Nirvana Snow White Area 51 xgs 190 first LED grow

Nice recovery, the buds on that plant look good. I've been looking at autos more and more and will try them at some point. My buddy went with vipar but hasn't tried it out yet. That's another light I was looking at. It'll be interesting to see what you get with that apollo. The xgs all white May have an advantage with its spectrum over color panels but who knows. One continuous spectrum instead of color change. As far as trimming, a much debated topic I've subscribed to the k.i.s.s. Method, keep it simple stoner. The top canopy I've been moving and tucking leaves away from bud sites. The bottom I actually have started cleaning it up but I don't want to do it too quick. But yea air flow is important so I'll keep at it. I just changed a crap filter for a phresh filter and glad I did, my house was smelling into the living room and I can't have that because of certain visitors. Kind of a peace of mind thing. Peace to all you growers out there, stay safe.

az2000 said:

Thanks. I didn't realize there had been completed grows with the light. The plants look really good, healthy. They look leafier.

I bought a Blackstar v2 180w (120w actual) "HO" (veg) LED. It's much more white than the "UV" model (which is the usual red/blue and called "full spectrum."). It produced a monster plant, but it had some issues in flower under the typical red/blue "full spectrum." Lost most of its leaves early on. Going into flower it was very leafy like I saw in those two grows you referred to.

I'm kind of curious what a plant would do if I kept it on the "HO" light in flower. Wonder if the switch to red was a stress.

Oh well, just thinking out loud. The lush, leafy nature of the plants you referred to reminded me of what I saw under that HO light.

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I have a 260x switchable I leave it in full spectrum mode always unless I do a foliar app.

11 days into flower and things are looking decent up to this point. Fed them dynagro bloom again yesterday and today they're real perky. The first time I gave them half strength bloom but yesterday I gave them full strength. They seem to be liking both dynagro nutes so far. Kind of wished I got their grow formula but I'll stay with this.

2 weeks into flowering. Trimmed a lot more from the bottom and added a fan down there. Trimmed middle leaves also. A lot better light penetration now with the trimming but still crowded. All the bud sites look healthy and normal though. I had to tie down some areas to even things out. The height distance between the majority of bud sites is about 4 to 5 inches.

These plants have doubled their height since starting flower 2 1/2 weeks ago. They seem to have slowed their vertical growth though and the buds are getting bigger. I saw pictures of a Snow White grow under 400 w hid and he said the buds stayed kind of small. They seemed average size. I don't know why my a/c won't cool my room more but adding a small fan to the bottom and turning up my inline fan has helped keep the temp at 81 max during daytime. I don't see any hermie or anything bad going on so hopefully the temps are ok.

Do you plan to use a bloom booster? I've only grown 8-10 months and have used GH Koolbloom (liquid during most of flower, then powdered the last 2 weeks). I don't have a lot to compare it to, but was pleased with my results.

You mentioned temperatures. Do you feel the XGS runs hot? (BTW: I bought an XGS. Waiting for it to ship. I'm in a hot climate and would have preferred a 3w fixture. I've read 5w run hotter, less efficient. But, if 3w was better I'm sure Jeff (a51) would have done that instead. So, I haven't been worrying about it -- until you mentioned heat.

I've been keeping the house at 83F. The tent is 84. Has been as high as 86. My plants seem to like it. (I struggle more with humidity. It's about 28% now. When it gets down to 21% I feel the plants are negatively affected. I hang a wet towell in the tent when I can, which will increase RH 10%. I should get a humidifier.).

I've been using dyna gro bloom but haven't used a bloom booster. I'm gonna look at the one you just mentioned. When I grew outside back in the day, it was a lot easier. Being my first indoor tent grow there's so much more to deal with but I'm hooked. Your temps are real close to mine, it's been cooler so I'm in the 81-82 range daytime but hotter days they climbed to 84-86. I have a/c but the tent is in the back bedroom and it's hotter back there. My humidity has been 40 to 45 and 50+ at night. My house indoor temp daytime is about 80 degrees. At that time my tent is 81 to 82 degrees. I did add that second fan which helped a little with temp but a lot with air flow. All the plants from top to bottom are moving a little from the better flow. I don't think the xgs runs hot, more like warm. It seems well built with good quiet fans. It seems efficient in that regard. It's not radiating a lot of heat when you put your hand under it and the housing isn't warm at all. I don't think it raises temps very much. It seems with my setup less than 5 degrees over outside of tent. I really think you'll be happy with it. I mean the difference between inside vs outside the tent is similar between what you have going now and what I have going. It gets hot where I'm at but not desert hot, except that recent heat wave it hit 105 where I'm at. We usually get mid to high 80's here during summer. By the way when it hit 105 my tent never got above 86 degrees and my a/c wasn't cooling the house very good. I've poured overall the xgs threads and I think this light is worthy.

Socalrob said:

I've been using dyna gro bloom but haven't used a bloom booster. I'm gonna look at the one you just mentioned.

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When using powdered Koolbloom, I cut the nutrients in half then add 1.25 grams powdered KB per gallon. This gets me back to about 1120-1150ppm which is where my full-strength nutes are.

When using liquid KB, I do 4ml/gal. I don't reduce the nutrient strength. I might start at 2ml/gal the first couple feedings.

EDIT: I grow in Pro-Mix HP using Grow More Sea Grow nutes. I used GH Flora 3-part for my first grow. (I liked it a lot and may go back to it. I'd like to try the more organic Flora Nova before making a decision.). I mention this In case you were wondering about my ppms, whether I'm hydro, etc.

The last 2 feedings gave full strength nutes and they really seem to like the dyna gro. Today I'm 3 weeks into flower and the bud sites are doing well under this light. The bud sites are starting to get frosty which being a white strain 3 weeks into flower makes sense. I wish I didn't crowd this tent so much but even so they are doing good. I've never done the mollasses thing but was contemplating it. Being new at this indoor thing, I'm trying not to do too much and screw things up.

1 month into flower. Last week I screwed up and put off watering for an extra day plus forgot to turn up my inline fan for daytime and they looked fine that morning but came home from work and they were really drooping and a fair amount of pistils were dried out. I watered them and then the next day I pulled them out to check them. Even the temp climbed that day to 89 and rh dropped to 27. About 20% of pistils had browned but the trichs at all the bud sites look clear and undamaged. I'm seeing more pistils growing and the buds are getting bigger. Plus the buds are growing into each other and starting to get pretty frosty. Hope I didn't cause any problems down the road. They do look like they recovered from this. Nervous new indoor grower thing goin on right now.

Relax a bit they look like they will be fine,these plants are the very tough and can take a lot of abuse. A friend some how missed filling one of his hydro buckets last week and the plant went dry and every leaf on it turned brown and died 3 weeks from chop,I talked to him yesterday and he said it is feeding again and recovering believe it or not.

I hear that because as bad as they looked that first day they turned right back around by the next day, thanks for that reply.

Starting week 6 of flower. Already seeing amber trichs mostly on leaves near buds but also a lot of clear ones. Buds starting to get fatter. Never saw any of these trichs get cloudy first, been checking every day. All of a sudden amber?. Yet other buds clear trichs on buds and leaves.

I've never done it, but I've read you can harvest buds individually. I've thought about doing it when buds closer to the light seem to mature before the others.

It's something I have to consider. The height difference is within 6" so some are 18" from light and the bulk of the rest 22-24". Temps and rh have been normal range except for that one day I screwed up.

6 weeks of flower completed. For a first grow I'm happy how it's going. I pulled them out after last post to really look them over. I wanted to really look over the bud sites for bananas, and to look at the trichs. The amber ones I found that day were very few isolated on one plants leaves. All the trichs I just looked at today are still clear. Even though this 3x3 tent is crammed wall to wall, I'm amazed at what this one xgs 190 is doing. I was going to buy a bunch of Crees for side lighting but now I'm saving for another panel like the Rw 150 to go with the 190. My next grow will be 2 plants under the 190. Buds are growing nicely and decent amount of colas too. Happy, happy. Just about to barbeque some ribs and chill, happy 4th everyone!

7 weeks completed. I think I'm still a week or two to finish. The trichs on the buds look like they're just starting to get milky but some are further than others. Still need more pistils to resede I think. Leaves are just starting to turn yellow. 3 of these plants grew the Christmas tree shape, but one grew wide more bushy. Kind of crowded the other three. My trimming could have been better but this light penetrated pretty well. There's a lot of decent usable buds on these plants. I was going to add another light or some Crees for side lighting but money got tight so this is it start to finish one xgs.

Used fox farm ocean forest soil, dyna gro bloom, cal mag and blackstrap molasses for flower. Do I need to flush these last two weeks?

Socalrob said:

Used fox farm ocean forest soil, dyna gro bloom, cal mag and blackstrap molasses for flower. Do I need to flush these last two weeks?

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I'd say yes. But, I don't flush in the literal (3x volume of container) sense. I begin feeding water-only two weeks before harvest, letting the plant consume the remaining nutrients in the soil and stored within itself. I usually underestimate the harvest date and feed water 3 weeks. If I overestimated, I could always do a real flush to speed things along.

You might try each way (on different plants in this grow) to see if one works better. I started doing it because it's recommended for autoflowers at another site. Seems less stressful on the plant. The buds fatten up during those 2-3 weeks. I wait for the fan leaves to die off, and pistils cloud (and slightly amber). That's the part I underestimate. Ends up taking longer.

If anyone knows a reason not to flush this way (called "cleanse" at another site), I'd like to hear it. I have two Big Buds growing right now. I might flush one, cleanse the other so I can judge the difference.

EDIT: BTW: I switched to Grow More Sea Grow nutrients (can provide schedule). It's an organic'ish nute. Not purely organic, but much more than GH Flora (3-part) series. The finished product tastes a lot richer. Not as harsh. Friends notice it too. Flushing might not be as important (as the truly organic guys claim).

You might try it, or something like it. GM SG is priced about as low as Miracle Gro. There's also GH Flora Nova which is organic'ish. I'd like to try it someday.

The only downside I've noticed is GH Flora is ph buffered and helped hold my peat-based medium in a good range. My GM SG seems to go acidic (even with 2tbsp/gal dolomite), requiring feeding in the 6.6-7.0 range to hold the medium around 5.8-6-4. I monitor runoff and use an Control Wizard Acurate 8 ph probe. Little more work, but my plants seem to like exposure to a broader ph range, different elements available at different ph ranges. A little more work watching ph. Flora Nova might be better in this regard, it's supposed to have the buffers like 3-part. But, I'm saving a fantastic amount of money. I bought 5lb tubs of Veg, Bloom for about $30. That stuff's gonna last a very long time. (Spending more on ph up though.).

I was also thinking cleanse the first week then full flush week two. I ph'd my water throughout this grow and because it's tap water let it sit out for a day but I don't have a ph meter yet, just used the drops. My water out of the tap seems to be about a 7 so ph down is all I used. thanks for the heads up on those organics, good info bro thanks for your help. I keep looking at them today with the loupe trying to get a feel how far along they are and I think 2 weeks max should do it. There's one in there I didn't top it was such a runt in vege and grew so slow I decided to leave it alone and now it's the most frosty one in there, it caught up to the others but then went nuts with the bud production and frost. Looking forward to harvest time. Tried to take pic's through the loupe to show trich's but didn't turn out good.