2nd: small tent, soil, Quantum Boards +blue +UV

My second grow, discussion welcomed.

Environment: Indoor, Gorilla 2x2.5
Lights: 2xQB288v2, with supplemental blue via a pair of QB11 and UV using two T5 reptile lamps.
Medium: FoxFarms Ocean Forest, perlite, and dolomite lime will be added at transplant. Fabric pots.
Nutes: sticking with FoxFarm trio for nutrients again.
Water: tap is 7.8pH 186ppm. I've been thinking of 6.3pH instead of my previous 6.5pH
Plant: Purple Strawberry Bliss from Seedsman It's supposed to be a heavy sativa. One plant at a time, we're going to fill this space. I'll be topping, using LST, and SCROGing (two nets?).

What's new?
Well the lights are new for this grow. I added to my 2XQB288. More about that later. I learned lots from the previous grow that I'm anxious to implement- things like running hotter with LED, Vapor-Pressure Deficit, spectrum tuning etc. Got some new toys, an Apogee PAR meter and a Sekonic spectrum analyzer. Solved my problem with negative pressure sucking in the tent walls. Cleaned up my electrical panel a bit.

I plan on updating weekly. I hope you like the format of inserting the main images directly in the body. They'll be smaller file sizes and in some cases additional pics attached via thumbnail.



Jun8: Day1 GERM
Obviously not much to see here... The seed is in a RapidRooter surrounded by soil in two SOLO cups. She's in a clear cup inserted into a red one so I can check the root system.

Here's more about my light. I think it's pretty awesome!

I have a pair of QB288s mounted to a slate2 heatsink. I got another slate2 and cut in in half lengthwise, and designed and built brackets to mount the two halves on either side of the 288s at about a twenty degree angle. The halve each have a QB11 blue strip and a T5 reptile lamp for UV. I bought two new Sunblaster fixtures with reflectors (link), and modified them for my fixture. Basically I tore them both apart, discarded the drivers for my own and rewired them. On either side of the fixture is a 3X730nm strip from HLG, with their flower initiator kit, also mounted at about twenty degrees inward.
Originally I wasn't planning on mounting the drivers to the top of the fixture, but I think it worked out better for several reasons.

I have a Sekonic C-700R-U light meter.


Here is the spectral output of my two QB288v2



And this is with the added blue. Odd how there's now a spike at 550nm and 600nm. I don't understand that. I wonder if I had the T5 6500k bulbs turned on for this test? I'll have to test again to be sure.
I'm a little concerned about having too much blue. The blue will be turned off at flower.



I plan on adding reds in, am currently waiting for HLG to redesign or even restock the QB11 red.

Jun13: Day5 SEED

Well it looks like the light is a bit much at this stage. The cotyledons are curled under and the edges of the first set of true leaves are as well. I raised the fixture to 36" height, which provides 220 umoles. Will adjust as needed over the next few days.

Jun19 Day11 SEED

Leaves are looking better. However I've got NO internodal spacing with the third set coming in. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Also, my spectral output with the 288 and blues in the above chart was incorrect- I had the two T5 lamps turned on. They are not even used, only placeholders for the T5 UV bulbs.

Love the light, nice job.

Best of luck with everything.

Thanks diggs!
I had a stroke of luck and HLG restocked the QB11 reds.

After 18 days of seedling stage, I'm seeing four nodes and what appears to be the first set of true fan leaves. Today is...

Jun30 Day1 VEG

Inter-nodal spacing: I've got it now, looks good but we're ramping up the lighting.
The light was lowered to 30" on Day12 SEED, 280umoles. Then five days later lowered again to 24" for 310umoles. The leaves continue to respond well. In a few days I'll lower it a bit more if it is still happy.

I'm seeing the same uneven coloring of the leaves than I did throughout my first grow. I don't seem to see it in other grow journals. I'm considering starting the Big Bloom feeding much earlier this grow, likely a very light application at next watering (five mL per gallon). The FoxFarm schedule calls for 30mL even at this early stage.
Other than that though everything seems to be looking good. The transplant to 1gal fabric pot occurred on Day14 SEED once several roots appeared at the edge of the clear solo cup. The main stem is fairly thick, spacing looks good like I said earlier, and the leaves appear to be generally perky.

Pics, The darker picture is about eight hours newer than the other two- minutes before lights on this afternoon. That picture is camera flash and closet light to show the colors in a different light.

JUL7 Day8 VEG

So lowering the lamp to 24" (310umoles) was ok, but moving to 18" (380umoles) three days later was not good. It was too fast of a move, and she began experiencing heat stress. The following day the medium got a bit too dry as well- raised light to 20" (340umoles) and watered. The following day was perked back up a bit. Yesterday was dry again, and back to looking a bit stressed as well. Transplanted to 10gal. This is likely the final pot.

I got the rest of my light built. I added two QB11 Deep Red 680nm, and stole the two QB3 730 flower initiator boards to be used with the deep red.
Unfortunately one of my QB11 blue strips took a dump on me. The driver trips the breaker box after sending power to it briefly- the middle three LEDs don't light up at all. There is no physical damage visible to the board, I'll give HLG an email shortly.



Oh yes, and I topped.

Light setup is killer man, looking good

Super interesting so far, keep it up. Im in for the follows.

Id love to see you do a side by side of a setup like this versus a cheaper chinese knock off brand that claims the same builds and diodes.

Looks great.

Thanks SMT69 and Teeberry, great to have you along.

If I had room to do a side by side I'd be growing more than one plant. My wife suggested we convert a whole room to growing, but I limited myself to a closet.

Side note: HLG was super cool about getting my blue strip replaced. They couldn't find my order number but took care of it anyway. That's the second warranty experience with them and both times they were stellar. @Stephenj37826

I'm gonna go back & reread your thread I run 3x3 tents & single plant grows keep posting its caught my interest your light is very well thought out & put together good job !

JUL13 DAY14VEG

So here's my overall strategy- I'm not going to rush VEG. I think creating a great plant in the vegetative stage sets the grow up for success in flower. Having said that, I was having second thoughts on how long I've waited to top (the week before last), prune, or begin LST for SCROG. I waited for the second or third set of true leaves to top, but the overall height of the plant within my space could be a concern. My last grow was an Indica strain, this one is Sativa.

This supposedly Sativa sure has huge fan leaves! WOW I was expecting thin wispy things but whatever. In either case the very large fan leaves were blocking light to the growth underneath. I've read that some growers don't like to prune ANYthing, and also that these QBs have great light penetration, and that at least part of the light spectrum passes through the leaves of the upper canopy so some extent. So the early part of my strategy is to let it bush.

Problems I think the overall look of the plant this week is a combination of heat stress and much of the plant being shaded by itself. The top of the canopy looks pretty good for the most part, but lower down some serious droop and leaf curl occurred. My temps were getting a little out of hand, 87-87F, although humidity levels have been a mostly steady 77%. Night temps fall to 77F. Lowering the daytime temps closer to my goal of 81-82F has helped.






Yesterday she got her first prune. It was pretty heavy, but fair.






We she sure does look sad...
Time to cheer her up with some light BDSMLST. Mostly LST. A couple of the lower branches were supercropped. Two others broke at the stem due to handling errors. Before we got started I told her "Now this is going to hurt me alot more than it's going to hurt you", which is what you're supposed to say before administering a spanking. At least that's what my dad always told me. He lied, though- because he didn't appear to be in as much pain as I was after he left heavy bruising and broken skin from the belts and breaking paddles on my behind and legs ("It's your fault for moving around" was the explanation for the legs.)
Anyway, I'm pretty sure it did hurt her more than me- I enjoyed it so much I took pictures of her tied down.

And today-

wow, those pictures from last week look different! Posting in this weekly format works pretty well for me.


JUL21 DAY22 VEG

On Day 16 I changed the light spectrum a bit, more white (180W) and kept the blue strip unchanged. I also raised the fixture to 30" and am working with 470umoles at the canopy. Yesterday increased the UV to 5mins daily, and from here on out will be increasing slowly.

I still see a bit of leaf curl on the older leaves, but it seems to tied to watering. I have an increase of curled down and twisted leaves after watering, so last week I started giving 1gal instead of 2gals. Of course that's resulted in a frequency increase but there's been some improvement noted.

The newer growth seems to be showing a lighter-than-normal appearance in the past few days. To combat that I fed and increased quantity. After the last very light feeding there were no negative effects noted.
1gal dechlorinated tap pH'd to 6.4 after additives
1mL SI
5mL Cal-Mag
15mL Big Bloom (oops, was supposed to be 10)
5mL Grow Big
10mL SledgeHammer
ppm was 440

I've pruned. Yes, I've removed leaves (three times?) this week. Can't hardly even tell. Branches remain tied down, were adjusted slightly. The net is going up over the next few days. Overall height is about one foot, and I've been able to keep this Sativa fairly bushy so far.

Current spectral output, blue fully dimmed white 180W, no red.

And now the revised Spectral Distribution,
QB288v2 180W
Blue and Red supplements fully dimmed


This is 570umoles from 30" height.
Hindsight: I oversized the drivers for the supplements. The only way to improve the spectrum is to increase power to the whites, but I don't know how much she will accept. I'd like to have dimmed the blues more during veg. This Sativa sure is bushy, which is why I turned on the reds. I wasn't planning on reds until after stretch in flower. Perhaps I can put each on different timers.

Any further experimentation will have to wait until I see the results of the spectrum adjustment. Also I changed UV to 3X5mins at mid-day.

Loving your grow man .... so informative lol and you got quite the system . Subd!

323cheezy said:

Subd!

Click to expand...

Great to have you along cheezy!

JUL28 DAY29 VEG

Tomorrow is one month of VEG. I'll probably veg another month.
Not much new this week. I turned on the red spectrum to induce some stretching, this girl is too bushy. The leaves don't like being on top of each other. I also increased the UV, part of a very gradual increase to avoid a big shock in flower.

This was yesterday:




Today the screen went up, give me a break on it it's my first one. I also applied more LST from the pipe cleaners, and a light pruning. Watering has been 1gal every three days, end of the week is was every two days. I'd rather water smaller amounts with greater frequency, but I think I'm headed to two gals pretty soon because there doesn't seem to be any runoff.




And a money shot of my lights.