Full LED grow room/aeroponic system. first attemp

I was thinking to myself, why bother going to all the trouble of going across town just to spend 10 bucks on pH down when i can just flush out the rez again and use my tap water. the pH of my tap water is 7.4 and i already have some pH Down, might as well just do it that way

I appear to have salt buildup on my Hydroton rocks. Is this potentially harmful? If so, anyone know how I can get rid of it? I didn't start getting it until I used that damn Culligan spring water shit. I'm back to regular tap water now.

The buildup is very minimal right now, but I'd like to correct any problems before they become a BIGGER problem, lol.

it happens. Just make sure to flush medium every now and then. Nice grow set up btw. Just wondering but y not use hps?

I'm not using any HPS , MH or Flouros for this grow. I'm gonna do the entire thing with LED's as an experiment. Although I do have a 1000W and a 100W MH, I'm not using them on this grow at all. I've read someone elses grow journal on here that was trying an LED grow but switched back to Flouros after a couple weeks. I wanna take it right to the end with only LED's, hehe. Right now I have a total of 64Watts on them with the LED's, If need be when they start to flower, or sooner, hehe. I have another 60W of LED's to add to them, I'll probably do it anyway when I get some clamps for the other lights

thunderchunkie said:

I'm not using any HPS , MH or Flouros for this grow. I'm gonna do the entire thing with LED's as an experiment.

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^^Beast.
If you can afford to actually experiment,
I say do it! Besides, you can easily just
setup another booth with a cheap HPS and
take clones from the LED grow before starting
your flowering phase, and grow a control for
your experiment. Controls are key, if you can
swing it. Plus, if they LED's don't work out, at
least you can yield from the HPS setup, and
still take clones from the LED's.

Will be watching, good luck!

Well, everything seems to be going good. Moved the lights down a few days ago cause it looked like the girls were stretching a little. they've started to bush out a little more now. Also added a few more lights that I had cause you cant have too much light, lol. Gonna flush out the rez today, I'm sure they'll like some fresh food. Hey, who doesn't, hehe. been keeping the pH at a steady 6.01, rez temp is 21 degrees celcius, room temp is 21 celcius also, still have to get a humidifier, its only 36 to 40%. Should have waited for the roots to start showing on the girls before I put them in, probably explains the size, hehe. I'll know better next time. I'm also going to flush all the Hydroton rocks to get rid of some of that salt buildup I was talking about earlier in my journal. All in all, things are going well so far, I think, lol.

Definitely eligible for journal contest... very cool thread.. keep lots of good pictures...

cheers

are the fixtures themselves warm/hot at all? The air above/the material its made of? Get some temp readings above it for me 8]

Very awesome log, i love it!

That light will be not enough for flowering that sure!!!!
Already streched a bit!
Good Luck man!

All looks cool and funky but i still say that these kind of leds are crap for growing plants and that you need to have much more expensive wide angled 5watt leds for successful growing.
Anyway best of luck with it and i will be watching

the 4 panels i have above the girls are 16 watts each, the other 3 on the sides are wide angle 13 watts lights and i have 2 more of them to put up when i raise the lights a bit higher, then the spread of those bulbs will be more usefull. I cant put them up just yet cause i need the room to work with the lights being so low. so far i have 103 watts of LED's on them with another 26 to come. as i am doing this as an experiment, I'm pretty sure i have sufficient lighting on them right now as they are vegging very nicely.

The man is experimenting here...

Everyone knows what an HID will do,
but now we all get to actually see what
will happen, and not just surf the wake of
people saying it won't work without backing
up any of their statements. Let the man do
his work. I can't wait to see how they respond
to flowering with those. I am anticipating a slower
response to the LED's, but with a slightly extended
flowering time these just might work amazingly.

Looking good!
Will continue watching.

Just a few pics of how the girls are doing today. they're starting to bush out nicely.

thunderchunkie said:

the 4 panels i have above the girls are 16 watts each, the other 3 on the sides are wide angle 13 watts lights and i have 2 more of them to put up when i raise the lights a bit higher, then the spread of those bulbs will be more usefull. I cant put them up just yet cause i need the room to work with the lights being so low. so far i have 103 watts of LED's on them with another 26 to come. as i am doing this as an experiment, I'm pretty sure i have sufficient lighting on them right now as they are vegging very nicely.

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I am talking about the leds being 5 watts each per led,not in total.
I have never seen any led grow work well with these kind of leds.
You will end up with 40" tall stalks with cotton top buds on them.
Use powerful wide angle beam leds or don't bother is my opinion only.
I wish you the best of luck with it though as i said before

Those plants look bad. They are streching for light. If they start out like this, I don,t think they will do very well in the future. Good luck to ya but the pics don,t lie.

Ya, the stalks do look a little spindly right now, but keep in mind, none of those plants are over 3" yet. I've just started putting the fan on them 2 days ago and I think they'll thicken up in due time. As for other ppl attempting an LED grow on here, I haven't seen anyone run a full grow from start to finish. A few ppl have started vegging with them, but immediately switched over to MH, HPS or Flouro's. To me that doesn't constitute a full experiment as far as results go. Who knows why they switched over to other lighting systems? I'm sure none of us have been right there monitoring their grow with them, so who really knows where the mistakes were? Could be nutes, heating problems in their rez's, Ph levels, room temperature or yes, could be the lights. Do any of us really know? Like I said, none of us have been right along side the person attempting to grow with LED's and there are so many variables that who can really say what the problem was? Do any of us have a laboratory to constantly monitor every variable 24/7 ? I think not. Growing is an adventure of experience. Why quit after one failed attempt for fear of the results the second or third time? Thats not the way society, industry and mankind has matured and evolved throughout time. I am recording Ph levels, temp's, humidity, height and every other variable that i can on an every day basis to truly see what will come of this. I'm not here to be crapped on by ppl with poor attitudes. I'm here to have fun, meet some ppl, enjoy myself and share something new with everyone. Even if it fails a few times, only then will we know the answer and I will try my hardest to get the best results I can, good or bad. Thanks to all who have positive attitudes and are truly interested in the outcome whatever the results and are even hopeful of the outcome. I would rather not have ppl shitting on my 3 weeks into this project, annoys the bejesus out of me.

And, just for shits and giggles, here are a list of mistakes I've made so far,
1) Didn't wait for the roots to show through the rockwool. I've never used it before so I put the little girls in the tank well before I should have, they were less than an inch tall. If I had to estimate, I would say that put me back about 2 weeks as far as the initial vegging went due to the shock and poor root growth.

2) Started with the lights 7' above the plants for almost a week cause i couldn't afford to make a mounting board for them, buy the chain for raising and lowering them, perhaps I should have waited. Then, not knowing any better as far as these lights are concerned, I put them 13" above the plants for another week when they should have been about 2". Hopefully they'll thicken up a bit, I've got the fan on them now.

3) Over fed them with nutes the first 10 days. I've never used hydro nutes before and was retarded in doing the math.

Mistakes do happen. Of course the condition the plants are in right now could be due to the lights, I wouldn't know though. Apparently from what I've read on here. Any of the mistakes I've made could be the contributing factors also.

No one has crapped on you or been cruel.
These are our valid opinions.
You cant run a journal without other peoples opinions.

I have extensively researched led growing,i have a lot of knowledge and i gave you my honest truthful opinion based on lighting only and not grow conditions.
If you need or only want ego rubbers who wont tell you the truth then you should just say so

hey bud. I'm not biting your ass here, but we all know you can grow an excellent crop under a 1000W MH. I really dont know what the price of a 5W LED is but I would imagine they're fairly expensive. Just out of curiosity, do you know what one 5W LED for growing costs? I cant find any 5W growing LED's on the net, I'm just curious, not chewing your ass or trying to piss you off.

To replace a 1000W HPS with 5W LED's as far as power output goes you would need 200 5W LED's. Now, being conservative, let's say one of those LED's is 20 bucks apiece for a grand total of 4000$ plus tax (4520.00$ here in Ontario, I believe.) even at 10$ per LED, you're looking at 2260$ without the circuit boards, mounts, power cords and whatever kind of casing you're going to fashion for the lights which would include the use of metal shears, perhaps a brake for bending, something to deburr the edges, a ballast of some sort because you cant run 1000Watts off of one circuit and whatever else you may need to fashion you lights. All of these things would take some time to accomplish and I don't think too many of us have all these tools sitting in our garages. You would have to spend most of a day just soldering all 200 bulbs onto the board/boards for example. Thats a hell of alot more money than a 90-130$ MH that puts 1000W. On top of that, I dont think there would be any power consumption bonus. 1000W is 1000W. Now, you would be blessed with a longer life span as far as the LED's go and a more accurate light spectrum for growing.

If my experiment doesn't work, oh well. I'll try again, at least I'll have the benefit of some experience by then. I didn't buy these lights because I thought they were a sure fire method of growing anything. I've seen some pretty impressive pics of a variety of different plants grown under these lights including a 7' tomato plant with some real nice tomatoes on it. I thought it would be a fun thing to try.

I'm also new to running an aeroponic system, so I'll probably make more mistakes as far as thats concerned, but I will learn from them and not make them twice. If I had to spend a couple thousand on lights, I don't think this would be for fun, or curiosity. Now that would be some serious shit and a huge investment. We're on here to try and find more cheaper and effective methods of growing, and advise when we need it. I'm just going to have fun with this.

thunderchunkie said:

hey bud. I'm not biting your ass here, but we all know you can grow an excellent crop under a 1000W MH. I really dont know what the price of a 5W LED is but I would imagine they're fairly expensive. Just out of curiosity, do you know what one 5W LED for growing costs? I cant find any 5W growing LED's on the net, I'm just curious, not chewing your ass or trying to piss you off.

To replace a 1000W HPS with 5W LED's as far as power output goes you would need 200 5W LED's. Now, being conservative, let's say one of those LED's is 20 bucks apiece for a grand total of 4000$ plus tax (4520.00$ here in Ontario, I believe.) even at 10$ per LED, you're looking at 2260$ without the circuit boards, mounts, power cords and whatever kind of casing you're going to fashion for the lights which would include the use of metal shears, perhaps a brake for bending, something to deburr the edges, a ballast of some sort because you cant run 1000Watts off of one circuit and whatever else you may need to fashion you lights. All of these things would take some time to accomplish and I don't think too many of us have all these tools sitting in our garages. You would have to spend most of a day just soldering all 200 bulbs onto the board/boards for example. Thats a hell of alot more money than a 90-130$ MH that puts 1000W. On top of that, I dont think there would be any power consumption bonus. 1000W is 1000W. Now, you would be blessed with a longer life span as far as the LED's go and a more accurate light spectrum for growing.

If my experiment doesn't work, oh well. I'll try again, at least I'll have the benefit of some experience by then. I didn't buy these lights because I thought they were a sure fire method of growing anything. I've seen some pretty impressive pics of a variety of different plants grown under these lights including a 7' tomato plant with some real nice tomatoes on it. I thought it would be a fun thing to try.

I'm also new to running an aeroponic system, so I'll probably make more mistakes as far as thats concerned, but I will learn from them and not make them twice. If I had to spend a couple thousand on lights, I don't think this would be for fun, or curiosity. Now that would be some serious shit and a huge investment. We're on here to try and find more cheaper and effective methods of growing, and advise when we need it. I'm just going to have fun with this.

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Yes mate its ok i know how it can seem that people are knocking you but thats not my intention or how i wanted it to come across.
I only have a 400watt lamp and i was seriously looking at leds in the past but the best kind,5watt wide angle high power leds as you say are very very expensive.

I have looked into my own led growing and making them myself and found it to be a bad business decision based on investment to final bud weight.
I have watched many led grows and none were good.

Having said that no grow that i have watched has used as many leds as you are so i really do wish you the best of luck with it and if you pull it off you will have a lot of respect from people including me.

Here is the led site that i use and did all of my research at previously.
These were the only leds that i could confidently say that if made into an array and housed in mini reflectors could compete with hids in terms of investment to weight ratios.

They are about 20 dollars each though so as you said before very expensive still for the minute


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