Mini Scrog, GLH Spectra 120 LED, AK48, Semi stealth. AkA too close for missles...

Formalities first,

Strain: Nirvana Fem AK48, showed sex very quickly
Light: Grow Led Hydro Spectra 120, about a year old.
Medium: Soil, specifically Roots Organic (not a fan, fighting ph)
Nutrients: DynaGro if i can get them to cooperate with the soil. If not, i have ionic on hand.
Space: appx 18in x 20in. x 28in.


On to the meat. This grow is underway, for your sake and mine im starting this journal at the exciting bit, just a touch before flowering. How far exactly, i do not know as this is my first scrog. I can say that to spite the plant getting 24 hour light(trying to reduce stretch to a minimum) it has already shown me it wants to flower. The fan leaves show an indica dominance yet there is no shortage of skinny sativa fingers.

Growth has slowed recently from what i believe to be a ph issue. with this soil any water i put in comes out at 7.5 ph. i was flushing today and still runout is around 7.5 even with 5.3ph water. the plant shows no real deficiencies, perhaps a little nute burn from what i believe was the first feeding. very light on the tips. this may have also accounted for the sluggish growth recently. after the flush i gave a very light feed and await recommendations while it dries out again. the bottom layer of the pot/tub is filled with maybe an inch of hydroton, and the tub is almost a hempy configuration.

the plant is somewhere around a month old, probably more. She was topped somewhat early and has many strong branches as well as a thick stock for her age. the screen is getting pretty full and i will need the input of experienced scroggers for flower recommendations. as of current the tops are just poking through the screen with many just below. i would like to wait for all the viable tops to make it to the screen though the few that are growing strong may dictate when flowering begins. If all goes to plan i should have about 6inch colas ending about 10 inches from the led.

Ventilation is handled by two pc fans, ran at 12v from the same power source. Temps stay at about 70. i havent had a lights off period yet, but i estimate temps to get to around 55 during lights off, this may be an issue to address.

Now the moment you all have been waiting for. Pictures. I will update pics once a week, perhaps more.

wow, i didnt mean for all those pics to pop up. ohh well haha

Few more thoughts. The cabinet is not light sealed as you can see. i am a legal grower and simply havent bothered sealing the front yet. The scrog screen is connected to the tub so it comes out with the pot very easily and makes trimming easy.

I know it needs a trim, but i want to correct the slow growth problem and make sure it resumes its growth before i have at er again. Tomorrow i will take the plant out and do a top down shot for you all to see the % full etc.

Would you all concur that the closeup shots depict nutrient burn slightly? Or the beginning of a deficiency caused by the high ph combined with my watering recently with only water to combat my suspected nutrient burn?

I missed the top pic, but will get that tomorrow with others. I have been watering with lower strength nutes and water at 6.0 and the growth resumed nicely. Te one branch I was waiting on just hit the screen so I think I will flip here soon.

Pics tomorrow, advice on fill more or flip will be nice

New pics are here!

Growth has resumed and somewhat exploded once again, though leaves are light in color. I believe i know the issue and will be remedying it shortly.

Below we have before and after trim/weaving/pruning pics. I am confident that this was the last trim/weave as i am out of room to tuck some of the tops, which i may be supercropping. the screen isnt that full, but i have a feeling once it hits flower i will be running out of room.

My plan is to give the plant a few days to recover and level out the nute problem, then its off to flower. I am thinking 5 days until flower TOPS, with maybe tucking one or two of the longest tops for height restrictions.

Enjoy the pics and add any comments or thoughts/advice!

First two pictures are pre-trim.


These next two are after the trim. As you can see it is somewhat even with a few that are a bit too long and i am out of room to tuck them.


Now this one is just a little bud porn, it is my best looking grow to date. It is a jock horror from nirvana. yummy right?

And here is the top-down shot to show screen fullness better. There were some sunbeams coming through the window at odd angles, so that is the bright spots here and there.



Oh and comments are welcome! I forgot to add that at the beginning and now i cant edit.

Okay, yesterday after some nute mixing I was feeling my ph meter was off, I checked it to my cheaper backup and wow, big big difference. Not trusting either I went and bought some reference solution. My Main meter was reading very high while my cheap meter was spot on. Turns out I couldn't adjust the main meter enough to be within spec.

Long story short plants are now getting the ph they crave.

Very close to flowering. Perhaps today, I need to check how she recovered.

thats a nice bush! filling the screen nicely. im following to see how the LED does. I have yet to closely watch an LED grow

thats a fine looking bush. i will also be following this one to see how the light performs as i also have been thinking of going down the led road. good luck with it .

Thanks guys, I am pretty excited myself. This is my first scrog and it has been a lot of fun as just growing trees and lsting gets boring, scrogg keeps you busy.


I have used this light as supplemental during flowering next to a 600w hps and 400w CMH. That plant was a monster, I took it inside and i thought would die as I transplanted it into a 5gal straight from the ground, tore up the roots I'm sure. It ended up putting out 5.5 zips with those lights, though the 600 was mostly on other plants i had already going. The plant was over 6 ft tall lstd almost in half haha.


Back on topic i have never flowered with a led. I know this light does pretty nice in veg, as i have vegged quite a few and gotten nice squished tight plants. In the distant future i might be moving somewhere where electricity usage could be an issue, so i figured i would see how this led does.

Of coarse i am a little biased towards this light, but the pics will tell if the thing does its job in flower haha. My big concern is distance to the buds, if it starts bleaching i will take it and the light out and continue in a bigger area.



Thanks for stopping in. I will pic update later today, just need to find batteries.

PIC UPDATE TIME!


Here you see the screen is pretty full with a number of sites just below the screen itself. I imagine the stretch will bring them above the screen.



The leaves are looking much lighter than i like (even more so in these pics) before flowering, but im out of room and i figured out what the problem was with the plant, PH issue caused by a wildly off PH meter. I am using the backup meter now and will calibrate it more frequently as i bought a larger amount of 4.01 and 7.01 solution.


Question for the scrog guys. Do you supercrop your individual branches that are stretching or growing to high above the rest? if so what location do you pinch? low on the stem near the base or higher near the bud? I know its not really supercropping when its in a scrog, so perhaps just pinching the stems is a better way to put it.

Thanks for checking in.


oh and before i forget

12/12 STARTS TODAY OFFICIALLY!!!!

nice, we both started 12/12 on the same day. it'll definitely stretch these next couple of weeks. you'll have your hands full for sure! looking great

Yes i am certainly fearing the stretch. The initial objective behind this grow was to scrogg and complete in this grow box which is only 34 inches tall. The second objective was to test the light.

i have i think about 16 inches from screen to light, but i know too close to the light and i will likely have bleaching or other issues. Time will tell!!

400 I will have to check out your grow, i like your strain choices. I want to try tangerine dream, but i hear it can be a frustrating one indeed.

The screen is filling out nicely! I'll go ahead and warn you, I trained my girls about 5 days into 12/12 and then let them go and the tops are anywhere from 8-17" above the screen. "Had to supercrop a few!" 3 weeks in if you want to give them a look. Anyway you might want to train for the first week at least into flowering if you want to keep some distance between the tops and the light. My stretch stopped around 18 or so days into 12/12 but My vanilla Kush tripled its size!

16 inches from the screen isnt bad. like I said before I havent really watched an LED grow before but dont they put off little to no heat? Idk about having the light too close with an LED causing bleaching but I thought with HPS or mH you can have the light as close as possible, temperatures permitting. I think you will be fine though and your buds should actually be tighter and denser with the light being closer. I hear a lot about tangerine dream being fickle but i cant wait to grow it. im still a noob so I know it can teach me a thing or 2 about growing. also, anyone who grows it says it is soooo worth it.

My plan is to train as best i can for about 2 weeks but a few I am going to have do other things to. I wish i had seen their size and gone for a top much earlier. I topped the plant once early on and the two tops are right where I want them.

As for the led being too close, well it depends on the light. My model is the 2010 spectra 120 which draws about 180 watts, though i havent measured it. The new spectra line, even the 100w, has very intense lights and has had some serious issues because of it. Some people are getting stunted growth if the light is any less than a few feet away, though I'm not sure if they are actually bleeching. I have seen people use my light at 6-8 inches from the plant, so i think I will be okay. It puts off no heat going down and the heat above is well controlled.

Bleeching with hps lights happens when the light is putting out far too much light for the plant to use. Usually, because of inverse square law, this only happens on 600s or 1000w when a sensitive strain(more often indica) is inches from a well cooled light. I had this happen to another ak48 already.


As for Tangerine dream, I'm not going to risk it at this time. The strain i have my eye on is Cinderella 99 (c99). It sounds like it's amazing, mostly sativa effects, 50ish days to flower, easy to clone, branchy, stable, decent yield. It's hard to find but once I do i will stockpile a seed or two and keep one plant as a mother. I am running some aurora indica right now that just started and am prepping an area for a jock horror I have that I want to scrog, so I already have my hands full haha.


I just measured and the screen is 16 in from the light with the longest top already about 2 in above.

Going to go pick up some bloom nutes and some decomp tea.

YES YES YES YES YES YES.

if you look back through my journal you'll see i posted pics of some local nug i picked up called 'pearl'. real name- super sweet cindy. cindy99, bogbubble, and sweet tooth. that cindy99 is serious shit!!!!


interestingggg. I was really close to going the LED route but a grower I met that had absolutely amazing homegrown suggested I stick with HPS for now and focus on getting the temps lower so I did but I like how this plant bushed out under that LED a lot! i cant wait to see the buds it produces

Yeah I am totally on board for seeing the results. So far my favorite light is my 400w CMH. It's basically a union of mh and hps only better. Very very resinous buds when I was growing with that though the density wasn't great.

Led has come a long ways and is certainly something to keep in mind, I love it for sure. In veg especially it makes some bushy plants. There are some new hps type bulbs coming out soon that are supposed to blow everything else away, so that's cool for sure. Led is just so costly for a good unit. I mean my small one was like $400 or so. Granted I don't need a big fan to cool it and save on electricity somewhat, it's still a lot of cash. If it does well I could look at about 5 zips from this lint, though this box may be too small for that.

This time for lighting, and particularly indoor gardening, is what the 90s were for computers. New technology all the time and everything gets better quickly. In 5 years who knows what we will grow under... Sulphur plasma?? Mmmmm....

Just hit the plant with a mixture of organic tea, loaded with all sorts of good stuff, and a small dose of bloom. For this bloom i am actually using a more organic compatible nutrient called "age old" i believe. Since i am using roots organic it makes sense that i use a more organic nutrient as opposed to the chemical fert i had planned.

I will be supplementing with floralicious plus, green fuze, and molasses. Haven't started the molasses yet, but plan to in the near future. Maybe next week. I am still using a little of the dyna grow veg nutrient for transitioning and likely through bloom as needed to keep the plants green. I'm a pretty firm believer that the plants should be green through the cycle, and as such need that N boost.

Pic wise nothing to report/show. I imagine in about a week things will be a bit stretchy. Maybe pics before then, or specific request pics.

400aZip said:

16 inches from the screen isnt bad. like I said before I havent really watched an LED grow before but dont they put off little to no heat? Idk about having the light too close with an LED causing bleaching but I thought with HPS or mH you can have the light as close as possible, temperatures permitting. I think you will be fine though and your buds should actually be tighter and denser with the light being closer. I hear a lot about tangerine dream being fickle but i cant wait to grow it. im still a noob so I know it can teach me a thing or 2 about growing. also, anyone who grows it says it is soooo worth it.

Click to expand...

Its bad if you light is only 16" above your screen and you cant move it up anymore lol.. I pushed my height to the limit this time and I wouldn't do it again, just my opinion. Its always good to have a little extra room just in case!

Kar it sounds like you have a good plan, I don't know much about the LED's but it sound like you should be okay assuming your girls can take it 6-8" under you led's which are about where mine are at now with and air cooled 600 and still getting a few leaves here and there burnt but not to bad..

Yeah I'm hoping it does okay with the distance. The box im using used to be a veg and clone box i made, but i have this odd obsession with flowering in small places. It's just fun to me.

Thanks for stopping in