Vertical DIY LED top fed recirculating hydro... thing

What's up RollItUp?

This is my first attempt at a "journal". I'm normally not one to document and update on a regular basis, but I'll give it a shot. I've been enjoying the journals here, so figured I'd start one of my own for others entertainment.

Pics will be from past runs, and hopefully present and future progress as well.

I've been a fan of vertical growing since reading the forum legends and teachings of folks like Heath Robinson and others.
I'm just a small scale hobby grower, doing it for the love of the plant, and the fun of working to continuously improve my own product, and garden setup.

The veg area is a 2x4 tent with up to 360 watts of DIY LED fixtures- a 120w horizontal veg light, and a 240w vertical preflower light. The plants are in small net pots or sawed off 2 liter bottles, in a flood and drain tray.

The flower tent is a 3x3, with a DIY 480w vertical LED strip fixture. All fixtures are 3500k, Chinese Samsung LM561C, and were built about 3 years ago.
The tent (barely) holds 8 plants in 2 gallon pots, nested in sawed off 4 gallon water cooler bottles.
The reservoir is a ~17 gallon cement mixing tub.
Water is pumped from the rez via a 1200gph submersible pump up through a central manifold, top fed to the 8 sites, down through the water cooler bottles, through a 2 inch PVC drain manifold, and back to the rez. Timer is set to a minute on, an hour off.

What goes in the water is pretty simple, if I can help it. Currently, it's just Megacrop, pH down, and pool shock.
I had been using orca and enzymes, but my water is regularly 80-90f+, and they just had too hard of a time keeping up.
I never lost anything to root rot, but I've switched to pool shock for a change.

Strains I run vary as much as possible, but generally all share the same rez and feed strength. I like all different effects, depending on time of day and mood. The stuff I've been running lately includes varieties from Bodhi, Schwaggy P, Bad Dawg, and some personal crosses.

I guess that's about all the pertinent details I can think of for now, but if I skipped something important, lemme know.

Now onto a few pics, but fair warning, I don't have a bunch of beautiful flower shots like a lot of you guys... Mostly some boring ass veg and early flower shots for now

Here's the veg area until recently... Moved a bunch of stuff, and currently it's pretty pathetic and empty... Time to pop more beans I guess lol



And here's a shot of the flower tent. You can't see everything obviously, but to give you an idea, strains are as follows; counter clockwise, starting with the front left, furthest along, which is a Bodhi Dread Bread. Next is a small Heavenly Hashplant, then Sky Lotus, both by Bodhi. Rear left is a Knights Templar V2 by Motarebel. Rear right is a cross I made, that I call Spring Training. It's a Florida OG crossed with an Ace Golden Tiger. Right side rear is a Skunky VD by Schwaggy P, then a Pillow Book by Bodhi, and another Skunky VD in the front right bucket.



Here's a few closer shots of Dread Bread, Sky Lotus, Knights Templar (C99BX1 x Herijuana), and Spring Training in that order. The poor Dread Bread had some rough times till about half way through flower, but she should turn out ok.

Dread Bread


Sky Lotus


Knights Templar V2


Spring Training

whoa Gnell, me thinks you gots some serous genetics! How do you set your led strip relative to the plants in the flower room?

Yeah, sorry, that pic is a little bleached out at the angle I took it. Below is a pic of how it looks to the eye- more like a 3500k everyone is used to.
The strip light is cylinder shaped, 10 inches in diameter, and uses 30, 22 inch strips powered by a Meanwell 480w driver.
It hangs vertically in between the plants.

Hope that helps explain a bit more!

joecanna17 said:

Yeah, sorry, that pic is a little bleached out at the angle I took it. Below is a pic of how it looks to the eye- more like a 3500k everyone is used to.
The strip light is cylinder shaped, 10 inches in diameter, and uses 30, 22 inch strips powered by a Meanwell 480w driver.
It hangs vertically in between the plants.

Hope that helps explain a bit more!


View attachment 4640370

Click to expand...

wicked, that's cool man. Caesars Palace! my fingers are crossed on my one and only Jack Herer seed. I've heard so much about JH and want to see what all the hooplah's about.

Yeah, it's bright in there. It needs a dimmer replacement. The first one died, so it's running the full 480+w. I usually run it around 400w though, with a dimmer.

Good luck on the Jack! I haven't had the best representation, personally, but it's a legend for a reason.

So I brought some pics for a little update, and to illustrate the fork in the road I find myself in.

I'm seeing what look to be signs of deficiencies and excesses in different plants. No big surprise when you run genetics from both ends of the spectrum in the same rez, so now I'm deciding which step to take next.

I could bump the MC up, but I'm already at 5g/gal, and the more Sativa acting plants are already plenty green... But they also look like they may have a possible deficiency too.
I could just add Epsom salts to the rez at a tsp/gal for a magnesium boost.
Or I could drop nutes back to 4g/gal, and add Epsom.

Here's some pics and more info:

Left side and rear, right side and rear:


Heavenly Hashplant, lighter green, with purpling petioles and streaking stalk. This is heavy Indica, being Bubba x 88g13hp


Knights Templar v2, leaning heavy to her Sativa side. The tallest in the tent, you can see her fans, circled in red, acting like they're getting way too much N. They also tend to curl like this when they're higher than the best light, so it's tough to tell for sure. You can also see what look to be burnt tips, and rusty serrations.
Down at her bottoms look to be deficient leaves. These are also down below the best light, so they could be wanting more there.


The other most Sativa acting gal is the Spring Training. On her there's a little worse tip burn, and more rusty serrations. Leaves are plenty green, but I'm still not sure if she's looking like the beginning of a deficiency or excess...


Here's a better lit pic of bottoms of both plants. You can see the yellow blotchiness better...


I'll probably end up just adding the Epsom tonight, and watch for a few days, unless someone screams not to before then lol

Anyway, I'll get better individual pics for an update tonight.

EDIT- I think that hungry "Heavenly Hashplant" is actually a Skunky VD by Schwaggy P. She's still pretty Indica though, being:
Chem 91skva x (Mi Skunk x Iraqi)
X
Chem D x (Mi Skunk x Iraqi)

Alrighty, so I took some closer shots the other night of the individual plants. The younger are around 2 weeks, and the older are about 6. For picture posting purposes, This post will have the 3 younger plants...

2wk Heavenly Hashplant:

2wk Skunky VD:



2wk Pillow Book:

Here are the 6 weekers...

Sky Lotus:


SL Top:


Knights Templar v2:


KT Top:


Spring Training:


ST Top:

I am going to do a vertical led grow as it's too hard to hang the lights in the chest freezer I have, but led lights are quite directional and don't lose light like a typical grow light bulb does because they throw light out 360 degrees and led doesn't.

So I have heard a few people say the same thing and that the circle type vertical grow if using LED are not necessary and u can just grow flat panels with led if u know what I'm saying

JoeRogan420 said:

So I have heard a few people say the same thing and that the circle type vertical grow if using LED are not necessary and u can just grow flat panels with led if u know what I'm saying

Click to expand...

Yeah, LEDs are nice for 1 plane grows, whether horizontal or vertical, because of all the points of light heading the same direction, like you said. In your situation, I'd probably do the same thing.

I designed this setup and light to take advantage of the 4 planes (tent walls) I had available. I always liked getting 4 times the canopy space with the same light people would put over 1 canopy. That's why I designed the light to be cylindrical, so it's shines on all walls like a traditional bulb.

Was thinking of this as my next experiment but am struggling to get the strips in UK

Well, I got mine from alibaba back in 2017 or so, but you could try sites like Digikey, Arrow, or Cutter

joecanna17 said:

So I brought some pics for a little update, and to illustrate the fork in the road I find myself in.

I'm seeing what look to be signs of deficiencies and excesses in different plants. No big surprise when you run genetics from both ends of the spectrum in the same rez, so now I'm deciding which step to take next.

I could bump the MC up, but I'm already at 5g/gal, and the more Sativa acting plants are already plenty green... But they also look like they may have a possible deficiency too.
I could just add Epsom salts to the rez at a tsp/gal for a magnesium boost.
Or I could drop nutes back to 4g/gal, and add Epsom.

Here's some pics and more info:

Left side and rear, right side and rear:
View attachment 4646859View attachment 4646860

Heavenly Hashplant, lighter green, with purpling petioles and streaking stalk. This is heavy Indica, being Bubba x 88g13hp
View attachment 4646861

Knights Templar v2, leaning heavy to her Sativa side. The tallest in the tent, you can see her fans, circled in red, acting like they're getting way too much N. They also tend to curl like this when they're higher than the best light, so it's tough to tell for sure. You can also see what look to be burnt tips, and rusty serrations.
Down at her bottoms look to be deficient leaves. These are also down below the best light, so they could be wanting more there.
View attachment 4646865

The other most Sativa acting gal is the Spring Training. On her there's a little worse tip burn, and more rusty serrations. Leaves are plenty green, but I'm still not sure if she's looking like the beginning of a deficiency or excess...
View attachment 4646868

Here's a better lit pic of bottoms of both plants. You can see the yellow blotchiness better...
View attachment 4646869

I'll probably end up just adding the Epsom tonight, and watch for a few days, unless someone screams not to before then lol

Anyway, I'll get better individual pics for an update tonight.

Click to expand...

great idea, I wish you great success

Thanks, a little extra positivity couldn't hurt!
Things are moving along, slowly but surely, I just slack on updates.
Got a bunch of new strains in the mix, and being made, but not a whole lot of exciting pics lol

Strains currently in veg/seedling:
Pillow Book, Bodhi's, pheno 3
Skunky VA, Schwaggy P's, phenos 3,4,5
Skunky VD, Schwaggy P's, phenos 3,4
Ortega Durian x Snow Lotus, Bodhi's, phenos 3,4
Orange-y bag seed
Star Dragon x mystery Bodhi or Bad Dawg father
Zkittlez x glue bagseed
Star pupil, MMS
Valedictorian, MMS

And, as always, more to come...