am. Will vary in the future as I plan to grow some fem seeds next.

Tent: 36"wide x 20" deep x 60" tall. An almost exact feet for the tall part of my closet.

Exhaust: 1 x ComfortZone 6" clip fan . Poorly attached to the upper 6" vent hole. -- I may improve the coupling in the future, 20watts, $15 at the local hardware store. The other upper vent hole is closed to prevent air from coming from the top vent instead of from the bottom of the tent.

Ventilation inside: 1 x 8", 72watts static fan, moving air from the central intake at the bottom of the tent, to the closed doors in the front of the tent. This creates a turbulence that slightly moves around all of the fan leaves. I need to replace it by another 20w fan soon!.

Humidity: It is currently the middle of the dry season and humidity varies in my room between 58%@25c+ and 81%@21C- and below. In a couple of months it will start raining pretty frequently and humidity will probably never go below 50%. I have 1 powder dehumidifier inside of tent and another one just outside, inside the closet.

Temperature Inside: 18C-26C
Temperature Outside: 12C-26C

Pots and Soil: 8L pots, on FloraGard soil. That was the best I can get that is not for hydro only. It is loose and airy, all other soils I can get locally are very dusty and compact. I have used larger pots and the same soil in the past with no significant increases in size and yield, so I will stay with the smallest pots for easy handling and for having more light reflecting from the bottom and air circling around and below the plants.

Nutes: Ryzothonic at week 1-2, Canna Coco A+B at weeks 3-4-5. Used to add CannaBoost for blooming but I ran out of it and at the only hydro store I have available the bottles are expired since 1.5 years ago. Molasses, 1/2tbs per 2 litters of water, after week 3-4. Recently purchased Dry KoolBoom instead of CannaBoost, cause I wanted to trigger aroma production. ( Tarpens production if I am not mistaken )..

Tap Water PH: 6.5-7. Will measure PPMs on it soon. Hard water around here normally contains lots of calcium.

CO2: Most of the time it is above 300ppm, with peaks up to 1000ppm+. e.g when working in my room for several hrs with closed doors, right next to the tent, or after 5+ hrs of sleeping with the doors closed. I know CO2 is not crucial unless everything else is optimal but still I think it is worth mentioning.

I will be posting pics of the plants I keep inside shortly.

And here are the pics of the girls:

AK47 from Royal Queen Seeds., planted on Jan 05, about to finish week 8. Has Fim + bad LST + accidental supercropping (snapped branch ) on one of the main colas. currently 10.5" high.


WW, planted around Jan 15, about to finish week 6. Has LST only; showed pistils long time ago but started to flower around 3 days ago. 12" inches High.

The AK is showing more signs of "something" or even worse than before, specially in the main bud,that was snapped by mistake a few days ago, but also in one of the secondary branches. All other leaves are perfect green.

I also think the buds are not getting any bigger, they are too thin ( like a finger ) since a few days ago and I'm afraid this plant may end up yielding to low.

Should I flush it right away or leave it finish?

I have had real good luck with snapped plants by using honey then give it a good splint. With the main bud gone the plant will shoot energy and growth to the smaller buds - Keep going!

Final Phase said:

I have had real good luck with snapped plants by using honey then give it a good splint. With the main bud gone the plant will shoot energy and growth to the smaller buds - Keep going!

Click to expand...

Thanks Final Phase, but I asked about the flush because the AK has shown the same symptoms since weeks ago, and now it seems to be getting worse on those 2 branches. And the buds are looking a bit skinny while I see not many new pistils.

I was reading about deficiencies and it seems to be related to Ca or Mg, hard tell.

I don't want to have to water it again and I wonder if spraying water with Mg ( epsom salt ) on the leaves will do any harme later when smoked.

Or should I just leave it finish like that?

Edit: I just noticed that Mg def according to that pic, indicates Mg deficiency.

Now the remaining question is: Can I safely spray Epsom salts on the buds and leaves?

I just did some pruning of the yellow leaves as they are no longer contributing in photosynthesis and they clorofila has already been depleted. I also wanted to have the plant looking as green as possible so I could notice if the problem is still going on.

On Friday, I added a bit of Epsom water to the bottom of the pot ( bottom plate ), with hopes that it was absorbed without getting the upper soil any more wet.

Yesterday ( Saturday ), I sprayed carefully the leaves I could, but a lot of them were out of reach. I noticed a little new pistils.

Today I just took the plant out of the tent for a 360 degrees inspection and I can notice it is not just the main bud and one branch, all the plant was being affected, but the worse part was on those buds mostly. I sprayed some more water with epsom on all of the leaves, trying not to get the buds wet, and trimmed the yellow leaves. I did noticed more new pistils than yesterday and it seems that despite the problem, the plant is recovering or at least in the last push. Pot was still heavy, the plat next to it is drinking water normally, same water, and this ons seems to be not liking the taste of the same water, thinking soil may be off in PH, below 6.

I also rotated the plant to see if by doing so, the problem gets worse on the branches that were fine. The LED has a white diode that seems to focus in towards the center of the tent, and the branches located below it had more yellow leaves than the ones at the other side. Also changed pot positions with the WW so I handle this plant easier from here until harvest. Also rotated the WW.

One thing I noticed is that tap water + epsom makes a PH of 7-7.5, a few days ago I bought a bottle of PHup and now I think I got it unnecessarily, since Ca and Mg both make the PH go up.

Week 8: Yesterday seemed like the plant was recovering, I didn't spray any more Mg and today the problem seems worse than ever:

Any ideas?

On the AK I did a flush yesterday and today I removed all yellow leaves. A guy told me in other thread I could have Ph blocked as well, so several nutrients being blocked is definitely PH.

Today I noticed the WW is also showing signs of Ph deficiency, and some yellowing of the lower leaves. I watered with 2cc of Coco A+B in 2Liters of water, that water came up to be 5.5 in PH, added hals teaspoon of Epsom and it raised to 6, added 0.5 cc of PH up and it raised to 7. Will wait and see. Hope it doesn't develop any deficiency.

Pictures are for the WW.

That is a 100 watt light. I have one for veg. It's 50 watt veg.100 watt bloom. You should run around 150 watts in that tent. The P300 would have been better. Use that light for now, and just upgrade when you learn more. Look into COB's or Area 51 in like a month.

The buds look great. Don't spray stuff on them.

Jeeyah said:

The buds look great. Don't spray stuff on them.

Click to expand...

I was very careful not to spray on the buds. I I will stop applying foliar as well. This was because I needed to stop the Mg def.

Jeeyah said:

That is a 100 watt light. I have one for veg. It's 50 watt veg.100 watt bloom. You should run around 150 watts in that tent. The P300 would have been better. Use that light for now, and just upgrade when you learn more. Look into COB's or Area 51 in like a month.

Click to expand...

Yes, now I know I would have been better with a 300w light. At the time I purchased it I was guided by the fact it said it was equivalent to a 250w HPS and I was using around 250w of CFLs last year with decent results. Also, electricity bill is something I want to keep low.

I've been reading about light and photosynthesis, thinking the LED maybe should have green LEDs for light penetration to the lower leaves. Everyone recommends CFL at least for light penetration and I checked out and CFLs have a big peak of yellow/green light that LEDs completely lack.

Today the AK is still mostly green, very few yellow leaves mostly the ones I left uncut yesterday with only some yellow spots. Hard to tell if the problem is advancing but, the pot was way more light than how I left it, seems the plant has been drinking water again.

The WW was also a lot lighter than yesterday, but this one has been acting normally, I couldn't resist and added 1L of water + 3cc of bioboost from Canna, which I got today, to take advantage of this first week flowering as much as possible.

Some pictures from a few mins ago.

Forgot to mention, the WW is starting to stink in a good way in this early stage. When I entered the room today after work it was a pleasure to smell that sweetness in the air.

Checked the plants today.

The AK seems to have completely recovered, affected leaves are still partially affected but I see no more yellow leaves and the buds seem to have swell a bit more since last week. One branch is still really skinny, pistils growth in the top buds has stopped but I see a lot of new pistils in the lower buds. Trichomes of the top buds are getting milky. Trichomes density seems to be equal to my last season outdoor plants. Today I feel more optimistic on this plant, thinking it may yield at least 1oz dry and knowing it could have been way more than that.

A few days ago I thought the buds were going to be airy but today I look at them and they seem packed and heavy, except for the 2 branches that are lacking some buds ( skinny branches )

The WW still stretching a little more, after seeing the pics I'm thinking I thought of doing a little trimming to allow some more light to reach some tops that are a little behind in height, removed around 8 fan leaves. Great expectations for this WW.

Got a new toy today, attached are some pics I took with it.

Today I cut the main top bud of the AK 10.6g wet and trimmed, the one that was supercropped/snapped by mistake. Left the rest alone.

Today the WW had some yellow and somewhat burned leaves. Did a flush and last water was with more BioBoost + Epsom, couldn't get a runoff above 6.5. Will monitor and see.

Should I add more nutes in a couple of days or tomorrow? Thought of adding half dosis just in case.

porrista said:

Today the WW had some yellow and somewhat burned leaves. Did a flush and last water was with more BioBoost + Epsom, couldn't get a runoff above 6.5. Will monitor and see.

Should I add more nutes in a couple of days or tomorrow? Thought of adding half dosis just in case.

Click to expand...

I by no way qualify as an expert, but I have noticed t

That cfl grows by far produce tastier bud

The volitile oils in cannabis known as terpens are what give flavor and taste. Just ignore me if its best or take here.